A Must See Video July 21, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : the film , add a commentNo, it’s not a water-skiing squirrel, skate-boarding dog or latest Paris nip-slip. It’s video of all of us, every last single woman, man and child not to mention squirrel, dog, cockroach, tree and yes Paris Hilton.
http://www.nasa.gov/mov/260503main_red_green_blue2.mov
Taken from 31,000,000 miles away by Deep Impact spacecraft. This video also has an incredibly practical benefit. It will help us identify future earthlike worlds by allowing us to see what we can see of life on earth from such long distances.
Outside In to be presented at 2008 GSCA Conference July 15, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : the film , add a commentIt’s official, “Outside In” is on the docket for the 2008 Giant Screen Cinema Association Conference which will be held in Jersey City & NYC in early September. I’m very excited (and a little nervous) about the event - seeing “Outside In” listed with all the films is big deal considering where the film started as an idea for a 3 minute short back in 2004. You can see the listing here.
The conference brings together the who’s who of production companies, theaters, filmmakers, equipment people, journalists and more from the giant screen industry from around the world. It’s pretty damn exciting that “Outside In” (and me) will be there. I will be giving a short presentation of the film, hopefully screening a clip and spending all my time learning as much as I can while meeting everyone I can.
Of course, the trip is not free, but a donor has stepped up to cover registration and air fare, so that’s a big chunk. That still leaves hotel, food, promotional items etc. to cover but I’m brainstorming some fundraising ideas as we speak. Of course, if you would like to make a donation to help with the trip, that’s always welcome and you can do so here.
More news as it develops about what exactly I might be showing…
Create 3D from your own Photographs - Make3d July 13, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : the film , add a commentI first became aware of this technique a couple of years back when I was struggling to work with rings of Saturn. It does not work at all for my purposes as it does distort and create artifacts not present in the original photograph. It also is not suitable for creating the moves I need, especially at 4K resolution.
But it’s very cool and now available for anyone to play with thanks to Stanford University. Check out the site, have them process some of your photos and if you are closet coder, download the source code so you can make your own software.
A Video Essay on the State of Film Storytelling July 6, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : the film , add a commentA couple of weeks after participating for the 5th year in Greensboro’s 48 Hour Film Festival, I have to confess to very mixed feelings about the experience. I’ve always had some mixed feelings as I love the process of making a film in 48 Hours and love the people I do it with every year, but the screenings and then the awards take the shine off it. This year was the worst year yet for it.
It’s hard to put into words, so I made a short video essay that I think applies both to this year’s fest and to much of filmmaking in general.
You can also watch the film we did here:
Higher quality can be found here:
http://www.sv2studios.com/films/gracenote/
Around Space Television Show Interview July 2, 2008
Posted by stephenv2 in : the film , add a commentLast summer, I did an interview on “Around Space“, a public access show from the Washington, DC area. They were very interested in the film. This was around the time I was in difficult negotiations with investors from the YouTube exposure.
In my hotel room in Dulles, I started contemplating a budget scenario to do the film for 1/4 of the original budget and a couple of months later turned down the investors and went with current non-profit donation funded plan.
The show runs about 29 minutes and I can’t stand watching myself, so I’ve actually not seen the whole thing. Let me know if I say something stupid. The show is created by a group of volunteers and they’ve been doing it for years. Check their site here.