It's that time of year

If only we were able to hold on to this type of weather for a majority of the year.  How beautiful the surrounding trees look with their contribution of colors just waving in the wind.  The aroma of fire places emitting smoke into the gray skies of fall.  Sweatshirts and long pants coming out of hiding and showing their true meaning of existence.  It brings us to a sort of homecoming I have never experienced before.  My girlfriend is a grad student at Gallaudet University, which is a school for the deaf in the middle of DC.  Their homecoming was yesterday and she invited my daughter and I to join her.  We went and loved it, the score was 26-0 by the end of the third quarter and we got up from our chilled bleacher seats to go get some of her school stuff.  However prior to us leaving, watching the fans chat with one another using nothing but ASL was very intriguing to both my daughter and myself.  My daughter made the best attempt at signing that she could, but we spent a majority of the day with her mind turned on, yearning for knowledge to better her signing capabilities.  I as well learned some new words and feel a little more confident in signing.  But the true magic was the way it captivated my little girl and made her want to learn more.  While walking around the school we were looking around and I noticed they have a lot of cool gadgets for the deaf students that attend school there.  One thing in particular that caught my mind was a touch-screen TV that was located next to the elevator that would guide the students to the necessary spot in the building they needed to be.  Very cool.  On the screen I noticed a lot of different things going on all at once.  I don't know if it was Adobe products they were using, but I caught the use of Flash, Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects and Premeire.  To see all those products being used to create one screen and do it in complete harmony was truly amazing,  My girlfriend had to pull me away, literally, but I did manage to push a few buttons and it was so awesome. 

Clue?

Today will be an interesting day.  My girlfriend and I are heading to Annapolis to check out the play Clue, but we are going to enjoy the interpretation with sign language.  It is a requirement for both of us to attend a deaf event from one of our other classes, but this should make it very interesting for the both of us to see a play and its interpretation.   Since I am on the subject about plays, do any of you have plays that you would recommend that she and I go check out?  Anyhow, I am sure that I will post something later on how wonderful the event was, but if you are looking for some form of art exposure, it is only $5 to get in and should make for a great time.  Hope to see you there. 

-Joe

Fall Festival

Going with my daughter to her Fall Festival at school was a great time.  As we were given a tour of the school, I found that what we are paying for in college is now being offered in a high school level.  My little girl is 4 years old and she attends a private school that goes from K-12th grade.  I am astonished at some of the products these kids have put out.  I just wish this was offered when I was in high school.  Just the thought of having 3ds studio max when I was a teenager, may have a whole different outlook on what my life would be like today.  It also got me to thinking what in the world will be offered when she a teenager in school.  Already, she loves to watch films and she likes to try and act out some of the scenes she sees.  I catch her sometimes watching a film and then trying to draw out the scene with an added rock or two in the scene.  I did some research into this and found that at the age of four, Steven Spielberg was intrigued by film and made his first home video when he was five.  Hm mm, makes me wonder what is in store for my little girl.  She loves to sing, act and draw.  Could be a sign as to what she wants to be when she grows up.  My little girl.  Anyways, I wrote this in the beginning of October, but for some reason it didn't post.  Good thing I save everything I write on here.  Have a good one and keep on smiling. 
-Joe

In my video bar, check out Sir Goldlion.

Some of you may have noticed that I have been able to turn my projects in way early.  Well I can attribute that to the fact that I am not new to the whole design world.  I am not a designer by trade, wish I was though, but I have dabbled in doing things using some Adobe products already.  In my video bar, I have a certain movie in there that my friend and I created.  We were really bored and well we wanted to do something along the lines of making a short film.  When it was all said and done, we submitted it to a couple of different film festivals.  One being the CAMM/Video Bake-off right in Baltimore.  We were able to attend the festival, and we wound up winning "Best Effects," which I did for the most part.  However we didn't win best overall picture (we should have though, but we didn't invite any of our friend along, we just wanted to see how we would fair in the publics eyes), but we did come in a close second though, losing by only one vote.  I was a little upset, but very pleased with the award we got. 
What really made the night special was after watching all the other films, which dealt with suicide and stuff of that nature, the audience was falling asleep, trust me I was one of them.  Then our corny film came on, and it brought down the house.  It isn't a great film by any means, but what we did, we were able to make an action film that got the audience on the edge of their seats.  After it was over, the audience gave us a standing ovation and it was a great way to end the night with our film being the one that got the audience excited.  Please take the time to check it out, the quality isn't all that great, but it is a you tube film, and please let me know what you think.

Sesame Street

After finishing up Project 4, I was kind of curious about using After Effects.  I found that most Television shows use this product, or something close to it.  I was watching Sesame Street the other day with my 4 year old daughter and was noticing that they had an episode where the kids were looking out of a window.  Well it got me to thinking, aka googling, and found that through After Effects, you are able to make it look like there is a window present even when there isn't one.  NIFTY, I thought to myself.  Now here is my question to the world.  Why would they do something along this nature?  What is it's purpose?  Anyway, just curious if anyone else has taken a look into all the products Adobe has to offer.  Check them out if not, they are really cool, and Adobe's website has a lot of tutorials on them to shed some light onto there mysteries. 

Moving Along

Well another project is in the books and let me tell you I am happy.  I love premeire and all the fun stuff you can do with it.  I started to venture into After Effects and that is something else.  How on earth did the editors of times past do what they did is beyond me.  Adobe should definitely advertise on you tube and help all those people that make home movies, do it the right way.  If their was a way to do this full time and make money at it, I would love too.  From my knowledge, I have found that it's not what you know, but who you know in the film industry.  Case in point, Ben Stiller.  How is he an actor?  Anyways, hope all is well and people are moving along nicely in this class.  A lot of inspiration from other projects have helped me along the way and I appreciate it. 

-Country Joe