Well, last night I had major technical difficulties but by the end of the night I had something pretty sweet. Basically, I had this idea while doing my previous creative thing about using a mini-projector to project images onto my whiteboard so that I could advance frame by frame and rotoscope it.
It could even be used more loosely in the sense that perhaps all I’m taking from a shot is the camera movement. I could take a shot from a film that smoothly trucks in on something and I could use objects within that scene as markers for objects in my scene. That way my final shot may look nothing like the shot I used for reference except that the camera moves feel the same.
So, on the way home from work I stopped by a Toys R Us and picked up this toy mini-projector by Eye-Clops. It’s a cheap little projector and I wouldn’t recommend it for any real movie watching but for this particular purpose that I’m using it for, its perfect. I also bought a mini-dvi to RCA connector to go from my computer to the mini-projector.
I was hoping to rotoscope the crane kick from The Karate Kid and I figured I’d be able to find some reference of it on YouTube. When I got home the problems began. I figured out how to mount the projector to the animation stand and went to connect my computer up to it and realized my cable was incorrect. I have a “MICRO” DVI port not a “Mini”-DVI! No problem let me get Jenny’s laptop. She’s got Mini-DVI. Except I find out her laptop doesn’t support the Mini-DVI to “Composite” adaptor which is what I need to use. Lame! No crane kick.
I grabbed June’s little portable DVD player. It was working but I couldn’t advance in frame by frame increments Dang! After hours and hours of futzing I finally got my Playstation to work for me. Unfortunately, it was midnight by the time I was prepared to begin animating.
So, I changed my plans and decided to officially start my dry-erase music video altogether. I stayed up almost all night doing it. I feel pretty good about what I’ve created so far and as I write this post the animation room is prepared for me to continue my work. Expect my next creative thing to be more progress on this.
The scene I roto’d for the opening shot is from “The Hudsucker Proxy”. I hope you enjoy!
Your blog is amazing.
I love the colorimetry of this pictures : http://theb-roll.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Day125_02.jpg
What kind of camera/lens did you use ?
No email ?
Thanks for the comment. On the email thing, I have been meaning to get a contact page up for the longest time I have been lagging on setting up my b-roll.com email. I will try to get that done.
I’m intrigued by your thoughts on the photo. I knew I liked it when I took it and funnily enough I took that one multiple times just too get the flare from the light below under control. I was holding my hand out like a french flag to find the right balance of flare. The tone is nice but I don’t know much about colorimetry so I’m interested in your thoughts.
The lens is a Canon 50mm 1.8 and the camera is the T1i/500D. Normally I use my 7D with a Zeiss 35-70mm Contax to EOS adapted.
When i saw this picture, i don’t know why but it remind me “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. Flare and this special tone create a lovely “80’s movie” filter, and i love it.