Ben Hale Presents: Baby Violet Year One

Finally, I can pull from the darkness and head towards the light.  I've been missing from the fold.  Not from laziness, but from extreme busy-ness and secrecy.  My little girl Violet turned one and I was working on a video for her birthday party.  Because I wanted it to as much a gift to her as my wife, I had to keep it off the inter-web for it to remain a secret.

It worked.  My wife seemed overjoyed and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Post by Ben Hale.

For people who are interested in this kind of thing, I thought I would break down a couple of the effects in the video.

First thing.  All of the videos were taken with cell phones.  For some reason, everyone takes videos vertically and not horizontally (as in wide screen movies).  So my big problem was that I couldn't show video clips traditionally because of the black area on the sides.  My solution? Show the videos with cropped edges.  That's when I thought of doing the scrapbook.  It would allow me to cut off the black edges and place them on top of fake Polaroids.

The next problem was that I wanted the pages to curve like normal paper.  After Effects is a pretty flat program when it comes to 3D...for the most part.  It can basically be like flying index cards around a 3D space.  There is a normal page turn effect you get with the program, but it is just faking the turn.  I wanted to do better than that.

So after some research, I found a script called Bend Layers by Jacob Danell.  This program takes your flat image, asks you how many segments you want, and then splits that image in to a bunch of strips.  2 strips would be like folding it in half.  The more strips, the smoother the curve.

With that problem solved, it was just a matter of flying the camera around past the pages.  

I also wanted to give the whole thing a more cohesive look and better represent it in 3D space.  So I added a particle effect to better sell the depth of field and the the camera was moving and banking around.  I then loaded up Red Giant's Magic Bullet Looks, and did some color correcting and flare.  I used to do a wash of film grain to make everything blend together better, but much prefer this way.

Without Filters

With Filters

I also decided to do some pseudo 3D photos.  The effect is from duplicating your image and isolating the subject from the front layer.  Then you spread them apart and move the camera through the 2 images.  A little play with the Lens Blur effect and it will work pretty well for you.

There were some smaller effects in there too, but these were the trickier ones.  If you hung in this long, thank you.  

You can see more on my personal blog: NeedYourDisease

Or on my Facebook Page: NeedYourDisease

And why not Twitter: NeedYourDisease

-Ben Hale

500th Post!

It has been a wild ride since we began in 2012 and it looks like we have plenty to show for it.  500 may seem like a lot, but its just the beginning.  We will continue to share our creations on a regular basis and engage with the community.  We cannot thank you all enough for your support of our group.  Thank you.

-The Rust Belt Monsters

Teach Your Monster - Mustache Tutorial

Learn how to make an awesome mustache in this fun quick video from Erin!

If your 'stache skills need a boost, the RBMC has got you covered:

Extra thanks to Ron Caruso for video production.

Now go out there and have some hairy fun! And don't forget to check out our other videos.

Ingenuity Fest '12 Live Draw Montage

While the Rust Belt Monsters would love for people to sit and watch us paint for 15 hours straight, we understand that bathroom breaks and general cramping make it prohibitive.  Luckily, Ron Caruso was nice enough to produce a nice little 4 minute montage of the Monsters creating their mural for Ingenuity Fest 2012.  Please sit back and enjoy our labor of love served up to you in a delightful 4 minute chunk.

Also, be sure to stop by blip.tv for Ron Caruso's show "The Other Section": Watch as Ron subjects himself to some of the most obscure pieces of cinema known to man.

Link: The Other Section

Also, please be sure to "Like" and subscribe to the Rust Belt Monsters' Youtube channel as we have plenty more on the way.

Youtube: The Rust Belt Monsters 

Sci-Fi Fair Video

In collaboration with Ingenuity Fest Cleveland 2012, The Rust Belt Monsters banded together to create a series of posters (which we've been posting throughout the week) representing ideas for the future created by students at the Whitney M. Young High School.  We decided it might be fun to create a fake news reel showcasing these ideas with a few extra twists.  Above is the 3 minute result.

Keep checking the blog as the Monsters will be sharing their other collaborative efforts at the fair: an extremely humongous mural that took us over 14 hours to complete.  Craziness.

Check out my personal blog for some work in progress stills from the video: NeedYourDisease