PopTent

The people over at XLNTADS.com have put together a brand new site. It's called POPTENT and it's pretty much like facebook for video creators. That description is totally not doing it justice. As if I wasn't already a huge fan of Xlntads, and not just because I've won two of their contests. Poptent rocks my socks.

Xlntads was basically a site that would connect video creatives to brands that needed advertising. A brand would need a specific type of video created, Xlntads would put up all the info as an assignment asking video creators to submit videos, the submissions that were chosen (the ones the brand liked) would earn a set amount of money.

Xlntads takes it a step further with the new site Poptent.net. Here it's the same process but video creators can now have their own profile, upload media, basically have their own online portfolio. This makes it easier to not only get assignments and earn some money, but also to connect with other creatives, or anyone needing your specific talents or skills. I'm just a really big fan of how easy the entire site is to use. Easy to edit your profile, easy to upload anything really, music, videos, images, etc.

And their video player kicks ass. Here's the Monter Cops 1.3 intro.




Check out my profile on poptent.

Pool Illusion

Yup, so gonna have one of these in my backyard.

False Pool

Research Videos - Mini Gun

Taking note specifically of the look of tracer fire at night from long distances as well as an understanding of the basic function of a mini gun.

Mark Wahlberg Talks To Animals

I saw it live and laughed my ass off. Thank God they had the sense to upload it. I've been quoting it since Saturday.

Stopping Power

Welcome to the power of stop.

Things get hectic, the world spins, you're going at full speed, trying to do a thousand things. This is when the power of stop comes in handy. In the midst of all the hubbub, it's often a good idea just to say stop. To hit the brakes, take a good long look at the situation, often times this keeps you from running into problems or creating bigger ones. Or as some say, check yourself before you wreck yourself.

I'm kind of at that point right now. Alot going on. And I forsee a collision of sorts if I don't stop and really look at where things are headed. So this week I'm saying stop. Things are spinning on the Monster Cops project. And I need to take a good long look at exactly what needs to be done, and how that is going to happen. Can't get all I wanted to get done before Halloween, but if I work it right I won't really have to. So we are at Stop for this week.

If you have anything to do at all with production, then know that there will be no shooting this week. Not Wednesday and not Saturday. Need to rethink some things. But I will be contacting everyone individually.

The Up Minute

Life's made of minutes. One minute you're up, the next minute you're down. The good thing about a down minute is that the next minute you'll be up again. I forget where I heard that from.

I do have much weighing on my mind. Mostly about Monster Cops and what needs to be done next. I've sort of been fighting for time to work on it. My timeline is shrinking, and as usual I pressure myself to get more done than I can. I have to come to terms that there just isn't enough time, not when you have to juggle everyone else's schedule as well as you're own, especially when you're not paying anyone. Welcome to nobudget DIY moviemaking.

The past few days have been a very fast succession of up and down minutes. Just in the past few hours it's been a very long down minute. I normally do a good job of staying positive, but just too much to juggle, and the normal frustrations of moviemaking. We all do it. We create something and then we begin to doubt ourselves. Doubt that our creations are even worth anything or that your ideas and dreams are even going anywhere. That's the down minute I was stuck in as I was cleaning the kitchen I was entirely too tired to clean, and I still had the Monster Cops agenda on my mind.

For the past few days we'd actually been checking the local Fox TV station to see if they were playing the Midway Wicked Woods commercial I had worked on. Occasionally flipping over to the station to see if it would pop up. I saw nothing but commercials for every other haunted house. Tonight as I was scrubbing our George Foreman Grill (yes we have one and we use it often) I looked up at the TV in the kitchen when I heard my voice over.

I'd done work on commercials, made videos and segments, seen my work on TV before, but tonight it was a welcome sight to see this particular commercial. I really love the voice over work I did on the ad, very proud of it. And although I'd done this kind of thing before, it was still nice to see something I produced be broadcast to a wider audience. It always feels good to finally get your creation to where it deserves to be, in front of people.

It put me back on an up minute. Suddenly cleaning the kitchen and scrubbing the grill wasn't so bad. Hey at least I have a kitchen and a roof over my head. There are people in this world who have much less. At least I can say I've put ads on TV, I've made short films that have played in fests, and I've got a movie on DVD. I'm actually very lucky. I mean I do have a George Foreman Grill after all.