Windows 8

Well Win8 is on the scene now, and in the fine tradition of Windows ME and Vista it is horrible. If you actually use your computer as a computer and not a toy, stay far away from it.

I downloaded the RC about a year ago and installed it on an extra hard drive and then ran it on hardware that was approved for the upgrade. Install was fast and easy and it took no time to get up and running. That was the last pleasant experience I have had. The new home screen (first of many tablet/phone inspired bits) is fine for getting around but if you are a mouse baby and not using a touchscreen the big blocky "icons" are just annoying. I ran it for about a week and reformatted the drive and moved back to 7.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago and we are upgrading our edit capabilities at work to full HD and needed a new computer to do it. The one we selected came loaded with Windows8 and the manufacturer had no provision for a "down" grade to 7. We would be using Premiere Pro CS6 which is supposedly written with Win8 in mind. Navigation in a work environment is a nightmare, performance with a 32gb RAM i7 machine with a GTX650 1gb video card was horrible. Just to shut down is now a multiple step process.

Making it impossible to boot to the Desktop is an insane feature. Removing the "Start" button makes program navigation tedious at best. I just can't find a thing to say good about it and the things I hated were to numerous to mention. Obviously MS is done with serious computer users and has now designed a Tablet OS that is designed for casual button pushers that surf the web and play Angry Birds. We kept and struggled with it at the office for a week and then burned down the HD and installed Windows7. All is better now.

The worst part is I do computer repair on the side and I have 0 interest in learning this crappy OS so it is going to limit what machines I can work on going forward.

Well there you have what I feel about Win8, if my software ran on Linux I'd jump ship in a heart beat. I guess I kept WinXP until 7 came out and will now keep 7 as long as I can, but if Win9 is based on this crappy OS I have no clue where business and power users can go from here. Not Apple that's for sure :-)

BC

The Gimble Functions!!

Well I still have balance and weight issues to address, but it functions! I am no engineer but I made a functioning gimble!

More Tools Created

I have been reading alot about Stedi Cam knock offs online, cheap easy made ones. Well tonight I found an old pair of roller skates at the Good Will for $5 and added about $10 worth of PVC and hardware and have the first prototype done. I see some issues and a Mk2 may not be far behind, but here are a couple of pics. The gimble idea I think will be very cool after I get a few of the bugs worked out.

The camera mounting will be on a rod that passes through the bearing and down to a lower weight. I think the PVC attach point to the ring is too weak and that will have to be modified.

Stay tuned.

Tool Box Upgrade

Well I saved my pennies after I returned from Virginia in November and finally joined the DSLR ranks. I got a great deal on a Nikon D5100 at Sam's club. I have played around a little with it tonight and will be posting some of my first stuff later in the weekend. It won't get me away from film completely, at least not yet, but now I can practice more without breaking the bank buying film. I am very happy with it so far and the fact I can actually use all my old Nikkor and other F Mount lenses is awesome.

Random Shots

These are some random things from the last year. The first two are 35mm film with my Nikon N2020 (a 25 year old camera) The President is on my iPhone 3GS and the one of Clint is also 35mm. I am in the process of saving for my Nikon D5100 as my first Digital SLR. Enjoy.

Mark it down, today was the lowest point in US history

Who Would Have Guessed?

I finshed another long dormant project. "WWHG" was a clip project started in 1998. It had several of my friends in it and I shot it on a few different formats. Finally got them all together and digitized. Edited in Premiere Pro and did all the effects and compositing in After Effects. Turned out pretty funny. Haven't decided if it will go up on Youtube yet.

Camera Lens

So I was looking around for lenses for the BW 003 that I just go to shoot some B/W videos. I had looked online and was searching eBay and I noticed something, they talked about C-Mount and 16mm in the same breath. Could it be? Yes. The 16mm Kodak camera that I recently got has standard (25mm) wide angle (8.5mm) and telephoto lenses, all of which will fit on my new video camera! Sometimes things just work :-) Can't wait to get some stuff shot!

RCA BW 003

This is shot on a brand new 1974 RCA BW003! I picked it up at the Goodwill for $30! Pretty cool look to it and I can see some great horror applications! Also did a little location scouting at a winery in Liberty that used to be a orphanage and a mental hospital, hmm

Frustration

I suppose those who know me could say I could title most things I write of say "Frustration". Here I am just talking about trying to upload a video that I have been trying to for two days. (A lot of "to" in that sentence) Anyway, I guess it must be too big or something. Heaven forbid it would be MY fault.

I am back on Google+ a little now. A much more paired down approach. I will check it from time to time but not as much of a time sink as FB was.

Hope all is well in the World today. More later.

Summer

I have decided to deactivate my Facebook for a while. It might be permanent, I haven't decided yet. I will post on here from time-to-time so if you know someone on FB who would still like to see my writing or catch up on what I might be up to, send them the link for here please.

Found some old VHS footage of my Mom and Dad yesterday and captured it to digital. The tape was crap (as most VHS is now). There was even some of Ed's Dad and Mom and dog. I sent him the video and he said it was the first time Emma had seen her Grandfather. Pretty cool what you can find under old stairs some times.

Cine-Kodak K-100 Turret

Just picked up a 16mm film camera. Complete and functional. Never shot motion film before. It even does single frame for animation. Hmm :-)

Kansas City Film Fest wrap up

Had a lot of fun last couple of days with the Kansas City Film Fest. Went to 4 workshops yesterday, and Sherri and I saw 11 movies today, 1 feature and 10 shorts. It was a long day of movies. Next year we are both getting gold passes and scheduling an even greater participation. Thanx AMC and all the fantastic sponsors. Bigger and better in the future. Favorite films were Equity, Nailbiter, Mayhem, and Slash in the Box. If you see them on Netflix or Hulu check them out.

KC Film Festival!

Going to some workshops on Saturday! Fun times.

Sadness weeps for the souls of sheep.

 

Amazing what a resin skull, a scanner and little Photoshop can do :-)

Equipment in place

Well I just picked up an Intuos3 tablet input so I can draw in Illustrator. This along with my sweet scanner mentioned before has all the pieces in place for my design and production work. Been writing some, need to do more. Always seems to be something there to distract me. I may just still be that 10 year old in the outfield watching the plane fly over and not paying attention to the game.

Here is an early attempt at After Effects. Such a great program, so much to learn. Stay tuned!

Creative Gidlock

It has been ages since I did anything creative that I am happy with. Last night we watched Imagining and By The Way. I had so much fun making those and now I look back it was 20+ years ago. I did do Donner and Blitzen and it probably had more production value than both the other combined, but it didn't have the soul the others did. I still have Project "A"  laying around, I guess I should pick it up. I also want to go do the interviews for the "special" edition of Imagining. 

 

Buhahaha

A little better now, just got Adobe On Location installed on my laptop, great video capture software. Again, time to get off my butt and create something. Think I will be interrupted by Mardi Gras weekend though. :-)

Upgrade

Finally upgraded the production box. Renamed it Studio 9. This is because in the first screen play I wrote, IMAGINING, I left out scene 9 by accident. Since then, everything I write I leave out scene or chapter 9 on purpose.

Any way, it now has an i5 processor and 8gig of RAM (soon to be 16). This should be a great box for my CS4 stuff. Now to get motivated and CREATE something!

{Production computer Desktop}

Thrift Store

Well got a fully functional EPSON 3490 Scanner today for $6! Best part is it does negatives and the holder and all cords were included. Now I can get to some of my old pictures. It blows away my HP as far as quality goes!

Ruebin III

A vague shape came from the gloom. It was some sort of heavy canvas bag. The rope was now very wet from the frothing waves and slipped a little with each tug.

Ruebin stopped. The slimy rope dropped and inch away, but he was sure he had heard something. While leaning over the rail, he looked up and down the pier. To the ocean side he only saw a faint glow of the last light and a black rail before nothingness. To the shore side, darkness. The bag thumped a reminder on the piling. Ruebin resumed his labor.

With one last heave the bag cleared the railing and clattered to the decking with a solid metallic thump. Again, Ruebin scanned the empty darkness of the pier and saw nothing or no one. He looked to the bag and rolled it over. It was black canvas. No markings, no labels. It looked vaguely military. A drawstring held the top tightly cinched. Ruebin untied the expert knot, and slowly pulled the bag open.

Ruebin II

As he tried to work out the swirling questions in his head, Ruebin became aware of a strange sound masked by the waves bellow. Walking to the railing and looking down he could see a rope was tied to the top of the piling and extended away into the darkness. The swaying rope was allowing something to bump heavily into the soaked dark wood.

A whisper in his mind told him to back away and try to find his way home. He didn't recognize this place, but he lived in Los Angeles so how far could he be. It was actually cold here so the answer might be a disturbing one. The object below bumped again as if it was reminding him it was still waiting to be recovered.

Leaning over, he caught the spray soaked rope and began to pull. It was heavy but not horribly so. That took a couple of fears from his mind. Judging by the sway and the sound, it must be hanging close to the wave tops. Inch by inch Ruebin brought it closer to the dim light from the one street lamp near the shore. Inch by inch his apprehension grew.

Inch by inch..

Ruebin

Ruebin couldn't see the end of the pier. He knew it was out there like the business end of a Mossberg 12 gauge shoved into a darkened crack dealer's living room. He could feel the steady pounding against the century old pilings under his feet. The spray dampened his cheap Kmart sweater.

The other thing Ruebin didn't know is just what the hell he was doing here. The last clear memory he had was of his alarm clock buzzing and a swiping hand meant to hit the snooze. He was dressed and standing on a darkened pier now. What could be no less than 12 hours later, but he truly didn't know for sure.

Time and date, two more things Ruebin didn't know.

Well spent the day working on computers. Removing a nasty malware called Home Security 2012. It renames itself for the operating system you're running, ie XP Home Security 2012. Mybleepingcomputer.com has a good removal description.


Need to get some writing done. Want to start a new video project.

Well off to supper.

Beginings

Why Splintor? Splintor was the name of a Shadow Dragon from my main Dungeons & Dragons campaign that I ran for many years. He was the returning antagonist. He had a brother, Slyver, that was killed early on. 

Years later I used the name again as the production company name for my early videos, Splintor Productions Ltd. 

To date only 3 videos have been produced. "Imagining" "By The Way" and "Donner and Blitzen". On the burner is a follow up to BTW titled "Who Would have Guessed" and a short entitled "Project A".

I hope to write and video more in the future. Finding the time is a popular excuse but more accurate would be find the motivation. Seems harder and harder the older I get.