This year I was asked by the SXSW Film Festival to produce the short film bumper that plays before all the midnight movies. 



Since a lot of people would be watching the bump multiple times that week, I wanted to produce something with a lot of action and energy and visual stimuli. The idea I came up involved dozens of costumes and visual effects, location shooting in the middle of the nowhere and gallons upon gallons of blood.

Working against me was timing and budget, and the fact I am employed full time by SXSW organizing their New Media dept. However, those limitations proved no match for my unbelievably dedicated cast and crew. Everyone working on the project exceed my expectations of them, they really made it all happen. 

I plan on doing some blog entries about the filmmaking process on this short. For me, it was a culmination of every little trick and technique I've developed in the last few years. I focused on every small detail as much as possible. 

from Script...

to Storyboard...

to Shot....

to Colored Corrected, and Finished...


i also plan on doing a little side-by-side comparison video between my storyboard edit and my final cut. should prove intresting, if not a little educational.



-joe

A few weeks ago I picked up a Canon 7D to replace my horribly outdated DV camera. I got my 7D a day before Fun Fun Fun Fest, which is a fan-oriented Austin music festival that runs for a weekend every November. I thought it would be fun to shoot the festival; to test the camera out in some real-world conditions and to get my feet wet shooting HD video on an SRL. I had high expectations for my 7D, those expectations were easily exceeded.



Shot using the EFS 18-135mm lens. No color grading done in post, this is all raw from the camera.

I'll do a full write up on what I loved and what I thought needs improving. The abridged version is: fucking camera awesome yes.

SXSW 2010 Promo from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

This one was a doozy.

For starters, SXSW has never produced a video like this. So there was nothing to start on, no model to improve on. Other features included: very tight deadline, a big group of people to make happy, and most of the wide-ranging effects I had no idea how to actually do.

The idea for the visuals came from a pitch I made to a semi-conductor company for a corporate video they wanted. They liked the concept at first, but later rejected it. Usually when this happens I hold a grudge against the rejected idea and purge it from my brain, but this time I decided to give the concept a second chance.

The ending was the last hurdle. I knew it had to be explosive and fast and something totally new, but I didn't get a chance to work on it until the rest of the video was pretty much finished. At that point I was stressed out, burnt out, and a week past deadline. Fortunately some production company had mailed us tapes of the Auditorium Shores stage we had forgotten about. My boss Matt took one look at the footage and knew we were saved. The band (Explosions in the Sky) with actually explosions in the sky behind them fit perfectly and tied everything together in a way I couldn't have pulled off with VFX alone. Dodged a bullet with that one.

On the very last day of post I added the shooting star at the end.

Over the summer I created an animated promo for the Coldtowne theater here in Austin:



All I'm going to say about this video is that I had an idea in mind for to how to automate that animated flourish which absolutely didn't work in After Effects.

Rather than abandoning the idea for something else I decided to animate it all by hand in Photoshop instead. It was very time consuming but in the end I like the rough hand-drawn quality of the emerging lines. Gives it that old-timey look.

My next update will feature a motion graphics video that has been my largest and most ambitious project yet. Will post as soon as the music is signed off on.

Every summer I like to take on a big project around the house. This summer, I decided to renovate my garage into a studio space.



The first step was the clear the room of clutter and give the floors a cleaning and sanding.


Then added a few coats of floor paint from Home Depot.

Then came the wall:

First the frame, then 16" studs, insulation, and finally the corrugated tin panels. These are meant to on roofs, but I really like the way they look as a wall. Way cooler than wood paneling.


The garage also needed floor molding, an air conditioner and foam insulation to keep bugs and heat out.


I decided to leave the garage door track where it was, you can see it up there on the right picture at the top. I don't have a plan for what I'm going to hang from it yet, but the possibilities of using it for track lighting or some sort of shelves intrigued me so I left it there. Also, I wanted to make sure whatever renovation was done could be easily undone if I sell the house in a few years.

Injuries sustained during the process include hammer bashed thumbs, nails in feet, and a face full of Freon from ripping out the old A/C with my crowbar.

Next House Project: Making the New Garage Look Like a Spaceship
(I promise it will be more exciting than this)

Over the summer I completed two projects for the Alamo Drafthouse. The first is a followup to my Alamo Airlines spot, which plays before the movies and introduces new patrons to the concept behind the restaurant/movie theater in a (hopefully) entertaining way.

I used some great free tutorials from Gray Machine to produce the retro-80s aesthetic. I highly recommend their lessons for anyone wanting to learn more about After Effects' expressions and 3D engine. Here's the piece:

Retro Alamo Drafthouse Promo from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

The 2nd is a promo that I shot starring Zombie expert/author Max Brooks when he was in town last year for the Dismember the Alamo Zombie Film Festival.

We didn't have enough time with him to do a real shoot. So I threw Max in front of a makeshift greenscreen up in a manager's office at the theater:


Then I created the matte background using pieces of Austin and a lot of work in Photoshop.


Then came the background zombies. My friends dressed up for me and let me throw Karo syrup in their faces. We shot in my living room.


Then it was just a matter of putting it all together. It became quickly apparent that my lighting job on Max wasn't good enough for an easy key, so it took some painful rotoscoping to get the job done. And here's the final movie:

Alamo Drafthouse Zombie Promo: Max Brooks from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

So much to update!

Winning the 'George Lucas Selects' award at Comic Con was completely unexpected. I figured calling George Lucas a 'crusty white dude' in my film would pretty much disqualify my video from his award. But wouldn't you know it? Apparently Lucas has a sense of humor about himself after all. I got to come back from San Diego with my gold-painted C3PO and R2D2. You can watch his video introduction to my film here:



I've been spending a little more time away from my computer these days, working in the house and such. This month I built a bench with my dad and renovated my garage into a bedroom. Here's the bench:



and I plan on doing a whole post about the renovation later in the week. I've been documenting the process as I've gone.

Lastly, if anyone is looking to book a band of time-traveling rockstars who are on a mission to save the world through music, let me know. I may be one of said rockstars. Our band now features a human drum machine and this badass logo:



With a logo this cool, we don't even need to practice.

After a series of work-related delays, I was finally able to finish my cut of the Beef and Sage action collobration, Bulletstorm 4. I look forward to working with these guys more in the future, even if it means being in front of the camera for a change.

A few weeks ago I upgraded my tablet from an old intuos to a new Cintiq. The difference is just out of this world. I've never had a drawing interface that is easier and more fun to use than paper, and as a result I've been able to knock out a few sketches I'm happy with.

The interface for updated this fishrockit website is bulky and awkward, and as a result I don't find myself updating all to often. If you're intrested in what I'm up to on a more day-to-day project-by-project basis I suggest you check me out on twitter, which I update more frequently:

http://twitter.com/TehPwnShop