• From: Chicago-ish
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
  • Posts: 741
  • User Karma: 149

Topic: Talents?

I assume we've all got some.  There's a defunked database out there somewhere in which we listed our fan-film related skills.

Is there still a use for anything like that around here? I'll stand up and get the ball rolling...

I'm drew and:
I edit video in Premiere and can do just about everything that AE does.
Of course, also Encore for DVD and BluRay authoring, I can get good results compressing to web-streaming formats.
I use 3DSmax, for a long time now, and I'm assembling a small render farm.
I can usually write scripts (particularly in Max and AE) for whatever I need to automate.
I've got my own Canon T1i, access to the whole range of lenses from fisheye to a 200mm f/1.7, a 5D, a few GoPro's and other HD video capture rigs.
I've got a decent mic and setup for recording, and a somewhat Kermit-y voice without the pleasant overtones.

I'm running at least two major projects right now, but I'm always up for a quick change of pace for a few days.  I've been busy pretty steadily on one thing or another for 5 or 6 years on numerous volunteer-level video things.  No, I don't get out much.

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Dave
  • Dave
  • Australian Correspondent
  • Offline
  • From: Melbourne, Australia
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 1,594
  • User Karma: 341

Re: Talents?

I was a volunteer fireman, so if stuff catches fire I can ... help you call the fire brigade from my location on the other side of the planet.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Chicago-ish
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
  • Posts: 741
  • User Karma: 149

Re: Talents?

What's the allure of being a volunteer fireman? 
Is it pure altruism, or is it all the chicks you get after saving them?

Last edited by drewjmore (2012-03-25 00:59:31)

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Registered: 2010-05-01
  • Posts: 1,519
  • User Karma: 194

Re: Talents?

I draw and paint.

I occasionally make music when I get the fancy. I use the term "music" loosely.

I write a lot of stuff. Mostly movie ideas and treatments.

I do a lot of 3D modelling. I used to do it a lot more than I do now - like all the god damn time, every day - because I wanted to work in the games industry making 3D graphics and/or animation, but then the videogame industry decided that the best course of action was to make game graphics look as generic and lifeless as possible while simultaneously falling further and further down into the uncanny valley, and that making said graphics should be the most soul-crushingly uncreative and tedious thing you could possibly do. The people who play games seem to mostly agree that this was a good decision. I have my doubts.

I'm getting a lot of animation practice lately as well...

I have one project that I'm working on right now, and several more lined up and ready to go.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Dave
  • Dave
  • Australian Correspondent
  • Offline
  • From: Melbourne, Australia
  • Registered: 2009-12-01
  • Posts: 1,594
  • User Karma: 341

Re: Talents?

Allure? Helping people. Hardest, but most rewarding thing I've done.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Chicago-ish
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
  • Posts: 741
  • User Karma: 149

Re: Talents?

I've always been interested in being a firefighter, just never cowboyed up to try it.  Mostly I burn stuff and leave the putting out to lack of fuel. ;-)

Sqig, whachu workin on?

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Registered: 2010-05-01
  • Posts: 1,519
  • User Karma: 194

Re: Talents?

I asked Zarban a while ago if he'd be cool with me doing a poster for "Sharkitect". I've been noodling on a variety of different ideas for the poster pretty much every day since then and have not been happy with any variation. I tried again a couple days ago and recorded the whole thing in a time-lapse video. I've gone from trying to do it in a very 1960's monster-movie painterly style to a more graphic 1970's 'sploitation style to...  whatever the hell this thing was trying to be...

I start with a thumbnail in the video, but that's not what I ended up going for. I've got a few pages of sketchbook devoted to thumbs for this. I went with one of those for this version, so it's not in the video...

I think I'll do a few other fake posters before I go back to this one. I think I know why my brain is rejecting everything related to this. I'm currently testing my current theory out on a different poster that I have yet to start working on digitally.

Also, it looks like I paint on the far left of my screen, but I'm not showing the whole window. I've got tool bars on the left. The image on my screen is more or less centered. I'll have to remember that for next time...

Also, I may or may not be doing a web comic.

EDIT: I realize that you're probably refering to the thing I referred to in my previous post where I was all "I'm working on a thing LOLOLOL". That is something I'm still being way too anal retentive about to post anything from it, but it's a comedic animated short thing that is currently called "The Stunning Climax To Maximum Force IV: The Revengining". It's basically the last ten minutes or so of a really cheesy action / buddy cop movie from the 80's done with PSOne / Minecraft style visuals. I'm still really early on it in terms of animating and such, and I've been doing to it what I do in that video...  I tend to scrap things and reboot them in a different direction when I don't like where they're headed even when other people tell me the stuff looks fine because I'm a perfectionistic bastard to the point where even when something doesn't particularly bother me, it bothers me that it's not bothering me.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-04-04 04:45:21)

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • Teague
  • Teague
  • Administrator
  • Offline
  • Registered: 2009-11-07
  • Posts: 5,714
  • User Karma: 1,542

Re: Talents?

I watched that whole thing. Good times.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: Chicago-ish
  • Registered: 2009-11-23
  • Posts: 741
  • User Karma: 149

Re: Talents?

It's like watching that dude in my homeroom class that could draw, only I never have to look away and pretend to be uninterested.

(UTC-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada)

Thumbs up Thumbs down

  • From: State of Idaho
  • Registered: 2010-12-08
  • Posts: 2,367
  • User Karma: 289

Re: Talents?

I am always amazed at the talented artists on this forum. I personally cannot draw worth anything. My attempts have been mostly mash ups of other people's works. I hate being that guy who asks for help for doing photoshop work or rendering, so I just ooh and aww at pretty pictures.

I prefer to write, especially science fiction, especially military scifi. Writing is really my only talent.

God loves you!

Thumbs up Thumbs down