A prayer for filmmaking

Lord, please help me to be able to make films. Thank you for the grace you have allowed me and showing me how to get this far.

May the road ahead be brighter than the night behind, may the sun rise swiftly upon my weary face, may my soul be refreshed at the springs of justice, my hope renewed at the wells of mercy.

May my path be guided upon each turn I make, and may my feet find swiftly the road I am to take.

God bless me, my friends, and all those who want to be filmmakers.  May our journey be sweet and ushered upon the dirt paths to quiet victory, down the dales of February frost and early June flowers, to the river of conquest unto the sea of rest.

May the journey we choose be worth all our lives.

God, please hear our prayer, amen.

-b

Pendulum upon the precipice

I am not sure what is ahead.  Every step is a new direction – all feet set forward upon one path, each stride turning upon a seperate trail: my interests split, my concentration fractioned, my hope dispelled.

Regathering my wit and course, I set once more for my goal – but swirve all too soon upon some spurious idea that has tinged my curiousity to the point of action.  And alas, I am left bare of results once again.

But the tide does not always carry me this way, nor the wind press my path in such a scurried manner – it is I, unsure of my future, who takes on every new legend and occupation that could hap fall upon someone seeking a victorious conquest.  Unwise, yes.  Nieve, perhaps.  Who I am, yes.

So here I am, still trying to figure out video editing with a limited budget and waning time – my friends I hope have not found lack in my progress, though most likely their hearts are ticking on as the clock’s pendelum swings back and forth, each moment bringing full tide of another hour and two days.

But here I am, yet I stand, endeavoring to conquer.

And perhaps I will.

-b

Quick note

Heard about BlenderAVC from Rob Scott.  I hope to be able to use this as a .tod HD editing option.

A new film idea came to me recently.  It’s called “Amelia”.  That’s all I’ll give you about it for now.  🙂

God is good.

May you be guided along the path,
May you find the early blossom,
And may you, in the hard times of life
Find comfort in all that is around you.

May the soft kiss of the silver dawn
Grace your wearied face.
And, as you tread the morning dew,
May God seek and find you.

Let’s travel this journey together.

-b

Not sure what’s ahead

As the days pass by and progress is made in various areas, one may wonder what happened to Minosa Films – like, where are the films?!

Well, I suppose everything has a journey.  And each journey has it’s pilgrims, and once in a while, you run across a hero.  Well, I am a pilgrim.  And I need to do my part, and my part is not only the technical side of making sure we have a camcorder that will work, but scripts to make movies from.  So, I need to write scripts.  We have one script for a film titled “Is This Love?”, and I plan to make revisions upon it (basically add to/and or rewrite it.)  I think it would be wise to have more than one script on hand, so, I need to write! 😉

Recently I found out about a neat project called Morevna Project.  Check it out here: morevnaproject.org.  I am considering contributing to it.  From the website:

The main goal of Morevna Project is creation of full-lengthened anime movie, utilizing Open Source software only.

Other goals:

• Promotion of Open Source software and its ideology.
• Testing and improving existing Open Source products by giving appropriated feedback to developers and community.
• Validate Open Source tools as suitable for creation of professional good-looking animation.
• Provide content for other artists to learn from or to re-use, including documentation and tutorials

Main production tools:

• 2D animation: Synfig Studio.
• 3D modeling and animation: Blender.
• Static images: GIMP, Krita.

Also, check out this neat song by Staffan Svahn, called Red Hills.

And now back to what I need to do.  God bless!

-b

Leap

It’s ordered!  Praise the Lord.

Leap.  Yes, this was a leap.  A leap of expectation, uneasiness, hardware, and more.  I hope it all works out!  Leap!  I wonder… leap!  Well, my last cameras I’ve used are the Canon PowerShot A510 and the Quasar VM-L450, so this new camcorder is a great leap indeed!

This evening (or shall I say, morning) I finally ordered my camcorder, an Everio GZ-HD7.  Quite expensive if you’ve never actually bought your own camcorder before.  (Boy, that was anti-climatic.) ;D  Before I bought it I did some final research into the proprietary file format it puts your video files into, .TOD (HD video) and .MOD (SD video.)  I primarily researched the .tod issue and found out about the .mod one along the way.  You can read up on it here: Struggling with TOD at The Digital Video Information Network, and some solutions: JVC Workflow and Squared 5’s MPEG Streamclip.

As I have no personal experience with the camera and the .tod issues yet I cannot recommend anything beyond what I have read, but I may post on this later.  Basically you can use the software that comes with the Everio GZ-HD7 and save-as the video, or rename it to .m2t, or something… boy, I need to read up on it already!

Anyhow, I better start making some films now that I will have the first step in the equipement.  ;D  I may get Sony Vegas MovieStudio soon, to handle the HD.  (I don’t think Adobe Premiere Pro 1.0 does HD.)

So, perhaps this is the end of the tunnel, (or just starting?)

Thanks for listening,

God bless,

-b

P.S. Hope to be making films soon… I may be starting a graphic design company as well, so, we’ll see how all that goes.  But may I not forget my roots.  Thank you one and all!   Thank you John Calloway (http://johncalloway.wordpress.com/) for the help in camera research, and Andrew Duncan for insight into the digital video world!  Thank you all my other friends, supporters, comrades in the arts, and brothers and sisters in Christ… may we all find the path.  God bless, your friend, b

Working Towards Rewards

As of the past three weeks I have been working towards getting a DV camcorder.  I am looking at the Everio GZ-HD7 (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/479003-REG/JVC_GZHD7US_GZ_HD7_Everio_60GB_Hard.html) which is much more expensive than anything I had imagined I would look for at this time.

So, with working, events, and living, I find myself in moments of solitude, set apart for God and thinking.  Thinking “do I even want to get that camera?  I’m no sure I care…”, wondering, and praying some.

I will probably get this camera, (praise the Lord!,) I will likely endeavor doing interviews, making films with the members of Minosa Films, my friends and family, and even some commercial work.

But in every new step up in the tower of life, I must recall my duties and check my burdens – have I accomplished all that people have required of me to this moment?  Am I free to move on?  And I must decide and make action upon that conclusion.

I do not want to abandon the talents that have dogged my life so divenely my whole life, but I am eager and curious to move forward in this direction of film making.

Thank you for listening and God bless!

Can’t wait till the future, wondering about it all,

-b