The Online Portfolio of Colin Levy

June 8, 2009

What’s up with me?

Hello hello! Sorry I haven’t updated this blog in a while. I want to start writing here regularly.

There’s a lot going on in my life right now. Production for “En Route” went really well! We shot in Savannah over four weekends during the last month of school.

Here’s a sample frame from the raw footage, at 2k:

...and this is half-res.

In other news, I have this thing called “Infectious Mononucleosis”, known more conversationally as ‘mono’ or ‘glandular fever’, depending on where you’re from. I have a fairly mild case of it, thankfully, but that’s what I’ll blame my disappointing progress on.

I installed Ubuntu Linux on my machine! Scary intimidating. Don’t know the first thing about the command line, and I’m having a frustrating time with basic things like figuring out how to switch keyboard layouts on the fly and get my display resolution correct… but I think I’m gonna like it. My inner geek has been neglected for too long now anyway.

 
Aaannddd….

DURIAN!

This too is no longer news, but it’s so exciting it needs a dramatic introduction. I’ve been asked to direct the next Blender Open Movie project at the Blender Institute in Amsterdam!

I won’t post too much about it now because very little about the project has been defined.

But we’ve already got a fantastic core team, with concept artist David Revoy, renowned Dutch comic book author Martin Lodewijk, incredibly talented software developer Brecht van Lommel, composer Jan Morgenstern and of course the remarkable Ton Roosendaal, lead developer of Blender and head of the Blender Foundation.

Submissions for other artist positions ends in just a couple days and I’m confident we’re gonna put together an awesome team for this project. Alright, that’s enough superlatives for this paragraph…

I’m super excited. If you aren’t familiar with Blender’s open movies, check out the first two projects: Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny.

Really phenomenal works, and the films were created almost entirely with open source software.

Production starts in September and will last 6-8 months, so if everything works out I’ll be in Amsterdam in less than four months! Be sure to follow the progress of the project at durian.blender.org.

Alrighty. That was an epic post. Time to get back to work!

–Colin

April 19, 2009

New Film Project: “En Route”

This announcement has been a long time coming. I’ve been working on this project in some capacity since last November… mulling over the concept, jotting down ideas, drafting the script, and gathering together interested parties.

But now we are only two weeks away from the shoot, and it is time to announce the project to the world:

Visit the official site.

“En Route” is 5-minute short film that follows the life of a pilot in reverse chronological order, from the moment of his death in a horrific plane crash, to a pivotal moment he experiences as a 7-year-old boy.

This film is by far my most ambitious project to date. Although the finished piece will be very short, the film involves a scene with the smoldering debris of a plane crash, multiple sequences involving a variety of aircraft, cockpit scenes, many different actors (some of whom play the same character!) and a number of locations. There’s a whole lot to take care of, but I’m really excited about how it’s coming together! Read the rest of this entry »

April 12, 2009

PSAID 2009

This year I decided to enter the PSAID competition again, which is focused on promoting cash donations, rather than the donation of goods, as the best method for disaster relief. Last year I won second place with “In Dire Need”, which you can watch here.

Here’s my entry for this year’s contest:

Click to Play.

Unfortunately, I found out today that I did not make the final round.

I didn’t put as much time into this as I would have liked, but I’m pretty satisfied with the way it came out. Well, I’m satisfied with the latter 15 seconds. Well, I guess just the shot of the quarter. That shot is pretty cool.

But I finished it and got it out on time, and although it’s not my best work it’s certainly worth showing! Also, the music for this spot was done by Jasper Blunk. Let me know what you think.

April 4, 2009

SCADDY Awards

It’s taken me a couple months to get to this, but I wanted to post the good news anyway.

Read the rest of this entry »

April 1, 2009

Video Sketch 03 – “Conception”

Happy April Fools! It’s been over almost two months since I’ve updated my blog, but I’ve got a lot of stuff coming up. Stay tuned!

But first, here’s my third and final Video Sketch, which deals a little bit with the issue of inspiration, and the fleeting nature of ideas. This one is a little out there, but I think it turned out surprisingly well. Check it out:

Click to Play

The amazing music was composed by Jasper Blunk.