PadawanGeek's Blog

Goodbye, Vimeo!

2008-10-19T10:27:00.000-07:00

As you may know, I have been using Vimeo to upload my HD videos to. Recently Vimeo came out with Vimeo Plus, which gives you 2 GB per week, no ads, and more for $59.95 per year. This all sounds good, but the free version of Vimeo has been downgraded. Now, you can only upload 1 HD video per week. This would be fine with me if the numbers rolled over, so that I could upload no videos one week, then two videos the next, and so on. Also, it costs $10 per 1000 views to embed a video in an external page. How hard is it for them to embed a video?

As a result of this, I have decided to start using Exposure Room. Though I don't like the XR interface as much as Vimeo's, I would rather use XR, who lets me do multiple uploads per week and free embedding.

So here's Pillow Man, our worst film ever =P, on Exposure Room!

Pillow Man By Padawan Geek
View in HD Download 720p Version Visit Padawan Geek's ExposureRoom Videos Page

Goodbye, Vimeo!

Render Farm

2008-09-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't had many blog posts up in a while, because school has started and I'm bogged down with homework from my math teacher (all of my other subjects are fine on homework, but math.... grr...). Anyway, this blog post is about my new render farm. What is a render farm you ask?

A render farm, also known as "networked rendering", is when two or more computers work together to render, or create, the same video file. My render farm is for Adobe After Effects.

I first got the idea for a render farm when I was talking with two of my cousins and I said something about the old computers I had lying around. They jokingly said, "You should make a render farm!". I laughed and forgot about it. The other day I was bored so I decided to start trying to make a render farm. I set up one of the computers in my room on the network and loaded up After Effects Render Engine on it (free). Then, I tried to create a shared folder on my main computer but it didn't work at all. So I changed the watch folder to a folder on my NAS and it worked.

The problem now is that the NAS is slow and it slows down the hole render process. Unless I can get it to work using a computer for sharing instead of the NAS, the render farm is useless to me because it doesn't improve the render speeds. Anyone have any tips on file sharing on Windows XP?

Pillow Man!

2008-08-02T10:00:00.001-07:00

Zerek44 and I were really bored and we thought we would make our own cheap superhero movie! We know its cheesy.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH IN HD

or just watch it in SD right here:

Pillow Man! from PadawanGeek on Vimeo.

HV30!

2008-08-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

AHHHH!!!! I'm so happy! I just got a Canon HV30! Its an awesome awesome possum HD camera! Here's a video about it.

Go to the Vimeo Page http://vimeo.com/1446265 to watch it in HD or just watch it in standard definition right here:

My New HV30 from PadawanGeek on Vimeo.

Blog not working.

2008-07-27T21:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry guys, but my blog theme is not working becasue I tried to change it and now its all screwed up. Ive been working on it for hours and can't fix it so I'm going to bed now. Bye.

Yoda Horror Movie 2

2008-07-23T07:28:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

I'm pleased to announce that part one of the Yoda Horror Movie 2 has been released (isn't that a catchy title, "Yoda Horror Movie Two Part One"?).

Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwWDxLwspfI

Wasn't that amazing (or at least amusing)!? But as you may (or may not) know, there's a dark, dark story behind every horror movie. This movie is an exception to that, but it still does have a story.

So, the part with me and zerek listening to the radio was shot in his backyard, with the wetlands right behind it. we thought that would be a perfect place to video some of the movie. So we film the whole jumping over the fence thing, and then we start to film him walking (in the wetlands), when out of nowhere, an angry neighbor that has a house that backs up to the wetlands starts telling us to get out of the wetlands because its against the law to be in there (yeah right!) and that it's for the animals (we are animals!). Anyway, we follow his command becasue we knew he would call the police if we didn't leave, so we went back to zerek's house and shot some indoor scenes.

A few days later I was thinking, and realised that there was a park right be my house that looked just like the wetlands behind zerek's house. So I call him up and we go to the park and then we were able to pick up right where we left off. Awesome!

Awesome Thing of the Week!

2008-07-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

This week's awesome thing:

The Hv20 forums
http://www.hv20.com/

This site is a great place for chit-chatting about filmaking and asking questions. Contrary to common belief, this site is not just for Hv20/30 users, it's for EVERYONE! Yay!

Awesome Thing of the Week!

2008-07-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

This week's awesome thing:

Canon VIXIA HV30

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ModelInfoAct&fcategoryid=177&modelid=16206

!!!This is so awesome!!! Canon's update of the popular HV20. HD, 30p, 24p, optical IS, shutter priority and aperture priority modes, and tons of other features! This is a great camera becasue of its balance of price and quality. If you're looking for a new video camera, this is the one to get!

Oregon Days 5-6

2008-07-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I didn't write a blog post yesterday or the day before, but I CAN EXPLAIN! =) I wrote the day 4 post when I was supposed to, but Blogger only put it up as a draft and I didn't notice until this morning so then I put it up today. The blog for day 5 was late becasue, well, umm, I just didn't put it up.

Anyway, here's the interesting parts on days 5 and 6. On Sunday (day 5) we went to my grandparent's Lutheran church, which I thought was interesting. It was nothing like the church services that I usually go to (loud music, flashing lights, huge stage, etc.), but it was good to go to a church where I wasn't distracted by all of the tech stuff. The only visible tech stuff there were 3 speakers, 2 gooseneck mics, and a lapel mic. The church service was good except for that I didn't know the tune of any of the songs and there was no one up front leading us and there was some guy behind me that was singing the wrong notes so it started to confuse me =/. After church, I got home and did practically nothing. After that, I went to DQ again. Yay.

Day 6... what did I do on day 6? Hmm... Oh, I tried to fix Premiere Pro 2.0 on my laptop. Whenever I tried to turn on the program, it would load, but then get stuck on a file called write_on.AEX. I tried tons of things to fix this, but I couldn't fix it. Oh well... I also set up a radio in my aunt's house. Not very interesting.

TTYL!

Oregon Day 4

2008-07-13T08:44:00.000-07:00

Four days here. Wow. Halfway though this torture - er - fun. The worst part of yesterday was the fact that I had to go to Dairy Queen and get a chocolate strawberry waffle bowl sundae thingy. Just kidding, it was great. I also went to a community center that had a little water park with a big slide and a river pool thing that went in a circle with a current so that it would pull you along. They also had a hot tub and I just had my feet in it and some lifeguard came over and told me I couldn't have my feet in the hot tub, so I took them out, and just sat next to the hot tub, trying to figure out what difference it made to her that my feet were just 6 inches from where they were. Whatever

Spam

2008-07-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I send out an email to a bunch of my friends/family, telling them about this blog (you may have gotten the email and that's the reason you are reading this). Anyway, this morning I woke up and checked my email, and there was a response to that email in my inbox, telling me to "Don't send me spam mail about your blog, dude." That leads me to wonder, what is considered spam and what is considered just informing people about something.

The dictionary term for spam is this:

Main Entry:: ¹spam
Pronunciation:: \ˈspam\
Function:: noun
Etymology:: from a skit on the British television series Monty Python's Flying Circus in which chanting of the word Spam overrides the other dialogue

: unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses

Did the email that I sent fit that description? Here's the email:

Hi everyone!

I have a blog now! Check it out and leave a comment! Here it is http://padawangeekblog.blogspot.com/. Also, if you don't know, my YouTube account is here: http://www.youtube.com/padawangeek.

The things that mark and email as spam are the following:

Unsolicited (or not asked for)
Commercial (or business-related)
Sent to a large number of addresses (hundreds +)

I think that my email was unsolicited but justified, considering that I felt other people would like to know about my blog. My email was definitely not commercial, and was only sent to 15 of my friends. It seems my email is 1/6 spammy.

Oregon Day 3

2008-07-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to my blog (as you can so I have no idea how to introduce this blog). It's Saturday morning, but I am going to write about Friday because I had no time in the night to write this blog entry, and I probably won't have time all of the other nights that I'm writing blogs about my trip but I have all of the time in the world to write blogs in the morning because of the fact that I'm usually the first one up and have nothing to do in the morning besides write blog entry.

What did I do yesterday? Umm... I went bowling! Yeah, that was fun! I did really bad though, must of the times I rolled the ball it just went into the gutter, except for two times when I got strikes. Funny thing is that the first time I got a strike I fell on the floor as I was rolling the ball, looked up, and all of the pins were down. Weird.

I went over to my aunt's house for dinner and ran into a screen door thingy. No wonder it looked smokey outside!

TTYL!
PadawanGeek

Oregon Day 2

2008-07-10T17:02:00.000-07:00

This day two of my trip to Oregon... co-o-ol (inside joke)! Right now I'm sitting in a house in a kitchen at a table on a laptop with a grandma. My laptop is sticky because yesterday I was hanging out with my cousins and we were eating/drinking/sucking otter pops and I accidentally got one on my laptop so now I'm trying to clean it up.

I forgot to mention that yesterday when I was on the train I opened up a pack of cards that I had got for my birthday months ago and lo and behold, there was a 20 dollar bill, sitting there in the pack of cards, waiting for me! How awesome!

Today we played a game called Pit where you try to get all of the same card. Its really fun because you get to yell a lot and make the neighbors mad ;) .

TTYL!
Padawangeek

Oregon!

2008-07-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

Guess where I am! Well, you should know if you read the title! Yes, you are in fact supposed to read the title of a post before you read the actual post. Anyway, I am in Oregon! For once I actually get to fly on a plane instead of drive and drive and drive and drive etc. etc. etc. Hooray!

Coming here has given me some great locations to shoot parts of The Hobo Episode 4! I can't give you any guarantees on when it is going to be posted on YouTube, but it might be in the next month or so as long as I get around to shooting and editing the rest of it.

Don't think that I've forgotten about Yoda Horror Movie 2, that is still in progress! Right now my life has been full of trying to make money for a new video camera and my new blog and traveling and stuff like that.

TTYL!
PadawanGeek

The 15 Dollar Battery Pack

2008-07-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!

I little while back I posted a video on YouTube for a battery pack I made for my video camera, and I thought I should post a parts list in my blog so that you don't need to write it down. If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out the video on YouTube at the bottom of this blog post or at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjwMcfs27Zk.

The Parts:

The parts you will need for this project are:

Your camera or camcorder

Your camera or camcorder’s AC power adapter

Two 9 Volt Batteries

A pack of at least two 9 Volt Battery Connectors

A 4x2x1 inch project enclosure

A DC Power Socket (I used Size M)

2 DC Power Plugs (whatever size your socket is)

20 Gauge Wire

Heat shrink tubing

The Tools:

Wire Cutters

Screwdriver

Soldering Iron

Solder

Wire Stripper (optional)

VideoCopilot.net

2008-07-08T19:41:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you all know about an awesome website with some great Adobe After Effects tutorials on it. The website is Video Copilot (http://www.videocopilot.net/). The tutorials on this website are hosted by Andrew Kramer, an awesome VFX artist. Go check it out!

Awesome Thing of the Week!

2008-07-08T18:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Awesome Thing of the Week, where I show you awesome things!

This week's awesome thing:

Indy Mogul
http://www.indymogul.com/

Wow... This is a great resource for people that don't have much money and want to make really cool videos, like me! Check it out. Now.

NEW BLOG!

2008-07-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

Woot! I finally have a blog!!! Isn't this an exciting day? Maybe not... Anyway, if this post bores you, the posts in the future will be ABSOLUTELY CAPTIVATING! So don't think that this blog is just another boring blog.

Anyway, if you're wondering why the URL for this blog is "padawangeekblog" instead of "padawangeek" is because "padawangeek" is already taken by some guy who doesn't even have any blog posts! That URL stealer!!! Oh well, life goes on.

If you're bored still, check out my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/padawangeek.

Anyway, this blog will have an awesome thing of a week posted every Tuesday, where awesome things are shared! Hooray!

Talk to you later, or more precisely, blog to you later! Ha ha ha (lame pun)