Celebrate the alliance

Everything is so much cooler when you add lasers, swords, fire, explosions and fast cars!

Over the past month I’ve been working on a new video project, and yes, it has all of the above and more! It’s also the first project where I have really gotten into using After Effects. While I had only dabbled in the software on a couple of previous projects (doing simple green screen shots, etc.) this was probably the first time I actually took a dive into the deep end and began taking full advantage of its abundance of tools. A little late to the show, I know… but I’m confident I have done pretty well to catch up. This was also the first project in which I worked closely with my fiancé Mel, who, along with myself, makes an appearance in the video (you’ll find out why).

While I can only tease you with some screenshots from the video, I plan on releasing the full version online within the next 7 days, so as secretive as I am being now (for reasons that must remain secret) it won’t be too long before you can see what I am talking about. I guess the biggest surprise won’t be the video itself but what it was created for. It’s a pretty unique idea and hopefully everyone will get a kick out of seeing it.

The 6 1/2 minute video will be available in the gloriously shiny 1080P resolution on Vimeo and pseudo 1080P on YouTube (if you can call it that). Just to give you a few more details: the film was predominantly shot using the Panasonic HPX172-EN which is the successor the to camera that was used to shoot most of Matt Reeves’ and J.J. Abrhams’ ‘Cloverfield’ (the HVX200), and the B-shots were done using the Canon XLH1. The film was edited in Premiere Pro CS5, special effects done in After Effects CS5, and a small amount of 3D animation using 3DS Max 2011.

Anyway, without further adieu, here are some still image captures from the video:

With any luck the full version will be online in a matter of days!

Until then, adios… and stay away from particle beams!

-Mat.