Miabi Movies | M i a b i . F i l m s

How To Play Straight Gin

15-05-2009

Lespants and I did another Howcast video. This time we’re playing Gin. We decided to forgo the humor and do a mood piece. Of course we still think it’s hilarious. Good buddy Hank Offinger graciously donated some of his time to help out and thank god he did. Without dialog, his great facial expressions really sell the thing. Not only did I get to play with After Effects a bit, but I got to wear my awesome Justin Timberlake hat AND be a sore loser on camera. This is me trying to be brooding. Couldn’t really ask for anything more.

We got to again work with the awesome and friendly people at Howcast which was really nice. Their website is not only a place to find great How To videos, but it’s such a resource for filmmakers looking to sharpen their skills. Definitely check it out.

So grab a friend and play some Gin.

How To Do a Flea-Flicker

By: Greg

16-01-2009

Movies

Lespants recently asked me if I’d like to collaborate on a “How To” video for the Emerging Filmmaker Program at Howcast.com. I was kinda blah about it at first- until he suggested putting my new After Effects skills to work. Seeking any opportunity to use my favorite game for good, I jumped on it.

Howcast is a pretty cool How To site which has hundreds of neat video tutorials. Things like How To Pick up a Flight Attendant and How To Look Hot While Playing “Rock Band”. This is not your father’s How To website.

It all gets wrapped up in their standardized packaging. They provide a basic script, a VO track, graphics, and access to a music library. Leaving us to shoot it any way we want.

We downloaded How To Do a Flea-Flicker. (Grammatically incorrect title. Should be: How to RUN a Flea-Flicker) Christian shot it in front of a green screen on HD with our friend Noah Starr filling in as the entire team. Then I edited it and ran it through After Effects; adding backgrounds and motion graphics work. It was fun to see it all come together and it helped me perfect my FCP to AE to FCP workflow.

Have a looksie… Hopefully you’ll dominate this year’s family pigskin pickup game.

xtranormal

By: Greg

07-01-2009

Blog

I woke up this morning to a really fun email from my friend Dennis out in Portland. He stumbled onto this site called www.xtranormal.com. xtranormal is a sophisticated (I think) web application that allows you to create simple animations by just typing in text. No animation experience required. If you can type out dialogue and have basic idea of story structure, you can create really nice animations. It’ll take you a few renders to get it right, but I’m confident you’ll be happy with your creation.

Anyway, Dennis was kind enough to animate his favorite scene from his favorite Miabi Film Shark.

Watch it. It’s hilarious.

xtranormal also has a cool REMIX feature. You can “remix” most animations on the site by changing dialogue, backgrounds and more. Go here to remix this scene from Shark. And share it with us!

Note: xtranormal has become quite popular over the past few weeks and their servers are feeling the load. They are working on the problem.

Bigger than Jesus

By: Greg

01-12-2008

Movies

2008 (0:45) – Hello friends. I know it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted here regularly. This place is not forgotten. Just been really busy at work and play.

And something that qualifies as both work and play is Adobe After Effects. (AE is an industry-standard motion graphics and visual effects program.) I took that three day course a few weeks ago and have been doing online tutorials nearly non-stop since. Trying to figure out how to use AE to my advantage. I’m addicted to this game. Getting “good” takes practice, so I’m being a proper little geek and learning my hotkeys. After Effects is bigger than Jesus.

In other news… in case you hadn’t heard, a Vatican newspaper has forgiven John Lennon for proclaiming The Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” more than 42 years ago… chalking it up to youthful exuberance. So nice to see head Catholics instep with the times. John is rolling over in his grave. Yoko is probably giving the finger to someone.

In honor of this great news for Yoko Ono and Lennon’s ghost, I wanted to post some videos I created using a few of my new AE skills. It is important that any effects I create with my new toy be complimentary and transparent to the work I’m using it in. But for now, I’m just having fun as usual.

The first is a 5 second blast for Miabi Films and the second is a nifty little short about a mysterious man from the future.

Hope you enjoy…

Another Stall Teaser

By: Greg

14-10-2008

Blog

We’re about ready to unveil to the world the glory that is Stall. But to whet your pallattes just a little more, here’s a disgusting behind the scenes teaser trailer.

Stall. Coming sooner.

(un)Stall(ed)

By: Greg

16-09-2008

Blog

For people who have been around for 3+ years, you may recall me mentioning something about a movie Christian Lesperance and I did called Stall.

Stall is a short comedy written & directed by Christian about a guy stuck in a bathroom stall. I produced it. We shot in the summer of 2005, but the editing process had a complete breakdown. There was an initial rough cut that we could chomp on. But our footage then traveled across the country to Los Angeles where it was more or less stolen for 8 months. Eventually we got the footage back… but had moved on to other projects. Stall was stalled.

Almost a year ago I re-acquired the hard drive from Christian that had all of our material on it and decided to take matters into my own hands. I’ll finish the edit myself. I hated having this incomplete movie over my head. Christian had all but divorced himself from the project. (He wants an Alan Smithee credit.) So it was up to me. I didn’t want to let it die.

Amped up, I went in to edit the thing and discovered- the drive had been corrupted! I wasn’t able to continue the work we had finished up to that point. And faced with the prospect of starting completely over from our source tapes… I procrastinated.

When we started doing “Teachers” this past May, Stall came up again and I had new enthusiasm. I was determined to finish it this time. Just a few days ago I managed to get Stall back online and began cutting and trimming what will become the finished movie.

In honor of this momentous occasion I give you two teaser trailers to feast your eyes and bellies on and a promise that a completed movie will be posted soon.

Right click to Download for iPod/TV version. 5.2 mb (QT7 required)

**********

Right click to Download for iPod/TV version. 6.1 mb (QT7 required)

Lightsaber Practice

By: Greg

12-09-2008

Movies

2008 (1:05) I just signed up for this After Effects course. I’ve always wanted to learn it and this was a good three day intro course to get my feet in the pool. So I went for it. If you are unfamiliar with After Effects, it is Adobe’s ubiquitous industry-standard motion graphics software. Photoshop for video.

In preparing for the class, I figured I’d play around with the program to learn where all the buttons are. Get a head start you know. Since the first thing anyone does when they are learning After Effects is give someone a lightsaber- that was my first assignment. It’s like learning to play “Smoke on the Water” when you first pick up a guitar. I found this great tutorial online and tried to follow it as best I could. Lightsaber Practice is what happened. The finished video is not perfect but After Effects worked out great. Fortunately for me because the actual working lightsaber kept malfunctioning on set.

This is my first and last Star Wars fan film. Enjoy.

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 6.3 mb (QT7 required)

Golfin’ 2

By: Greg

06-09-2008

Movies

Golfin’ 2 | 1:13 (2006)

This is a sequel I did to the Golfin’ series from 2005. The song is Take A Bow by Muse. More fun with special effects!

Dirt-bag-alina

By: Greg

01-04-2008

Movies, Vodcast

This one I don’t get. I could understand 2girls1cup. I could understand the Star Wars kid. But this is one internet sensation I’m missing. Apparently, Delta Air Lines produced a new in-flight safety video with the intention of making it more interesting to look at. Achieved by throwing in higher production values, a touch of comedy, and some sex appeal. The general thinking that people zone out during this part of the flight and if they actually pay attention to this video, they may act appropriately when the time comes. So throw sparkly things at them! ooohhhhh ahhhhhh. Shiny.

Well they were so proud of their work that they decided to post the thing on YouTube for all the world to see. And the video took off. Got something like half a million views in a few days. The nice looking lady who appears in the video has been on a number of morning shows (and Ellen!) Dubbed Deltalina, a portmanteau of Delta and Angelina Jolie, (people say she looks like our favorite goodwill ambassador) has become something of a celebrity. Katherine Lee is her real name and she’s an actual flight attendant for Delta. That’s all well and good for her. I’m sure she takes her job very seriously and deserves the 15 minutes.

But what I don’t get is why this thing became a… thing. There is near zero comedy and little to no sex appeal. I don’t find Katherine Lee all that attractive actually. She’s got some odd looking cheek bones. She’s not ugly by any stretch. But she’s not entering Kardashian territory. Did I just kill my credibility? She does that one famous little finger wag. One little finger wag and you’ve got an internet phenom? Really. It’s JUST a safety video. Is all the hoopla because of those cool rack focuses? Watch it. I swear. There’s nothing to it. Seriously. Go on. Go ahead.

Looking to capitalize on any popular meme I can, I’ve decided to make my own safety video in response. I assure you, after watching mine, you’ll deplane that plane faster than petrification. Mine has no comedy or sex appeal either. But what it does have are lots and lots of sound FX! Zooooom!

or…

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 3.3 mb

Motion Sickness

By: Greg

31-01-2008

Movies, Vodcast

I'm gonna be sick.
2008 | 1:34

Like many other people, I surrendered to the hype. That enigmatic trailer. That deliberate exclusion of information. I was there on opening weekend to see Cloverfield. And I was there to nearly vomit on the person sitting in front of me.

We had high hopes for this movie. It’s JJ Abrams. The man responsible for our dear LOST. (Season 4 premieres tonight!) So what if it looked exactly like Godzilla. JJ would see it through. And in some ways he did. We got tons of looks at that cool monster. And the story was a near-perfect post-911 New-York disaster movie.

But there is something to be said about the horrific camera shake. I started pining for the Dramamine about 15 minutes in. Right around when our friend HUD grabbed the camera. The person I was with started feeling it even sooner. I had to shut my eyes and look away every 5 minutes. Probably missed a quarter of the movie because of this. What about reviewers? It can’t be good policy to make a person reviewing your movie physically ill. The girl I was with said it best, “They could have explained it with a simple line of dialogue. Like HUD was a videographer and knew how to handle a camera or something.” In the end, I think it is a gimmick that either failed, or is much better used in small doses. Something the YouTube generation of filmmakers need to get in their heads immediately. (I don’t recall how I reacted to The Blair Witch Project, because I was too busy trying not to shit my pants.)

I would not be surprised if the camera shake is a major reason why Cloverfield has seen such a stiff drop off at the box office. The person sitting in that stadium seat in front of me has no idea how much danger they were in that night.

So here is my interpretation of Cloverfield 2. Bring your barf bag.

or…

| Right click to download the iPod-ready version. 7.6 mb

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— M i a b i . F i l m s

How To Play Straight Gin

How To Do a Flea-Flicker

xtranormal

Bigger than Jesus

Another Stall Teaser

(un)Stall(ed)

Lightsaber Practice

Golfin’ 2

Dirt-bag-alina

Motion Sickness

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