3/14
"Breathe" Posted
Posted Wendy's latest movie, Breathe, online yesterday. See HERE.
She's excited about having her films on the Net.
Requires RealPlayer. Can get (free) RealPlayer HERE (look for small text that reads, RealPlayer 8 Basic Beta is our free player)
If you have a broadband connection (Cable or DSL), you can stream the movie (streaming = movie begins playing soon as you click). For those with dial-up, click the download link. If we encode the movie so that it's small enough to stream across dial-up connections, quality is horrible. Nighttime is the best time to download, the later the better (less net traffic).
We use the download agent, GetRight. A free version is, MyGetRight. Both can help with big downloads.
The quality of any internet video is dramatically lower than original, but at least you'll get the general idea of the movie. The file we posted on the net has been compressed by a factor of over 100-to-1, which, naturally, affects quality adversely {the original 1500 MB file was crunched to 12MB}. Wendy is an an image quality nut. It pains her to see the movie (she worked so hard on) crunched to such a small size, but seems worth it to be able to post on the net.
The encoders we use tend to discriminate against anything dark. So, night scenes especially, suffer on net movies. We may try Quicktime (Apple) & see if it's not so hard on darker scenes. But the original still looks great - even the dark scenes.
Wendy's been reviewing 'Rules for Entry' for the (27th annual) Student Oscars - run by the same folks who do the regular Oscars.
Winning
a student Oscar brings money ($2K), but far more importantly -> clout. Past winners = Spike Lee & Robert
(Forest Gump) Zemeckis, who donated the fund$ to break ground on the building where
Wendy's classes are held.
Student
Oscars have three winners (gold, silver, bronze) in four categories, for a total of
12 prizes. Typically, 300 films are entered - about 1 award for every
25 entries. Categories:
1.
Alternative
2. Animation
3. Documentary
4. Narrative
Wendy
spent yesterday afternoon watching a documentary titled Reel Women, The Untold
Story - about women who helped develop the film industry in its early days.
Hosted by Jodie Foster.
Next project = Film 4, a tribute to her brother, Van. Has lots of raw footage - about seven hours worth. But only needs seven minutes worth. Will be interesting to see how she crams each hour of footage into a minute of final product.
Next-> Spring Break
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