A few things to share from my time spent online

Having a focus problem and taking classes remotely from the comfort of the dining room table, the couch, and more recently my bed, has led to some pretty unproductive days this semester. With a wandering mind and so much of the world’s knowledge literally at my fingertips, I’ve ended up with a pretty eclectic browser history. This week’s topics include: the largest living flight birds, 3D models of human anatomy via Healthline, Vedic/sidereal astrology (because western astrology hasn’t been astronomically accurate in years), and random crash course videos (I just found out they have a film production series, but haven’t checked it out yet).

Between all the scrolling, browsing, and random topics that I get sucked into during my time spent online, I found a few things I’d like to share with 4381 Productions.

Composition References

After so many Pins, my Pinterest algorithm started showing me composition tips. A lot of the content I see on Pinterest is specific to illustration but some translates nicely to film and photography. While I have learned some composition rules in class, it’s convenient to have screenshotable cheat sheets. I find these tips really helpful when I’m having trouble translating a script to the storyboard.

Here are some of the Pins I’ve found. Their original sources are linked in the attachment pages.

 

A YouTube Video 

In the aforementioned Pinterest composition references, the golden ratio (also called phi or fibonacci’s spiral) is frequently included. While the golden ratio gets a lot of hype, it’s reference grid kind of looks like the rule of thirds grid. Curious how much of a difference either rule made, I came across this YouTube video that puts it to the test and applies it directly to cinematography. If you’re interested but don’t want to watch all 14 minutes of the video, the description conveniently includes timestamp links to key points. 

This Film and Interior Design Blog

Film and Furniture is a UK design blog dedicated to furniture in film. Buried in the promotional tab of my gmail, I found one of their newsletters and was reminded of the site. As someone who enjoys both interior design and movies, this website is a fun place for me. 

Their content includes anything that can combine the topics of film and interior design, such as David Lynch’s furniture, references to the carpet in The Shining, and even these Polly Pockets based off of film and TV sets. Links to buy the ridiculously priced items seen in popular films are also included.

After reflecting on all the time I spend (and waste) online, I’m left with a question. What’s it called when you make one Google search but browsing leads you very far from the original topic? Is there a word for it?

Attending my first conference… Virtually

This week Adobe is hosting their annual Adobe Max Conference. This year the conference is completely online and free to anyone with a Adobe account (you don’t even need to be paying for the subscription). The three day event showcases new Adobe updates and softwares, features industry speakers and celebrity guests, and hosts labs and workshops to help application users.

While the event has been going on, I’ve been tuning in in-between my classes and when I take breaks from working on assignments. The amount and range of content they’re putting out is incredible and I can barely keep up. Luckily, a lot of their sessions will be available for a whole year on Adobe’s website. So whatever I’m missing now, I can check out later.

I found this workshop from yesterday particularly helpful. In this session, Emmy award-winner Christine Steel gives tips for working faster in Premiere Pro. I know a lot of us edit with Premiere, so I’m hoping you will also find this useful. I’m very excited to implement these short cuts in my next edit.

Seeing my photography printed for the first time

Image of two printed photographs

In 2018 I bought a Lumix G7 as a starter camera for videography. Since then I’ve taken literally 1,000 times more photos than videos with the camera.

Until recently, my photos never really left the folders in my computer. I’d send a few to close friends to get opinions and even shared them with a talented professor to get advice. It took time to feel confident in my photography and of course a lot of practice. This past summer I finally felt ready to share my photos with more people and made an Instagram account dedicated to my photography. You can find me @madtakespics . At this point I hadn’t seen my photos outside Instagram’s tiny little squares or my 15in computer screen.

Earlier this month was my mom’s birthday and all she asked for this year was a few prints of my photos to display in her office. I was relieved that this year, gift shopping would be much easier than past birthdays. I had the photos printed at The Photo Lab off of Antione Dr. in Houston. When I went to pick them up, the owner, George showed me my prints to make sure everything was printed to my liking. I loved them. I got home and looked at them again, more proud of my work than I had been staring at it through the computer screen. I could see detail where I couldn’t see it before, all without looking at a cropped and zoomed portion of my image.

Having my photos printed changed how I view my photography. Until my mom asked for prints, it wasn’t something I seriously considered doing. Now I want all my photos printed so I can examine them better. I want to edit and print and then edit and print again (though I don’t think my bank account will allow for this).  And after enough revisions I want to print a final for myself.