In a lot of ways, film and the idea of making movies was only accessible by the very few privileged or lucky enough/determined enough to be there. For the rest of us, it was always going to be a pipe dream.

Fast forward 2 decades later and we find that every man and his is dog is able to make movies in a way that we could only have imagined back in the 80s. It’s astounding.

Remember when the Canon 5D II came out? It basically opened a pandora’s box into a brand new world of film making and unleashed a brand new breed of filmmaker that accepted no bounds except for imagination. A few years earlier the RED one was announced, and although a little bit pricey (the original kit out was around the $30 000 mark) it was still miles ahead of the competing cameras in the digital cinema range which were around the $1 million mark!

And just recently, Blackmagic have released a camera with a 2.5K sensor that can record RAW!! And the price is going to be less than $3000!!! I mean what the freeeak!

The point I’m trying to make is that there has never been a better time to get into making movies. It is the BEST time to do so, and it will only get better from here. The only thing stopping you will be you. Take the challenge and be brave. You’re story needs to be told. Be bold, and tell it.

What do I mean? I am talking about how ridiculously complicated it is to get to know someone of the opposite sex in a romantic way. (and yes I am speaking from my own experience).

So here is the problem (from the guys perspective).

Boys.

They stand from afar and admire the girl of their dreams. Her golden flaxen hair. Her beautiful spiritual eyes. The boy’s single and hapless friends decide to chime in and give him advice about how girls love large romantic gestures and confessions of true love. The boy agrees and comes up with the gesture of the century, let’s say a dozen long stem roses, a lovely hand written love letter with a bible verse (probably Proverbs 31 cause she’s awesome that way) and a iPod loaded with love songs.

The night is set and he goes over to her place and leaves the present on her doorstep and waits for the girl to madly fall in love with him.

A day goes by. Nothing

2 days go by. Nothing

3 days go by. Nothing

The boy is going stir crazy. “What happened to my plan?” he thinks, “I’m pretty sure I left my number in the card?”

The boy asks his friends if he did the right thing and they all assure him that he did. They all tell him it’s because she is shy.

He is confused and decides to confront her.

The church service has ended and the boy plans his route towards the girl. He nervously wanders up to her and in a creaky voice says “hi”.

She turns around and sees him. Immediately the boy sees fear in her eyes. She nervously says “hi”.

The boy asks if she got the present, she says she did.

The boy asks what she thought and she replies she doesn’t feel the same way, but assures the boy he is a really nice guy. She gives the boy an awkward side hug.

The boy smiles bravely and walks away.

So some of you out there are thinking “he totally did the right thing!”

Well you’d be wrong!
Basically if I was to translate the scenario for you from the girls end it’s this:

Some guy whom you don’t know from a bar of soap leaves a present and a note confessing his love on your doorstep. The first thing that comes to mind is “loves me? This guy doesn’t even know me!”

He then confronts you at church and you puts you in an awkward situation of letting you down gently in front of all her friends.

Ok so what to do

First off, don’t listen to your single friends who have a really bad track record of getting together with the ladies no matter how convincing they sound. They are single for a reason and overcomplicate things.

Secondly, get to know the girl first in a “let’s be friends” situation. If you guys can’t be “just friends” you’re going to have bupkiss chance of being more than friends.

Thirdly, when you take her out on date make sure you keep it pretty casual. Don’t go all out on some hot air balloon ride with champagne and caviar. It’s your first date! She might not even like caviar! Save your A-material for later when you’re sure she is one for you. Oh and also make sure you :

- Smell good
- dress well
- and compliment her on what she is wearing
- don’t confess your love (at least not for a little while. Maybe after date 4? Haha)

Chill out. Have a good time. And remember “Coffee does not equal marriage”.

Oh and if you need a movie to watch on your first date, make sure it isn’t this one!!!

Ps. I’m also working on a new short “The look”. Have a look at this sneak peak.

As time went on I would become incredibly jealous at how talented these guys were and how untalented I felt that I became very disillusioned with my work. It honestly was ripping me up inside. It was starting to become an obsession to just want to be better than these guys and to receive the praise and recognition I deserved! But the more I strived for it, the further it kept slipping away. 

My sister Michelle saw all this at the time and provided me with some timely words of wisdom “just remember, you only have an audience of one” and reminded me that the only person I should be trying to impress is God. 

My youth pastor at the time Chrishan also told me that it isn’t necessarily the best or the brightest who make it in the end, it’s usually just the last man standing. 

I took solace from all the above advice and decided to refocus on a few things :

1. The work I do is not about me and my recognition
2. I do this work because I love it
3. Don’t compare where other people are at with yourself. Just do what you do and do it well. 

Funnily enough after a few years those guys I mentioned earlier who I was comparing myself to went on to pursue other areas of ministry and I took over doing the “important” announcements! 

Comparison is a killer and has always been something I have had to constantly wrestle with. I believe that it is a key factor in the pursuit of unhappiness. Everyone has there journey and has their different strengths and weaknesses so to compare yourself to someone else is doing yourself a disservice and the other person as well. Just run your race, stay in your lane and finish it at the place God made for you.

However the beginning was very confusing and I felt like there was a lot of exposition to get through before we got into the meat of the story (which is around the half way mark) and even then, I still felt like I was playing catch up through the movie trying to figure out who was who.

So I thought I might help you guys short cut through the movie with this very easy to understand companion video so that you can enjoy the movie for what it is, an awesome film made by one of the greatest directors on the planet, Andrew Stanton!

Enjoy!

ok it’s a hoax, but I do wonder what new things Apple has up their sleeves post Steve Jobs. Time will tell I guess.

1. Always ask people to watch your edit and then tell you what they interpreted. You’d be surprised how someone’s point of view completely differs to yours.

2. Never give up honing your craft. You need to practice new things all the time and then practice getting good at them. Don’t ever stop learning.

3. Story is king – This is Pixar’s motto. If it’s good enough for Pixar, it’s good enough for you.

4. Never compare yourself to other Christian media. To be honest, apart from a few stand outs, you are setting the bar far too low. It’s sad but true. “Christian” media varies in quality right across the board.

5. Be willing to accept criticism. People usually drop out after this point cause they can’t stand the heat! Just learn from your mistakes and move on. One of my favourite quotes is from Robert Rodriguez who said “Ever director has at least 10 bad films in them”.

6. Don’t compare yourself to other people. There is ALWAYS going to be someone better than you. ALWAYS! That isn’t the point. The point is that you are there, sitting at your computer, shooting with your camera, being the producer, making the motion graphics, rendering away for the Kingdom of God. You and you alone are the person chosen for this task. And if you follow steps 1-5, you will get better.

7. Money/Equipment should never be the reason you can’t get something done. If it is, you’re not thinking hard enough. You are creative, so find a creative solution. Otherwise you shouldn’t be in the biz (oooOOoooo harsh but true…)

Not sure if 22 year old me would listen to 32 year old me. He’d probably say “wow you have really let yourself go…”
In any case, heed my words of wisdom. Heed them!!! And you shall be the fairest in all the land!!

Anyways I couldn’t leave you all without a video to inspire you. This one kind of has it all. It’s what I’d imagine would happen if Toy Story was a real emo movie.
Enjoy!

This is my latest experiment, learning how to do more action packed stuff like running and jumping.

Based on an old school genre of gaming that is long gone called “Adventure gaming” where you type in text to get your characters to do things. Does anyone remember Kings Quest?

Hope you enjoy it. Hoping to post about the animation side of things soon!

It’s actually quite impressive how quickly this little render engine can kick out an image! I am super stoked to try a lot more with it in the future!!!

You can watch the video here:

What was fun about this project was that it was personal. No deadlines. No direction.
The only restrictions I had imposed on myself was

• It had to be completely done using the After Effects Shapes tool
• I had to use Duik ( a script allowing you to do IK rigs in After Effects. Frecklin Awesome)

I finished it at midnight a few days ago and thought it would be kind of fun to upload to the web and see if I could get a few giggles from my friends and showcase some of the new animation techniques. Within a few minutes of uploading I got some of the giggles I needed from some good friends and then went to bed.

Next morning I woke up to half a dozen emails notifying me of my film being added to various groups. One of which was the vimeo staff picks. For a second I was scratching my head. Was this THE Vimeo Staff picks? Or was there some other group with the same name. Sure enough I checked the staff picks group and mine had suddenly gotten to the top of the list! Surely this was a mistake…

Needless to say I was flippin out! What the frick!?! This video isn’t good enough to get on staff picks!!!

Anyways, I am humbled (humble bragging!) that anyone found this funny or at least shared in my sense of humour. And to everyone to enjoyed the vid, thanks for sharing the laughs with me.

Now for a sequel…

Check out the Duik site on how to do IK rigging in After Effects:

http://ik.duduf.com/

And this awesome tutorial on how to use it:

Thanks to everyone who came out despite the crap weather, it seriously was a blast to have shown it in a theatre and a big thanks to the guys at Dendy Circular Quay for doing a ridiculously good job at looking after us.

You can read all about my film making experience over at Monica’s site if you’re interested.

I have currently entered the film into a few festivals to see if it goes anywhere. To be honest anything from here on in is a bonus and it’s nice to be able to finally get this film out in the world. I’ll let you know if it will be screened somewhere near you.

In the meantime here are some photos taken by Annette Sicari, the Production Supervisor of our film and an amazing director herself