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November 2009
This One's Juicy!
by Gregory Fish
Here's the juicy news. I've been very busy lately, and haven't had the kind of time I need to create complicated animations. If you've been following this column, you know that I've written about my shift to using more of After Effects for these animations. Well in all of this busyness a friend of mine told me about http://www.digitaljuice.com/. It's a site that is tailored to busy people who could use the help in getting some editing done with pre-done animations. That's juicy!
More on that in a minute. But first, the reason I have been so occupied and unavailable to edit is that my lovely wife gave birth to my first daughter. After three boys, we finally got a girl. So this has maintained my attention in the past month. Fortunately, in the past few weeks I've been able to get back to making some videos.
One of them, naturally, was done with a new actress-- my daughter. http://sermonspice.com/product/27780/to-love-a-child- "To Love a Child" is beautiful look at God the Father's love for us, his children. On this video I did the classic dreamy effect. The way I did this was to copy the video tracks so you have two identical tracks one on top of another. The top one should be at around 50-70% opacity. The bottom one with about 40 Gaussian blur and an increase in contrast of around 40 also (although I found you had to play around with specific clips to get the best effect). A decrease in brightness is also effective. The basic concept is that the main video is "stylized" by the overlayed blurred yet colorfully blurred "edges" on the top "50% transparent" video. I used this clip- http://videohive.net/item/handycam-viewfinder-overlay-169-version/44940, purchased for under $2, for the clip when my wife held her for the first time to simulate the camera viewfinder. Instead of making it on my own in Photoshop, I took the easy route. Like the saying goes, “Don't work harder, work smarter.”
Let me switch gears now to tell you again about a juicy piece of gear that you need to get if you don't have it. The RODE videomic is a powerful shotgun condenser mic. The first time I plugged it in I was wearing headphones. I immediately got this loud feedback sound and thought something was wrong with the jack. Nothing was wrong. I simply had to bring the volume way down in the camera menu, and then I could hear a clean, crisp, and strong signal of audio. I did not own it yet when I made this "Thanksgiving Prayer" video- http://sermonspice.com/product/20630/a-thanksgiving-prayer--28around-the-table-29. So I had to place a condenser mic behind the actor who said the prayer and record the sound on my computer. Merging the two can get complicated. This mic fixes all of those type of problems. On this new thanksgiving video that I just made "Thankful for..." http://www.sermonspice.com/product/28314/thankful-for-- I used the RODE videomic to pick up the soft spoken kids and the loud ones as well.
Well back to that juicy site, www.digitaljuice.com. I recommend that you go there and sign up so that you can download anything off of the pages of free downloads. These range from soundtracks to motion videos to .psd files. Then once you are registered expect email advertisements that many times you will delete, but sometimes you can get two $99 products for as cheap as $14.95. That is juicy indeed! This is where I got some of my clips for my new Christmas illustration- http://www.sermonspice.com/product/28315. The other clip I filmed and reversed, and then used a scan of a page in the bible for that last clip effect. I had a little trouble figuring out how to achieve that effect. Using the scanned page from the Bible, I wanted a certain portion of the scripture to glow. I finally was able to pull it off by making a mask around the desired text and using After Effect's CC Light Sweep to slowly animate the glow. I also animated a radial blur on the other text around this mask. This was done to highlight the verses that were being sung in Handel's Messiah. The best of all presents is truly the presence of God through the person of Jesus Christ!
Speaking of presents, last week I gave my two oldest boys a little gift. I made their dream come true. I was able to video them playing with their light sabers and then animate them into a REAL star wars-like movie. They got to use the force and have a little duel between Sith and Jedi. They got to choose the color for their REAL light saber. They were pretty excited. You can see this little movie at http://www.sermonspice.com/product/28663. It's very short because the frame by frame animation of the light sabers is easy but time consuming. I didn't set out to make this an illustration, and then after finishing I figured out how to connect it with scripture. It was just fun to do, and cute to have two of my boys in it. They loved making it! If you, a fellow geek like me, have always wanted to make a light saber video and you have After Effects, then you can go to http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/q/light%20saber/ to make that dream a reality.
Well, let me get back now to that juicy resource- www.digitaljuice.com. Last month in Stewart Redwine's column he wrote a little about the snobby producers versus the guys who don't really know what they are doing. He then made the point to just get out there and create what pastors can use to aid in their messages. I don't know where I land on the scale of no-idea or snobby, but I do aim to get better with every creation. I've learned a lot since I started making videos. I like to learn new techniques, etc. But sometimes as I already mentioned, I just don't have the kind of time to devote to it that I would like. That's where Digital Juice can help. They have free training videos on how to use their products, making it very easy. The downside is that places like that can really break the bank. However, if you get on their mailing list along will come a deal that you cannot pass up. So, now I'm a window shopper who will then pounce on that “get this for $1 more type of deal”. Don't forget to go give yourself an early Christmas present and download the freebies at Digital Juice.
In the spirit of thanksgiving, I'm thankful for Digital Juice, and other sites like it. I'm also thankful that I can create some of this stuff from scratch as well. I'm thankful for SermonSpice and the service they provide for both churches and producers. I'm thankful for my wife, my daughter and my boys. Most of all I'm thankful for God's great love.
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Comments
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| Gregory Fish
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November 12, 2009 11:46am
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Thanks for taking the time to read about my crazy happenings...feel free to drop a line, or ask questions, or whatever!
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| Troy
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November 12, 2009 12:16pm
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Fine stuff,bless in Jesus Troy
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| Robert
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November 12, 2009 04:19pm
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I've been using Digital Juice for years. Once you become familiar with their library, you'll see it everywhere. SermonSpice is loaded with Juice. The show "Don't Forget The Lyrics" used Juice for backgrounds. So have other primtime shows like that. It's a tremendouse resource and it keeps getting better as they add more and more products.
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| Gregory Fish
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November 12, 2009 05:21pm
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Yes, Robert. I agree. I see it a lot. They have good deals through their email, especially when they retire products.
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