Covid-19 Resources
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 23.03.20This page is predominantly so I can track resources I come across, for my own reference as much as anyone else’s, as the US faces a pandemic the likes of which we haven’t seen since 1918 (Lord willing, not significantly worse).
read more
Welsh Griddle Cakes (drunk edition)
iaian7 » blog » recipes John Einselen, 14.02.12A variation on soda bread, Welsh griddle cakes were a favourite of mine growing up. Over the years I’ve tweaked and adapted the recipe, which makes around 36 cakes.
read more
World Nativity Project
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 24.12.11For years I’d been mentally tossing around ideas for a Christmas video, using character vignettes and impressionistic environments. It was a fun idea, but I never really thought about producing it until last year…
In 2010, Bridge Community Church held the first annual Come to the Manger event; an art exhibit with hundreds of nativities, nativity ornaments, and nativity themed decorations from around the world. Along with snacks, music, and other fun activities, we needed a video to introduce the Christmas story to visitors. Unfortunately we couldn’t find anything that worked well, and ended up showing a segment of the Charlie Brown Christmas special. Though there wasn’t time to create our own short film in time for the event, I started working on a script using Biblical passages with a blend of Old Testament prophecies and New Testament accounts regarding the birth of Jesus.
Preproduction
While progress was slow, I began working on roughing out each scene in Newtek Lightwave. With previsualisations for every digital and live action shot, I even mocked up the limitations of a 10×20’ greenscreen, splitting larger groups of people into individual pieces that could be put back together in compositing. Knowing that scheduling actors could be problematic, planning from the begining to shoot each character separately simply gave us a lot more flexibility.
Inspirations and references were found in classical paintings and religious artwork from around the world. Christ came for all, and the intention was to encapsulate that thought in every level of the production design. Clothing, architecture, landscapes; all were based in different cultures, periods, and styles from all over the globe.
We kicked things off at church with a massive meeting in July of 2011, where I laid out the vision for the project and showed a rough cut of the film using previs footage and a temporary soundtrack. From there, it took off! Dorothy Glasgow, a costumer who has worked for years in the Detroit theatre scene, agreed to head up costuming, while worship leader Scott Crecelius agreed to head up music. The crew quickly grew as other people from the church joined in, helping out with scripture copyright permission, casting, props, and so much more.
Live action
The church balcony was set aside for filming, and I set up a greenscreen stage using equipment purchased on eBay. Arrays of CFL lights ensured the production was environmentally conscious while also keeping heat manageable on set. Props were limited to items characters directly interacted with, and pieces were borrowed from congregation members and another local church. Several props were built by Jim Landback, including a custom manger that was matched with a digital model.
Each character was filmed separately, scheduled over a three week period. The angels were the most dramatic challenge in terms of setup; a custom bike seat was mounted on a wooden pillar covered in green fabric, multiple fans were added, and the camera was mounted on a 10.5’ stand! Other characters were challenging due to the sheer number of scenes needed in the 1 hour time slot we had for most actors. The magi, for example, had three distinct locations with major lighting changes. By God’s grace, it all worked out, and we got the footage needed to put the video together.
Effects and editing
After the shoots were wrapped up, the footage was processed in Adobe After Effects and Red Giant’s Magic Bullet suite. Noise removal, colour correction, rotoscoping (both manual and tracked), chroma keying, and beauty passes were rendered out to flat files for use later in the compositing process. Pre-rendering footage can speed things up considerably, especially when dealing with render intensive effects like grain modification and keying.
Unfortunately, by the time I finally got to creating the environments there was less than a month left until the 2011 Come to the Manger event! Using the temporary sets created during the previs process, I mixed photographic textures and procedural shading to quickly detail the locations.
Some modelling updates were made, new pieces built where needed, and environments were fleshed out using matte paintings created in Adobe Photoshop.
Lighting and lens effects were created using Video Copilot’s Optical Flares plugin, and final grading was handled in Magic Bullet Looks. Without Apple’s full Final Cut Studio on my laptop, I ended up editing narration audio in Garage Band and the video in Final Cut Express.
Release
The second annual Come to the Manger event was a huge success and a lot of fun. I’m not sure how many people came through, but the turnout was even better than last year! Groups of all ages enjoyed the exhibits, food, and music; from young families to residents of the local retirement communities. The World Nativity Project was shown in one of the side rooms as visitors finished up the experience.
The video is released online, free for anyone to use in their Church or Christmas event. You can download an HD media file from Vimeo (if you are signed in), or directly from Dropbox. Please remember that copyright notices must remain in place, and the film should not be modified, but otherwise, share and enjoy!
Finished…almost
There are still plenty of pieces left to be done. Extras haven’t been added yet (villagers in Bethlehem, field workers in Nazareth), and environments need some work. A number of languages are spoken at Bridge Community Church, and portions of the bulletin are even printed in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Tamil. Right now the soundtrack is only available in English, but we’re planning on expanding to as many languages as we can get permission for and record, along with adding subtitles for the hearing impaired.
Thank you to all – for your help, hard work, encouragement, and support. It’s been an incredible project, and I’m hugely thankful I got to be a part of it!
Merry Christmas to all, and God bless.
bookmark
Peach Nachos
iaian7 » blog » recipes John Einselen, 20.06.11What do fresh peaches, chilli powder, and lime salted chips have in common? More than you might think, and they can make a uniquely delicious nacho dish.
read more
Key Lime Pie Spread
iaian7 » blog » recipes John Einselen, 7.06.11Sharp and pungent, this was inspired by a key lime cheese ball I sampled a while back. It was a bit on the mild side, and of course contained sugar, so here’s my version! Healthier, and with just a bit more punch, but ridiculously simple to make.
read more
Strength Fails
iaian7 » blog » poetry John Einselen, 7.06.11Strength, fails as conduit to,
the furious sun inside.
Trapped, temporal body form,
no time is left to bide.
Swiftly, though the tempest spins,
and deep within it boils.
Thick, the skin of earthy jail,
escape still cruelly foils.
Filled, with all of life and love,
exuberant feelings tole.
Hearts, will only burst,
the aneurism of our soul.
bookmark
A Grandfather's Dirge (continued)
iaian7 » blog » poetry John Einselen, 16.05.11Started in 2008 after dreaming of my grandfather, the poem remained unfinished at just two stanzas until his death on May 12th, 2011. After writing two more stanzas, it was recorded late the night before the funeral and played during the service. Forgive the roughness, I’m not the greatest musician! Instruments include neck-style dulcimer and irish whistle.
Hello my weeping daughter,
hello my bright eyed sons…
Fear not for I am just travelling,
to see beyond the sun.
Long have I walked these pastures,
to work and weathered hands…
And now to go before you,
to tread the golden lands.
Torn back, the sky has faded,
but light has only grown…
All shadows run and flee,
before the fire-ry throne.
Though mourning me, my lass,
and time is slow to pass…
Spring rain has washed the land,
and I, by the blood of the Lamb.
Hello my weeping daughter,
hello my bright eyed sons…
Fear not for I am just travelling,
to see beyond the sun.
Thank you. I came here for code, but found your music and thoughts touching my heart.
Music needs instruments and tones, but is so much more than just that.
A thought needs words and sentences but is so much more than just that.
What a bonus, what a blessing.
Best,
<< Herbert
bookmark
I don't know how to stop!
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 25.09.10I’ve been seeing and hearing more about the illusion of multitasking in the human brain for several months; after the publication of a research paper or two, there was the NPR special on how the human brain works…then I heard about Vitamin R, an application designed to segment work break schedules, and other apps for minimising distractions. Today Andy Ihnatko’s article on distractions and multitasking was posted to the Chicago Sun-Times website; Multitasking is a Lie – Your Brain Needs a Break
For me, the phenomenon of digital distractions is quickly and devastatingly compounded by my reticence towards…well, just about anything that might be work. And I don’t mean my job – I can be a terrifyingly hard worker – but rather anything that requires emotional expenditure or any sort of discipline. I do what I want to do, and I don’t do what I don’t want to do.
Some days (or scandalously longer) this means I’ll avoid cleaning the bathroom.
It also means there’s a 4 month old tomato left abandoned in my refrigerator.
Almost always, though, it means I put off dealing with issues unless given no other choice, typically by an outside force. I will ignore the need for human interaction and sequester myself into self absorbed hermithood. I will deny spiritual malaise and pretend things are ok. I will stifle any emotion for fear I might have to face it head on. I will do anything to distract, amuse, preoccupy, and otherwise block myself from dealing with anything that might require effort. Or honesty. Or a serious look at how I live my life.
In the end it’ll leave me suffocated, underdeveloped, dead. It’s hard to close any more chillingly than with Jonathan Acuff’s article from Wednesday; A Near Life Experience.
I pray God continues to wake me up, albeit slowly it seems, to the ways in which I sabotage my own life! Having just now taken out the trash, it’s a relief to know there’s no longer a tomato dissolving into patchwork moulds in the refrigerator. It’s also a really beautiful day out; a bit cloudy, but an invigorating breeze and fresh clean air. How much am I missing out on right now by stifling and ignoring the emotional baggage that needs to be unpacked, taken care of, sorted through, and dealt with via healthy disciplines?
bookmark
On the art of writing, and Twitter
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 12.06.09140 characters demands of an author a certain degree of terse eloquence. Regrettably, it often ends as merely terse; eloquence forgotten. – @iaian7
Such grievous pomposity aside (who quotes themselves so brashly?), it’s an important topic as communication moves online, and oratory fades.
I often wonder if in the pursuit of brevity and clarity, Twitter’s limitations could spur greater creativity, or even mastery of a language?
While one might decry (and rightly so) the short-form nature of the internet’s vast inanity, does the meticulous word play prove profitable?
Far more should be said, but as show of form I’ve kept these paragraphs precisely 140 characters. Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
bookmark
Safari 4
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 7.03.09I finally took the plunge and updated my laptop with the Safari 4 beta. There are a couple things to be aware of going into this; be it updating your extensions (Glims, SafariStand, AdBlock, 1Password, or others), or turning off Growl announcements in Mail (updates made to security protocols in the HTML rendering engine, WebKit, can crash mail when Growl tries to access message content). Yes, there are some pretty severe pauses in internet connectivity (presumably when features such history flow are updating), and crashes as well (it is, after all, a beta). Overall, however, it’s an enjoyable experience… and a good move forward for Safari.
Once you’re up and running, Safari 4 Buddy, mySafari, and other apps, can help customise the experience a bit. While many of Safari 4’s additions are pretty cool (top sites, history flow, javascript engine), other changes will take time to get use to, or just get in the way (sure, tabs at the top are confusing at first, but they can also make window management much more difficult). With these apps, you can mix and match some of the best new features, while reverting to some of the older UI standards.
While we’re discussing cool new features, MacRumors has posted links to a few technology demos (including some truly impressive 3D). But perhaps what I find most interesting is the Safari 4 intro animation. Like new OS X installations, there’s a quick little greeting when you first open Safari 4 (and yes, you have to be using Safari 4 to watch it). Some simple motion graphics and music; all pretty typical for Flash animation, I suppose. But check the page source, and you’ll find it’s done entirely in Javascript, CSS, and the latest rich-media HTML.
Even better, the iPhone already has support for 3D transforms via CSS, as part of WebKit (though for desktop implementations in Safari and Mail, it’s turned off by default). While Microsoft tries to vie for attention with Silverlight, posing as an Adobe Flash replacement and web development platform, Apple may very well be positioning WebKit as a new solution; web standards, and all based in HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
mediaboxAdvanced
Was thoroughly impressed with your manger video, amazing visual work! Great job, very well polished and a ton of work. I also am pressed with the work you have done on media box, slipped it into a site to replace my current lightbox, very well executed, very impressed again. Just wanted to give you props! Keep making cool stuff!