Another new demo reel short making the rounds...

"Meet Meline" is a demo reel short film by the french filmmaking duo Sebastien Laban and Virginie Goyons which has been making the rounds recently on the CG forums.

Technically well done, (though the shaky camera was a bit overdone in my opinion) and this took the filmmakers 2 years to make. 2 years for 6:24 of a cg girl running around. Mind you, I'm willing to cut them some slack for holding down full time jobs working on video game cinematics and getting hitched during that period. And the rendering, the electricity bill for this must have been a bit of a kicker...

Spoilers:

Plot Synopsis:

1. Girl draws a squirrel or something resembling a squirrel
2. It comes to life (luckily she didn't draw a velociraptor, or an alien face hugger)
3. She chases it for most of the film
4. Surprise ending typical of 'animated shorts'

The only real gripe I'm going to make is that it's not in 3D-glasses 3D

Legend of the Moon

This is a short film I did recently to rough out some ideas for my next feature, and to work out a workflow for stereoscopic 3D rendering and compositing:

Grab your red-blue 3D glasses for the HD vimeo version:

or the 2D version on youtube:

or the 3D anaglyph version on youtube... or the 3d version using youtube's 3D player...

Anaglyph isn't the best way to see 3D, but it's the cheapest and easiest way at the moment. Until everyone shells out 5 grand or so for a 3D monitor or TV, 75 cent red/blue glasses are the way to go. This looks great on my old Amiga monitor with 3D LCD shutter glasses, but that doesn't help you all out much. Trust me though, it looks great :P (Anyone with "field sequential" or "lcd shutterglasses" and you want a version of this in that format, let me know... everyone else who doesn't know what I'm talking about: don't worry :P )

With updated (and better) music than the original version some of you may have already seen, this is sort of a teaser trailer but not really kinda... sort of. The next film will be a follow-up to Archon Defender, although not of the usual prequel / sequel type of film, more like an expanded look at the world and mythology I established in Archon Defender.

Turns out that stereo 3D is not much harder to do than 2D, especially when 3D max is already in 3D (thus the name) and it's "simply" a matter of adding a second camera and rendering out the footage for the other eye. Of course this means twice the amount of rendering for each shot, twice the amount of disk space needed. Plus a way to preview and compose in 3D (this is where the red/blue glasses come in handy)

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Once again Hollywood has jumped on the 3D bandwagon, this time in response to online piracy. Avatar was obviously cool in 3D, but they are also releasing a bunch of crap movies hurriedly converted from 2D to 3D. Cardboard-cutout-o-vision, much? The real thing that will sell 3D to the masses is video games. The movie industry also wants to make it seem that 3D is something that only the big boys have the money or ability to pull off. Well, I'm here to show that not only can you make a film yourself, you can also do it in 3D, and you already have all the tools you need to do this sitting right in front of you as you read this.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror

Birdemic is the cinematic masterpiece of director James Nguyen who self-produced and directed his cinematic vision over a 3 year period, all while paying the bills working at a software sales day job. Billed as a 'romantic thriller', Birdemic delivers on both of these, and more.

"A platoon of eagles and vultures attack the residents of a small town. Many people died. It's not known what caused the flying menace to attack. Two people managed to fight back, but will they survive Birdemic?"

Now, Birdemic is a film so horribly bad that it's actually good. The sound editing has been cut together from the original takes without consideration of matching levels or masking out abrubt changes in background noise or momentary drops in silence, the acting is terrible. The special effects - which look like animated gif's of eagles superimposed on the footage - is the icing on the cake.

Now when I say that Birdemic is horribly bad; this is a good thing. I can't recall a movie lately where I've laughed through the whole thing. And it's a sad indictment of the turkey farm that the romantic scenes, awkward as they are in Birdemic, are more believable than certain other cinematic offerings lately.

Birdemic is a great example of holding true to your creative vision and making your film regardless of any obstacles or resistance. I've certainly experienced my share of the complaineys who didn't like Archon Defender. Isn't it odd that once a film becomes 'bad enough' that it's actually good.