Popcorn Ad is Poppin'

We're deep in the process of creating two ads for a popcorn seasoning company. One of the ads involves a crying popcorn character that suddenly turns happy as the seasoning starts to fall, then jumps into the bowl of popcorn.

This is an interesting challenge because obviously the client wants the popcorn to look edible and realistic, but then the face has to be appealing and cute. How many times do you see that? Nemo was cute but did he look edible? Mr Peanut is edible but he's hardly cute.

Additionally complicating matters is the fact that the curled "pop

ped" extrusions make it look like this cute face has some severe deformities, a'la the Elephant Man. Would you want to munch on a tumored-up child's head straight from the microwave? I know I would.

So far, he's my progress. First pass, then the second pass.

Client is reviewing this version. Fingers and tumorous extrusions are crossed.

Sexy New Websites...

... courtesy of our designer, Mark Nadolski.

First up is his new film, shooting this week: Point of Crossing http://pointofcrossing.blueinblack.com/

Starring Paul Kratka (IMDB), it's the story of a grieving train operator who's given one chance to save a life. Updates coming shortly!

Then we have Fatal Abortion, a short, dark tale of tension within a new relationship and the monsters it spawns.
http://fatalabortion.blueinblack.com/

And, finally finding a home on the world wide web is Alone No More, our award-winning short about a young woman driven crazy by her suppressed grief.
http://alonenomore.blueinblack.com/

Shoot back and tell us what you think, and as always, see you back here soon!

Radek

A few shots of our new film, starring Deneen Melody Matthew Allis. Should be finalized soon...

Therazinosaurus

So those who've known me for any length of time know me to be a bit of a dino nut. One way I try to feed this addiction is doing artwork for Prehistoric Times, a quarterly magazine that deals with all things prehistoric. (their late-90's timewarp website)

For the purpose of vanity, I decided to post my process for my current piece, the subject of which is a plant-eater called Therazinosaurus:



My line art:



And the image that was my original inspiration:



The last one to be printed was my Stegosaur piece, which you can see in the blue in black drawings section.

The Futurist...

Just finished reading The Futurist, a biographical book about "The Life and Films of James Cameron," which features a noticeably slimmer and less hairy looking James Cameron (probably a photo circa 2000). See for yourself:



Real classy of me, right? Whatever, nobody reads this blog anyway, cut me some slack.

But to be honest, the book is great. Cameron is a man I greatly admire. I devour anything of substance written about him (a particularly good article from the New Yorker)

I won't go into an in-depth review, as the subject of this book is fairly self-explanatory. Instead, I will recount a few of my favorite parts.

- Cameron almost died on the set of The Abyss. He was at the bottom of the immense tank they were filming in and he ran out of air when his AD forgot to remind him that he had been under for an hour. (he had about and hour and 15 minutes of air). He dropped his helmet and swam to the surface and almost drowned, having to punch a scuba PA to get out of his way.

- After struggling with the English crew on Aliens, enduring short 8 hour work days, abrupt breaks for tea, and near mutiny, Cameron leaves them this little nugget before leaving for the States:

"This has been a long and difficult shoot, fraught by many problems. But the one thing that has kept me going, through it all, was the certain knowledge that one day I would drive out the gate of Pinewood and never come back, and that you sorry bastards would still be here."

- On his first Hollywood gig, he was promoted from model builder to art director. He was making $200 per week, they offered him $300. So he asked what the previous art director made. $750, but he was very experienced. Cameron:

"Yeah, but he fucked up. The show is in dire crisis. You fired him. You want me to do the same job. I want the same money."

- On his first directing gig, Piranha II, Cameron lost control of the film to the Producer. As the film was nearing completion, he broke into the editing suite night after night and re-edited the film.


And one more quote, not from the book but from the New Yorker article, which I find inspiring:

“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”

Book is highly recommended, though it was published just months before Avatar destroyed all box office records, so in that regard it is already a bit out of date.

Student of Fortune stills

Knee-deep in editing our promo for the website studentoffortune.com. As you might surmise from the images below, it's done in the style of an action movie trailer. All footage, except the green-screen stuff, is shot with the Letus Extreme 35mm lens adapter and Canon FD lenses on the Sony EX1 camera.



NOOO!!


Anybody recognize the movie trailer this is blatantly ripping off?


NOOO!! #2


Time lapse of a clock. Always cool, especially with lens flare.


Some comps. I think maybe they need some more work.

Footage from Test shoot

These images are straight out of the camera, with no post processing. Things I learned:

- just run the damn thing through the whole shoot, otherwise you'll forget to turn it on before you roll your shot.
- open the prime lens up all the way, and control the brightness of the image through the camera's own iris. This reduces the grain from the Letus' ground glass plane (you can see this grain in the image of the sunset, where I intentionally stopped down the lens' iris). Unfortunately, I don't have any images to upload from my fastest lens, a 24mm f1.4 and 85mm f1.8, as they arrived a day too late.
- soft focus turns me into a very beautiful man.

I should also note that while the Letus makes a much more pleasing and organic image, the color fidelity and richness are mainly a result of a Picture Profile setting developed by Philip Bloom. You can find it here:

http://philipbloom.co.uk/2008/02/18/ex1-picture-profile-settings-i-use/

Field report from Student of Fortune shoot coming soon, as is an Alone No More update.

Radek