News so far...

Well, I've been busting a gut doing a fancy edit of a wedding I did last month.

Using Premiere Pro 2; I'm also using Adobe After Effects to correct some camera shake.

Doing some color correction, white balancing, and playing with zooming in certain parts of clips using the motion vectors of position and scale.

Plus, I've been taking out sections of clips and doing slow motion effects.

All in all, I think I'm finding some degree of my own style by doing things my way. I know I'm not going for the traditional "perfect look" as some of my shots are grainy (low light/no camera light) and there's some handheld camera movement, but that's part of what style's all about, isn't it?

It does mean more work in post production, but that's half the challenge.

Next, I want to play with some of the features on After Effects, combined with Photoshop.

I've been doing some of the online classes with the excellent website Lynda.com, which is inspiring me to learn Photoshop, and add some fancy animations to my projects.

I also want to have a go at green screen.

But I must, must, must get on with writing my screenplay.

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Auditioned for a film today. It went rather well. I'll be playing a character called Todd, who's a political advisor to a corrupt Texas politician. British, of course. That shoots in June.

Also met my friend Heath at the casting. He has a movie project we should be working on together in the coming months. Should be a budget of about $50,000 going into it. Hoping to be shooting it on the Red One camera - a really great system.


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Bought the book Rebel without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez:



I have to think along some of the lines of Rodriguez - although I can't in all honesty say I'm a fan of his. I can't be bothered with all that violence.

The other thing I have to accept is that film making is probably a lot easier for people in their 20s, because you can get away with a lot more shit when you're 20. Plus, you have the enthusiasm, less apathy, and the motivation to prove yourself is still there. Motives change as you get older. At the end of the day, it's kinda daft making films, really. At least ones that are full of violence. But I know I would have when I was 23. In fact, I was always doing the violent thing - acting like DeNiro in Taxi Driver or Mean Streets, or Deerhunter. - "This is this!"

I'm far more interested in depth of character now. Violence for what it is is meaningless. I grew out of it when I wanted to murder someone myself.

Hey! Maybe I should use all that stuff. That's where I've been going wrong, I suppose.

Perhaps I should write something for a British film, too.

Dammit! I can do this!