Home in July
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 16.07.07I’m… a little bit older now. Technically speaking, that is. I have been told I don’t look “a day over 29,” so perhaps I’m older non-technically as well. This weekend has involved the following: my last day at work, supper with friends, driving to Indiana, hanging with the family, and a photo trip to the Mississiniwah Reseviour.
I also got pulled over for speeding on the way home. In my defense, I realized my speed and slowed down just ten minutes prior. Unfotunately, I sped back up without noticing. I now have an official warning on my record!
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Trailers
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 10.07.07Showing amongst the other previews attached to Transformers, there is a teaser more enigmatic than most; not surprising, though, since you’re dealing with J.J. Abrams… of Lost. Cloverfield is his upcoming film, and just recently there’s been a full trailer released (Apple.com lists it as 1-18-08, perchance does Abrams have a thing for numbers?). Granted, it’s only a little longer than the teaser, but still enough to fuel the imagination. You don’t see well crafted storytelling all that often, not in mainstream cinema, and I really hope this makes good on the promise!
The same could, perhaps, be said of Sunshine and its latest trailer installment, though it errors on the opposing side of film making theory and tries to give away as much of the storyline as possible. For shame!
My first impression of August Rush? It could walk a fine line, I think, between beautiful and sappy. Though perhaps slightly muddled, the trailer speaks to strong emotion and I have the highest respect for actors Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland), Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (Match Point), and Terrence Howard (Crash).
Elizabeth: The Golden Age has released a longer trailer (including small bits of a sea battle) as has The Golden Compass, though the only connection between the two would be the colour of their titles the stunning sets and cinematogrpahy. The latter, while heralded as a controversial children’s book series, still holds some mystery as to how closely it will follow the anti religious establishment premise. To say the least, it will be georgeous to look at, though New Line should really stear clear of the blatant LOTR advertising.
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I'm no programmer
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 8.07.07And for the most part, this fact is simple and obvious. But some days I like to pretend… or rather, some days I get sucked into an obsessive black hole (instead of turning off the alarm clock yesterday, I hallucinated about the javascript routines needed to find the alarm clock element and remove the audio class). Well, after a string of days like this, I guess I have something to show for it. Here’s the unveiling!
Earlier this week SeventhLeaf was posted online. I have the opportunity, from time to time, to freelance webdesign, and this may become a good resource to send prospective clients to. While there’s hardly anything up there yet, more content should be added as time goes by. I also hope SeventhLeaf can give friends a chance to freelance; if I can’t take a job myself, someone else probably can.
The MooTools javascript library has been running effects on Iaian7.com for quite some time, but recently I’ve been working on some extra-cool stuff. You may notice that the sections navigation to the right now includes feed links, elegantly revealed only when needed. The expanding bookmark link below each article, though added a month ago, has been updated to the same code (while I liked the slide effect, fading on rollover seems far more inviting, and doesn’t shift the page layout, what do you think?). Image thumbnails also fade slightly into the background till you mouse over them, as do media links.
Which leads us to what may be the biggest update yet… Mediabox. Definitely the most extensive coding project I’ve attempted, it’s derived from three other lightbox-style scripts (Slimbox, Slimbox Ex and Videobox), and is finding integration with Textpattern through one of my latest TXP plugins. I leave you with an example; the full length demo reel that was previewed last month!
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Fashion and Driving
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 28.06.07While my entire family is involved in the county fair (from show chickens to award winning craft projects, I might add), there are some things slightly less “rural” than others. Back in highschool, I was the only guy to dare set foot on the stage and compete in the fashion review. Shocking, isn’t it? Yeah, I know, no one would expect that of me.
My sister, while perhaps not as risqué as my attempt, has been doing rather well on the runway herself. This year she modeled a historical recreation (1800’s french settler) and a couple more formal pieces, including a fitted woolen coat. Afterwards we celebrated my aunt’s 50th birthday while my youngest brother (more the pyromaniac than I ever was as a kid) shot of plenty of fireworks.
The vacation has been great, but work goes on (for now) and I’ve had to journey back to “the south”. While I certainly cannot recommend it, taking photos while driving can sometimes produce rather abstract photos. Especially when it’s raining.
Love the abstract photos. I’ll have to try that. lol.
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Fireflies and Home
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 25.06.07While my project is waiting on a few effects elements from another artist, I’m taking the opportunity to visit my parents. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a break, (not counting my being sick a couple weeks ago) and it’s been especially nice to kick off and drive up to north central Indiana. I get an amazing “this is home” feeling about the time I turn off the interstate and hit SR3; rolling hills and endless fields, all spattered with woods and copses and towns. It’s awesome.
North central Indiana also has some of the best fireflies you can find. I’m not sure if it’s the large quantities of fields, the midlands locale, or that it’s totally “the boondocks”. Since I can’t find my tripod I’ve ended up borrowing my dad’s, and spent from 10:30 till well past midnight photographing the fireflies. And stars. And some long exposure madness with the moon. It’s crazy how bright it gets with a near-full moon and a 30 second exposure.
Those pictures are great! I can’t decide which one is my favorite.
That long-exposure shot is AMAZING! Wow!!
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2007 Reel
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 24.06.07After a few positive reviews (including inquires made at work) I simply extended the 2007 preview into a slightly-longer 2007 demo reel. Some better thought out audio mixing and a few additional shots, but it’s still in desperate need of the completed Adam project footage (made especially obvious at the end). There should be another, even more official update in the next few weeks.
Speaking of which, if you happen to know of any companies looking for a visual effects generalist, let me know! I have about three more weeks left at my current job, and am looking for what comes next. Someplace more northern than my current location would be ideal, I’m tired of the heat down here.
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Safari 3
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 13.06.07As betas go, it’s not as bad as it could have been… I guess. So far I’ve seen random symbols added while editing text, a couple crashes, and a few less-than desirable interface changes. Safari 3 is a lot like Safari 2… just with more FireFox mixed in.
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2007 Preview
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 10.06.07I’m editing a new demo reel encompassing the past half year of VFX work, and thought I’d release an exclusive peak here on iaian7.com. Enjoy!
Super! The music fits perfectly. I like your scene selections and how they fit together. The ark door closing is a favorite. The only confusing part is when the water begins to cover the earth and there is a white cloud – ? – over part of the earth.
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Leaves and Menus
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 7.06.07I haven’t had much to post lately, as work has mostly involved render wrangling, file management, and tedious compositing, and… I have no life. Not the most interesting blog subjects, but I’ve also gotten to do some texturing lately. A couple leaf sets with the basic colour, bump, translucency, and cutout masks. Oh, and some texture variations for top / bottom colouration.
It seems easiest to start in Illustrator (much like the ferns) to design the basic shapes and vein patterns (art brush strokes can really save the day), then take it into Photoshop for loads of blurring, layering, overlaying, and effects. The sample renders (grabbed from longer test animations) used simple flat polygons in Lightwave… hopefully, the textures will work well for full size trees while keeping poly counts low.
Oh, and there have been a few updates to the site. Amidst a flurry of complaints (well, one guy… but I agreed with him) regarding the fickle operation of my previous site navigation setup, I’ve mussed around with the javascript a bit. Try clicking instead of rolling over the section title to expand the content; it should be quite a bit more consistent and reliable than before. Let me know if you think it’s an improvement or not. I also updated my LiteBox installation to be a little more… polished. It’s black now, and proudly wears new buttons and a loading animation. Slick, no?
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Trailers
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 27.05.07Some highly anticipated news in the gaming community was finally released last week, as Blizzard announced the in-development StarCraft II. This might not mean much to me, but the trailer is truly something to behold. Blizzard knows their CG, as evidenced by the excellent animations done for the Warcraft teasers, and StarCraft II continues the trend. There are a of couple shots I had trouble believing were entirely CG… technology has come a long way; fluid simulations especially. (if you don’t feel like shouldering the hefty downloads listed above, you can watch the trailer on DailyMotion.com)
While we’re on the subject of video games, Assassin’s Creed has also been releasing some incredible trailers, most of which are rendered in-game. Think Kingdom of Heaven visuals mixed with Prince of Persia acrobatics, along with some top-notch motion blending and procedural animation. The Ubidays trailer can also be found on DailyMotion.com.
Back to films; the trailer for Fido is finally up on Apple.com. It’s the idyllic 1950’s, but coloured by post apocalyptic zombie life, and a genius sense of dark humour. Amongst the stars are Carrie-Anne Moss (Momento, the Chumscrubber) and Billy Connolly (Boondock Saints, Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events). I never thought I’d see a zombie comedy version of Lassie, but this may very well be it.
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Wow! I’m glad I can say ‘Hey, John is my friend and he creates the coolest stuff! Nice work.