Bridesmaids is a comedy that proves women can do humor just as raunchy as men can. That’s what makes it awesome.
Kristen Wiig is Annie, a failed baker who works as a rather ineffective jewelry saleswoman. She’s broke and dating a jerk. Her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), gets engaged and makes Annie her maid of honor. At the engagement party, Annie and another bridesmaid initiate this weird competition for Lillian’s attention that interferes with wedding plans.
Wiig and Rudolph (SNL alums) were quite awesome, but Melissa McCarthy (of Mike and Molly) as Megan all but stole their show. I don’t think her character could have been any stranger or farther from the one she plays on television. That girl can act.
Bridesmaids is very funny and a little chick-flicky but not annoyingly so. It gets an A-.
I’m going to go see if I can hunt down some pretzels. Tune in tomorrow for a blog only (temporarily) sneak peak at the Fate Binds Trilogy Trailer. That’s right. I finished it.
Showing posts with label will she follow through?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label will she follow through?. Show all posts
Monday, December 5, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
procrastination plus book trailer update
Today I was reading through the remix project and I discovered that somehow like 200 words or so had vanished from the manuscript. It’s weird because I have no idea how or why they disappeared. Luckily I still had a hard copy printout of the previous version, so all I had to do was find the corresponding page and type the missing part back in. I’m just glad that I hadn’t taken the pages to the recycle bin yet. Yay procrastination!
Ok. Guess what. No…not chicken butt. Book trailer update! I have completed the flower animation. I have also resolved the problem of the crap-ass picture quality.
Flash animation does not convert to avi format well, which is why the video looked blurry or grainy or whatever the first time I put it up on the blog. The problem was even worse when I converted the completed animation to avi. It was so bad that when I tried to play it on full screen, the flowers looked like straight up 8-bit graphics. After working so long on the thing, the bad picture made me want to cry.
But I did not cry. I looked for and eventually found a solution. The conversion from Flash to Quicktime (mov) went much smoother.
I haven’t made the final adjustments to the timing of the flowers yet. The roses will start before the rest of the foliage, with the exception of the grass blades. There will also be words in the middle, of course. The flowers, etc are just the border.
Ok. Guess what. No…not chicken butt. Book trailer update! I have completed the flower animation. I have also resolved the problem of the crap-ass picture quality.
Flash animation does not convert to avi format well, which is why the video looked blurry or grainy or whatever the first time I put it up on the blog. The problem was even worse when I converted the completed animation to avi. It was so bad that when I tried to play it on full screen, the flowers looked like straight up 8-bit graphics. After working so long on the thing, the bad picture made me want to cry.
But I did not cry. I looked for and eventually found a solution. The conversion from Flash to Quicktime (mov) went much smoother.
I haven’t made the final adjustments to the timing of the flowers yet. The roses will start before the rest of the foliage, with the exception of the grass blades. There will also be words in the middle, of course. The flowers, etc are just the border.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
making things move
I've been watching a lot of book trailers lately for the work I do on Journey Reader. Some stand out. Others don't.
I have created one book trailer. It was basically some illustrations and words put to music. Nothing dynamic, really. Nothing special about it. Well, maybe the illustrations were special enough to count for something.
I tried my best to keep it from being too powerpointy, but it could have been better. I don't find slideshows all that compelling. Don’t get me wrong, using a slideshow set to music is better than no trailer, for sure.
However, the fact that the trailer has almost no movement to it bothers me. All trailers I do from here on out will probably have some kind of animation to them. I don't mean like Disney style animation, of course, but some movement on the screen is far more preferable to none.
The next book trailer project will be for the annabeth series.
Here's what I'm thinking.
There are some gardens and flowers in the first book so I'm using that. I may also include Poe the crow and maybe Dorian, AB's gray tabby as well.
At the end of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (genius, truly), the credits roll in this frame of flora. As a song is playing, flowers and toadstools and vines are appearing and blooming around the credits. It's very cool. I want to do something like that with the AnnaBeth trailer, but with, you know, my stuff. Mine probably won't be quite that cool because I'm not a professional animator, but one has to try, at least.
You may be asking - didn't she just say she WASN'T doing Disney-style animation? Yes I did. You are right. Technically Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was a Disney production. Award yourself 6 points and eat a cookie. I meant like Cinderella or Lion King kind of animation.
I have never animated anything before, so this should be an interesting learning process. Flash and I will be getting to know eachother better very soon. If I get any preliminary animations going, I will post them, unless they look like crap, in which case you'll never know they existed.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
I have created one book trailer. It was basically some illustrations and words put to music. Nothing dynamic, really. Nothing special about it. Well, maybe the illustrations were special enough to count for something.
I tried my best to keep it from being too powerpointy, but it could have been better. I don't find slideshows all that compelling. Don’t get me wrong, using a slideshow set to music is better than no trailer, for sure.
However, the fact that the trailer has almost no movement to it bothers me. All trailers I do from here on out will probably have some kind of animation to them. I don't mean like Disney style animation, of course, but some movement on the screen is far more preferable to none.
The next book trailer project will be for the annabeth series.
Here's what I'm thinking.
There are some gardens and flowers in the first book so I'm using that. I may also include Poe the crow and maybe Dorian, AB's gray tabby as well.
At the end of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (genius, truly), the credits roll in this frame of flora. As a song is playing, flowers and toadstools and vines are appearing and blooming around the credits. It's very cool. I want to do something like that with the AnnaBeth trailer, but with, you know, my stuff. Mine probably won't be quite that cool because I'm not a professional animator, but one has to try, at least.
You may be asking - didn't she just say she WASN'T doing Disney-style animation? Yes I did. You are right. Technically Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland was a Disney production. Award yourself 6 points and eat a cookie. I meant like Cinderella or Lion King kind of animation.
I have never animated anything before, so this should be an interesting learning process. Flash and I will be getting to know eachother better very soon. If I get any preliminary animations going, I will post them, unless they look like crap, in which case you'll never know they existed.
_________________________
Hey, want some free reading? Check out the fiction freebie page on this very blog!
There you shall find links to two free ebooks on Smashwords and novel excerpts on Scribd.
Other places to find me:
http://www.LeaRyan.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/LeaRyan1
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)