Desktop Warfare

After almost an entire year of production/procrastination, Desktop Warfare is complete. I had a lot of fun with it actually. I shot the film last year, and unfortunately I forgot about all about it. It wasn't until I found it squatting in my hard drive that I began to finish it. And I am really pleased. The effects look decently real, and the collaborative sound effects are just as good. The only thing I regret is the camera I used. In some scenes it looked like I filmed it with a potato. It was my webcam. I was experimenting with onion skinning which I must say was WONDERFUL, and the only way I could do it was with the webcam. Unfortunately the webcam is the only camera I have that can hook up to a computer. It was so much easier and looked so
much better between frames. The issue will be resolved eventually. As some people say: baby steps.

Desktop Warfare from Trellis Haynie on Vimeo.

I've Seen Enough of Green

 I'm starting to hate green-screens. I've pandered around with my most recent video project tirelessly, and the color keying is absolutely AWFUL. It's like picking up a toothpick with a pair of tweezers being held by another pair of tweezers. It can be done, but it is difficult. Now the deadline is fast approaching, and I'm still fiddling around with it. The next few hours are going to be long and hard. It's annoying at best.
And on top of that my laptop is really choking on rendering this stuff. It's like a diabetic trying to eat an 8 foot MarsBar.

The Trouble With Foley

Last year I had a stop-motion project called "Desktop Warfare". Initially it was a box of pencil top erasers at war with each other. They had paperclips for weapons, tape rolls and CDs as helicopters, and even a glue stick as a nuclear missile. The project was actually really fun to make, but unfortunately, after I got all of the shots, effects, cuts, and frame rate fixed, it came to audio and sound effects I drew a total blank. Not only did I have a lack of a sound effects library, but I was at a complete loss for what should go where. I manage to scramble a few gunshot sounds from a few of my old computer games, and that's frankly as far as I have gone up to this point.
But I vow to myself: Finish it. What I'll probably do is pay someone to time together all the low key things: individual gunshots, background noise, just the most tedious things. And since my teacher has a whole class full of kids who I think would gladly do it. In that case, I would still have to figure out what I want them to do and what I don't want them to do. I think I will tell them that to only put in sound effects for the standard paperclip rifle. Everything else like the crayon bazooka, the wire clip sniper rifle, and the glue stick nuke would be much easier to put sound effects in for.
On another note, I need to ask around and see if there is a program in After Effects that can match the frames color wise. Unfortunately, I used a regular webcam for the video, and since it is automatic in virtually every aspect, each frame differs slightly in gamma and exposure slightly from the one before it.
Should I ever get this finished though, I will definitely be proud of this. It's the first stop-motion film I've done where there are a multitude of moving parts scooting about at once. I do look forward to being able to post this online, and here on the blog.

Skydiving Rig

In my next video project, I need to create an effects that looks like a person is skydiving. There is a problem though: finding out how to make it look like someone is floating in front of a green-screen. I have a theory on how we should do it.

The basic idea is to take an office chair, remove the back rest, and wrap it in green construction paper. As the subject is filmed, someone below oscillates the chair with a rig around on the floor; spinning it and moving it in a circular motion. And to give the impression that I want, i'll need to put a fan in front of his face to make his hair act like its being blown. Either that or I make him wear a hat. The illustration below shows what I mean, however crude it may appear

My Anatomy Presentation

Here is my "PowerPoint presentation" on a skin disorder we were each assigned. In my case, it was seborrhea: a special kind of rash. This video didn't take long to make, and writing and recording the script was pretty seamless. Anyway, I had fun with it and here it is.I got the idea from watching "Zero Punctuation" on youtube, but decided to make it a bit simpler than his hilarious videos.


Seborrhea, I Adore Thee from Trellis Haynie on Vimeo.

Fat Lip [Sum 41] unoffical Music Video

Here is a music video I did a while back. I got the inspiration in class one day when I was pretending to take notes, so I wrote down song lyrics. The idea stuck with me for that as a music video, so I went home, sketched it out, and here's the final product. The interesting thing with things like this is that they require very little planning, and in the end that's how I've always been. The video took about three times as long to edit as a normal video mainly because the timing had to be really on track, and even now I still feel like it isn't quite as in-tune as I hoped. Eventually I got sick of hearing this song, which I think is something music video producers all go through, and frankly I was relieved when it was finished. Frankly speaking my computer isn't exactly built for this kind of work-you may have seen one of my previous posts describing the beginning of building a new one-and it took a while to render the video each time. But, lo and behold, it is finished.