Monday, 9 December 2002
11:59pm

I

  am feeling pretty darned stoked tonight. Why? Because this afternoon, I got to watch The Godfather: Part II in an actual movie theater! Madstone Theaters at Hazard Center in San Diego is playing it this week, and this afternoon, I went and saw it, and I'm glad I did. The print was very old and quite well worn, with plenty of scratches, some of the scenes had degraded enough to be awash with a magenta tint, and the audio was the plain old, ancient optical audio strip on the side of the film... no magnetic anything, and certainly nothing digital.
And yet despite all of the shortcomings of the presentation, the film remained larger than life, with as powerful an impact as ever... and even with all the visual defects, the sheer size of the screen allowed me to notice tiny visual details I had never noticed ever before in my numerous viewings on DVD and VHS.
And it was also cool (especially with the optical audio) knowing that this was actually closer to how people viewed the film when it first came out, than the pristine video transfer and digital 5.1 surround sound audio that appears on the DVD release. I mean, it wouldn't have been as beat up, but the sound and picture quality (through the defects) is what it would a been like back in the day. And that in itself was pretty cool.
Anyway, now I'm in LA because from Tuesday through Thursday I'll be hanging out at the LA Convention Center attending DV Expo West where I will be attending a bunch of free seminars on video editing and production, as well as looking at all kinds of expensive toys that I cannot afford. I'm very excited, and I think I'll have a lot of fun as well as learn a lot. In fact, I'm fairly confident I will learn more in the next 3 days than I would in an entire semester of school... and thats if I actually tried for that semester :)

Tuesday, 10 December 2002
11:59pm

W

ow, this DV Expo thing is pretty cool. A few months ago I decided I'd like to try learning Adobe After Effects. In my dabblings with the program, I've run into a few plugins (that come with it) that I thought were pretty damned useless. Until today, when I sat in on little seminar taught by the guy who actually developed one of those seemingly useless plugins. In about 5 minutes he demonstrated how you could use those two exact, seemingly useless plugins together to make all kinds of stuff. He made smoke, fire, flowing water, even simulated dust and scratches like you'd find on old film. I realized that in the hands of a master, you can make all sorts of things with those filters. It was pretty darn cool, because you could see the guy was really passionate about After Effects. He didn't just love programming for it, he loves using it too.
And of course, there's all the booths and all the products. There are cameras there that cost as much as a new Acura NSX... all kinds of dollies and camera cranes and different kinds of displays and you can go right up to everything and touch them and play with them and turn all the knobs and push all the buttons and ask all kinds of nerdy questions about them... needless to say, I was in heaven back there. And I'll be going back tomorrow and the day after to check out some more of those seminars and maybe to even buy some of dem products.

Wednesday, 11 December 2002
10:45pm

W

ow, I'm having such a great time at this DV Expo that i actually started two entries in a row with the word "Wow". Today I saw a demo of the compositing software "Shake" which has been used in the last few "Best Visual Effects" Oscar winning movies in a row... but the demonstration used elements actually used in the first Lord of the Rings movie, including the background plate, the computer generated monster and the live action actors including the original bluescreen footage (which also had the DP and other folks in the shot)... and I got to watch all these elements come be keyed, matted, and color corrected to put together the whole shot. It was pretty darn cool.
I didn't actually hit the convention floor at all today -- I spent the entire day in various seminars, learning more about After Effects, lighting and independent filmmaking in general, DVD authoring and 5.1 audio stuff... I was like a sponge just absorbing everything.
On the way home I stopped by the only Pioneer Chicken I know about that's still left... and damn it was good. Tomorrow night I'm planning on hitting up Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles... mmmmmm heart attack city, baby.
For being "free", the Expo sure is costing a lot. Yesterday I paid $10 to park at the convention center. A hamburger is $6.99 and cheese is an extra 50 cents, and since I paid $10 to park, it's not like I'm gonna go to my car and drive somewhere to get lunch. Today I was able to show up a little later though... and I parked 2 blocks away at a different lot and paid only $5 to park, and I stopped by McDonalds on the way there and got a "Big and Tasty" (which was neither big, nor tasty" for $1... saved a bunch of money that way. Tomorrow I think I'll be parking off site again, and I'll probably get lunch beforehand again too.

Friday, 13 December 2002
11:59pm

B

ack in San Diego. Go to my Giant Repository of Pics to see some pics i took at DV Expo this week. Also check out what I made with my new toy: The Disk. Just a little test footage to see what i can do with that thing. Anyway. My Christmas present from Helen arrived in the mail today. She got me the complete first season of The Simpsons on DVD... cool! Welp, that's about all I gotta say for now. G'nite.