vatche arabian productions

Short #1 rough cut: Complete.

Tonight was my first night truly cutting since I filmed last weekend. Last week got a little bit busy, and I got side tracked with editing a Q&A with James Gunn for “Super,” for Lonelyreviewer.com.

I cut this short completely without any sound. Which was a unique way for me to cut. I’m usually one that finds a lot of motivation cutting to sound, and here I was cutting picture with absolutely nothing in the background.

Without giving away much of the scene, it takes place primarily on a subway car. So in my cutting, I had to think of the different sound design that was going to fill in the blanks to what I wasn’t seeing. I also found myself paying close attention to the expressions and eyes of my actors. I was being motivated to cut by the movement of the camera on the subway, keeping things fluid.

I really am happy with the way it turned out. I’m going to use some of the sound effects recorded on that day to create a base layer of sound, and than hand it off to my friend & sound editor Gregg, to polish it up the way he does so well.

I had a great weekend of shooting. Both the projects were run and gun – experiments in DSLR workflow. I must say, I’m really happy with what we came up with. Special thanks to everyone that assisted in the projects – now, onto the extreme editing process.

There aren’t a whole lot of shots, but there is a lot of work to be done in post. One out of the two shorts is essentially a silent film, with just environmental sound, which most of will be put together in post, a challenge, that I know will have an excellent end result.

Just to wet your appetites a bit. Here are two of my favorite shots from today’s shoot.

Just wanted to share that I’ll be shooting two brand new projects this weekend (first official short films since The Omelette). I’ll be shooting them on DSLR. I’ve been experimenting with it for a few months now, using it for work shoots as well as recently for a live band shoot. They really are great cameras, and allow you to shoot quickly and with discretion.

Both shorts are void of dialogue. I’m treating them both as a bit of an experiment. I’d like to post them for all to enjoy, however, many festivals require them to have no been made available online prior. So I may have to wait till after I’ve submitted to post online – I will however gladly offer more detailed information on them once they are complete. I’m trying to use this blog to outline my journey back into creating brand new original works.

In addition to film projects, working with my DSLR has inspired me to take up Photography as a hobby. I will be adding a “photoblog” section to my site soon to share some of what I’ve shot in the last few months.

For a new product launch at Extech/FLIR, I decided to go a bit outside of the box. The video is a bit different then our normal videos, but I’m really proud of it. We shot in full 1080 on DSLR, and the animation effects were made in After Effects, the lens flares via the Video Copilot Optical Flares Plug-in.

A new project I’m working on for Extech Instruments/FLIR Systems are these new “How-to/Training/Education” videos for the companies Planet Extech User Community. They are fun to make, and I’ve started with simple subjects, things like taking voltage readings of a scooter battery, and defining technical terms.

The videos are being received well, and I thought I’d embed a few of them here on my site for people to check out.

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For this years Brattle Theatre’s Trailer Smackdown (their annual fake trailer competition), the film title was “Labor Day.” I decided to go full force with the Labor theme, and make it a story about a non-union “scab,” whose family has fallen victim to a corrupt union. With a quick intro-story, the trailer dives right into an ordinary man in extraordinary situations, with tons of gun shots and explosions.

The result was a ridiculous action trailer, starring my good friends Ben Swicker, Phil Healy, Brandin Tumeinski, Meredith Calvey, and my brother Razmig. Of course, I can’t fail to mention the stellar voice over work by Jim Jakala for the title and tagline (provided by Mr. Jeff Bartell) at the very end of the trailer.

I’d say the whole project probably took 40 hours from start to finish, including shooting, and Gregg Swiatlowski’s sound work. It was a lot of fun, and our work paid off because we won the contest!

Thank you to everyone who lended a hand in making the trailer, and congrats to all the other submissions! The Brattle’s trailer treats is their annual Summer party, and it is always a lot of fun to go to, and this was my first year participating and I’m glad there are opportunities like this

Things have been quite busy over at Extech, and I wanted to post another one of my recent product videos for the company. This video features a lot of movement and animations, all of it created in After Effects. The video also features a brand new logo intro/outro.

In other news, I’m currently finishing work on a new music video I shot, I’m aiming to wrap it up in the next week or so. So check back here once it’s been posted.

It’s been a year and two weeks since my trip down to inauguration. I stopped in a few cities along the way to D.C. and asked folks what they thought about the President Barack Obama. It was an eye-opening fun project, and it’s definitely going to be interesting to hear what people think these days of the President. Perhaps I can look back at this project a few years from now, and I hope to retrace my steps and see what the consensus is in the communities I stopped in.

But for now, I want to direct your attention to the Vimeo Channel that features all the episodes of the series.

Check them out, and see how people’s hopes turned out in the first year of the Obama administration.

So, I’ve been thinking about one thing I never ever do, I never make resolutions. So I decided, maybe putting them out on a public forum such as my personal website, it might make me adhere to them.

In no particular order:

Create minimum 1-2 pieces of original content a month (Video)

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done Hello Simon/Hello the Podcast, and almost a year since the Lonely Reviewer Show & Road Trip for Obama. It’s about time for me to produce one of these many ideas that I’ve been bouncing around in my head. I’ve been posting more frequently to my Youtube page already, so we’re off to a good start, but MORE is coming.

Write

The source of this original content? Of course, my writing. I’ve been lackadaisical as of late, so I want to write for 30-60 minutes at least 5 times a week. If 90% of it never sees fruition, that is fine, at least I’ll have a nice back catalog to turn to in the future.

Produce a New Web Show

I’ve posted in the past about a new show I’m developing and I finally think I’ve got the technical kinks worked out of it. I won’t divulge any details other then I’m currently working on a final visual effects test that will be the final step in pursuing this new show. I’m excited about it, and you should be too.

Some of my other non-project related resolutions include, the obligatory exercise more, and continue to read minimum one book a month.

So there we have it, these are my resolutions for 2010, if you notice me slacking, feel free to call me out on it on here, or on Twitter!