Tag and Title Study - UPDATE 2

Okay so new update on my indiana jones video study. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look below at my earlier posts.

Basically I made a crappy indiana jones fake video to see if I could get a load of views, and to see if the tags and title effect whether you get loads of views.

Recently it has raised a bit, the last time I did an update, it was at about 200 views, now it is at 850, which isn't bad, I think it will continue to increase as it's getting popular.

Well that's it.

I'll update more in a week or so.

Halloween Hunter

Here is a new halloween film I made for skull brick's BHC (Brickfilming halloween Competition).

It took me around 2 weeks to complete, thanks to Kevin MacLeod for the horror music.

Is this blog worthwhile?

I got to thinking, and I realised that I don't know if anyone is actually reading this blog, I mean, I have a hit counter, but that only counts hits and I dont know if anyone is reading what I write.

It would be nice to know, as I don't post here for nothing, it would be nice to recieve some feedback for once.

Do you guys read my blog or what?

What do you want me to blog about, any suggestions?

Thanks

Rich

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

Lego Free Running - New Brickfilm

This is a brickfilm I created for Littlebrick's SIBC (Sports in brickfilming challenge). It took me about a week to make as it involved alot of masking and green screening.

The image on the right is a frame from my film, you can watch it at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usjolBvYv0I

I would appreciate comments and subscriptions, thank you.


I picked free running because I find it interesting and I thought I would pick something that not many people do often, so its unique.

Thanks for reading, I realise I havent posted in a while, i just started school again so I've been busy.

I'll be posting more from now on :D

Thanks

Rich

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

Tag and Title Study - UPDATE

Now I would like to say that my study is going well, but I'd be lying. It's moving pretty slowly, as you can see at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWc5vNEa6eo it currently has 220 views and 6 comments, which isn't bad I suppose, but I was expecting more.

But you never know, there me be some sort of indiana jones surge and everyone is interested, so we'll have to wait and see, I think views will pick up eventually.

Well that was the update, please comment and return for more updates on the study.

Cheers

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

The LHC claims its first victim....

Thats right, a girl has committed suicide because she thought the world was going to end. She poisened hereself, read more here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7609631.stm

Her dad said: "Chaya had been worried the "world would end" when the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was switched on"

"We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things "

Cheers.

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

Do tags and titles effect the number of views on youtube?

That is the question, does the tags and title of a video on youtube effect the number of views? If you look at a youtube channel like forrestfire101 you would say, yes they do, because this guys videos aren't much, and practically all of them are Indiana Jones related.

So heres what I came up with, I formulated an study a few days ago where I make a brickfilm that isn't very high quality animation wise and plot wise, and make it star wars or indiana jones related, then see if I get thousands of views. If I do, then the answer to the question is yes.

So here is what I came up with, check it out, if this video gets thousands of views then my hypothesis is correct:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWc5vNEa6eo

I will continue to monitor this and update my blog if anything drastic happens with this study.

Subscribe to this blog and check back for updates.

Cheers

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

ARE WE ALL GOING TO DIE? - Large Hadron Collider

So are we all going to die? I'm personally hoping that there will be a small black hole and it will take ages to suck us all in so we can just watch it.... But thats really unlikely? :p

The people over at wired seem to think nothing is going to happen, which is a good theory considering the odds are 200 million to one or so.

Heres an interesting comic I found:



So what do you think, its a day before it happens (10th sep), do you think we're all going to die from this thing?

I personally think...... Maybe.

Cheers

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

Big Brother Finale - Rachel Wins

I don't generally watch this programme, but I thought I'd watch some of the last ones. And it is sometimes pretty funny. Anyway the results were tonight, and I was pretty shocked at the results (I was a Rex fan because he's just plain funny when he's taking the piss out of people).



Anyway 5th place went to Darnell, I wasn't very shocked at this, hes a boring housemate and I don't see how he got to the final. He came out of the house in a skirt and he had a pony with him anyway, I didn't see the point but whatever.




4th place was for Rex (Which I was surprised at because I thought he'd win) however he had a proper gay pose for the cameras, and he's apparently loaded anyway so he didn't really deserve to win the cash.




3rd place went to Sara, I was also shocked at this, I thought she was one of the winning contenders, along with Rex, but I guess I am wrong. I'm not going to deny it either that I think she is pretty Fit. When I heard the cheer for her last week, I thought she was certainly going to be 2nd or 1st.





The runner up of big brother went to, MIKEY. This was a surprise, I thought the first blind man in big brother would win, but obviously not. He was a pretty funny guy and he was blind so that was a bonus :D






The winner of big brother, which came as a MASSIVE shock to me, who would have thought that boring rachel would have won something. She was often said to "Sit on the fence alot" and I agree with this, she was just one of the worst housemates. How could she have won, its not typical of winners of big brother, they usually have something about them that makes them different from everyone else (Tourettes eg)





Basically this years big brother was not bad, untill the final, rachel did not deserve to win.

So yeah what are your views? Who did you want to win? Do you like rachel? I personally don't.

Read up next time, subscribe to my feed.

Don LaFontaine Death - Video Tribute

The famous Voiceover Master Don LaFontaine has died at the age of 68. The official cause of the death has not yet been released, however it is such a shame that this man has died. His voicework was wonderful and he made movie trailers more gripping and interesting, just by the sound of his voice.

I created a short tribute video to this man at the following link, because he is so great. So It would be good if you would watch this and remember the hero.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oA7sszg1m0

Cheers guys.

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

New R-Vid Productions Animation Released!

This is an entry into marillions whatever is wrong with you contest. If you read my post on making money from animating, you would know what this is already. For those of you who havent read it, this was a contest to make a video for Marillion's song, Whatever is wrong with you. The contest website can be found here: http://whateveriswrongwithyou.com/

You can find my entry to this contest below, I'd appreciate comments and ratings, thanks guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syTqCJoxnI

This contest is judged on how many views are received by december, as calculated by youtube. Even though I don't stand much of a chance, considering most other entries have 50k views, It's worth a go, because there is also a prize for the bands favourite entry. So it would be nice to win that, if they like it that is.

Well anyway, check out my video, maybe subscribe to my channel, or even this blog, and read up next time.

Cheers

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

VideoCopilot.net Forum Seems to be down (28/08/08)

After browsing the forums at videocopilot last night (a really helpful forum with tutorials and help with after effects etc), I was hoping to return to the forum this morning to see if a question I asked relating to After Effects had been answered, as I need to know so I can finish post production on a shot I was working on. However it seems I cannot access the forums, is it just me? Or is anyone else having trouble accessing the forums? I really need to get on as I am working to a deadline that I am hoping to meet.

So yeah is anyone else experiencing problems with the videocopilot forum?

Cheers

Richard

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

How to make money from animating?

It is certainly possible to make money from animating. There is always a contest going on that you can enter your animations into, and many are giving away money and lego (brickfilming) as prizes for the winners. An example of a really good contest, is the Marillion Whatever is wrong with you? contest, which is a music video contest in which people have to make any video for their track, and post it on youtube. Whichever video gets the most youtube views wins. The video doesn't have to be an animation, which is why animators have an advantage here, because not many people have seen animations before, so they find it more interesting and unique, and your video would stand out from the rest of the entries, considering most other entries are just attempts to rack up the views with pictures of half naked hot women in the middle of their video. The marillion contest can be found at http://whateveriswrongwithyou.com , the prize money for the winner is £5000, and there is also a prize for the entry that they think is the best one, that way it isnt entirely based on who has the most views, but you don't know what this prize is, its likely to be a CD or something, which is mediocre compared to £5000.

There is always a contest going on that you can enter your film into, not all give alot of money, but if it is a contest based on your type of animation (eg brickfilming) they often give prizes that help you with future animations or something you can use in animations, brickfilming is the animation of lego, and most brickfilming contests give lego as prizes, such as sets like cafe corner etc which is a really good prize for a contest like this, as many are funded by one person, the user. http://www.bricksinmotion.com is a brickfilming site, and there was recently a TEC (Technical Excellence Competition) in which brickfilmers had to make an animation in one shot, to show excellence in animation. This contest has not yet been judged, but as an example here is the 1st and 2nd prize pictures so you can see what sort of stuff you win.



As you can see, rather nice sets that would be very useful to a brickfilmer in future films to help develop sets and improve.

All you need to do is find a contest yourself is research, use Google and look for contests that you desire, or join a community relating to animation as these often host contests that you can enter.

Another new way to earn from your animations is advertisements, Google adsense is a good one as you can now put adverts on your youtube videos, and if people click the ads, you get money from them so if you have a really popular animation, it is wise to put ads on it as you will definitely receive clicks, and if you have a website, put your films on there then put some adverts around so that they may be clicked.

I was wondering what you thought about this, how do you make money from animating? Any ideas on how you could possibly make money from animating?

I'm also taking suggestions on articles to write about, so just post your comments and subscribe to my feed for future posts.

Thanks

Richard

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

Free Axogon Composer Download

I had Axogon Composer lying around, and some people were trying to download it, so here you go.

DOWNLOAD HERE (mediafire)

This is a pretty good special effects program, but can be some what difficult to use.

The Olympics - In LEGO!

Olympic and lego enthusiasts from the Hong Kong Lego User Group have created the olympics, from lego. You can see more from this here.

It seems around 300,000 bricks were used in this creation, and around 4500 minifigures.

Now imagine animating on this, it would either be a nightmare, or a dream to animate on it. Imagine the possibilities. The detail from the creations are outstanding and very similar to the real thing.

Chef's salty balls lost thier sweet taste - Issac Hayes

The great issac hayes, famously known from southpark, playing the voice of the chef, has died. Such a shame, he was great, I loved the "Suck on my chocolate salty balls" song. Pure genious by southpark. And he will surely be missed.

Southpark is a great animated tv programme, it is very funny and never fails to suprise me or make me laugh. The chef was one of my favourite characters, as well as butters and timmy. They are such origonal characters and should just be loved.

Brickfilming contest BRAWL ended

The First official BRAWL (Brickfilm rapidly all week long), created by Munzapoppa, has now ended. The theme was "Negotiation", and each film had to have a certain mod element, either a blue and yellow brick together, or the letter C, just to make sure the film was actually made for this contest. With 11 entries taken in, its not bad for the first one. I managed to enter, with my film, Pigeon negotiator which is around 3:00 minutes. You can find it at my website.
I'd appreciate it if you checked it out, or comment on my youtube video.

This film, unlike many of my other films, doesn't actually feature any adult related content, which is good, as people are less likely to complain, which usually happens.

The picture isn't really related to this, other than the fact that it says brawl, so yeah. And apparently Super smash bros brawl is a good game.


I also recently came across toontube, which seems like a nice friendly website where people post animations, so you should really check this out.

Brickfilm Sex?

One major thing that seems to be frowned upon by brickfilmers (Lego/brick animators) seems to be sexual content of any kind in peoples brickfilms, I mean, you can see why, LEGO is generally a childrens toy and it should not be exploited in this way, but if your film needs it, and it is relevant to the story, what is their problem?

An example of irrelevant use of sex in brickfilming, or as some people call it, "Lego Porn" on youtube is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZ4bqsMeSNc

This video seems to include two minifigs, in complete yellow (to show they are naked, however you are incapable of seeing much detailed anatomy on lego hehe), performing many crude movements in the need to simulate sex, however I personally find this kind of scene rather funny, as the sounds are usually really cheesy like they have been ripped off some crap porno, and as one of the comments said "Those step sounds are from counter strike". This film was blatantly made in order to rack in the views, as it has achieved 400000 views almost, so the maker has successfully done this.

My new film seems to have got alot of bad feedback because of the content, but I thought it was relevant, but maybe it should have been more subtle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syTqCJoxnI

If sex scenes are incorporated into brickfilms accordingly, they can be higly effective and establish a deep bond between the characters, to make it seem more realistic, which is something that brickfilms lack these days, realism.

So think next time, don't go adding some random sex scene into your film, as it often gets lots of bad comments from critics and you aren't doing yourself much justice. If you are going to add a sex scene, make it relevant and worthwhile to help the plot move forward. I have made this mistake in one of my recent films, "Life's Interventions" where I included a very basic sex scene, this was not taken well by some people even though I did have a content warning.

Thanks for reading, check out my website at http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk


COMMENT PLEASE, POST YOUR OPINION ON THIS, WHATEVER IT MAY BE.

Top Gear - JK Beats Cowell

JK from season one seems to have pulled it off in the last episode of top gear this series. Returning from season 1, JK beats Simon cowell by 0.09 of a second, with a 1:45.81 in a Chevrolet Lacetti around the top gear track.

JK held his record in season 1 staying at the top of the leaderboard, and completes this series with another victory.

I'm glad this happened, because simon cowell is a bit of a prat, thinks is a complete god, when hes done nothing in life other than judge some crappy music contests in which few of the winners of them actually amount to anything.

In relation to animation, I found an attempt to recreate top gear in lego on youtube, Its not that bad technically, but it acomplishes what it set out to do and you should check it out here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pnd7szZieQ

Thanks, sorry I missed the scheduled sex in brickfilms rant, I'll do that next, read up again.

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

Gordon Brown set straight by Harman?

Now I don't really understand all this politics stuff, but what I do know is that "Gordon Brown" seems to think that the labour party are plotting against him...... He leads the labour party, yet he thinks everyone is out to get him? Deputy leader Harman seems to have set him straight, kindly pointing out that the labout party is focused on running the country, I have no idea where gordon brown gets his ideas, I'm guessing he's had a bad day at the home, maybe the dog urinated on his leg? Who knows.

Seems all this labour nonsense could be a good thing to animate, I was thinking about maybe doing a parody of one of the labour speeches, just to see how many "Labour Lovers" complain at me, should be rather interesting. This animation would involve commentary of the speech, pointing out obvious points, but over exaggerating them.

I never really have been interested in politics, but it seems I could become more interested, by making fun of it in the form of a brickfilm.

Next? Rant on sex in brickfilms (Lego animation)

http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk

How to make a stop motion animation film.

Stop motion is the art of moving the subject, taking a picture, moving it again, taking another picture, in order to perceive the look like it is moving.


The main things you need to make a stop motion animation film are:

1. A camera
2. A computer
3. Something to animate

Once you have these 3 things, you're ready to go.

The camera is the most essential part as it is required so that you can actually film something, otherwise your'e just playing with the puppet. A webcam is a good camera to get to start off with.

The camera should have most of the following criteria:

1. Manual focus in order to focus on the subject clearly.
2. Manual settings (Exposure, white balance etc, otherwise you will get light flicker)
3. A CCD sensor.

In order to use the webcam, you simply need to install the camera drivers, and plug your camera into your computer.

The 2nd main thing you need to make a stop motion animation was a computer, this is essential for many reasons:

1. Capturing the frames from the webcam
2 Editing the frames together to make a film

A popular software to capture frames is MONKEYJAM, this is designed for pencil animations, but is perfect for any form of stop motion animation, as it enables you to capture frames, and then assemble them into a raw AVI, ready for editing, this is key, when it comes to animating.

Editing software is used to assemble all the AVI's made in monkeyjam, and is used to add sounds and titles. I'd reccomend Sony Vegas or adobe premiere as after a while, everyone gets bored of them rubbish Windows Movie Maker titles, and its nice to see something new and swanky.

Finally, the last piece to the puzzle is finding something to animate. There are many things that you can animate with, as all it involves is moving them about, the following is what most people animate:

1. Themselves, or friends.
2. Lego, or something similar
3. Clay is a popular one
4. Household objects
5. Drawings.

You can basically animate anything.

So yeah give it a go, it's rather easy when you get used to it.

If you have any questions, just leave a comment, or visit my website at http://www.rsteenoven.co.uk , and email me.

Brickfilming (Lego animation) community at bricksinmotion.com, if you are interested in the hobby even more and need to ask more detailed questions.

Blog Opened

I decided to open a blog to write about what I'm doing over the summer, in terms of animating and stuff like that. Likely to be updated every other day, I'll just recap what I've done so far on my films.

I'm currently working on a film involving a conflict between two villages, and this escalates into something bad, so yeah, thats about it.

Read up next time :p

Visit my website @ http://www.rvidproductions.co.nr