Category Archives: Post-Production

The Lightsaber Effect

One of the first special effects I ever did when I started making videos was to shoot a sequence of two guys fighting with wood lightsabers and then frame-by-frame add in the glowing blade. I’ve done it a couple of other times since then and it never ceases to be cool. Even if it’s just you and a couple of friends beating each other with sticks, once you add in the lightsaber effect, it becomes cool.

That being said, there’s a really fun collection of 10 great lightsaber mash-ups in which people have added lightsabers into movies like Lord of the Rings, 300, The Princess Bride, and more over at Videogum. Below is a clip someone put together from Pirates of the Caribbean. Click here for the full list.

Film #3: Quick Update 3

I have the picture edit finished, the music score finished, and I’m working on mixing all of the sound right now. I’ll hopefully have the film finished within a couple of hours. Of course, even though I will soon have Film #3 done, I don’t have much time to slow down. I’m now a week into April and I need to seriously get moving on Film #4.

But for now, one thing at a time: Film #3 first.

Film #3: Quick Update 2

I have a full cut of the picture. The editing still needs some tightening before I call it locked and move on to the sound, but it’s looking good. Speaking of sound, it’s going to be really important in this film. There’s a lot of empty space where action is happening with no dialogue or other sounds to hold the tension so I feel like the final sound effects mix along with the musical soundtrack are going to be key in ratcheting up and maintaining the emotion.  More coming soon…

Film #3: Quick Update

I just wanted to give an update on my film for March (yes, I realize it’s now officially April). I’m in the process of editing it and it may still take a couple days to finish. I got slammed with work over the last few days and didn’t get a chance to do much editing on the film. I’m making some progress now, but there’s still a good amount to do. I’ll keep posting updates on the progress here and in the twitter feed. Stay tuned, new film soon!

Film #2: Update

I just finished recording the soundtrack.  My friend Robert came over with guitars in hand and wrote a great score for the short.  We dropped a cut of the film into Garageband, plugged him in, and put it all together over a couple hours.  I had never used Garageband to record live music or even to mix music for a video.  It worked remarkably well and it just blows me away that it’s one of the stock applications that come with any Mac.

Anyway, I’m mixing the audio right now and still need to finish up the titles and end credits.  Stay tuned, it will be up soon…

Film #1: Quick Update

As the end of the month has arrived (it just passed midnight), I’m working hard to finish up my first film of the series.  Here’s a little progress report: I finished the full visual cut and I’m really pleased with how it all looks.  Now I just need to be as pleased with how it all sounds.  I’ve moved on to editing sound and creating the soundtrack.  I’ve actually got some foley work to still do in order to get some sounds that weren’t happening live during the shoot.  I’ve got about half of the music bed created for the film and I’m working on the second half.  The plan for the film is to still have it up by tomorrow (or I guess it’s today – either way: January 31).  Stay tuned…