Late Pass!

It's here! The most gruesome, terrifying thing since the creation of canned green beans! It's something so blood curling, so startling, that you won't be able to sleep for days! Yes, yes I am talking about the Spanish teacher! Every school has one, and they're about to get out their weapons and attack! We must fight back!

If you were to tell me that you never had an awful Spanish teacher, I would know that you were lying. You see, we have all had a bad Spanish teacher, some of you just may not know it. So, here is a guide to figuring out if you have a bad Spanish teacher.

Does your Spanish teacher...

A)pick on one of your classmates and then put that classmate in a colorful chair?

B)act really mean to you when the classroom door is closed and then act really upbeat when a parent is in the room?

C)show up really late for class and then keep you in there for longer than scheduled?

D)say that you were supposed to do a homework assignment last night, but never gave the assignment during class?

E)give late passes excessively?

If you checked one of these, you might have a bad Spanish teacher. If you checked all, well, good luck for the rest of the year. The great thing is, with bad Spanish teachers, you don't learn anything, so there is no final exam! My Spanish Teacher always talked about her family and her dog. It kind of got old, but it has made some great jokes over the years.

To those of you who have bad Spanish Teachers, if you make it through the year without ending up like one of my characters, you'll have some great jokes too. Or not.

Birthday Wishes!

My, my, my! It's that time of year again! No, not Christmas, silly! It's your birthday! You know, the one day nobody celebrates because they don't want anyone to know how old they are. Well, the day has come, scream in terror! Hide your Legos! Hold your dog! The infamous monster Age is here again! Actually, that gives me a movie idea...

Anyway, Charlie, it's your birthday and I wanted to give you a small present before you get your real one. It isn't scary, it's just a small town fable about one kid's birthday and how he celebrates it. I hope you like it.

I used this opportunity to try out my 15 frames per second video, which I have been saying I would do for the past couple of months. The video is much smoother so it really looks like the characters are moving in real life. It took me twice as long to film it but, it's worth it.

Again, I hope you enjoy the video, and like who is at the end. Hey, who wouldn't wand Darth Elvis to sing to them?

@#$%!

The first thing you will be saying when you finish watching this video is, "Wow Sam, the camera angles are very good!" Yes, they are. This is because I used the desk in the garage to film this video. It was very fun, as long as I didn't die of dehydration. I'm serious, it was so hot in there that i was soaking wet after the first day of filming! Anyway, the project would probably have been finished a while ago, but I was too lazy at the time I first got this idea.

This video is also proof that some ideas go in a whole different direction than you think they will go. It started out simple enough, and got even simpler. I did this for fun, and also for a last hoorah with my editing software, created by Roxio. Why am I moving on to something different you ask? Well, the past few months it hasn't exactly been easy to start a project on there. The software will think that it is done doing work and will refuse to respond to any action. I have probably started the windows task manager about fifty times in the past three months with the software, and now I will refuse to respond.

I will now be using the software I used to make the deleted scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark, it is called Vegas and is made by Sony. If you want to look at it, here is the link: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiopp. The box is very pretty! I will be able to do more things with it and the effects will be awesome. I have my Father to thank for getting this, he is awesome as well.

Speaking of my Father, he pointed out a mistake last night when he watched my video. The thing he said was: "Where's the back story?" This is important because there is none. So, I'm making one up now. Here it is:

Government spy Peirce Conroy is living in the town of Tedon. He has stolen the polls for the election and now is in hiding. The Mayor of Tedon, Ted Twoface, wants the polls back. So, he has set up an elaborate trap for Peirce. Little does Ted know that this trap will lead to a battle of the wills. A battle in which only one will win...

Oh, and I have to put in something sports related. Reggie Bush on the Heisman committee taking away his trophy: "You're gonna have to rip it out of my cold, dead hands!!!!"

Yo, yo, yo!

Well, here it is. The movie that was so frustrating, I thought about trashing it on the first day of filming. It started so easy, and in the end I am happy to get it over with. There were a few times where I found myself screaming at the computer on this project. I immediately checked myself into a mental institution, and now I am fine.

The lighting in this movie is very good, I think. I wanted it to look like a ray of sunshine, and I got it spot on. What I did was, I put a piece of construction paper around the desk lamp (I know it is a fire hazard, but you have to take risks). Then, I taped the tips of the paper together, creating a sliver of light. Ingenious, I know. I am patenting the procedure and I will soon make millions off of royalties.

Then, I hit a snag. The song that I needed for the video wasn't showing up on the Roxio MP3 converter. I started screaming at the computer, and I was brutally welcomed into the world of Mac vs. PC. Apparently, when you buy songs off of Itunes, it protects the song. The Roxio MP3 converter can't convert protected song files. I was bummed. So, my Dad bought the MP3 version of the song, and I felt better.

It only took me two days to film, and the second day was frustrating as well. It was frustrating just because of the limitation of camera angles. Therefore, most of the movie is shot on two angles. I am sorry.

I got this idea when I was making a film that I trashed because there was a lot of special effects in the movie, and I was too lazy to do any. It was only supposed to be a twenty second spot, so it may seem drawn out. I saw a shot in my head and I had a voice that I could do. I adapted it to the opening sequence in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, and tada!

There will be a lot of shorts like this coming up quickly, but don't be fooled! I'm working on something big, something so big I'm going to have the computer screaming at me when I'm done. Something like: To Infinity and Beyond!

Creating the Misunderstanding

We all know the feeling. It's usually when your sitting in your room, your office, or in the bathroom (the last is not recommended). It is the feeling of boredom. You ask yourself what you're going to do over and over, and nothing comes to you. Then, an idea starts to tickle your brain, and you decide to give it a go, you don't have anything else to do.

This phenomenon happened to me on Sunday, the day you usually feel bored on unless it is football season. The only things I knew that were going to be in the video when I dumped out my Legos were the opening sequence and the end. I made the sets and started shooting.

In stop motion videos, one second of action is 16 pictures, so the three minute song seemed like three hours when I started. When I finished the opening sequence, ideas kept coming to me. They seemed so good at the time that even my cat, Teddy, was agreeing with me on some. That's when I started talking to him.

"Get your tail out of the picture, Cat!" and, "Stop chewing on Batman!" Were some of the things that I said to Teddy throughout filming. In case you don't know, Teddy loves to chew on Legos. To the Lego world, Teddy is a deranged monster who can attack at any time. Anyway, I had a hard time filming when Teddy was in the room, he even took MiniPhil hostage once. After that crisis was averted, and Teddy was thrown out of my room, it was time for dinner.

The second day of filming began with Zurg staring at me. I knew what he wanted, he knew what he wanted. I put him in the movie. I uploaded my pictures four times in the computer, to see where I was at in the song that day. Then, just before dinner, I ran out of ideas. When faced with this situation, DO NOT panic. It's like a kidney stone, it passes in time.

The next morning, I had the rest of the video thought out, and couldn't wait to start filming. The third day of filming went by so quick, I didn't know what to do. Of course I knew it was time to start editing, which didn't take long. The hard part was moving my desk lamp without getting third degree burns.

The fact is, I got lucky. The actions matched up with the verses almost exactly the way I wanted them to. It's hit or miss when you try to match actions with music. Either you're right on it, or it's completely off. Stop motion is one of the easiest forms of film making, but it is also one of the most time consuming. If you can do one thing for long periods of time, then you can probably do stop motion. All you need is an idea.