Sanniainen

Talvipäiviä

2012-01-31T12:06:00.004+02:00

Äikän koe... Done. Ja sain jopa sen tiiliskiven luettua, tosin vähän harppoen lopussa, mutta kuitenkin. Tänään on sitten kokeeton päivä, joka on tähän mennessä alkanut mukavasti yhteiskuntaopin ja EU:n aluepolittiikkakiemuroiden parissa.

Lauantaina käytiin Piian kanssa kuvailemassa kaivoksella ja vaikka suurta taidetta ei syntynytkään, oli rentouttavaa käydä vaihteen vuoksi ihan tarkoituksellisesti räpsimässä kuvia. Sessio jäi harmi kyllä lyhyeksi, koska ulkona oli todella kylmä ja sormet oli tunnottomat jo siinä vaiheessa kun päästiin kaivokselle. Tulipahan päivän happihyppelyt samalla tehtyä.

Eilen käytiin filmaamassa viimeiset pätkät meidän Taitaja semifinaalitehtävään. Näytettiin samalla kuvaamamme materiaali tanssin opettajalle ja saimme kehuja haastattelusta. Tässä joku päivä tehdään tarkempi käsikirjoitus ja tuotantosuunnitelma, jonka jälkeen ollaan valmiita semifinaaleihin. Kunnianhimoisena tavoitteena on tietenkin päästä finaaleihin asti ;)

Day 01 - Your favorite song
Day 02 - Your least favorite song
Day 03 - A song that makes you happy
Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 - A song that you can dance to
Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 - A song from your favorite band
Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 - A song that describes you
Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 - A song from your favorite album
Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year

Tietyssä mielentilassa näitä kuuntelemalla saa melkein aina kyyneleet silmiin. On ne vaan sen verran kauniita <3

Alunperin tulin koneelle kirjoittamaan production portfolion raporttia, mutta se nyt taas jäi kun upposin internetin ihmeelliseen maailmaan. Sitä siis seuraavana luvassa...

Highway to the danger zone

2012-01-26T22:32:00.001+02:00

Tänään sai nukkua yhdeksään (tosin eikö sitä ole tehty tässä viimeiset kolme päivää... mitkä kahdeksan aamut?), jonka jälkeen aamupalaa naamariin ja autolla Lammenkadulle Piian kanssa hakemaan kuvauskalustoa Taitaja semifinaalihaastattelua varten.

Löydettiin jopa haastateltavamme työhuone, vaikka saimmekin melko monimutkaiset ohjeet ja epäilimme kykyämme suunnistaa paikalle... Hyvinhän myö sinne löydettiin ja haastattelustakin tuli muuten yllättävän hyvä. Lopuksi sitten juteltiin Australiasta (ja Perthistä) jonkin aikaa tämän haastateltavamme kanssa, jossa tämä oli käynyt useaankin otteeseen. Piristi kyllä kummasti kun sai kuulla vaihteeksi jonkun muunkin kokemuksia kyseisestä paikasta. (Alla pari kuvaa Aussireissusta muistin virkistämiseksi.)

Tuon jälkeen mentiin Piialle käristämään DVD lättyjä production portfoliota varten ja harjoiteltiin samalla Encoren käyttöä. Eli production portfolio siltä osin tehty, vaikka oudolta se tuntuukin. Vielähän tuosta on tuo kirjallinen osuus aika puolitiessään, mut siihen palataan myöhemmin...

Käväisin sitten aika randomilla Tonin kanssa Jonin ja Nooran kämppää katsomassa (+ join siellä varmaan maailman oudoimman makuista vesi-maito-kaakaosekoitusta ikinä :D). Pyörähdettiin Tokmannilla ostamassa Jonille jotain pahvia ja jatkoin sieltä sit suoraan Mikonkadulle kahtomaan Dollhouse- nimistä TV-sarjaa.

Nyt pitäis aloittaa enkun lukeminen kun huomenna on koe. (Tuntuu muuten taas vaihteeks siltä et miun ajankäyttö ei oo kovinkaan tehokasta.)

Psst. Selailin vanhoja kuvia tätä blogitekstiä varten ja tuli ihan mieletön hinku lähtee kuvaamaan. Melkein ahistaa... Tuntuu et elämä on koulun takia pelkää aikatauluttamista ja hirveetä säätöä, eikä muuhun sitten enää jääkään voimia :/ Mie lupaan ottaa ihteäni joku päivä niskasta kiinni ja antautua valokuvaukselliselle luovuudenpuuskalle.

Mutta nyt pari iloista biisiä...

Day 01 - Your favorite song
Day 02 - Your least favorite song
Day 03 - A song that makes you happy
Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 - A song that you can dance to
Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 - A song from your favorite band
Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 - A song that describes you
Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 - A song from your favorite album
Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year

Vaikeuksien kautta voittoon

2012-01-24T23:19:00.001+02:00

Voitteko uskoa: kaikista alun vaikeuksista huolimatta (joita ahkerasti täälläkin mainostin) meidän production portfolio valmistui ajallaan.

Kun yksi tietokone ei riitä...

Editointiprosessi oli itsessään yllättävän kivuton... Ainoa ongelma oli tosiaankin nuo alun koodekit, mutta kun monen mutkan kautta sain ne viimein muotoon joita Premierekin ymmärsi, lopputulos oli, ettei ohjelma kaatunut kertaakaan (kyllä: siis KERTAAKAAN) koko homman aikana. Varsinainen ihme, sillä leikattavaa materiaalia oli todella paljon sekä tiivis leikkaustahti ja mustavalkoefektit värinsäätöineen sinällään ovat aika raskaita koneelle pyörittää.

Nyt on vaan enää DVD:lle poltto ja raportin rustaaminen jäljellä. Sitten kaikki on virallisesti pulkassa.

Kökköä kuvankäsittelyä part 1.

Muiden IB-juttujen kanssa menee ihan hyvin. Reflectiveen tein tarvittavia korjauksia ja IS:n kanssa on aika selvät sävelet mitä seuraavaksi tulee tapahtumaan. Kyllä tää kiire tästä pikku hiljaa äyttäis helpottavan.

Koeviikko alkaa torstaina, joten luppoaikaa löytty kivasti kun tässä jaksossa ei ole kuin kolme koetta. Äikän koetta varten pitää lukaista yksi teos, jonka aika munkilla valitsin nimen perusteella listasta ja toivoin että se olisi suhteellisen lyhyt. Kirjastossa meinasin jo saada sydänkohtauksen, kun aluksi silmäni hyllyjä selaillessani nauliutuivat saman kirjailijan vähintään kolme kertaa paksumpaan teokseen. Onneksi tämä minun valintani osoittautuikin vain 500 sivuiseksi...

Kökköä kuvankäsittelyä part2.

Olen nyt lukenut noin sata sivua enkä vieläkään tiedä oliko tuo hyvä vai huono valinta. Teksti on erittäin filosofista, joten puolet asioista menee käytännössä ohi. Haitanneeko tuo...

Tänään käytiin Piian kanssa hypärillä eläinkaupassa ja mukaan tarttui uusi naksutin, koska edellinen on mielestäni aika kovaääninen sisäkäyttöön. En kyseistä kapistusta ole kaivannut kyllä useaan vuoteen kun ei ole tarvinnut noille meidän otuksille opettaa mitään uutta.

Naksuttimen lisäksi hakusessa siis vielä koiranpentu, jonka kanssa aloittaa varsinainen naksutinkoulutus... (Kyllä, miulla on edelleen ihan järjetön koirakuume ja lopullista lievitystä ei todennäköisesti ole tiedossa vuosiin.) Mutta siihen asti sovellan koulutuksen periaatetta Toniin ;D

Day 01 - Your favorite song
Day 02 - Your least favorite song
Day 03 - A song that makes you happy
Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 - A song that you can dance to
Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 - A song from your favorite band
Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 - A song that describes you
Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 - A song from your favorite album
Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year

Tää oli erittäin vaikea valinta, koska näitä ei-suosikkibiisejä löytyy... Voin valehtelematta sanoo että ihan kaikki suomalaiset reggae ja rap-artistit ja kaikki heidän biisinsä (muutamaa poikkeusta lukuunottamatta) kuuluvat tähän kategoriaan. Ja korostan vielä, että "least favorite" on turhan liian lievä ilmaisu kuvaamaan näiden biisien ja miun välistä suhdetta.

No-life?

2012-01-15T17:11:00.003+02:00

Jospa sitä taas blogia päivittäisi kun ei ole muutakaan tekemistä. Epätoivo on iskeny jo pari kertaa tuon editoinnin kanssa kun en ole vieläkään päässyt alkuun lähinnä koodekkien kanssa temppuilun takia. Ja nyt ilmaantui uusi ongelma, sillä Premieren väliaikaistiedostot täyttivät tuon koneen ruhtinaallisen 30 gigan kovalevyn kokonaan, josta seurasi luonnollisesti pelkkiä ongelmia. Päätin nimittäin siirtää Premieren F:/ asemalle, joka ei neljästä yrityksesta huolimatta suostunut sinne asentumaan.

Kertoo hyvin miun eilisestä päivästä tuo tuntimäärä tuolla ylhäällä...

Eilen oli muutenkin aika tuskainen päivä yksin kissavahtina. Ensiksi tuo kone temppuilee, sitten löydän omalta läppäriltäni vakoiluohjelman, jonka jälkeen halsuin katsoa elokuvaa, mutta DVD soitin hajosi eikä digiboksikaan toiminut :D Hyvin menee siis. Onneksi omalla koneella pystyi vielä jotenkuten pelaamaan Bejewelediä, vaikka F-secure pyörikin ahkerasti taustalla.

Rene ei myöskään tykkää salamavaloista.

Tänä aamuna sitten äiti herätti minut joskus kymmenen maissa rämpyttämällä ovikelloa niin paljon että Rene ressukka sai vähintään elinikäiset traumat. (Jostain syystä se on aina pelännyt ovikelloa.) Kissa parka ei uskalla mennä enää uloskaan, kun kaiken maailman jättimäiset aura-autot kolistelee pihan tuntumassa ja toissapäivänä se alkoi pelätä niitäkin.

Jotta tää päivitys ei olis ihan turhanpäiväinen, aloitan minäkin musiikkihaasteen:

Day 01 - Your favorite song
Day 02 - Your least favorite song
Day 03 - A song that makes you happy
Day 04 - A song that makes you sad
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - A song that reminds of you of somewhere
Day 07 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 08 - A song that you know all the words to
Day 09 - A song that you can dance to
Day 10 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 11 - A song from your favorite band
Day 12 - A song from a band you hate
Day 13 - A song that is a guilty pleasure
Day 14 - A song that no one would expect you to love
Day 15 - A song that describes you
Day 16 - A song that you used to love but now hate
Day 17 - A song that you hear often on the radio
Day 18 - A song that you wish you heard on the radio
Day 19 - A song from your favorite album
Day 20 - A song that you listen to when you’re angry
Day 21 - A song that you listen to when you’re happy
Day 22 - A song that you listen to when you’re sad
Day 23 - A song that you want to play at your wedding
Day 24 - A song that you want to play at your funeral
Day 25 - A song that makes you laugh
Day 26 - A song that you can play on an instrument
Day 27 - A song that you wish you could play
Day 28 - A song that makes you feel guilty
Day 29 - A song from your childhood
Day 30 - Your favorite song at this time last year

Lempibiisejä on kyllä monia, mutta tää on roikkunu aika pitkään suosikkien listoilla. Tykkään paljon industrialista ja tässä tulee esille sellasia soundeja jotka saa niskakarvat nousemaan pystyyn. (Ehkä vähän liioiteltuna mut kuitenkin.) Tykkään myös sanoista, laulajan äänestä ja ihan kaikesta. Tosiaan niitä harvoja kappaleita, joita jaksaa kuunnella uudestaan ja uudestaan.

Enemmän kuin tuhat sanaa

2012-01-12T16:47:00.000+02:00

Yhden ainoan kuvan muodossa:

En oikeesti käsitä mikä tässä mättää...

Kuvauspäivä part 3: lisää kylmyyttä ja kahvia

2012-01-08T18:29:00.002+02:00

Mutta ohi se viimein on! Päivän tapahtumat tiivistettynä neljään kuvaan:

Tämän päivän tärkeimmät kuvaustarpeet - erityismainintana lämmin kahvi.

Jenna onnistui kalastelemaan katanansa hangesta, joten ongelmia sen suhteen
ei enää tullut.

Tässä hytistään kylmästä kuvausten loppupuolella.

Illalla sitten syötiin lettuja antoisan kuvauspäivän päätteeksi.

Nyt alkaa sitten armoton editointirumba, jota varten kävin Tonilta eilen tietokoneen lainaan kun tän oman tehot ei ihan tunnu riittävän HD-matskun käsittelyyn. Tuossa tuo on hurissu convertoimassa meidän tiedostoja jo hyvän tovin ja toistaiseksi näyttäisi toimivan. Mie vielä jotenkin mystisesti sain äänetkin kuulumaan, vaikka Toni kivenkovaan väitti ettei tuossa masiinassa ole äänikorttia... Elämän suuret mysteerit, joita vaan mie voin saada aikaan :D Pääasia että toimii ja saadaan tää juttu ajoissa valmiiksi.

Kuvauspäivä part 2: verta, kylmyyttä ja kyyneliä

2012-01-07T15:14:00.002+02:00

Sanotaan että tämä päivä ei mennyt ihan suunnitelmien mukaan. Aloiteltiin hieman myöhässä aikataulusta, koska oli kommunikointiongelmia siitä kuka tuo kuvauksiin ketsuppia ja Piian piti vielä viime hetkellä käydä hakemassa sitä samalla kun mie yritin hikisesti peruutella autoa ulos ahtaasta tallista.

Miun auto on temppuillut tässä ihan erityisen paljon viime aikoina, kiitos pakkasten, ja tänäänkin saimme osaksemme ihanaa keskuslukituksen temppuilua. Lopputuloksena oli se, ettei takakontti aukea ollenkaan. (Luonnollisesti meidän kaikki muut kuvauskamat kameraa lukuunottamatta oli siellä ja on valitettavasti edelleen.)

Kädet jäässä.

Ulkona oli tosiaan ihan mielettömän kylmä ja yritettiin hoitaa kuvauksia mahdollisimman rivakasti pois alta. Tämäkin jäi utopistiseksi haaveeksi, sillä kamera päätti temppuilla juuri sopivasti kuvausten alkuvaiheessa. Zoomauksen jälkeen alkoi kuulua ihan järkyttävää surinaa ja hetken ajan kuviteltiin että koko kamera räjähtää käsiin. Otettiin virrat pois ja sama toistui vielä ainakin kerran ja kutsuttiin Jenna pois sillalta siltä varalta ettei voida enää kuvata.

Se oli ihan hyvä veto sillä heti kun Jenna pölähti paikalle kamera toimi taas kuin unelma. Ei kyllä edelleenkään tiedetä mikä sille tuli ja mistä tuommonen voi ylipäätään johtua, mutta parempi että kaikki taas toimii.

Kuvauksia jatkettiin kylmyydestä huolimatta siihen asti, kunnes Jenna onnistui pudottamaan taistelukohtausta varten varatun katanan sillalta alas jyrkän kiviseinämän päälle, josta sitä ei saa varmaankaan ennen kevättä. Että se siitä taistelukohtauksesta :D

Etsi kuvasta katana.

Päätettiin sitten lopetella kuvaukset noilta osin ja Jenna kirjoittaa tänään vaihtoehdon katanalle, jotta huomenna voidaan jatkaa kuvauksia siitä mihin tänään jäätiin.

Otettiin vielä loppuun kohtaus siitä mitä tapahtuu taistelun jälkeen, eli mie jouduin makaamaan hangessa ja sylkemään sitä ketsuppia. Vaikka ei kauan noiden kuvaaminen kestänytkään, ehdin kastua ihan läpikotaisin sen lisäksi että olin jo valmiiksi umpijäässä.

Siitä satunnaisesta ohikulkijasta tämä saattoi näyttää hieman kummalliselta.

Loppuun vielä rakas autoni päätti olla jumissa siinä kohdin mihin olin sen parkkeerannut, joten Jenna ja Piia joutuivat työntämään sen urhoollisesti takaisin tielle. Että tälläinen päivä tänään. Nyt voisi suosiolla valua vällyjen väliin, yrittää niistää päänsä tyhjäksi räästä ja varautua huomiseen koitokseen.

Tällä kertaa älysin jättää auton turvallisen välimatkan päähän,
mikä melkein osoittautui virheeksi.

P.S. Luvassa on kuulemma kylmempää säätä kuin tänään, että en tiedä pitäisikö nyt itkeä vai nauraa.

Kuvauspäivä part 1: otsahiukset, meduusakädet ja trapetsitaiteilua

2012-01-07T00:18:00.003+02:00

Hyvin antoisan (ja erittäin hektisen) kuvauspäivän päätteksi saldona oli kipeä kurkku ja lähes kolme gigatavua HD matskua meidän IB production portfoliota varten. Ennen varsinaisia kuvauksia Piian ja miun oli käytävä Servolla kuvailemassa tanssijoita Taitaja 2012 kisojen semifinaalityötä varten. Tuli kieltämättä hieman yllättäen koko projekti ja aikatauluja venkslattiin viimeiseen asti, mutta saatiin tarvittavat jutut kuvattua ja päästiin aloittamaan myös meidän shakkipelijutun kuvaukset.

Kuvauspaikkana toimi tälläkin kertaa vanha kunnon kylmä ja korkean paikan kammoa
herättävä suodinosasto.

Jenna laittaa valoja kuosiin.

Ihme kyllä suuremmilta teknisiltä ongelmilta vältyttiin. Ainoa kohdalle sattunut asia oli yhden valonheittimen pimentyminen kuvausten alkuvaiheessa eikä meillä tietenkään ollut varapolttimoa mukana. Onneksi se sentään päätti pimentyä alussa eikä esimerkiksi kuvausten puolivälissä niin pystyttiin jatkamaan ihan normaalisti kahdella valolla.

IBtä varten lavastettua todistusaineistoa kuvakäsiksen tutkimisesta.

"Äiti, piirsin tämän ihan ite." Jenna 18v.

Setti alkaa jotakuinkin olla kasassa...

...ja tässä lopputulos. Villasukat kuuluu asiaan istuimen lämmittimenä.

Koko setin kasaamiseen ei kulunut paljoakaan aikaa ja mukavasti löysimme tarvittavaa rekvisiittaa suodinosastolta. Kerrassaan täydellinen kuvauspaikka! Kylmyydestä nyt voisi valittaa, mutta siitäkin selviytyy pukeutumalla. (Krhm, kukahan oppi taas kantapään kautta ja joutui hakemaan paksummat sukat kesken kuvausten, kun mukaan pakatut villasukat ei mahtuneetkaan kenkiin.)

Sitten kuvattiin.

Elmo oli ystävällisesti lupautunut avustamaan meitä miun pelikaverina ja raivon kohteena. Asiaan kuului tietenkin kuoleman näyttely ja vaikka se olikin kivuliasta, Elmo selviytyi siitä hienosti. Jennakin ylitti itsensä ja käveli ylhäällä suodinopsaston huterilla ritilöillä, tosin kaiteesta kiinni pitäen mikä ei ollut kovin Matrix-tyylistä näin jälkikäteen materiaalia katsottuna :D Totesin että se näyttää enemmänkin vanhuksen päiväkävelyltä rollaattorin kanssa, mutta en valita kun ei tuo omakaan roolisuoritus mikään Oscarin arvoinen ollut.

Nimittäin taas miun meduusakädet ja kaikki muut hyvin mielenkiintoiset sisiliskokielet puski väkisinkin kuviin vaikka yritin olla ihan normaalisti. Ja sitten miusta ei saa raivoisaa sitten mitenkään. Edes pihalla jumissa olevan autoni ajattelu ei auttanut asiaa, vaikka se kieltämättä aiheutti hieman hermojen kiristymistä.

Kuvattiin vielä lisää.

Kuvausten jälkeen pakkailtiin kamat autoon ja mie sain sen jopa käännettyä siinä pihassa. Suuri riemuvoitto, vaikka pitikin ajaa puolimetrisen lumipenkan läpi ja rukoilla ettei siellä lumen alla ole mitään isoja kivenmurikoita joita kaivoksen alueelta valitettavasti löytyy. (Viimeksi pari päivää sitten peruutin isän auton lumipenkan alla piileskelevään kantoon...) Mutta tällä kertaa olin onnekkaampi.

Taidetta. Melkein.

Kotiin päästyämme pistettiin materiaalit miun koneelle ja vähän katseltiin niitä. Valitettavasti virheitä löytyi ja paljon. Esimerkiksi taustalla näkyy se meidän alkuvaiheessa pimahtanut lamppu ja sen kaunis sininen kela - melkein joka ikisessä shotissa. Piia ei ollut huomannut sitä kameran näytöstä ja valitettavasti tietokone paljasti taas karun totuuden. Sama kävi myös likaisen linssin kanssa, sillä useassa shotissa näkyy hyvin epämääräisiä valopisteitä, jotka ovat lian aiheuttamia.

Nuo nyt ei ole vielä mitään siihen verrattuna, että miun kone ei jaksa pyörittää tätä HD matskua. Kolme vuotta vanha kone niin voiko siltä sitä odottaakaan... Että editoinnista tulee yhtä tuskaa, ellen keksi tapaa muuttaa noita helposti johonkin kevyempään muotoon. Niin ja kaiken lisäksi miun koneella noiden clippien äänet ei tule Premiereen kun epämääräisenä suhinana, mutta Piian koneella toimisi täydellisesti. Valitettavasti en mie nyt sinne voi muuttaa asumaan seuraavaksi kuukaudeksi niin pakko yrittää pärjätä.

Sormet ristiin ettei koko kone räjähdä käsiin.

Ja loppukevennykseksi Jenna melkein puri ohjaajalta sormen irti. Psst, huomatkaa
myös nuo tosi uskottavat Matrix otsahiukset.

Huomenna sitten jatketaan samalla innolla ulkokohtausten parissa. Tällä kertaa ehkä opittiin, että se linssi puhdistetaan aina ennen kuvauksia ja kaikki turha romu pois kuvauspaikalta, jotta ne ei varmasti näy missään taustalla ja poääse yllättämään.

Vanhoja kujeita

2011-12-31T18:18:00.006+02:00

Kylläpäs tää vuosi onkin hurahtanu ihan hirveetä vauhtia. Vastahan myö juhlittiin vuoden 2011 alkua Jennan ja Piian kanssa katsoen Ketosta & Myllyrinnettä ja syöden hyvää ruokaa (itsetehtyä pitsaa, ranskalaisia ja kaikkee muuta epäterveellistä).

Joulu meni muuten ihan mukavasti perheen parissa. Lahjojakin tuli vaikka en mitään erityisemmin toivonut ja mieleisiä oli kaikki ajatellen muuttoa pois kotoa mahdollisesti sitten joskus hamassa tulevaisuudessa.

Ennen kun siirrytään vuoteen 2012 kirjoittelen tämän vuoden tapahtumat vielä puhtaaksi. Elikkäs ainoa asia josta en vielä erillistä postausta onnistunut tekemään oli Teron ja Janin musiikkivideon kuvaukset. Koska nyt kehtuuttaa kirjoittaa, pistetään koko ilta tiivistetysti kuvien muodossa. Tästä silmiähivelevästä laadusta kiitos kuuluu Jennan digikameralle. (Kännykän kamerallakin saa parempia kuvia kuin tuolla... Tämä tuli ihan tieteellisesti todistettua Ausseissa.)

Ennen kuin aloitettiin, pistettiin buffetti pystyyn.

...josta sai hakea haukattavaa kun siltä tuntui. Paras ruokatarjoilu ikinä ;)

Tässä aloitellaan kuvauksia toisessa hihnatunnelissa.

Koska suodinosasto on kylmänä talvisin, saunaan pääsi
aina kun siltä tuntui.

Tässä meidän kiuas. Todettiin Jennan kanssa sen olevan sukua tuliselle
kiinalaisellemme, joka on meidän aussiblogin lukijoille tuttu lämmityskapistus.

Tässä Jenna vilkuttaa kuvausten pulivälissä. Ja siihen loppui myös kuvat...

Että sellaista siellä. Suodinosastollehan palaamme ensi viikolla kuvaamaan production portfoliota meidän sahkkipelijutusta. Mutta siitä lisää sitten tuonnempana ;) Nyt katse kohti uuttavuotta ja uusia kujeita.

PS. Jotta ei ihan haksahdeta aiheesta koulu, voin sanoa ett miun reflective project ei edisty yhtään. Ensimmäiseen deadlineen on... öö... yheksän päivää ja miulla on vasta pari lausetta oikeeta tekstiä ja sitten vähän sekalaisia muistiinpanoja. Tarviin kohta ihmeen jotta saan sen tällä menolla ajoissa valmiiksi.

Kaivos elää

2011-12-23T13:50:00.001+02:00

Itse tapahtumahan oli jo ajat sitten ja Piia ja mie kuvattiinkin sieltä se insertti jos muistatte. Ehdin jossain välissä napata pari valokuvaakin, harmi vaan että kuvasaalis jäi erittäin laihaksi puuttuvan jalustan ja haastattelukiireiden vuoksi.

Hauskaa joulua kaikille!

Teoreettinen loma

2011-12-22T23:11:00.003+02:00

Tuntuupa oudolta yrittää olla tekemättä yhtään mitään. Tänäänkin oli pakko yrittää keksiä itelleen jotain aktiviteettia, kun tuntu ettei vaan voi yksinkertasesti olla hetkeäkään paikoillaan. Innostuin sitten tekemään mosaiikkijoulukuusia, mutta palat loppu vähän kesken joten lopputulos on hieman vajaa.

Keskeneräisiä...

Olisin tilannut lisää paloja, mutta ärsytyksekseni huomasin, että nettikaupassa yhden neljän euron palapussin hinnaksi tulee postikuluineen ja pienlaskutuslisineen lähes 15 euroa. Luonnollisestihan näitä ei saa mistään lähialueen askarteluliikkeistä että siihen kaatui sekin hanke ainakin toistaiseksi...

...ja sitten valmiita, joissa on jo saumauslaastitkin laitettuna.

Tänään oli se surullisenkuuluisa filosofian koe ja on pakko sanoa, etten ole mitään ikinä vetänyt näin lonkalta. Mutta eiköhän se läpi mene kuitenkin... Pääasia että sai senkin pois alta.

Tänään on muuten tasa yhdeksän vuotta siitä kun haettiin Köppelström meille kotiin. Mie niin elävästi kyllä muistan sen hetken, kun ekan kerran mentiin kahtomaan pentua joskus marraskuun alussa ja heti ensi töikseen kun päästään ulos autosta kasvattaja esittelee meille Kössin kuolleita pentuesisaruksia, jotka jotka oli vaan heitetty pihalle kennelrakennuksen oven viereen ja varikset oli nokkinu ihan verille... Että tälläsiä traumoja sain yhdenksänvuotiaana :D Onneksi huomio kuitenkin kiinnitty enemmän siihen Kössiin, niin ei tuo ainakaan niiden tuolta reissulta tulleiden hyvien muistojen yli jyrää.

Kössi 9v, elämäni toinen kolmesta miehestä.

Köpö sitten haettiin tosiaan 22. joulukuuta 2002 ja sen jälkeen kenenkään elämä tässä talossa ei ole ollut ennallaan. Tuo otus merkitsee minulle niin paljon, että en edes osaa kuvitella elämää ilman sitä. Toivotaan että herra jaksaa vielä monta vuotta maleksia pihavahtina ja elää täydellisen laiskaa vanhan koiran elämää :)

Ohi on!

2011-12-21T18:40:00.003+02:00

Elikkä film presentation on nyt pois alta - vielä seitsemän muuta asiaa jäljellä... Ja enemmän tulossa tuohon päälle. On se kumma kun edes joululomalla ei voi lomailla kun lukiolta syydetään meille satoja korvaavia tehtäviä IB:n takia missattujen tuntien osalta. Vähän armoa pliis, nythän on joulu.

Sain Piialta muuten tämmösen joululahjaks. Tuon lisäks oli vielä sellaset Snoopy-
kulhot, Scarface juliste ja karkkia. Kiitos Piialle :) (Ja webbikameralle laadusta)

Sanonpa että presentaatio meni ehkä paremmin kuin oletin. Ei sillä tavalla, että olisin oppinut vihdoin puhumaan vaan ihan analyyttisellä kannalla tuli kaikki tarvittavat asiat käytyä läpi. Ja onneksi tässä ei oikeesti arvostella kielioppia, sillä siitä ois voinu ehkä muutama hassu miinus pamahtaa :D Mut kuhan nyt läpi pääsee niin se on pääasia.

Jostain syystä EU on tällä hetkellä jokaisella lukion kurssilla teemana. Yhteiskuntaoppiin pitää kirjoittaa mielipidettä EU:sta, enkkuun taas tehdä esitelmä kys. aiheesta. Äikässä ei kai vielä sentään olla käyty mitään, mutta sinnekin pitäisi kirjoittaa mielipidekirjoitus ja jos jaksais olla oikein kiero kirjottas vaan yhen aiheesta EU ja lähettäs sen molemmille opettajille. Mutta niin ei tietenkään saa tehdä joten kaks mielipidettä ilmaistava joululoman aikana.

Reflective projectkin pitäisi kaivella esiin tuolta tiedostomerestä ja vähän edistää sitä johonkin suuntaan...

Uskollinen ystäväni Turo... Kaikki miun arvokkaat tiedostot on sen
sisuksissa.

Miulla on muuten hirvee koira/kissakuume taas vaihteeks :D Lähinnä koirakuume, mutta kissakin käy paremman puutteessa. Mut minkäs teet kun asut vielä kotona ja mitään eläintä en saa ennen kun muutan omilleni. (Oon muuten meijän luokalta ainoa joka asuu vielä kotona... Että heh heh, mutta kun en vaan saa lupaa muuttaa pois.)

Rene 14v, miun elämän yks kolmesta miehestä :D

Ainiin, ja lukion turhin aine on muuten ehdottomasti filosofia. Huomenna pitäis mennä tekee koe enkä mie oikein vieläkään ole sisäistänyt tuon kurssin ideaa. Esitetään tyhmä kysymys, pohdiskellaan siihen vastausta mahdollisimman syvällisesti termeillä, josta ei saa mitään tolkkua ja samalla kumotaan kaikki esille nousseet argumentit, joita ei voi rationaalisesti selittää. Loogista eikö? Tästä voimme ajautua deduktiiviseen päätelmään, että loppujen lopuksi kaikkeen voi vain tylysti todeta että kysymykseen ei ole vastausta. Vai onko sittenkin? Voisin avata kirjan ja selvittää asian huomiseen mennessä.

Aikaansaatua

2011-12-18T23:32:00.004+02:00

Loppu viikosta on taas (yritetty) olla tehokkaita. Torstaina saimme Noljakan monikamerakeikan päätökseen ja Outokumpuunkin pääsimme ehjänä autoillen. Oli muuten taas vaihteeks sohjossa tiet sinä päivänä... Ongelmia kaluston palautuksen kanssa ei ollut ja saatiin jopa hälyt laitettua päälle kun lähdettiin.

Noljakan monikamerakeikan päätöskuva saa aina hyvälle tuulelle.

Perjantaiaamuna kuviksen tunnin jälkeen huristeltiin sitten amikselle siistimään varastoa. Samalla Jani sitten kävi keräilemässä meidän seuraavan projektin kamat iltapäivää varten. Iltapäivällä nimittäin Jenna ja mie mentiin kuvaamaan kaivoksen suodinosastolle musiikkivideota.

Äikän tunti jakoi mielipiteet...

Paikalle tultiin vähän myöhässä (kiitos äikän tunnin), mutta eipä siellä olisi paljoa voitu muutenkaan tehdä kun tanssija ei ollut vielä saapunut. Tiivistetysti voin sanoa, että päivä oli pitkä ja kylmä. Oltiin tuolla puolilleöin, eikä siltikään oltu saatu vielä kaikkia kohtauksia purkkiin. Mutta kuvat on vielä Jennan kamerassa niin teen hieman paremman postauksen kuvauksista myöhemmin. Ja vielä muuten erityiskiitokset Janille ja Terolle parhaasta cateringistä mikä meillä on ikinä ollut! :D

Miun kuvaussuunnitelma.

Tanssijana videolla toiminut Lotta oli erittäin mukava ja kyselin häneltä mahdollisuutta tehdä Piian ja miun Taitaja semifinaalivideo heidän alastaan. Lupailtiin palata asiaan heti joululoman jälkeen, kun saadaan selville minkälainen alkukevät tanssijoille on tulossa.

Samalla myös päätettiin Jennan kanssa kuvauspaikka meidän production portfoliolle - nimittäin tuo suodinosasto. Kylmyydestään huolimatta aika mahtava paikka kaikkinen tasoineen, joille saa rakennettua vaikka mitä hienoa. Ulla-Riitalle on lähetetty sähköpostia asiaan liittyen ja toivon mukaan saadaan myöntävä vastaus.

Varaston kummitus oli varastanu miun hatun ja Jennan takin.

Mitäs muuta... Independent studyn eka drafti on nyt lähetetty Merjalle ja palautekeskutelu on tammikuussa. Tuossa on paljon asioita mitä oisin halunnu vielä muuttaa, mutta tuolla musavideon kuvauksissa meni sen verran pitkään etten sitten kerennyt sille mitään enää tehdä. Noh, tuo on nyt toistaiseksi alta pois.

Seuraavana vuorossa sitten filmipresentaatio...

Niin ja Australiasta kuuluu. Nimittäin kakunteosta kertova ohjelma, jossa toimin toisena kameramiehenä tulee siellä TV:stä. Jaksoja ei löytynyt vielä YouTubesta, mutta saatte vaikka alkutunnarin näin ensi hätään. Ja voin melkein lyödä vaikka vetoa, että miun nimi on unohdettu sieltä lopputeksteistä... Mut laittelen asiasta viestiä WTV:n poppoolle niin saadaan ehkä jakso tai pari YouTubeen näytille.

Että ollaan kerrankin oltu tehokkaita! Saa nähä jaksaako tätä tahtia ylläpitää enää kovinkaan kauaa.

Tyttö joka kiroili liikaa

2011-12-14T22:48:00.003+02:00

Tämä viikko on lähtenyt suhteellisen kiireisissä merkeissä liikkeelle, sillä heti maanantaiaamuna suuntasimme Noljakan koululle pystyttämään meidän historian isointa monikamera set-uppia. Tarkoituksena oli kytkeä peräti kahdeksan kameraa ja kaksi videomikseriä, dvd inserteille ja läppäri powerpoint esityksille. Tämä kaikki menee sitten luonnollisesti nauhalle ja screenille.

Olihan tuon setin rakentamisessa hommaa, ja kuten arvata saattaa, teknisiäkin ongelmia oli lähinnä puuttuvien adaptereiden ja lällärien muodossa. Kaikkea ei nimittäin kiireessa oltu otettu huomioon, joten maanantain työpäivä jäikin hieman vajaaksi puuttuvan kaluston osalta.

Tiistaina oli onneksi aikaa korjata tehdyt mokat ja hakea kaikki tarvittava varastolta. Iloisesti sitten heivattiin ne miun autoon ja tänään pistettiin kaikki kuntoon ennen kenraaliharjoituksia.

Hieman ruttuista taidetta...

Piian ja miun tehtävä tämän keikan aikana on hoitaa lähinnä kaikkea tekniikkaa. Tänään puuhailtiin eniten videotykin, valkokankaan ja irtopiuhojen teippailun kanssa. Kangasta olikin ihan hauskaa viritella ja yritettiin parhaamme saada se roikkumaan silleensä että, siihen ei jää ruttuja. Noh, kuten kuva todistaa, yritykseksihän se jäi, mutta aikaa ei ollut enempää sen kanssa säätää.

Myös tykki on varsinainen murhekryyni, kun jotkut menut eivät yksinkertaisesti suostuneeet toimimaan niin kuin ohjekirjassa sanottiin... Mutta kuva tulee kuitenkin ja kaikki pikkuvirheet voidaan pistää taiteen piikkiin :D

Rakas Sanyomme ja Piia silittelemässä sitä toimintakuntoon.

Tää keikka on muutenkin siinä mielessä mielenkiintoinen, että meidän koululta tulee vain tekniikka ja ohjaus. Oppilaat itse kuvaavat ja miksaavat koko jutun. Tänään näytti ainakin hyvältä, huomenna toivon mukaan vielä paremmalta. On se vaan ihana nähdä innokkaita lapsia täydessä työn touhussa. Kaikki tosiaankin haluavat tehdä parhaansa ja monimutkaisetkin asiat ovat oppineet todella nopeasti. Olisipa miunkin alakouluaikoina ollut tälläistä...

Tarkkaamon poppoota. Tässä ei onneksi kunnolla näy tuolla pöydän takana vaaniva
piuhahelvetti.

Joo ja tuossa sain myös hauskan lempinimen, "tyttö joka kiroilee". Meitä kyllä varoiteltiin huonosta kielenkäytöstä, mutta tavat nyt vaan istuu aika syvässä, joten saatoinpa tuossa vahingossa lipsauttaa jotain joka tulkittiin kirosanaksi yhden lapsen kuullen. Pyysin kyllä välittömästi anteeksi mutta kohtaloni oli sinetöity, kun huhu lähti välittömästi liikkeelle :D Elikkä jos joku tuolla puhuu tytöstä joka kiroilee, sillä viitataan aika suurella varmuudella sitten minuun...

Huomenna jatketaan lukion merkeissä aamulla ja sitten illalla mennään kuvaamaan. Tai lähinnä odottelemaan ja purkamaan kamat takaisin autoon. Mutta lisää raporttia tulossa kenties.

Joulu on jo ovella

2011-12-11T15:14:00.002+02:00

Olipa kummallista avata tänä aamuna jo yhdestoista luukku joulukalenterista. Näin se aika vaan rientää, kun tekemistä on koko ajan niin ehtii kadottaa ajantajun...

Eilen oli ihana päivä kun sai nukkua puolillepäivin. Tänään piti herätä vähän aikaisemmin ja suunnata auton keula kohti kotia piirakantekoon. Oli muuten ihan hirveässä sohjossa tiet. Piti kieli keskellä suuta ajella jotta ei päädytty ojaan.

Tuskan ruumiillistuma.

Kotona sitten alkoi piirakkaruljanssi, jossa miekin olin hetken osallisena mutta turhauduin aika nopeesti miun rypytystaitoihin. Taas kyllä löyty yks laji joka ei todellakaan ole miun heiniä. Siirryin sitten kameran taakse äidin toiveesta ja napsin muutamia kuvia touhuilusta.

Jos katotte tarkkaan, huomaatte varmaan miun tekeleet ylärivissä.

Myös piirakka-apulainen Kössi oli aktiivisesti mukana ja sai koemaistaakseen yhden piirakan. Oli vähän liian lämmin herran makuun ja kierteli hyvän tovin ennen kuin uskalsi suuhunsa pistää.

Au au kun kieli palaa.

Episodin jälkeen jatkoin ah niin ihanaa independent studyä, joka alkaa olla melko hyvässä vaiheessa. Tällä hetkellä on melkein seitsemän sivua kasassa, mutta vähän alkaa miulta loppua asiat tässä vaiheessa. Miun tavoite olisi päästä yheksään sivuun asti, mutta kai se kaheksaankin on tyytyminen jos nyt tuntuu ettei millään asiaa enempää tule.

Nyt pidän loppuillan taukoa kaikesta kouluun liittyvästä ja makoilen Tonin kainalossa kun ens viikolla on niin kiire ettei ehitä nähä varmaan kertaakaan. Ja huomenna meille muuten tulee yheksän kuukautta yhteiseloa täyteen <3 Niin se aika vaan rientää. Tässä viime kerralta oli muutama yhteiskuva, joista tää yks on ehkä ainoo julkasukelponen.

Tuo miun otus on normaalisti aika kuvauksellinen... Not :D Kyllä se aina osaa irvistää just sillä hetkellä kun ei pitäis ja suurin osa noista kuvista on niin saatanallisia ettei mitään rajaa. Taitaa jäädä ikuisesti tuonne kovalevyn syövereihin...

P.S. Eilen oli myös vuosipäivä siitä kun Toni sai ajokortin. Tällänen ilmotusluontoinen asia Tonin osalta :D

Taitajakisat, täältä tullaan

2011-12-10T12:34:00.007+02:00

Semifinaaleista oli jo tullut tietoa sivuille, elikkäs Piia ja mie lähdetään Jyväskylään editoimaan 9.2. Ja mikä parasta, ohjelma jota järjestäjät tarjoavat on PREMIERE. Melkeinpä kiljuin riemusta kun kuulin tuon tiedon, Avideistahan on saatu jo tarpeeksi vähintään loppuelämän osalle.

Tehtävänanto tuohon semifinaalityöhön on, että kuvataan materiaalit esittelyvideota varten jostain koulutusalasta täällä ja mennään Jyväskylään editoimaan se tuomareiden valvovien silmien alle. Siihen pitää sisällyttää vähintään yksi haastattelu ja kestoltaan se saa olla kaksi minuuttia. Sounds fun!

Meidän harjoitusinserttikin valmistui deadlineen mennessä ja saatiin jo palautettakin Mikalta ja Esalta. Ihan positiivisiä molemmat olivat, vaikka kehitettävää kyllä löytyy monenkin asian osalta. Äänien häivytykset tuossa ovat ehkä eniten korviinpistäviä, mutta aikataululla joka meillä oli käytössä ja Avidilla ei paljoa niille voinut muutenkaan tehdä.

Tuohon alkuun olisi lisäksi voinut laittaa vähän jotain rauhallisempaa kuvaa kaivoksen ympäristöstä, eikä heti aloittaa haastattelulla. Myös voice-overeita olisi saatettu tarvita, mutta aika tuli taas tässäkin asiassa vastaan.

Melko tyytyväinen olen kameratyöhön, tosin sieltä löytyy edelleen muutamia perusvirheitä, kuten tarkennukset hukassa ja zoomailu tökkii. Pistetään tämä aasia kameran piikkiin, kun se oli meillä ensimmäistä kertaa käytössä ja vähän aikaa meni totutellessa uusiin zoomi ja tarkennusrinkuloihin. Ja haastattelut olivat itse asiassa erittäin hyviä, siitä kiitos Piialle.

Editointi on joiltain osin aika hirveää, mutta siitä kiitos kuuluu Avidille ja meille, kun ei ollut aikaa (hermoista puhumattakaan) ruveta niitä pahemmin viilailemaan. Mutta palaute on rekisteröity ja nyt uudella innolla kohti seuraavaa tehtävää, joka saattaa peräti olla meidän semifinaalityö.

1000 ja yksi syytä vihata Avidia

2011-12-07T21:09:00.003+02:00

Piian kanssa editoidaan koululla ja tarvitseeko edes sanoa, että pinna on lievästi kireällä? Tässä kolmen vuoden aikana ollaan ainakin huomattu, että Avid ei todellakaan ole se hermoja säästävin editointiohjelma. Näin kauniisti sanottuna. Löytyy oikeesti vähintään tuo tuhat ja yksi syytä ja todennäköisesti vielä tuplasti sama määrä siihen päälle, miksi mie ainakin henkilökohtaisesti tykkään enemmän Premierestä.

Laitetaanpa tähän viis syytä näin alkuun. Editoinnista ymmärtämättömät voitte skipata.

1. Timeline

On epäselvä ja ärsyttävä. Useamman clipin valitseminen on yhtä tuskaa ja silloin kun huomaat, että keskeltä editoimaasi juttua puuttuu tyhjä rakonen esim. voice-overia varten, tekisi mieli juosta päin seinää. Trimmailu on turhauttavaa, etenkin kun aina clippejä laitellessa johonkin jää ärsyttävän pieni musta rakonen, jota et löydä/saa poistettua sitten millään.

2. Efektivalikot

Efektit ovat todella kummallisten ja vaikeasti löydettävien valikoiden takana (jotka eivät edes suostu pysymään esillä kun kerran löydät ne) erittäin epäselvästi listattuna. Esimerkiksi häivytyksiä ja muita efektejä ei ole mitenkään eroteltu toisistaan ja saat aina arpoa mitä mikäkin flipflop tekee. Lisäksi efektien editointi on yhtä tuskaa, kun se pitää tehdä jälleen kerran hankalan erillisvalikon kautta. Yhteen clippiin ei luonnollisestikaan saa kun yhden efektin, joten yritäpä siinä sitten saada esimerkiksi värejä säädettyä ja rajattua kuvaa yhtä aikaa. Teoriassa mahdollista mutta käytännössä ei.

3. Äänet

Äänet ei mitenkään suostu pysymään synkassa kuvan kanssa. Aina pitää tarkkailla, että molemmat ääniraidat on valittuna tai sitten ei. Otapa siitäkin selvää, mutta koko ajan joutuu niiden kanssa venkslaamaan. Äänen käsittelymahdollisuudet ovat ihan olemattomat, sillä niille ei löydy edes omia häivytyksiä.

4. Tuetut formaatit

Premiereen saat sisään lähes mitä vaan ja se ymmärtää sen, mutta Avidilla on ongelmia joskus ihan perusformaattienkin kanssa. Pdf- muotoisia kuvatiedostoja ei saanut mitenkään järkevästi importoitua ja niiden muuttaminen muuhun muotoon oli hieman hankalaa, kun koulun edittikoneilla ei ole Photoshoppia tai muutakaan yksinkertaista kuvankäsittelyohjelmaa.

5. Työkalut

Keltainen nuoli, punainen nuoli, keltainen trimmi, punainen trimmi... Näitä joutuu koko ajan vaihtelemaan ja aina kun huomaat että tarvitset jotain, se ei luonnollisestikaan napsahda esiin sillä hetkellä. Automaattinen työkalujen vaihtelusysteemi on välillä todella raivostuttava ja jos kytket sen pois päältä joudut vaihtelemaan niitä jatkuvasti manuaalisesti. Premieressä lähestulkoon yksi työkalu hoitaa kaiken mihin Avidissa tarvitaan neljä. Myös keyframejen tekoon tarkoitettu työkalu on hvyin epäkäytännöllinen ja jos kerran länttäät framet paikoilleen, et saa niitä yleensä muokattua vaan joudut aloittamaan alusta, kun Avid ystävällisesti nollaa ne aina kun aloitat muokkauksen. Sama käytäntö koskee luonnolliseesti myös title toolia, jossa rollaavien tekstien tekeminen on erityisen piinallista...

Mutta päivän muihin aiheisiin. Tänään meillä oli IB Production Portfolio miitti Merjan kanssa, jossa saatiin henkilökohtaiset tapaamisajat. Meidän ryhmällä se on onneksi vasta ens viikon perjantaina, kun on tässä vähän muuta tekemistä. Melkein hirvittää kahtoa kalenterin täyteen rustattuja sivuja, joita riittää seuraavan kahen viikon ajaksi :D Onneks sen jälkeen on jo joululoma...

Mutta portfolion aiheeseen saatte katsauksen ylläolevasta kuvasta ja ehkä meidän jo aiemmin tunnetusta lyhäristä - For a Few Cards More. Kyllä! Jatko-osaa siis luvassa, tällä kertaa shakkipeliteemalla. Eikä siinä vielä kaikki. For a Few Cards More on uudelleeneditoitu saamamme palautteen perusteella tiivimmäksi paketiksi ja nyt se odottaa uutta soundtrackiä rakkaan musiikkimaisterimme Villen säveltämänä. Pysykää siis kanavalla!

Tuskaa vai ei?

2011-12-04T23:21:00.005+02:00

Mistähän sitä taas alottaisi... Tekemistä on mutta mitään ei saa aikaan. Kuulostaako tutulta?

Noh, viikonlopun saldona oli IB:n tekemisen sijasta leffailta kaverin kanssa. Miulle tuli vähän kiire hommata leffat viikon varoitusajalla, joten lauantaiaamuna käväisin pikapikaa Tonilta muutaman leffan joita itse en ollut nähnyt. Kouraan tarttui The Eye ja Tonin tylsyysvaroituksista huolimatta Wishing Stairs.

The Eye oli ihan hyvä pätkä. Se kertoi sokeasta naisesta, joka sai uudet silmät leikauksessa ja alkoi nähdä kuolleita sekä kummallisia painajaisia. Leffan jaksoi katsoa alusta loppuun, mutta mietittiin, että olisi toiminut ehkä paremmin draamana. Kauhuelementtejä kyllä oli, mutta ne vaikuttivat aika teennäisiltä ja eivät sopineet kovin hyvin yhteen elokuvan draamaelementtejen kanssa. Sanoisin tässä tapauksessa että joko tai. Yhessä nää molemmat eivät oikein toimineet.

Wishing Stairs... Sanotaanko että olisin kerrankin voinut kuunnella varoituksia elokuvan tylsyydestä. Rupesin miettimään olenkohan ikinä nähnyt näin huonoa kauhuleffaa. Siis oikeesti. Juonesta ei saanut sitten millään otetta ja koko aikana ei tullut yhtään oikeesti pelottavaa kohtausta. Mietti vaan pitäisköhän tässä nyt itkeä vai nauraa. Visuaalisuus oli elokuvan ehkä ainoa hyvä puoli, joten sen takia sen jaksoi katsoa loppuun. (Tuskalla sekin, mutta kuitenkin.) Traumoja kyllä jäi, kun elokuva kokonaisuudessaan oli niin WTF. Katsokaa itse ja todetkaa.

Maailman huonoin kauhuleffa?

Huomenna sitten alkaa lukiojakso. Jee. Melkein jopa kiinnostaa. Tähän jaksoon meillä on vaan 4 kurssia valittuna + itsenäinen yhteiskuntaoppi kolmonen. Jääpähän ainakin enemmän aikaa tehdä IB:tä, kun nuo deadlinet lähestyy uhkaavasti päivä päivältä. Halusit tai et.

Niin ja mie vaihdoin blogin ulkoasun vähän pirteämpään. Pitää ylläpitää positiivistä asennetta, jotta jaksaa rääppiä jouluun asti hajoamatta (pahemmin). Ja nyt lupaan pitää tän blogin hengissä koko loppuvuoden ajan!

Kiirettä pitää

2011-11-30T23:39:00.004+02:00

Ausseista on palattu tuttuihin ja turvallisiin Suomen piireihin ja työn touhussa ollaan taas.

On taas tämä bloggaaminen vähän jäänyt kun koulutöitä on vaikka muille jakaa. Yhdistelmätutkinnon suorittaminen ei aina ole niin herkkua, varsinkin kun kaikki projektit kasaantuu just ennen joulua ja ennen kesälomaa.

Australiaan paluu tuntuu kiehtovalta ajatukselta...

Homman nimihän on siis, että IB- juttuja pitää kirjoittaa ja paljon! 3000 sanan essee tuotesijoittelusta, tehdä noin kymmensivuinen dokumenttikässäri westerneistä, tehdä lyhytelokuva tarvittavine raportteineen sekä suullinen 10 minuuttia pitkä analyysi elokuvasta Miehuuskoe.

Sen lisäksi miulla alkaa keväällä YO-kirjoitukset yhteiskuntaopin merkeissä ja oon vielä saanu itsenäisiä videoprojekteja survottua tähän ennen joulua peräti kaksi kappaletta. Keväällä on sitten IB Englannin kirjalliset kokeet, suulliset on onneksi ohi. Niin ja oon lähdössä Taitaja 2012 ammattitaitokilpailuun, joten siihenkin on muutama harjoitustyö tehtävä ennen varsinaista koitosta.

Tääkin aika miun piti käyttää tuon Independent Studyn (kässäri) kirjoitteluun, mutta jotenkin olen taas ihan hukassa siitä mistä aloittaisin. Ensimmäisen version deadlinekin häämöttää uhkaavasti ja mie en tiedä ees mistä tyyliin aloittakaan. Hip hurraa.

Tajuttiin myös Jennan ja Piian kanssa, että tää viikko oli meidän viimeinen ammatillinen viikko koulussa. Kaikki tarvittavat kurssit on käyty ja loppuvuodeksi suuntana on lukion ihmeellinen maailma. Toki myö amiksella vielä pyöritään kun on näitä projekteja ihan tarpeeks joten turha luulo et meidät saa sieltä lopullisesti pois. Lopputyö tehään kaikki kolme vasta neljännen vuoden puolella, joten taakka tän kevään osalta kevenee ees vähäsen.

Tuntuu tosi oudolta, että tää on muille luokkalaisille viimenen vuosi. Muistan vieläkin meidän ekan videokurssin kuin eilispäivän. Nää kaks ja puoli vuotta on hurahtanu ihan älyttömän nopeesti. Hassua, mutta hyväksyttävä se on.

Itselle ainakin ihan hyvä, että saa vielä neljännen vuoden viettää Outokummun rauhassa pohdiskelemassa omaa tulevaisuutta. Jos tästä työmäärästä selviän, niin välivuoden pidän ihan hyvällä omatunnolla.

P.S. Tähän postaukseen päättyy miun englanninkielisen blogin taival. Yritän pitää pikapäivityksin tän blogin ajan tasalla ja valitettavasti englannin kanssa suhratessa kuluu niin tuhottomasti aikaa, että tähän olisin saanu ehkä puolet kirjotettua siinä ajassa missä mie nyt tän räävin kokoon.

In Australia

2011-08-19T12:14:00.001+03:00

That's right. Two months in Australia. Read more from http://ayersrockblog.blogspot.com/ (In Finnish, sorry guys.)

Summer is almost here

2011-05-26T20:29:00.012+03:00

Unfortunately it doesn't mean I have some spare time. Three lukio courses, IB reflective project and the puppies my dog Hippu is going to have are keeping me busy.

And I should feel a sting in my heart as I haven't written here in a while. Again. That doesn't mean I haven't anything to tell.

We actually had three weeks of IB English. What doesn't kill makes you stronger and I'm still here :D Your worst nightmare came to life... Mwahaha.

This week we are doing multi camera work in Kiisu. I missed out Tuesday because I had to take my dog Kössi to the vet. He limps his left hindleg and had to be put to sleep (not permanently, but I don't know better word to express this one).

Don't worry, he's not dead though it might look like it.

The vet couldn't tell yet what's wrong. The X-ray revealed it isn't anything in the joints, so she suspected that it could be something in the ligaments. The vet gave him some pain medication and I really hope it will help. If not, he will limb the rest of his life, which unfortunately won't be so long if it looks like the leg getting more and more painful. Kössi is my everything and I want the best for him. Is it a good life to live in pain from day to day? But I should not think about that yet...

Yup, but back to school. That was why I didn't know nearly anything when I got along on Wednesday. Well, I hope I'm aware now of what are we doing and so on in this week. Like last year, we are filming Kevätkumpu. Heikki and Niki are our directors this time. And I must say Heikki did excellent job today :) I was on camera number three taking close-ups (even though it wasn't originally my job, but I love breaking the rules and being brave with the camera). But Heikki didn't shout at me so at least he didn't hate it.

Shootings at Kiisu. (Actually practising how to use the camera.)

Last month we were shooting SakuStars in Joensuu. I was the director there. Even though I have stated that I hate directing, now I must admit I have some kind of love-hate relationship with it. (Who knows if I even will be director in the future... o_o). Teemu was directing with me anyway, so I wasn't dictating the whole control room all the time :D Luckily for everyone.

Control room nazi number 1 a.k.a. me as the director.

This SakuStars event was the biggest one we have been so far. We had three video screens and five cameras. Each of us had their own responsibility area (mine was being the director and technical advisor in control room). Most of us also did their skills demonstration there. And all of us scored the highest grades so yay :) Some of our group are still working with some material from SakuStars. I was also helping Piia with SakuStars DVD menus today. But I wasn't any help to be honest.

We had party in our school, also today. It was so called Äksön Happeninki and we had all kinds of cool gadgets like running bungee and some rodeo thing (picture below). Well I concentrated more on paperwork and helping others with their projects so I didn't take part on the event. (Although, I tried that running bungee and it was fun.)

Jenna and her mutant pet. She eventually tamed it.

Oh, and some Australia news. Now it's sure. We are going there on 16th of August. We have a workplace, contacts, money (krhm...), papers and everything. We are booking the tickets and accommodation as soosn as possible via Kilroy. I'll keep you up to date, remember our Australia blog ;)

Work, work, work, holiday

2011-03-05T16:28:00.004+02:00

It's been a while since I have written something here. So this is basically everything we have done in the past weeks.

First we had IB Film with Merja. Reverse engineering. Okay. That means we picked a scene from a film and re-shoot it. I was the producer of our group.

(The film is based on this scene from movie Taken.)

Then we had 3D modelling. God, I hated it. Well, actually it could have been fun, but we had not enough time to learn the program well enough so I could have done work independently. (It was called Autodesk 3D Max or something...) basically the whole week was just sitting behind the desk modelling doors, matchboxes and unindentified flying objects. Oh yeah, and flash animation. It was fun! Basically because I have Flash at home so I had used it a bit before. We drew some simple animation. I'll upload my works here when I have time.

The week before this week we did some short films with Pilvi. We were supposed to use unusual and invisible editing techniques. You can decide if we succeeded.

This week we did a short commercial for YLE. The idea was to present a thank you film and why you should pay the TV license. Our idea was to thank for commercial-free TV channels. And here's our work:

Sorry for short text, but I'll write more some day :D Now I'm enjoying my winter break.

Huh? Have I just been lazy recently

2011-01-27T23:20:00.001+02:00

Definitely not. In fact I have been so busy that I don't know what to do next or which important things I still haven't done. Spinning around day to day. That's why I haven't made new blog entries in a while, but if you want to keep a track of our doings visit Jenna and Piia's blogs.

First of all, I'm still in lukio and the test week is approaching. Not prepared, I hate certain teachers and all the independent courses. Couldn't be better actually. Plus I'm starting to learn driving next weekend so I have to do some theory parts first.

We have done a lot of independent projects recently. Don't know where to begin... Jani must love us as we pop to the storage room to ask some stuff every now and then. And the countless times we have ran from lukio to vocational school. And the times we cursed the fact that we don't have a car. (Or actually I have a car - just the driver's license is missing...) Yeah, so we have also cursed my birthday being not until in July.

Last week we did editing. A LOT of editing. We had to make trailer for happening called NextStep. We had not enough time maybe and that's why the result wasn't as good as it could have been. But you can't always get everything.

Last week we were also shooting. And doing more editing. And capturing and importing and crying, bleeding and sweating. Did I mention hysterical laughter/panic attacks?

So: we had a project called For a few cards more. It's a tribute to italo westerns, Tarantino films, James Bond, Matrix, Sin City... well those at least. We combined everything we could to make it our coolest project so far - you don't want to hear this - for lukio Finnish course. Just because we could avoid the exam.

Well, we had so little time for the shootings so the result turned out to be not so good we were chasing after. There is several small issues, but we can't help it. We should redo a lot to make it look better.

In my opinion the ending is kinda too quick. There is some bad edits and definitely bad sound mixing. We had a problem with material also. The desperation sroke us when we realised we had shot all our material in HD. That meant eight hours of extra work in school capturing and exporting. Re-exported material of course didn't look as good as the original, so that's why there in some errors in certain frames.

Besides, originally we meant the red parts to be visible - just like in Sin City. The only problem was again time, so it's completely black and white now. We were thinking should we remake this when we do IB Film project, but it's still under cosideration.

Tomorrow we will present this officially. But if you are one of those who can't sleep, you'll get the foretaste of it now.

Oh, and I started aikido course yesterday. It was so fun! I hope I will have the time to finish it and continue after that. I'm a bit skeptical about the fact that I have not been physically good in any sport. I'm not very agile, I don't have muscles and I'm definitely not flexible. Besides I'm kinda not teamplayer because I always think I'm doing something wrong or might even hurt somebody, so usually I just decide stay out of the way, so I won't be blamed for anything.

And some brief Australia news: we have a possible practise place. Now we just have to find out about the money, accommodation, visas and everything. Still many things that can go wrong, so I won't open my mouth any bigger. Knock on wood and wish us luck.

P.S The pictures are shots I took few weeks ago on a walk on lake Pyhäselkä.

Half way there

2010-12-23T23:49:00.003+02:00

200 is almost half of 500 which is almost half of 1001...

I made it. I'm proud of it. The 200th movie of these 1001 films you must see before you die has now been announced. It's Stanley Kubrick's film Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb. (Phew, I think that made also history by being the film with longest name I have ever watched.) Thank you Jenna for buying it for me, finally I could watch it ;) Because it's my 200th film, it's worth detailed review.

It was cool to see that this film really has affected to Kubrick's later work. I could notice some resemblances to Full Metal Jacket (naturally), 2001: Space Odyssey and even to The Clockwork Orange. This film is filled with politics and black humor. Two things that I usually don't understand, to be honest. But surprisingly, Dr. Strangelove was fun and interesting with all the weird characters. Believe or not, I laughed at some points.

I'm not going to explain the plot very deeply. Let's say unplanned nuclear attack against Soviet Union and efforts to cancel it, when new technology turns against everyone.

I paid attetion especially to camerawork. Not only the framing (which was imaginative), but also color/contrast issues. This film particularly shows why black and white is usually better than color. I think it the soul of certain older films lays in the fact that they are simple by colors. Because of that, the use of lightning is more deliberated, usually leading to thrilling contrast and beutiful frames that make me just gasp. Black and white highlights things that would never been visible if colored. Especially playing with shadows is completely lost talent. It's a shame that many films today have lost their soul to colors.

But something to complain: plane flying shots didn't look good at all. All of them looked like a still picture just planted on moving background. Well, that was exactly what they were. About sound I was surprised to hear one catchy tune from my childhood playing (I remember the song being about pirates, ah those old times...) in the backround during some flying scenes.

But one film definitely worth watching. If you want to see the complete list of what are the other 199 films I have seen from the list click here.

I guess that's what I call "detailed", but notice I'm in a hurry.

Currently the list actually contains 1074 movies and it's living all the time as new masterpieces are being made every year.

Everything started year ago, last Christmas, when I got a book called 1001 movies you must see before you die. The year has passed by and I have seen 200 of them. That's pretty good achievement. Well, I can't say that I watched all of them this year because of course I have seen a minor part of them before.

Honestly I can tell a year ago I was one of those people, who only watched movies if it was horror and contained ridiculous amount of blood. Relief I'm not that person anymore. Now I appreciate films in a different way. I analyze them while watching them. I don't judge them straight by plot, by shots or by editing. Every time I watch a film I try to find it's red line and think why the film is so important. Why/why not it's considered being a significant step in the history of films? How has it affected or will it affect to the films in the future? And the most important question, why.

Thanks to my mom, who bought me the book and knew that this would be exactly the thing that I need in my life.

Dedication. In other words, my Christmas in a nutshell.

Technics VS suiciders - guess who eventually won?

2010-12-22T11:45:00.014+02:00

Christmas is finally coming. Thank some upper force. Today was the last day of work and must admit it really pinned our nerves.

We were doing multi camera for some Christmas play thing in... school (I seriously can't recall the school's name). The whole project in a nutshell: three cameras, projector, long cables and sound problems. Especially the last-mentioned. We had wrong cables, the mixer XLR input didn't work and our microphones were not good for the thing. At one point I was so desperate I promised to marry the one who solves it all out.

So basically we worked yesterday 10 hours nonstop and still had a lot to do this morning; sound still unsolved, cable mess everywhere untaped and some important things untested.

Well, guess what? Today everything worked like there hadn't been a problem at all. We were like screaming in the control room for happiness. What a relief, that we got SOME sound to downstairs and our recordings. (Note the word "some", explanation coming below.)

I was (forced to) direct the show. I could have done better, but after five hours of sleep I had some serious concentrating problems. Still felt happy after the show, Piia and Jenna did excellent work behind the cameras and saved me few times. I couldn't hear half of the show, and some times I said one thing and did another.

"Okay, camera four take a full shot. Are you sure you are recording camera four? I mean two. Camera three now. Whoops, I said camera three but pressed two. Whoops now I reacted to fast and well, now there is like one sec flash from camera two. Crap, it won't look good on DVD. Hey, what are you doing camera thre- I mean two. CAMERA FOUR GOING OUT NOW! Wait, that was a bad cut because it was similar to shot before. Damn... You all have similiar pictures, zoom in. Not all of you! (Mumbling:) I'm like never going to direct anything again..."

I'm seriously the best director ever lived xD (But had to admit I'm soon starting to enjoy this. BUT ONLY A BIT - be sure next time I'll give the honor to do this to others.)

Yeah, but the sound problem we still had: OUR connections were working perfectly - it was THEIR fault that part of the sound didn't come to us. They had some condenser mics to capture sound from singing children groups. The mics weren't working as there was some chatter noise distracting it. And WE were accused for messing up their sound mixing. Like WTF? All we did was to plug ONE cable to their mixing table output. We didn't touch in anything else. I even removed the cable for a short while to show them that the noise had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with our connection. No-one seemed to care, really.

Well, it simply meant that we couldn't get the sound for our recording nor to downstairs where some people were watching the show via projector. Must have been hilarious to watch mute children opening their mouths.

Luckily we recorded the sound with camera two's internal mic, so we can get something to the DVD we are going to give them. But still the aftertaste from this project was not so sweet. Everyone was saying that the thing was ok, still clearly stating that the sound problem was our fault. Well, I guess it's unvailing to explain anything as we were already convicted.

Apologies, we are not from sound department.

Picture stolen from Jenna, btw. Jenna took some more photos and they are available in her blog.

I can't keep my mouth shut

2010-12-18T19:48:00.006+02:00

Forgot to mention that we are finally done with her. Here's the music video which required blood, sweat and tears from all of us. (Especially from my back.)

The final result looks awesome.

Long time, no write

2010-12-18T14:15:00.008+02:00

Lukio is very *explicit* place. Thanks to one teacher, I hate almost everyhing there. And it's not helping that the teacher I'm talking about is teaching us three courses in this period. Luckily the Christmas is soon coming and we can just take it easy and relax. Must say the past weeks have been quite hectic... Can you believe we still have like five upcoming projects?

First we have to do short film for Finnish course. The planning is going on and currently the whole thing looks very good. We only have to ask for a place (Wildhouse) and book the equipment. But I'm not going to tell more about this yet. All I can say this will be the best work we have ever done in our lives. Spectacular spectacular to be exact.

Next, there is some humorous project for terveystieto. Jenna knows more about this. We are also going to start a radio show for radio Kupari in February, I guess. Then there is some editing for Pilvi and dubbing for Mika. Adding three independent lukio-courses we are all pretty busy, don't you think?

We have done some multi camera also. Last week there was a Christmas play which we were shooting with Jenna and Piia (+ some assistants). It was part of Kulttuuriviikko and we had promised to do it earlier this year. Everything went suspiciously well. I was the technical nerd (as usual) and the mixer. Oh yeah, and the director as Jenna got fed up with it... By the way, I hate directing very much.

Next week we will be doing multi camera, again. This time it's going to be bigger thing as we will be paid. And guess what, I have to be the director. This time I hope I don't have to pay attention to technical things or anything, they will be Piia and Jenna's worry. But it's exciting how we got this project even though we haven't been around "our real school" (lukio is definitely NOT it) in like two months.

Last week we shot some short things using blue screen. If we can get the sound to work, they will be available on YouTube sooner or later.

Okay, but this was just a short update that I'm alive and doing better or worse (depending on which day is it), Christmas is soon coming and everyone's happy. More blogging coming probably after the multi camera show of next Wednesday.

And to add something interesting to this post, here's a logo of our "company", Vaaralliset ärjyvät sotavarikset. We are still arguing should we use English name, Dangerous roaring war-crows.

But here's the logo. Text might still change after we deal with the issue mentioned above.

Merry Christmas everyone!

If there is something strange in your control room...

2010-10-29T19:26:00.008+03:00

Who you gonna call? BNC-woman!

That's right. BNC-woman's first apperance was succesful in Kajaani and now she continued her glorious career at Teemu's music video shootings. Next time you might face her saving the helpless people that can not connect their cables and fighting against the evil forces of RCA. But who knows where the next event will be...

This update is a bit late but oh no, let's make it clear that we are done with the shootings. Once and for all. The rest is up to our editor Jenna and the directing hand Teemu. But back to the shootings, they weren't problem free. First of all my back hurt all the time. After that I got sick for the whole fall break probably because it was cold outside. We had some technical problems with the timecode. But we'll leave that to Jenna's worry. She's the editor, too bad for her.

There were some attitude differences between workers and the director.

The only good thing is that my neck-back area is better because I had physiotherapy today. I will have 2-3 others visits during this winter and hopefully it will help.

Lukio is going well and there is some progress in our project Australia. We sent yesterday a message to a possible workplace. We are currently very optimistic about the situation. But let's see first what they'll answer.

Vaaralliset ärjyvät sotavarikset presents

2010-10-17T11:01:00.000+03:00

Kajaani, 14.10. - 16.10.2010. Another awesome trip is behind. We took two days off from lukio and it was totally worth it. Well, basically anything is worth to take day-offs from lukio, but this one was even bigger reason.

On Thursday morning, we had brief info about everything necessar. Camera places, roles, equipment list and checking etc. We packed everything into a car and headed towards Kajaani.

The place where we stayed was very interesting- a real ghost house! At least it looked like it. Paint was peeling of the walls, floors were curved and they looked like they were about to collapse in any second, creepy trees in the front yard, dirty windows, scary water taps which didn't open very well. (Except the one which Piia used caused flooding and almost drowned us all. But more about that incident coming in future postings.)

Necessar art picture. I'll give you a cookie, if you recognize the original painting which was reference for this creation.

SyysX was in Kajaanihalli. As I told in previous post, I was in handheld camera number two. We set up the control room first, because the guys from Esitek were setting up their things, so we couldn't place our cameras yet. Everything however went almost like we had planned. Onle one camera's place was not available and we had to change it's location. The main worry was, are the batteries going to last long enough. Because the show was five ours with no breaks, we had to keep everything charged to avoid unpleasant surprises. The nice cable mess in picture below might tell you something.

Charging hell in control room.

Against my odds, I managed to film almost whole event without getting my neck ruined. Only in the last show I had some weird cramps in both of my arms. (Currently my neck hurts even more than usually, but by that time I didn't feel it.)

I used a lot of "radical" camera movements like dutch angles, spins, zooms etc. At one point I was so concentrated on finding cool looking shots that I hit my camera on Facelift's quitarist's knee. Two times in row before I even noticed :D I really hope he didn't notice it. But I doubt that... Facelift however was the best band to shoot. The other shows were not bad either and the evening just went by as fast as it began.

I had also some problems with my BNC-cable, which got stuck few times because the audience tied it to the fence with those silver ribbons decorating the hall. Also some of them came over the fence to my area. Luckily the officers removed them quite quickly, but still it wasn't nice.

Everybody was a bit nervous before the show.

After the show we had small break and then we packed the equipment. I actually got good feedback from director for camera operating.

We were treated like VIPs as we got cool star passports with our names and everything. For example we had free food from upstairs cafeteria - all meals from breakfast to evening snack. The food was also very good.

Omg, we were like very important persons.

Me and Jenna got very epic video material from our aparment, car trips and everything. We'll going to combine them and make some short compilations of everything we shot. Be patient.

Finally done

2010-10-13T21:16:00.004+03:00

The missing two parts of Nurmes are now here.

Part 3: Trust your feelings

Part 4: Have a plan

Remember that the nicknames in the end were picked from our discussions or other things that came up during Nurmes trip, so don't take them serious :)

Tomorrow we will head to Kajaani. I was quite shocked when I discovered that I'm going to be on handheld stage camera the whole event. That means FIVE HOURS with only a few short breaks between the shows. Like my neck would get any better by that... I'm being serious now. I have had neck and back problems nearly two months and they are getting worse day by day. I can't take pain medication, because it doesn't make any difference. So that means I have to just suffer... Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a problem, but I can barely get 5 hours sleep in a night. Let's see how long I can go on like this.

Luckily there is some reserve guys coming with us, so if I come to a situation where I just can't do anything anymore I'll just pass the camera to another person and have a break. I'm actually excited to be on handheld camera, because I think it's the best way to express yourself. You are more like "free" to roam around and find interesting new angles and approaches. So just to make clear: I have nothing against handheld cameras, it's just my current neck-shoulder situation that make things a bit more complicated.

We're leaving tomorrow after lunch. I'll update everything after the event.

Oh, and by the way. Lukio gives you great new ideas. For example, today me, Piia and Jenna had a idea of being one week lacto-ovo-vegetarians. The moment of truth is after two weeks when we have to manage the whole time with just vegetarian food. Luckily we can use milk and eggs, so I'm not totally going starve. The hardest part is probably to find candies without gelatine.

Structure builds up...

2010-10-12T18:42:00.005+03:00

Second bus trip video is here. I censored this one also, but for some reason they are not working :P I can't believe it, because they were on the same audio track as the music, which is working. Maybe I should have rendered them before exporting... Oh well, this video had only three explicit words (if I correctly counted) so maybe you can handle it.

Let me introduce you part 2: Be efficient. Enjoy! (Especially the techno part.)

I try to upload the two remaining parts tomorrow. Then the next videos will hopefully be from Kajaani.

Professionals' have stantards

2010-10-11T18:27:00.013+03:00

Busy week as always. Lukio is totally killing me. Everytime you have te write and I can say my neck doesn't like it at all :S I haven't slept well during the last week because of it.

On Saturday, me, Piia and Jenna were helping Teemu with his music video project. Technically I was the light designer and technical support, but I had to shoot some small parts also. We were so professional's, as we took monitors, dollies and everything :D Let's see what does it look like after it's been edited.

We began to shoot around two o'clock. Of course, me and Piia were the only ones around by that time. So we decided to take some photos.

Me being small and Piia being mean.

The stuff started to fly when Jenna came.

You can't notice product placement in this picture, can you?

Eventually Teemu and Annika came so we started the shootings. We did all the basic stuff, gathering equipment and setting them up. Then was the coffee break, where I saved the day by making epic fall on stairs. I think there still might be visible black lines on the floor which came out from my shoes. And my both knees are currently blue and painful because of that. But at least we got good laughter.

Back from hillomunkki break. (Notice the painful look in my eyes.)

I was the light guy, so I had my own breaks while others were shooting. (I actually was frightened when I saw my back in this picture... But as you can see, I'm on the better end of the evolution chain!)

After three hours of work everyone was like "I'm completely done", so Teemu was understanding and said that we can continue later on. We got some good material, but we still have a lot of work to do.

Yes, and the first Nurmes bus trip video is here! I divided the whole thing in four parts and hopefully they all will be here before Kajaani. (If someone didn't know, I'm going to Kajaani multi camera on Thursday. Camcorder is coming with me so new video material is probably coming after the event.)

But ladies and gentlemen: let me introduce you the first part of epic bus adventure: Be polite

NOTE: These videos are not to be meant insulting or anything, so I you have any complaints or other issues please message me so I'll see what I can do :)

//Update: Censored version added.

Final f$*&ing countdown

2010-09-30T21:49:00.006+03:00

Sorry for the headline but I'm quite pissed off at the moment. For myself. My intention was to be efficient today, but guess two times did I do anything. No.

Tomorrow is going to be final day of radio course. Me and Jenna are again hosting the sci-fi show "Lähikaupasta ulkoavaruuteen". Normally I would be excited about this, but for some reson I'm fed up with everything. We don't know yet about what we are going to talk and when we have time to plan. Excellent time management. But glad it's over tomorrow. Then next week to lukio :/

I still have this geography web course going on and I can say it's not in very good progress. At least eight essays still unwritten.

I will start editing Nurmes bus trip as soon as possible. I have so much ideas but not enough time. Don't know does it even make sense to publish them after a month of the actual event. But let's see. I have promised the bus trip, so I won't let you down ;)

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention Teemu's music video project next weekend. We had some planning today and it sounds good. We also divided our initial roles, and it seems I'm part of the light team + tecnical advisor / support (read: the only one who can use the equipment) JUST KIDDING!

I'll be telling more about this project as the plan goes on.

Science fiction double feature

2010-09-26T16:33:00.010+03:00

Currently I'm having the most terrible headache probably in years. I seriously can't remember when was the last time. Not nice, when you are trying to write an essay about space threats for geography course ._. I think I'll leave it to another day...

Well, I finished my radio assignment which was to make interview about woolen stockins. I think in general it's about the average. Still it's very good considering that I have only done one sound course in my life because of lukio. For my misfortune, it's going to be on radio tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully it works and Mika is not going to eat me.

By the way. At the same time I was transferring this radio thing to memory stick I found some Matrix photos of Jenna. I edited one because I was bored, so here's the result:

Click to enlarge.

I have more of these photos, but currently I'm too busy to make anything out of them. I still have the Nurmes bus trip unedited and I should also do some research for my and Jenna's sci-fi radio show "Lähikaupasta ulkoavaruuteen". We are going to talk everything from cheese to moon. Mostly things related to movies and their spinoffs. Also something factual about newest achievements of science and something about space weather. The show is going to be on Tuesday at 14 and Friday at 13. Instructions for listening here.

On Friday I went to Star Wars concert with my friend. It was in areena in Joensuu. I must say it was very good. The visualisation was done by pohjois-Karjalan Ammattikorkeakoulu. They had five cameras, I think and some animations which were projected to the big screen. It was so fun to follow others doing multi camera work. The best part is, that they did exactly the same mistakes that we usually do. Freezing in one frame too long, shooting the action too late, not keeping the frames long enough during croosfades, too fast pans and so on.

Only thing that they clearly did better was using more camera movements. Even though, sometimes they weren't perfect, but I personally like more seeing something else than just one person's face for five seconds. They also used this nice focusing out when they "moved to the space" (showed the animation extracts they had made for the show).

In Kajaani we will use screens for the first time. But only limited amount of people can go there and I really hope that I'm one of them. But we'll see ;)

If you get what you give, what you got is a nutcase

2010-09-19T13:20:00.009+03:00

Weekend's are pretty boring, don't you think. Yesterday I watched a movie called The Expendables. It was nearly as bad as Salt, the movie where Angelina Jolie is Russian spy without knowing it or something. I can't believe that I paid to see that movie.

The Expendables was very typical action film. I guess it's clear without mentioning that the whole movie was just a lot of combats, dramatic car chases, big explosions, huge guns, manly conversations, skillful tricks, dirt, blood, sweat (and tears). Just one question: where has Sylvester Stallone forgotten the plot? It's half of the fun, so there should be something else than playing with expensive special effects.

And short advice to everyone who is about to make an action film: remove the lame love side-stories. I don't get it. Why there has to be always some beautiful chick to rescue? We have seen that in every movie since whatever. Can you please show us something else now? The great nutcase has spoken.

Next thing: Nurmes documentation part three. Darth Vader Pickle's funeral. He was a good man. He achieved many good things during his short, one day of life. May he rest in peace.

// Damnit, I just realized that the dates are wrong in this video... They should be 11.9. - 12.9.2010. My brain must still lie in Nurmes...

Your mind will never be the same...

2010-09-17T19:09:00.005+03:00

Nurmes documentation part two. This time we are going to show you what happens in the darkest corners of the mental hospital in Nurmes... The places you don't even see in your worst nightmares. You will never be the same after watching this video. I at least got traumatized. Well, not because of this video but The Rocky Horror Picture Show that Jenna presented to us yesterday. The movie is definitely worth watching. Sweet transvestite from transexual Transylvania. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? I'm sure now you will go and get the movie.

And here's the video. It really doesn't make any sense (the title states it very clearly). It's just playing with video effects and special transitions. I'm very proud that I discovered some new features during editing and learned to use them. In my opinion the end result is not bad at all considering this was my first time using most of the things. But enjoy!

I promise to upload Darth Vader Cucumber's funeral this weekend and also our bus trip if I have time. I gave the video material to Jenna, so she might also upload something. There is two flash drives containing all our material. i'm not going to make the torrent because I realized that some people are using mokkula and for them it's not fair. So ask Jenna or give me a flash drive if you want the material.

First video from Nurmes

2010-09-13T21:29:00.012+03:00

"Paska paikka", a short documentation about first day in Nurmes (or it actually is the second, I'm not completely sure). Every single technical aspect suck in this movie. Especially sound. Put pay attention to cool environment and Jenna's natural skills of introducing things.

More epic moments coming as soon as possible.

And note for everyone who wants to download the video material: I'll be working with torrent file and it will be available as soon as possible. Be patient :)

Back from Nurmes

2010-09-12T22:19:00.008+03:00

Week in Nurmes was something completely different. Mainly eating, sleeping (not very much), having fun and working. This time we were doing important job as our material will be used for commercial purposes of this festival.

There were only a few people from our class as others were doing independent work or participating to a movie camp. Our two alpha males + five girls were part of this production. (RANDOM INSERT HERE: ACCORDING TO JENNA, MOTH LOOKS LIKE ME.)

In the first day we unpacked our equipment and just hanged around. I think the place we were living was ex mental hospital. The heaters were up in the ceiling. Creepy. In the evening me and Jenna used men's shower. That was extremely interesting experience. I'm still thinking was someone taking photos outside... But that's pretty much everything about the first night in Nurmes.

After spending one night in Nurmes, everyone started to look more or less like this...

I have no idea what I did on Thursday. Others were drinking if I correctly remember. That means I was quite bored all the time. (Except the case when Jenna went to men's toilet because she thought it would be women's.) Well, we were also shooting some zumba, Ukkosmaine and Fintelligens for practise.

People at Darth Vader Cucumber's memorial. Video coming soon!

Friday was first day of actual work. Or better word would be evening because our shootings started around 8PM. Sami the Partajeesus was again (as in Kevätkumpu) our director. Today we filmed some Russian-Finnish artist, some very fast moving lady and opera guy. I was in camera one right next to the stage.

Saturday was also shooting, except at first I was in handheld stage camera five taking very bad shots mainly of the drummer and after that in camera two taking full shots. After that we went to laavu and grilled some sausages.

Tarkkaamon jumala and me; messing things up.

On Sunday I was working in the control room as mixer. It was my first time behind the mixing table, so it didn't went prefectly. It was still fun and after that we packed our equipment.

The best part is that I had my digital camcorder with me, so I have a good documentation about the last day in Nurmes. (I also shot something little during other days.) The material is a bit random and tomorrow I will start working with it after I get USB cable and charger.

By the way, I took these photos right from my video files, so the quality is not the best. Check Piia's blog if you want to see better pictures.

Me and you-know-who, again. (I have no idea why he is in all my videos.)

The epic documentary adventure is about to begin!

Packing...

2010-09-07T20:19:00.006+03:00

Nurmes tomorrow, I'm totally waiting for it. We will leave at 9.30 tomorrow morning.The things I'm going to need are nearly packed. Sadly, I must say that laptop is not among them. Computer would take one whole bag and because I tried to take as little stuff as possible, I dropped it off. But my digital camcorder is coming with me and I promise that try to shoot something short from Nurmes.

Today at school was also packing. Equipment was tested very-very-very carefully, so I wonder if there will be any technical problems. (Knock on wood.)

Because I had nothing else to do besides packing, I also drew a storyboard for a short horror film. I'm bad at drawing, but I had to get this idea on paper before I would have forgotten it. I'll introduce it to someone (probably Piia and Jenna) and if I'm lucky, they might be ready to film it with me. But let's see what happens.

The worst presentation ever

2010-09-03T15:46:00.006+03:00

It was good, until I had to speak. I don't know what's wrong with me. Everytime I mess up, when I'm trying to say something. My head thinks that I should say something but then my mouth won't obey me... *Insert sound of deep sigh here* Well, there is nothing I should explain. I'll go to corner and cry now. But first, below my analysis as written version. I also put some pictures of the frames to make you undertand better. Enjoy.

Subway
I chose a French crime drama film called Subway made in 1985. It's directed by Luc besson and in 1986 it was the third most popular French film in its home country.

The director has took references from movies like Breathless and Diva, as well as his own film, The Last Combat which are all very popular French films. The first one is from 60s and the others from early 80s. He has also used it as reference in his later films Léon and The Fifth Element.

Subway tells story of a man known as Fred (played by Chritopher Lambert). After having stolen some important documents, he takes refuge in the underground world of the Paris Métro. The gangster owner of the papers sends his henchmen after him. During his stay in the Paris Métro, Fred befriends with fellow small criminals living underground and decides to form a band. He also develops a complicated relationship with the gangster's wife Héléna (Isabelle Adjani) who is bored with her rich and luxury life.

The extract I chose begins at 16:44 and ends at 21:44. It is almost right after Fred has arrived to metro station and managed to escape from the chasers. I chose this part because it gives a good look of the highly energetic visual style of this film and also shows how the main character adapts and reacts to new situations.
The extract begins with medium shot of Fred sleeping on blue chairs at metro station hallway. He is still wearing a suit because he robbed the documents during a party, in which he was invited. The costume choice is very typical to film from this genre. It is evening and the station is already closed.

The shot is followed by long medium shot of some sort of yellow metro railway machine which drives by. Rails clonking sound wakes Fred up.
The next shot is close-up, where he raises up and follows the machine with his eyes. This shot shows his blond, spiky and a bit messy hair, which represents the nature of this film very well as in this film there is very strong and clear colors. The background pattern in this frame is very effective method to highlight Fred’s current mood which is maybe a bit confused.

Close-up of text “Aspirateur”, slowly going by the frame. Camera pans to right. Fred looks down and faces to the other direction looking still quite sleepy. The metro station is perfect location, because it gives the feeling of mysteriousness but it still is a public place which makes it feel a bit unsafe.

Cut to a long medium shot of the machine going by and out of the frame. The lighting in this frame is very simple, but effective: dark metro tunnel with just few, shaped lights. This frame also tells something about the visual impression in this film.
After that there is a cut to full shot of Fred walking towards the camera. The room behind is very spacey. Blue walls balance the picture and give a calm feeling. That’s exactly what metro station should look like during nighttime. After Fred has walked so close, that the frame is full medium shot he turns left. Camera pans to right and tracks him through the wall. Now we are in a room with completely different, red color world. That might indicate of upcoming action.

Another medium shot of Fred when he is trying to find the light switch in the dark space. Accidentally he starts the weird machine, which’s sound breaks the silence.
Cut to extreme long shot when the lights switch on and reveal the whole room. Room is having little puddles creating an impression of empty, abandoned place. Warning line on the roof highlights the frame.

Long shot of Fred standing by the door of an office. Lights switch on again. Fred walks to safe deposit box and listens to it. He is going to steal something, again. In the beginning of the film, he robbed the documents from Héléna. The motif for his action was love, but this time it’s left a bit unclear. Maybe it’s just his nature, but it’s hard to tell because of the strong cinematic emphasis of this film.

Cut to medium close up when Fred runs behind the corner and back to wall. Explosion breaks the silence. Long shot where Fred walks back to the room. Camera tilts up as he’s walking. Medium shot of destroyed deposit box which is still smoking.

Fred runs down the stairs. The frame is extreme long shot and camera slowly tilts down. Colors are very basic and the frame composition is quite simple, but it really shows the viewer how huge place underground world really is.

The next frame is medium shot. Fred walks in dark corridor. Camera pans right and dollies around the corner. The sound becomes humming, like there was a fan somewhere. The grate creates a shadow on the wall. Fred is shown dark in this frame because of the use of backlight.

Cut to a long medium shot. Ladders still continue. Camera makes a long pan down. Fred exits frame, but camera stays still there a while to show the depth of the shaft. Lights are there to make that impression of depth greater.

Next frame has very greenish colors. The lights are again symmetrically positioned on the wall. Action is happening in the right side of the frame. Cross fade to Fred walking in the corridor which is the opposite of the previous frame. Colors are red and the action is happening in the other side. Quite unusual way to edit things together, but this time it really works as otherwise editing is straight cuts.
Fred keeps walking towards camera. The sound world is still very simple; humming and footsteps. Camera pans right after him, but Fred disappears to darkness. Dark frame lasts few seconds and we can only hear some sounds.

Medium shot Fred switches on the fluorescent light. The light makes a creepy hissing noise, which can be heard under the mechanical noises. Camera follows as he walks forward through the steaming pipes. This frame is good example of this film’s artistic look and showing affects from art house genre.

After that there’s shot of his legs as the floor fails under him. Cut to medium shot of Fred hanging from sidebar. The low angle makes it look like he is hanging from somewhere really high and dangerous place. The light that he held falls out of the frame.

Long shot high-angle as the fluorescent light falls down to a pit underneath. We can hear a splash as the light hits the water.

Cut back to low angle shot where Fred is looking down. In the next shot we can see Fred’s hand holding tight of handrail. This shot also shows us better the handcuffs in his right hand. That’s because he was almost arrested before he escaped, reminding him to keep his eyes open.

Long shot of his head as he climbs. Camera tilts up. He walks to camera. The picture is quite open and reveals the set behind him. The pipe is still steaming and the orange light flashes. This frame also takes reference from art films. Fred comes nearer to camera. There is spooky, blue glow on his shirt which together with the orange background creates complementary colors.

Cut to a close up of funny looking pair of rollerblades with a halogen lamps attached to them. The frame is still dark and reveals nothing.
Fred asking “Is someone there?”Close up of rollerblade lights switch on.
Fred covers his face from light. There is a shadow from his hand on his face, which shows blue. Otherwise he is completely in light.

Cut to another medium close up. A long tilt up from toes to head of the rollerblader. Very effective way to introduce the character, considering that we saw his legs first. He is dressed in very original clothes. Beige pants, green shirt and brown jacket. In his head there is bandana and he is holding a wrench. He looks very suspicious.

Fred and this roller guy have a short discussion. Many discussions indicate that this film is mainly built on visual aspects. The characters are bit too shallow and film doesn’t go very deep to their personality.

Full shot of roller guy skating, Fred is running next to him. Camera dollies away. Fred stops because he can’t run anymore. Roller guy turns around. Long shot, where they talk face to face. Fred asks how he can get rid of his “bracelet”. Roller guy says that he is not very polite, but refers that he is going to do something to it. Because they both are living in the metro tunnels they have to stick together.

I think Subway i concentrating more on visual side than the plot or the characters.
The sound world is simple as well, so I would recommend it to people who like artistic films and able to use their imagination, because of shallow characters.

AAARGH! (And also some good news)

2010-09-02T21:16:00.012+03:00

Let's begin with the good news: I had the film presentation about Pan's labyrith today. I think it went quite bad, but maybe no-one cares. There weren't much technical issues, which is extremely rare situation :D I really hope, that people enjoyed the film.

Here's my presentation in a nutshell:

Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno)

Country: Mexico, Spain, USA
Year: 2006
Genre: fantasy
Director: Guillermo del Toro (Hellboy, The Devils Backbone)
Writer: Guillermo del Toro
Filmography: Guillermo Navarro
Music: Javier Navarrete
Actors: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones

Tagline: In darkness, there can be light. In misery, there can be beauty. In death, there can be life…

Synopsis: In 1944, in the post-Civil War in Spain, rebels fight in the mountains against the fascist troops. The young and imaginative Ofelia travels with her pregnant and sick mother Carmen Vidal to the country to meet and live with her stepfather, the sadistic and cruel Captain Vidal, in an old mill. During the night, Ofelia meets a fairy and together they go to a pit in the center of a maze where they meet a faun that tells that she is a princess from a kingdom in the underground. He also tells that her father is waiting for her, but she needs to accomplish three gruesome, tough and dangerous assignments first. Meanwhile, she becomes friend of the servant Mercedes, who is the sister of one of the rebels and actually is giving support to the group. In a dark, harsh and violent world, Ofelia lives her magical world trying to survive her tasks and see her father again.

Academy awards won: Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup
Nominated: Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film
Other: everal wins and nominations at BAFTA, Goya and Ariel Awards, also other awards

Why did I choose this film?
One reason why I chose this film was extremely beautiful set-designing and make-up. The movie gives a great mixture of reality and fantasy.
That’s why the story is great: because of those two, completely different sides. There is the real world and the fantasy world which balance each other. I like also how different color themes separate the worlds from each other. The real world is filled with cold colors and the fantasy world is warm.
There are small details that connect the worlds. The details are actually the greatest part in this film. Every time you watch it, you will notice something new. There are these basic elements and layers which build the structure and they kind of keep the two stories together.
The characters in this film are very distinctive, especially the fantasy creatures. The Faun and the Pale-Man for example; they have awesome costumes and the best part; they have not been copied from other films. So whoever created these characters has got great imagination and talent.
I also like the simple, but still impressive sound world. The main song for this film is just a lullaby, but it fits perfectly to fantasy world and is also typical to fairytale.

-----

The AARGH! -part:
And then the bad news. You all know that I'm not very likely to do oral presentations. Tomorrow, I'm going to have another presentation about a short extract from film. (I chose Frech film called Subway.) The worst thing is, that I have barely started.

But more about that tomorrow. Now I really have to kick myself to do the work.

Jenna loves me

2010-08-26T20:13:00.013+03:00

// Now embedded from YouTube. Should work better now.

Jenna Loves Sanni is a short soundproject for Piia. So don't pay too much attention to anything else ;) We did the shootings very fast, so it might explain a lot. The end credits are the best part!

Anyways, enjoy the film. I'll keep adding our best (or otherwise good) works here.

Oh, and I'm having the first film presentation next week. Yaiks, it's going to be scary. What can be harder than talking in front of the class for thirty people?

Let's first hope that my film makes it here in time. I chose Pan's Labyrinth, an awesome Mexican-Spanish-American fantasy film. You should definitely see it if you haven't. More information like "Why did I choose this film?" coming right after or bit before the presentation.

So... Till next Thursday!

Back to school

2010-08-14T17:49:00.002+03:00

The first school week went well, we were teaching the new students and making digitales with them. The new group seems to be very nice, actually I think they are already better than us. For example they showed me and Jenna how to use microphone stand :D Well how we are supposed to know, if we had to skip almost all of the sound courses because of our best friend, lukio.

The lukio thing seems to be again really nice. All the good subjects, like multicamerawork and TV-project are just when we have to be studying Swedish, history, maths and other wonderful subjects which we all love very-very much. We'll have to see can we arrange these things somehow, but currently the situation seems very sad :P

Anyway, on Monday we do something (=I'm too lazy to check what precisely) and later on, go to Kiisu. There is a play called Kiven Sylissä, too bad I have alredy seen it with my mom :/ But I guess it's ok to go there again.

Movies... again

2010-07-26T12:57:00.007+03:00

What else you can do when you are on vacation? Besides being out and hanging with you friends. Movies (and games), of course ;D

Donnie Darko, 2001
I have had an intention to watch this soooo long time. Few days ago it was on TV, so there was my opportunity.
The film was excellent. The words can not describe it, you can only tell by watching yourself. Shortly I can say it's funny, dramatic and a bit creepy at the same time. The meaning of this movie... No one can figure it out. The truth is you can't understand Donnie Darko, when you see it for the first time. You can never fully understand. Leaves a question, is Donnie really some sort of psycho, who imagines everything or is the life what we are shown the truth. I'll make my decision, when I watch this movie again. This film has been voted most confusing film of all time. That explains a lot.

Papillon, 1973
Papillon is a crime drama about a man called Papillon serving his sentence on a prison island. He befriends with fellow man and together they plan for their escape.
The movie is two and half hours long, which is definitely too much at least for me. I was totally ready to go and sleep before the middle part. There was a couple of good and interesting scenes, for example when Papillon is isolated for two years for punishment of trying to escape. Othewise the film was about the average; the shots, editing and all worked fine. Ending was somewhat confusing and it was the point when I lost the track once and for all.

Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, 1977
As known as the original Star Wars. SubTV shows all the Star Wars movies during this summer, including the parts I-III, which I don't consider belonging to the series at all. I bet they are class B films made just for getting more and more money, that's why I'm not going to watch them.
Anyway, Episode IV is well made sci-fi action. Actually the special effects are quite good looking even nowadays, in the 70s they must have been futuristic.
The original Star Wars-trilogy is full of memorable moments and quotes. Who could forget Darth Vader's breathing and his lines like I find your lack of faith disturbing or The force is strong with this one. Or the funny take where one stormtrooper accidentally hits his head when entering the room. Of course not to mention characters like Obi-wan Kenobi, Han Solo, R2D2 and many others.
There is still two more parts to come, watch them.

Total Eclipse, 1995
Don't confuse Total Eclipse with the new crappy Twilight movie. Total Eclipse is a story about a relationship between two 19th-century poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. Movie is based on a true story and have to mention, their relationship is very complicated because sexual relationships between men were not acceptable in 19th-century.
The movie jumps a lot from one place to another and it's not very easy to follow. But that's not the point. The idea is to show how hard (and weird) their life really was. Young and spoiled Rimbaud arrives to Verlaine and disrupts the household of his family. Verlaine becomes abusive towards his wife and leaves her because of Rimbaud. Their relationship is sadis-masochistic and Verlaine is in a desperate situation, struggling to choose between Rimbaud and his wife. Eventually someone goes to prison and someone dies.
Total Eclipse is twisted, even disgusting overview on two peculiar persons' mind. The language is partly very poetic and maybe a bit hard to understand for non-native English speaker. I think that this line from Rimbaud depicts perfectly the whole film: The only unbearable thing is that nothing is unbearable. Makes no sense, right?

A bottle of Russian Fanta... and a movie rampage

2010-06-14T00:59:00.012+03:00

Rainy weekend, so I had a very long movie marathon. Or better describing term would be movie rampage. In three days I have watched twelve (and a half) movies which I think is my personal record. I know some of you can watch 14 movies nonstop, but let's keep things separated, right? I have to admit that I can concentrate at most in two movies in a row. After that I MUST have a few hour break, otherwise I won't be responsible for my doings.

Underneath is short compilation of my weekend and brief comments about the films I watched.

1. Jurassic Park, 1993
I have seen this one before, but I didn't remember the details so I decided to watch it again. Typical Spielberg movie.

2. The Bourne Identity, 2002
Honestly I must admit that the Finnish title Medusan verkko sounded so class-Z science fiction film with actors like Eddie Murphy or Jamie Foxx that I didn't want watch this one at all. My dad is somewhat fan of this movie, so he kinda forced me to familiarize myself with it. (We actually had a small fight earlier because of this.)

Eventually it turned out to be something else that I had imagined. Apologies for my dad; for now on I don't call movies "bad" or "good" just because of the title. Still I didn't understand the story or anything at all. Nothing more to add. Period.

3. Batman, 1989
I learned something new: the Joker and the Riddler are two different characters. (You can call me stupid now with a good reason this time.) I seriously thought I have seen Batman before, but when Jack Nicholson appeared as the Joker I was like WTF IS GOING ON? After the film I went to Wikipedia and found out how things really are. Jim Carrey plays the Riddler in Batman Forever, I was recalling that one because (I think) I have seen that one instead, not the original Batman. There are really tons of different Batman movies, so hopefully you can forgive me.

4. The Clockwork Orange, 1971
Again, movie that I have seen earlier. Back then, I hated it. This time, I still hated it. But only at first. Somehow after the middle section I started to consider moral issues, not only the victims' but also Alex's point of view. Very emotive film. Provokes thoughts and makes you consider ethnic issues. I'm definitely a better person now. (Not really, but I had to add something dramatic here.) My recommendations to this film.

5. Atlantis, 1991
Beautiful documentary by Luc Besson. Gives a very good view on sea life and it's creatures, even though there is no narration. Music (which is composed by Eric Serra) is the best part.

6. Requiem For A Dream, 2000
This has been one of my favorites since I saw it for the first time. Touching story about drug addiction which (of course) is not going to end well. Nice extreme close-ups and beautiful music. Points for the unusual camera work, for example split screen shots and long rewind scenes.

7. Three Colors: Blue, 1993
First part of the color trilogy of Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski. I liked this one, and the color used in details but after the film I wasn't sure what should I think about it. I'm almost speechless now. The film stirred up strong emotions and some questions, but where is the answer to them? And I have to mention the akward neck-cutting shots (a couple of examples below) that made me almost whack my computer screen for frustration. In spite of all this, great film.

Not like this.

8. A Nightmare On Elm Street, 1984
Well... I don't know should I cry or laugh? (In reality I was laughing almost all the time.) Horror movies should be scary, shouldn't them? Ugly guy with knives and comical amount of fake blood just isn't enough.

9. Three Colors: White, 1994
Second part of the trilogy and also the most underrated of all three. I liked this one also. The color white was again represented well in small details. For me White was more clear than Blue because the story was simple and short. But maybe too shallow. At least for me it didn't cause any strong reactions. Excellent film anyway.

10. Ninja Assassin, 2009
Three words about this movie: blood, blood and more blood. Oh, and I forgot to mention ridiculous ending.

11. Three Colors: Red, 1994
Last but not least was the third part of the color trilogy. I could say this was my "favorite color". Touching story and beautiful red details, this time I think the color was more dominating than in the previous parts. I also loved how everything was tied together in the end making all of the three movies to be clearly linked to each other. (I noticed that there was also a bottlebank in every part, but that is just a detail, not very big issue considering the link between these three films.)

12. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 1975
This is just classic. Don't know how many times I have seen it but still it makes me laugh. Good end for a movie marathon.

I also started to watch Magnolia, but I finished it today, so it doesn't count. The weather should also be better by morning so I'll go out for rollerblading.

Cloudy day, time for a movie

2010-06-09T19:43:00.018+03:00

Somehow I feel like I should write here all the time... And I have done nothing special expect fixing the blog (and my other Finnish blog, which you can read here). Now I finally have a counter for visitors, let's see how many people actually read my pointless texts :D

Let's move on; I went to see Prince of Persia yesterday, even though I was very unwilling to do it at first. Somehow my friend made me convinced that it might be worth to watch, so pretty soon I noticed I was sitting in the hall of Tapio with a ticket and a huge bag of candies in my hands. The screenings started just at 9 PM which really was the most interesting thing in whole event. As it was slowly becoming dark, the sky was so beautiful when I walked on nearly empty streets. I just love the summer nights.

The film itself wasn't so special. Some very beautiful shots and quite good acting, that's it. The thing that bothered me most was those jerky slow-motion scenes. Also the editing could have been better in some points, but it still would not have been enough to save the whole film. You probably know that Price of Persia is originally a game. Story in games is usually more simple and action related than a story in film. It is very hard to turn film into game and vice versa. Unfortunately it was the very same issue with this one; it just didn't work as well as it should have been working to be smooth and easy to watch. Even though I haven't played Prince of Persia (but other games similar to that), I immediately noticed gamish features here and there. Ending was also a bit predictable, but not bad.

The film had it's moments, though. I loved the strong emotions between the characters, especially the conflict between the brothers. There was a couple of funny comments from the crazy desert guy's (sorry, I can't remember the name) and prince's mouth, which made me laugh. Personal and strong characters are the main thing that makes this film worth watching. In general, Prince of Persia was an average film and believe it or not, I would recommend to see it.

Tallitädit, a documentary about horses

2010-06-07T03:52:00.035+03:00

I knew I forgot something; to mention our week before Kevätkumpu, when we were making a TV documentary. The original idea about horses came from Piia, Merja supported us to actually do it even though it seemed nearly impossible at first. You can read more on Piia's blog if you want to.

I will probably write more about the production and the shootings some time, yet I'm still busy watching NHL game. (And I should get some sleep too, it's 4.45 at the moment.) Anyways, our group (me, Piia, Jenna and Eemeli) did a great job as usual. We bet it's one of our best works in this year.

The Photobucket was AGAIN messing up with me and changed the aspect ratio to 4:3. But I'm not going to reupload since it took over four hours to get it over here. Though there might be better YouTube version coming later on.

// 27.06.2010 The Youtube version, finally

Special thanks to Eija, who let us visit her home and film her and Pertsa.

Sorry for non-Finnish people that video doesn't have subtitles. We also had a subtitled version, but it has not been (and won't be) exported from AVID. Believe me, the subtitle quality was "a bit" low. That's what you get, when you do everything in a hurry...

Something about the last school week

2010-06-07T02:58:00.005+03:00

Even though the summer has started I'm writing this text to school blog... Just to ask myself why in hell I'm doing this? There is few reasons I found, first I'm bored and second there's nothing coming on TV (well, I'm watching NHL games on Internet, but that's not the same thing). Soo, that means I have a few minutes to share my thoughts with you guys.

Our last school week was multicamerawork, again. This time we were shooting Kevätkumpu festival dance shows. Or was the second show actually theater? Not sure, but who eventually cares. The main point is, that we had fun with shootings and all the other necessary things-to-do-before-shootings. This included at least getting the stuff, setting them up, taping all the cables to floor (I guess just to make sure no one trips over them) and finally testing our high tech connection/cable mess. It worked fine, because nothing got on fire or exploded.

Finally the main thing: the shootings itself were fun as usual. I was on camera three, which was wheel camera on the right side of the stage. Challenging, but very enjoyable. I was shooting the second day shows, Heikki was behind the camera on the first day. My day was easier in a way, because it the show I was shooting wasn't so rapid dance performance as Heikki's was.

During the shootings there weren't any bigger problems as far as I know. Again, the time went very fast and soon I noticed the show being over, as well as my back and neck being history. (I was kidding with my friends that I should retire before I even get a real job.) We gathered the stuff and had a short meeting outdoors. I think got very good feedback from teacher and director. One more reason to be happy before holidays, hopefully the final product was good as well ;)

The end of the week was just chilling out, we visited some exhibitions and watched short films at Marita. The school year in general was awesome, all the thanks belong to you guys. Best group I have ever been in. See you after summer :)

Multicamerawork

2010-05-05T13:57:00.010+03:00

This is also the first "official" text to this blog.

So. Last week we went to Kummun koulu with our camera- and sound equipment. We were asked to film those so-called music evenings. In Monday we just chose our roles and gathered all the things we would need during the shootings. I got a role as a part of the camera team.

After we had collected our equipment, someone drove them to Kummun koulu and started to build our set for Tuesday.

In Tuesday we checked everything just in case something wouldn't work properly. Luckily we didn't have big technical issues, so we could just relax till the afternoon. The soundcheck was at midday or something and we had a short rehersal about how we should behave with the cameras. Because everything was working alright, we got a few hours break. It was actually a relief, because our school started at 9.30.

The show started at 19. I was behind the handheld stage camera with Samuli. I think the evening went pretty well, even though we had some small problems with headphones and battery. When I came back home I really could feel that 1,5 hours behind the camera in my arms. Ouch.

Wednesday started luckily at 17, so we had plenty of time to relax. We basically shot the same thing again, but this time we paid more attention to exposure and took even better shots. I wasn't so "terrified" this day, so my hands were also most likely steadier. After the show we got our stuff back to school and were free to go.

Overall, I liked very much the week because there so much "real" things to do. You had to organize everything and really pay attention to your doings. We also took a short look at our final result today and it looked quite good considering that we were doing this for the first time.

Yay, I have a blog now

2010-04-16T10:12:00.012+03:00

What should I write?

Let's start with the basic truth: I'm awesome and I like cookies. For you the truth is something else. Something that even I can't define. Remember that I'm always right. Only if Jenna isn't. Which she usually is. Or is she? For me to consider for you to find out. So far that's all you need to know. (ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!)

Btw, follow my blog.