The MeTree Movie

Alright, so I did it. I made another movie completely by myself; in fact, I even put together my own music. The new short is called The MeTree, and is about a guy who summons a helpful delusion. The delusion begins to grow fake mustaches, which distresses the guy who is stricken with the inability to grow hair above his upper lip. Just watch the video to find out what happens next.



The idea for this came from an earlier project that I worked on while I was visiting my old college for its annual 24 Hour video contest. My friend Jeremy and I made a short video called Steampunk in a couple of hours; we played with melding body parts of one person together to create a creature of sorts.



I of course wanted to take it a step further, so the idea of a MeTree seemed logical. And the idea that it would be a self-delusion also just made sense. Plus, the project seemed perfect since I lack collaborative partners, and it was a great way to turn one person into multiple characters.



The original idea was that I could simply position myself so that all the pieces lined up, and so I would only have to worry about meshing the centers together. But since i did this by myself, the little marked paper I had taped to the LCD was not enough to help me effectively position myself. Thus, I had to use an 8 Point garbage matte to cut around the images of myself (making sure to adjust the smoothness and the feather) so that I could rotate and move the images to line up appropriately. This method can only do so much, which is why you can see some repetitions or distortions in the background behind me. Now, I could have spent several hours keygraphing the matte to avoid disrupting the background, but since I was a delusion, I felt I could logically excuse the issue as part of the design.



Above is a cool picture showing the amount of layers that were used to create the metree. In total, there are 9 layers of video--5 for the heads, 1 for the pants, and 3 layers of just orange shirt--that helped to create a distorted, shadowy, wrinkly, and Nike-logo-free center.

So, I had completed the film and thought that I had done a pretty good job of creating what was in my mind. However, this was before I had added any music or any flash effect for the appearance of a new delusion. The lack of those things made the film feel very flat, and too reliant on my own bad acting (seriously, I don't want to cast myself in these; I just have a weird schedule, so it is easiest to do it myself). So, I came up with the idea to have a flash on my face appear whenever anything new was created. I used the 8 point again to create a second layer of my face. I then applied an intense bloom effect for a couple of frames. I found a nice funny noise off Soundtrack Pro, and was able to create another cool looking visual gag to round out the film.



I've probably already talked way too much about this film, but just wanted to revisit the idea of what I was trying to do. I was hoping to create the idea that the delusion is a more rational, even-tempered, and intelligent being than the one who is having the delusion. I wanted to suggest that even though a better person exists within us, this existence does not mean we can tap into that resource. I also like the idea of someone trying to use or take advantage of his own delusion, while also ignoring advice from that same delusion.

Lastly, I am happy to say that I have been maintaining a certain level of productivity. My goal is to produce something of value at least twice a month. I am also sitting on two screenplays that will hopefully become films shortly, and I was recently hired to shoot and edit videos about flower arrangement. Hopefully, I will keep the work rolling. Cheers.

Fun with the Public Domain

My old College just started a new contest specifically tailored toward video editors, and that utilizes old public domain footage. It is called the Recycled Video contest and its goal is to "celebrate Earth Day, Remix Culture, and to promote an awareness of the importance of the public domain." Even though I am not eligible as an alumni, I, of course, could not pass up such a fun idea. I got a hold of the mini-dv tape with the 50 minutes or so of old footage from the Prelinger Archives, and went to town. Here is what resulted:



Now, the goal of the project was to show the value that such public domain footage has in its ability to be manipulated. And not merely as a way to represent the time it was created in, but more for its ability to be useful now (like how a collage of old pictures can be viewed as current artwork). Parody is not a necessity, but certainly something I can identify with. So, I opened the video like that of a tv show. When looking through the footage, the first thing that struck me was the girl's acting and how she casually suggests that if "she was a motor" than a boy might perhaps take more interest in her. This scene was great because I really wanted to play with the idea of man and machine, and how obsessed we are with technology. Also, the idea of having the girl imagine herself as a train really made me chuckle.

I ended the scene with a mushroom cloud just because it tied in with the voice over of "fallout of litter." I edited the dialog to say "trash only becomes trash because of scientific advancements and modern living." I think this statement is also a good summary of my goal. As we advance as a society, so many items become outdated and thrown out, simply because of a better replacement. Plus, it is also a discussion of the archival footage and how we've thrown it away. Of course, youtube is a strange beast that allows for the re-valuing of old footage as well as the re-defining.

I then changed the voice over of "who would think that from this crude oil pure baby oil is refined" to "Who would have thought that from this baby pure crude oil is refined." Again, I liked playing with the connections of humans to machines, or in this case that oil is refined from a baby. The original footage itself was drawing a connection between birth and the country's need for oil, so i just took it a step further. I was also trying to suggest that if baby equals oil, than oil also equals baby. I mean just look around your room and everything in it can probably be measured in a quantity of oil (transportation and production).

The rest of the video I just play with connections and imagery, and tying the human to the machine. I also made a point to breakdown the "serene grandeur of our glistening structures" with the mass chaos of the city. Sure we are capable of building something beautiful, but there is always a cost, or side effect as the case may be. Think along the lines of hotels obscuring a beautiful coast.

Also, throughout the piece I tried to create a feeling of anxiety, tension, and fear which was quite easy to accomplish with the footage since some of it was about the big bomb. Even though we aren't in a cold war or an arms race, we all are still quite scared of where all this technology is taking us. Even more so now, with all of the economic problems we are currently dealing with. The future (more specifically, our view of the future) isn't guaranteed. And that is how I recycled my footage. Of course, I was just having fun as well.


Want to get your own footage to play with? It is all easily downloadable from right here:

Prelinger Archives
General Internet Archive



Please note: fake mustaches have been received, new short to follow soon!

Freaked the Crap out by Rating of Tyler Perry's movies

This just really bothers me. What is the deal with the IMDB rating of Tyler Perry's movies? I have not seen any of Mr. Perry's movies, and I know that he kind of mass produces a product that will turn a quick buck, but still, his films are in demand and make lots of money. Madea Goes to Prison has earned over 64,000,000 dollars in just 2 weeks (#1 at the box office).

People clearly enjoy the Perry films and enjoy the character of Madea, so why is the IMDB rating of his film a 2.7 out of 10. I don't know what number installment this is, but there are a lot of Madea films. So, most people going into this film should be able to know what type of product they are getting. I clicked on the IMDB rating to see the breakdown, and discovered that 1,599 people out of 2,718 (58.8%) rated the film a 1 out of 10.

This freaked the crap out of me. Because even though I'm guessing it was not the greatest movie ever, I am pretty damn sure that to its target audience this was not a 1 out of 10 movie. So for me, this leads to all kinds of questions like who really went to see this movie that could really be that disappointed? It just doesn't add up, and the only logical answer seems to be that there is some secret hateful group that is against Tyler Perry's movies. And that scares me.

The fact that their might be a group of people out there using the IMDB rating system as a weapon to attack filmmaking they don't agree with, really scares me. I sure hope it is not a racial thing, sure hope it is not anger about him playing a female character, I mean I don't know. But it is completely wrong.

And even though I haven't seen Madea Goes to Prison; I did see Saw III, and holy cow that was one god awful movie. That is a movie I should have rated a 1, and it would have deserved it. But surprisingly, it's rating on IMDB is 6.3, with only 5% of votes as 1 and 14.9% of votes as a 10. All because of the fans of the franchise. For the same reason, Madea should have a higher rating.

Seriously, whoever these Tyler Perry haters are, they should really be stopped. Too bad IMDB doesn't have a system in place to deal with these trolls. And I know it is just an IMDB rating, but seriously, the principals of those people has got be zero.