Transitions

So I'll admit I've been watching a lot of Spaced lately, which I hadn't seen before. Stylistically it's really streets ahead of even stuff like Community. Virtually every shot is some sort of genre-inspired transition. That's not actually factual but it feels like it's true.

Back in the olden days we would get yelled at by distributors and trailer editors for not having a moving camera. So by the time we shot Alien Insurrection we'd decided to do as much of the movie handheld as possible. This was a real bear with the HVX2000 and the Letus adapter with a 35mm lens on the front.
Since then I've had a tendency to go for a more "immediate" sort of "you are there" look with shooting handheld. The Firefly TV series might have had a hand in encouraging that tendency in me.
But the thing I realized from watching Spaced is that I never shoot transition shots. 
This is mostly because I have no idea how we'll want to edit a scene when we shoot it. This may in fact be a fairly large whole in my filmmaking methodology. Maybe I should know how we're getting from one scene to the next.
Of course, as a technique it way pull attention to itself. "Ooh! Look how smart we are doing this dolly move which is picked up by the next shot." So yeah, there's that. But I think I'm still in the Firefly style rather than the very formal style with glacially slow camera moves. I think
Our next movie is clearly a handheld and security camera extravaganza. But after that? Do we use a dolly more?

Rebecca Kush Rises Again

Joe Chapman has discovered that once again people like those pictures of Rebecca Kush.

Here HALO has clearly used her for inspiration.

Robot Cop

We need some powered armor. These images are from Nightmare Armor (which seems to not exist anymore).

We need a full suit of armor for Dead Residents.

Of course I love the robot with red eyes. I wonder how that neck gasket works.

We would have ordered a suit from Nightmare Armor but we can't get their email address or even communicate with them on Facebook. So we'll have to make our own.

Android Insurrection Review

Here's a fair enough review of Android Insurrection. Although I think the acting in it was top notch. And only some, not all, of the visual effects could have... used some more work.
I'm particularly amused by this quote:

This movie could have ending 10 minutes earlier and been a stronger film. I get the feeling the director added in the last few minutes just to get this movie classified as a feature-length film.

You get that feeling? Because that's straight-up what happened. 

Ben Thomas

Ben Thomas, who was in Millennium Crisis, Angry Planet, and Clonehunter, in his web series Stay At Home.


Oh! And Beth White is in it too. She was a Theatresource regular back in the day. Go to the link above or click through to Vimeo for a bigger version.
It's very funny, well-acted, and great post-production sound! ;-)

They Will Outlive Us All

Here's a trailer for a new pic Nat Cassidy is in:

They Will Outlive Us All trailer from Jessi Gotta on Vimeo.

you know what's exciting? The "y" ke on m keboard doesn't work. So I have to cop and paste it when I want it. ikes.