Category: Studio

Projects, FourthChair

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been busy all day today getting Suncoast Studios projects in order. Millard and I have been talking about resurrecting the documentary we started back in 2005, so I decided to move the entire Production Portal from chewbode.com to its permanent home at Suncoast Studios. I had to recreate all of the blog entries and upload all of the data, properly building the Portal as I went. While doing this, I realized there were several other things up here that needed to move including the Transformers models I build for the TFMod Team’s Battlefield 1942 mod, the Pleaseeasaur video edit I did for MutantMall.com, and the final submitted edit of My First Job. So, all that’s done now and it’s properly organized up under the SCS site and the old references up here have been removed.

I also spent some time here fixing the look and feel of the blog, which was disrupted when I upgraded it a few weeks ago. It’s almost where I want it; I spent too much time on it this evening and am going to let it go until it bothers me again.

FantasticFour
I recently dug up this old picture for Naser and Jeff and e-mailed it to them. It was taken outside the Pastry Art café on Main Street in downtown Sarasota (our office was located on Ringling and Orange up until March 2004) and depicts (from left to right) Naser, me, Jeff, and Grant. The four of us were good friends and frequented the café often. We began to form FourthChair Software while working together and almost had it launched until Grant had to move his family back to New Zealand, where they’re from. Jeff and I carried the torch for a short while, all the while starting (and stopping) several projects while they were still in their infancy. The last project we did was myLongBox 2004, a comic book database engine that was nearly completed. We lost interest in it and eventually abandoned it. I still have all the sourcecode and graphics (and even compiled, working EXEs) that I may post up here some day for a hoot.

I started working on a project for work today that Suncoast Studios is producing. I anticipate I’ll spend a lot of time on it tomorrow. Now, I’m going to eat some food and watch some old Battlestar Galactica.

Sick Thought of the Day: Stripes of chromium dioxide under the sack; nut tunes.

Edit (2008.04.27 11:26a): I sent the link to this entry to another good friend of mine, Vicky, who we all worked with for many years. I had a sneaking suspicion that either she or Grant’s wife took the picture, as I recall it was a woman there with us. Last night Vicky IMed me and told me it was, indeed, her that took it.

The funny thing about this little piece of information is that I have been waxing nostalgic lately, looking over old photos, reading old e-mails, and so on, and it’s so incredibly gratifying to know that this one photo above is a recorded moment in time where all five of us were in the same place, doing the same thing, enjoying each other as friends. My only regret is that Vik couldn’t be in the picture as well.

High Definition Reappearance

Posted on by Chewbode

I recently made the jump to an HDTV. My old TV, which was a Philips-Magnavox 60” rear projection, was really starting to show its age, and with devices like my AppleTV and the HDTV cable box, I was starting to feel that I was getting behind the times. So, I picked up a Mitsubishi WD-65734 65” DLP monster. I’ve had it for about a week now, and I’m thoroughly impressed. Very vivid colors, tons of inputs, and great 1080p performance.

Of course, I had to go into the settings of my first generation X-Box and set it for 1080 and continued the trend with the AppleTV, cable box, and Wii (well, the Wii I was able to just set to widescreen because it only supports 720). I then decided to get a PlayStation 3 from my local Rent-A-Center to see what it was like and Oh. My. God. I’ll have it for two weeks on a trial and if I like it, I may just go ahead and purchase one. I’ve downloaded several demos of games, which look amazing, and played Sonic The Hedgehog, which looks great too, but honestly, I’ve never liked that series of games.

I picked up I Am Legend on DVD yesterday and Shauna and I watched it last night. Over all, I thought it was pretty good. I’ve never read the book by Richard Matheson, nor have I seen The Last Man on Earth orThe Omega Man, which are also based off of this book. Because I’ve not enjoyed these other renditions, or the original itself, may be the reason why I don’t loathe the new movie like so many out there do. It was fun, and a nice way to spend a Saturday night.

I also picked up a couple of new Wii games, Game Party (because it was only $20) and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (because… well, duh… it’s Star Wars). I played some Lego Star Wars yesterday and was thoroughly satisfied for a bit. I got Game Party because I thought it would be a good thing Shauna and I could play, especially the ski-ball game (she loves ski-ball). We’ll most likely play it later today.

Things at my day job are finally slowed down to where I can focus on Suncoast Studios work. I plan on putting together a schedule tomorrow night to give equal and appropriate time to each of the projects I’m working on. I will then be able to touch base with my collaborators and get their expectations in line with what I can provide them. I need to get several of these things done, because I have a very exciting new project that I want to start which will really stretch my abilities. This is a very top-secret project I won’t be talking about until there’s something to show, but involves HD and possibly film work. I’ve only mentioned a one-sentence description to Shauna, but haven’t gone into any details on what I’m doing.

Well, I’ve been cleaning the apartment all day so I need to go take a shower now and head out to get some hotdogs for the grill tonight.

Sick Thought of the Day: Red hole, jagged fingernail.

Hell Month

Posted on by Chewbode

There have been a shitload of things going on lately. I think the fact that I haven’t logged in and posted a blog entry is testament to that. So, here’s the skinny:

At work, we moved into our new building back on February 7th. Well, actually, it was the weekend of the 5th and 6th, but we officially opened the doors on the 7th. So, we’ve been there for almost a month now. Since the first day, we’ve encountered numerous problems that have resulted in me needing to be at the office a lot. Last week alone (Monday thru Sunday), I spent about 115 hours at the office. That means that over 68% of the ENTIRE week was spent there; the rest of the time was sleeping and, on Saturday, getting my haircut and running a few errands. This week looks to be very similar, as it’s currently 2:24am and I’m sitting in the office, waiting on something to finish so I can do more work. I expect I’ll get out of here around 4:00am, and I’ll be back in at 8:30am. The scary part of all this is that I’m not getting tired anymore. I’m pretty sure that that’s not healthy.  But I’m nearing the event horizon with this exhaustive workload. I will either crash and sleep for two days straight or have a psychotic episode.

Suncoast Studios work is at all but a stand-still. There are currently two projects on my plate: the rendering for Eman, and a new project (not sure if I’ve mentioned it before now) that involves me rendering 3D characters and scenery for a video game. As for the latter project, let’s just say the I’ve been reunited with an old friend and we hit it off famously all over again. More info to come soon. I’ve no time in my schedule anymore for these things, but as soon as this shit is cleared up at the office (I pray to the gods that it’s this week), then I’ll be back on track and pumping out work left and right.

There is a possibly (albeit small right now) that I might be seeing Millard in the next couple of weeks and finally meeting Melanie in person. They are trying to come back to Florida for a few days, but I don’t know if Millard can get the time off from work.

Sick Thought of the Day: Rancid feces in the laundry basket.

Banal

Posted on by Chewbode

Well, it’s been a little while since I’ve posted, so here I am again. Things have been busy lately, as usual. Most of my time has been spent working on IT stuff for my day job. We’re still in the process of moving into our new building, but there’s the potential of a new client coming on board that’s thrown a wrench into the process. Regardless, I’ve been busy getting last-minute things finished up in the server room. The only things left now are the fire-suppression system and the cleanup, and I hope that’s all done this week. We have a large IT audit going on right now and that’ll take up the rest of my week. I have to implement some new stuff and test some old stuff. I need to focus on getting that done today.

Because of all the crazy hours, I’ve fallen off the wagon and have not been eating right. I’m getting back on track today and will have a bowl of elbow macaroni with tomato sauce when I get home tonight. I made a one-pound loaf of cinnamon raisin walnut bread last night, and will be munching on that from time to time. Fresh, homemade bread is the best.

I spent my idle time this past week(end) watching movies. I saw The Simpsons Movie, which was pretty funny. I also watched SuperBad. I think I’m getting burned out on Judd Apatow movies because I just don’t think that it was really funny. Sure there were a couple of cool moments where I laughed but, over all, it was mediocre. Speaking of movies, Shauna and I went and saw Cloverfield last weekend and, I have to say, I loved it. This movie seems to be one of those where you either completely hate it or completely love it, and there’s very little opinion in between. I mentioned it to Millard and he told me he saw it and he thought it was awful. Sure, one can argue that it was an “artsy” film. For me though, I saw it as a great fake documentary. I’ve always liked stories that are told from the lay person’s point of view and this movie does just that. Even though the camera-work had the potential of making me nauseous, I definitely felt like I was in the action, going through the same trials the characters were. It brought me back to the Marvels limited series by, well, Marvel Comics. The entire story was told from the perspective of the person on the street (was it Ben Urich?). At one point, you followed the character into an office building and saw the day-to-day life, and all of the sudden there’s a noise and everyone turns around and they see Spidey scurrying across the window outside. And the characters are all like “Whoa. Did I just see that?” Cloverfield gave me the same feeling.

I have been suffering from not wanting to do a lot of Suncoast Studios work. There are only really three projects on my plate right now: Eman’s project, promoting Jeff’s book, and (possibly) getting another author’s book published. I think the problem has been that I’ve not been eating right and there’s been no exercise in my day. This had lead to the collapse of my enthusiasm and creativity. Also, my work environment in the studio is a joke. My desk is a complete mess right now and is not conducive to being productive. I’m going to go home tonight and change all of that as well. I need to dedicate as much time as possible for these things. I have people counting on me to do this stuff, and I don’t want to let them down. Last weekend I went out and bought a new chair for my desk, so there’s obviously some sort of subliminal part of my mind wanting me to do this.

Well, that’s all for now…

Sick Thought of the Day: Using a guitar string to sever a toe.

A Little Sore, A Lot Busy

Posted on by Chewbode

Things have been crazy at the office this past week, preventing me (out of sheer exhaustion) from posting any entries up here. We’re still on target to begin our office move next week, but I’m starting to doubt whether it’ll really happen. There are a few factors outside of our control influencing the move, and those deadlines seem to be slipping. In any case, it seems that my body isn’t used to standing all day anymore and the lifting and bending I’m doing is beginning to take its toll on my lower back. I’m sure it’ll just be a matter of time before my muscles remember how to do all this.

This weekend is going to be full of Suncoast Studios work. I plan to spend tons of time working on Eman’s project. I feel bad that I haven’t been able to spend more time on it, as I know he’s waiting for something solid. The only real challenge is coming up with a friendly, easy way to make the animation of some text work. The more I delve into it, the more difficult it seems, but I think that I’m just starting to peer too deeply. I need to resurface on that line of thought and maybe a simple way will present itself to me.

Speaking of Suncoast Studios, I finished the basic layout of the Suncoast Studios Publishing division this past week. This part of the company was used to develop Jeff’s book, and now that I’ve got another author interested, I need to make it a bit more formal. Feel free to visit the new site. Over the coming weeks it’ll grow and morph into a business-entity.

Last night I rented Shrek The Third on pay-per-view. I thought it was a great bookend to the trilogy. Pretty funny in some spots.

I finished erasing all the hard drives. I found out that the 10 GB drive was dead, and one of the 40 GB drives actually turned out to only be a 4 GB drive. I need to start reading all the letters and numbers. Anyway, the 4 GB drive was also dead, so I donated the two 40 GB and 80 GB drives to work and have the 200 GB and 160 GB drives here for other projects.

Looks like NetFlix shipped more Lost discs. I can’t wait.

I’m going to go get a haircut and wash the car, then I’ll be back to begin the day’s work.

Sick Thought of the Day: Worms in the poop.

Disks and Discs

Posted on by Chewbode

Well, it looks like tomorrow night I’ll be finished with erasing these spare hard drives. I’ve decided that I’m going to donate the 10 GB, the three 40 GB, and the 80 GB drives to work. We have plenty of computers that are constantly dying on us, usually because of hard drive failures, so these will be nice to have around.

I’m burning a DVD for Millard right now, and after that I’ll start installing LightWave. I need to jump back in the job for Eman. I want to knock it out of the ballpark. In the meantime, I’ll work on the Suncoast Studios Publishing site.

Shauna and I watched Lost (Season 3, Disc 3) last night. I sent all the NetFlix discs back today, so we may have more episodes to watch this weekend. Assuming I’m not working, which will likely be the case.

It’s gotten cold here in Tampa, with the current temperature around 40 degrees. I started a fire in the fireplace and we’ve almost burned through all the wood we have. I think I may run out and buy more tomorrow.

Sick Thought of the Day: She’s a he. You didn’t find out until the next morning.

Oraganizing and Updating

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been busy at work here in the studio. I’m not really doing any SCS work, per se, but I’m getting things organized, cleaned, fixed, etc. I’ve been shredding a bunch of old paperwork that means nothing to anyone anymore. That, along with organizing the paperwork on my desk, should put me in a much better mood today. I hate clutter, especially in my work area.

I reorganized the closet in the studio and got all of the 1K lights back in there that I leant to work while our new office was being built. Other than being a bit dusty and having a little paint on them, they’re all still in great order. I’ll find time at some point to clean them up; most likely by the time I have a new production about to be shot.

After years of using the application, I finally purchased DVD Profiler today. I got the unlimited registration for $29.95. I’ve updated the database with all of the DVDs I own and published it to their online service for everyone to see. The most recent DVDs added are from Christmas: Spider-Man 3 (with Bonus Disc), The Last Unicorn 25th Anniversary Edition, and Doctor Strange.

In about an hour I’m going to make some jambalaya with sausage and listen to the Lightning game on WDAE’s streaming internet radio.

Sick and Weak Week

Posted on by Chewbode

I’ve been battling a cold for the past week. It hit me the night before Thanksgiving, and got progressively worst through Monday night. Even though I took the day off from work Monday, Tuesday I felt well enough to head back into the office. Unfortunately, the aching, soar throat and congestion caught back up with me today.

So, in general, Thanksgiving went off well. I went and picked my mom, sister and brother-in-law up and they stayed up at our place for the entire day. I dropped them back off later that night. We had the usual turkey, stuffing, pashed potatoes and gravy, green bean casserole and rutabagas. There was delicious pumpkin and apple pies for dessert.

On Black Friday, I took the day off, partly because I needed a break from work, partly because I was sick (I still did work from home most of the day). I ventured out to GameStop and decided to buy Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Wow. What a great game. At some point I’ll update the DA up here with that game and Mario Party 8 (the other game I recently bought for the Wii). I ended up playing a lot of the game Friday, but was just too darned sick to play since. I’m definitely hooked, tho.

Jeff’s book is finished. As a matter of fact, it’s already been printed and I have a copy of it. If you’re interested in getting a copy for a loved one (or even a pure enemy), you can buy it at Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble’s website. It’s a lot of fun!

The Suncoast Studios site is under renovation. Over the next couple of days, you’ll see it offline. When it comes back up, it’ll be prepped and ready for Jeff’s book.

In other SCS news, the Tangible logo is nearly done. I have some Photoshop work to do tomorrow night and then I’ll just burn the files to DVDs and get them off to Brendan. Next up after that is the work for Eman, and finally Millard. I need to organize all the projects on my plate and make sure I understand the priorities…

Sick Thought of the Day: Tissue of (thorat) mucous.

Send In The Renders

Posted on by Chewbode

Ah, the weekend. I am ever so glad it’s here. It’s a time to wash away the stresses of the week and turn your energies inward, hopefully accomplishing some housework, finishing some projects, or just being entertained. I’m about to lay out my master plan for the next two days… Here we go…

I’m currently outputting the final 35mm render for Tangible Entertainment. Some interesting specs on the project:

  • 467 frames of animation
  • 24 frames per second
  • 19.45 seconds of footage
  • Final output resolution: 4,096 x 1,968 pixels
  • 1.85:1 aspect ratio (Flat/Academy Aperture)
  • Current total render time (approximated): 6 days

I’ve been contacted by another filmmaker out in L.A., who wants me to do a title animation for him as well. I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag yet, but he’s pretty well-known in certain internet circles, and I’m sure people in Hollywood know him. We’re going to touch base in the next few days over the phone and discuss what he needs. I’ll dive right into the project as soon as the Tangible render is done.

On another note, we’re very, VERY close to getting Jeff’s book done. I spend about 18 hours with him last Saturday finishing all of the illustrations. We proofread the entire book this past week, and the only real thing left is to read through the requirements from the publisher and see if the cover art needs to be tweaked at all. I may have to redesign the book’s spine, but that should be very simple. I think everything will be done this weekend.

Last Sunday Shauna and I went to a co-worker’s house for the day for a Halloween party. There was a ton of great food, and a bunch of people from the office showed up. Doretha and Ninel were there (Ninel brought the kids; I hadn’t met her older son until then, and haven’t seen the baby since the hospital). We all sat and talked, had fun watching the kids make their own cookies and carve pumpkins, and ultimately just relaxed.

Millard has a new weekly audio podcast, Spam Musubi, where he sits and eats dinner with Will Maier and Eman Laerton each week and they just talk about what they’re up to and their views on things. I find it quite fun to listen to them.

I’m going to pay some bills today, clean the apartment, get a haircut, and wash the car. At some point I’ll also watch some DVDs (Planet Terror, The Ant Bully, and Hostel: Part II came in from my good friends at NetFlix).

I’m in the process of writing my very first song. When it’s done, I’m not going to release it to the public, but I’ll most likely use it in a short or feature I’ll produce. I was surprised when I stumbled across it several days ago on my guitar and had to start working on it. I’m not trained and can’t transcribe it, so I have to rely on memory. At some point I’ll record it in the studio here and bring it into Audition. It’s a very weird thing for me to hear this song (sans lyrics so far) in my head. It’s even weirder that I’m able to slowly find it in the guitar and play it. I’m such a fucking virtuoso.

Oh, I need to go to the store today too.

Sick Thought of the Day: Blood blister under the sack; weeping with puss.

Lights. Camera. Action?

Posted on by Chewbode

I went to a lighting shop in town today and got four new 250 Watt, 3200K tungsten floods for Suncoast Studios. I also picked up another aluminum case and tear-apart cube packing and have built out the carrying case for all of the bulbs I have. I also tested them all to make sure that they’re working fine. These bulbs are great lights, but only last 20 hours each and the color temperature starts to change after only three hours.

I’m currently sitting in the studio sipping a Diet Coke blogging, taking a break from working on the Tangible Entertainment project. I think I’ll have a 95% correct version by the end of the night. After I ship the low res animatic off to them and get approval, I’ll render it out at full 2K film resolution.

I may be doing a shoot all next week. I’m not 100% sure if it’s still happening, but I may be hired to shoot a bunch of training seminars and master them down to DVD. I think the project is a go, but I’m not sure when it’s supposed to start, so I have to test all my equipment and make sure it’s ready for whenever.

I ordered a new director’s chair today. In two weeks, I’ll get it embroidered with my name or the word “Director”. I’m not sure which yet. I’m such a fucking egomaniac. I need to buy some more DV tapes.

I’m also going to make some nachos tonight and watch the Lightning game.

Sick Thought of the Day: Grab the base, tug the neck, pull out the worm.