when I found katasul's "we were sailing the seas", I knew I wanted to make a makebelieve world where the little boys could sail off into dreamland in their little tin boat. (all the resources just fell into place so easily for this remix. hitRECord is a treasure trove.)

My daughter found the party supply stash in my craft cabinet and has been bringing me a new balloon to inflate every couple hours for three days straight. This is the end result. I was planning to just upload the raw footage, but then I realized that the song "Once Upon A Balloon" would be perfect for it! And I've never done stop motion before, so we'll just call this trial and error, but I thought it turned out alright!

fun fact - that's the piano that was used to record this little song!

My Dad passed away suddenly two years ago. This is a story of how he dealt with a neurotic, worrisome daughter, uncertainty, and inevitability. And hopefully a reminder to follow your bliss while you can. 

watch version 2 here:

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/597145

*I'm adding this to the re: childhood collab after some reflection, because it details a dark experience I had as a child--one which continued in various forms for years--and which shaped me as an adult. It veers into adulthood toward the middle, but I still thought it relevant because things like this do happen to children. Childhood isn't all games and ice cream and innocence. But, I did try to keep it lighthearted. ^_^

ANYway. :) Maybe this is a story about karma, or schadenfreude, or maybe it's about learning to not give a goddamn? Either way, you can watch me tell the story about the time I got stabbed repeatedly with a hypodermic insulin needle, how I (mostly) got over it, what became of the stabber, and watch me walk into a tree.

EDIT TO ADD: 

Well, this record inspired me to do a little digging, and I ended up finding Mr. Stabby's Facebook page.

I don’t know how I feel finding out that he is a sad, angry, lonely, tragic man, plucking around on earth aimlessly and trying to dig up something he knows he can never have. He’s pissed off at women because he can’t “keep one.” He hasn’t ever known love. He’s decided to “become a bastard” so that maybe women will love him.

Dick, YOU STABBED A LITTLE GIRL. Perhaps you’re already a bastard. Maybe that’s the problem? 

But it’s both tragic AND comic to read his status updates.  He just got out of jail, yet again. He still calls himself “the Blind Man” too. Poor, miserable, sad creature. I think I forgive him.

Animation is currently underway :)

Coming to a HitRECord theatre near you!

Inspired by Michal's "The Grand Opening" video, I decided to try it too! 

Okay, after a bajillion downloads and getting to know my computer screen really well, here's my first go at posting a video for HitRECord.  Woo!

Hope this can be helpful for Fall Formal or at least be helpful as people put stuff together! Wish I could be there!

Thanks to everyone who posted stuff!

I really liked this illustration by Copper Giraffe. Jelly Bean wrote a tiny story for it and now I made an animation for it. Once again my voice is really dumb so someone should record another voiceover for this. Possibly new sound effects or music too. This is just my interpretation. 

Oh and I totally wouldn't have seen this illustration if Matt Conley hadn't ReREC'd it so this is proof that those things work. Not that anyone doubted that they did. I'm just saying.

Fall Formal 2011. A song about cats.

Shot on GoPro, at Fall Formal 2011

Joe, themetafictionist, and Anne Hathaway singing Le Petit Soldat a joie at Fall Formal.

Jared and Joe were kind enough to allow me to show up early enough to capture the set -up of all that fancy equipment and the last minute rehersals, I used a special slider that allows you to shoot moving Timelapses.

Thanks Freddy and Misa for all their help I couldn't have done this without them.

BEHOLD MY OBNOXIOUS LAUGH

This is the Intro Video that was screened at the Fall Formal 2011.  Kid Koala made the beat, RegularJOE edited the audio and designed the cut and then your awseome visuals were dropped on top!  Thanks to all for your wonderful contributions.  This video came together so well because everyone made such excellent RECords for the collab.   

I just wanted to make a little video, to show you guys a little bit of the process that occurs before i present that one moment photograph. Especially when its the challenge of turning a shitty basement into a stage:o) I'll add the zip of the whole process in case anyone would like to play with it

...without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Hevn & Urth... View the high res copy here

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/549684

I can't believe how long it has taken me to do this considering it's all of 2 minutes long including a fade in & out. Feels like it should be 2 hours!

In my defense, it's my first foray into using After Effects, Premiere & Sound Booth (AE constituting most of the work) with, on average, 1 maybe 2, days a week of working on it…so be charitable ;-)

There are bits of the animation I'm not 100 % satisfied with, the eyes are a little weird…too round I think…hmmm… Other parts here & there could use some work. I don't really quite know what I'm doing when it comes to correct formats etc. Researched best I could but still have so much to learn…ended up doing this in film 4k just because it seemed the safest bet to ensure max possible quality but I'm plagued by doubts about that choice…it looks weird to me.

I really had NO CLUE what I was doing with the audio - but - it was SO much fun! S'okay I suppose - I really love Johnny Clyde's work and think it's perfect for this project. Probably a little too somber for all of Hevn & Urth (I like somber!), a lot of Johnny's work has a Clint Mansell kind of quality to it, in my humble opinion. I'm happy with how most of the music I chose to use ended up working with this, considering I kind of cobbled it together last thing. I so wanted to use the music from "Just a little (more) idea" I did my best extracting the audio from the video and cutting and cleaning it up a bit but it could probably sound better in the right hands. My use of "J.B.M" could be better…might be a little over the top but perhaps someone more skilled could get it right?

All that said, I think I've been fiddling and fussing with this too long already. I've sort of deprived myself of all other Hit Record goings on while devoting my limited spare time to this. Once I've (very carefully) cleaned up the files to remove any un-used clutter I'll zip & upload the works so anyone else who really wants to can play with it. There may be some things in there that could lend themselves well to re-use and re-mixing.

I'm so fond of the Hevn & Urth project & all that's come out of it. Really hope to do more in the future… Enjoy, tell me what you think, & thanks to all of Hit Record for providing the resources, inspiration and motivation to get off (or rather, on) my ass & finally start learning to do things I've wanted to do for so long. Just the act of digging into all this, while sometimes difficult and frustrating, has been so rewarding and opened up new avenues of creative exploration.

I loved alpal's mesmerizing video Reverse Snow and JohnnyClyde's beautiful Snow Song. Metaphorist did a lovely reading of Fractaldust's text Cosmic Significance, And My Lack Thereof and set it to Snow Song.  I used trapeze here to try to echo Alpal's original video of snow falling upward.

I did a second version that is set only to Johnnyclyde's Snow Song. It's called SnowSong Trapeze.

Just a very simple little video/slideshow of my poem for mirtle's series of drawings. It could be a lot more awesome with even some simple animation? <3

A Story in Wishes

When I made the request for 11/11/11 wishes, I genuinely thought I would have a handful of responses to play around with in the short time I had available. To my utter delight, nearly 90 responses later, I have cut together what I hope is a fitting tribute to the words and wishes of a varied and talented group of HitREcorders.

In the end, the success was my downfall: I simply didn't have enough time to fully carry out the idea I had in the short space of time. But the more I edited the wish videos, the more I realised that in fact the videos speak for themselves: they speak of hope, courage, remembrance, sadness, fear, happiness, determination. My little collage, my little fingerprint in bringing you all together in a single picture became an after thought.

To everyone who contributed, my very deepest thanks. Your courage and inspiration were truly wonderful to work with.

My 11/11 wish is for this community to keep spreading it's wings, and to forever endeavour to create, achieve and inspire.

I hope that, even in some small measure, all your wishes come true <3

PS: on a lighter note, I hope no one is creeped out by my red stained hands [paint] and the fact that I have lots of your faces on a wall gathered round a bright red circle! <3

PPS: currently trying to resource LOTS of names, some of whom sent videos by email and I wasn't sure of their HitREcord name. If you sent me a video and don't see a resource, please let me know! I used every single one I received :D <3

This is an animation made from one of SFBakstad's timelapsed lily videos. Each frame was modified by a variety of hitRECorders & then mixed back into the sequence.

The video shows 4 different versions: full speed, slower, less than half speed (so you can see the individual frames more clearly) & then the full speed again for comparison.

The frames were modified by: rejjie, jelly bean, adhgraphicdesign, brookeduckart, moonbug & Duddelmaus! Thank you all for your contributions! :)

Now... where do we take this next?

I really loved both the 'Yes, We're Sinking' song by eaneikciv and the image it inspired by chopsticksroad so have remixed them into this little animation. <3

I felt Day Glo hit the nail on the head with one of his takes of "Goblin Ears." I was eager to mix in his voice over and sort of create a first version of this Tiny Film.

The "VO REquest" is resourced below, so anyone can upload their reading. This first version will help provide the timing of some of the visual cues, so it would be best to watch this while doing any readings.

Bubbles!!!

This is the verison that first screened at Sundance 2012!

For Malicore's Time Traveler collab.  I've been wanting to do something with this collab for a while now, and finally everything seemed to fall into place.

 Hope you like it!

 EDIT:

There is one resource that for some reason won't add.

It's called 'lights' and you can find it here:

http://hitrecord.org/records/183406

Eaneikciv's beautiful track, totally moved me to take time out of my day and complete the images I saw in my head when I heard the song.

I don't necessarily think I'm adding or moving a collaboration with this. because it seems pretty finalized, but Im certainly adding a bunch of free footage, that i think could be applied to a lot (remember to recommend and resource)

I heard the song, not really as a love song, as how the sundance short ended up, but it kinda hit me because I've dealt with panic disorder for awhile, and there are those moments where you are just relaxing and those thouhghts creep in, and you just feel like you can't hear anything, like you are underwater and all you want to do is relax and enjoy yourself, but your body is saying no. it can be very frustrating. And "we're sinking" is totally how it feels.  I  wouldn't say I have it as bad as others, but I've had some easier times and some harder times.  It's always been important to me to take deep breaths and try to move on when its over and not linger in it. I hope you like..

I took my daughter to my grandpa's farm a few days ago & she happened to be wearing her red coat, so I stole a basket from my mom's house and we went for a walk in the woods. Here's the second half. (400mb max, grrr!) I muted the clips because she was talking most of the way through it saying things like "do you think we'll see a monkey in the forest?" Yeah, probably not in Mississippi...

I might try to get more footage a little later in the day if anyone wants it, my memory card was pretty full with other stuff when I shot this so I didn't quite get what I wanted. And I have a 1080 version if someone needs it, but the file is too large to upload here.