My first (and only) attempt at video editing

This 9 minute short film on Youtube was created by me (well, assembled from many different sources, most of them historical). It was in response to a video contest in February 2013--10 years after the Columbia disaster-- about "Why Space Matters."  It was also partly inspired by a video from Neil de Grasse Tyson about a similar subject.  (Link HERE)

While it didn't win the contest and was disqualified for its length, I think this video has strung together all the footage which shows why this is the singular greatest achievement of the human race.

Space exploration is the only thing that can ensure the future of humankind.   It deserves all of our effort, talent, energy and resources.  The budget cuts that decapitated NASA after the retiring of the space shuttle fleet I think may have hurt our nation more in the long run than the 13-year War on Terror.  We don't even realize the implications.

The process took about a week to put together. Lots of clips had to be downloaded and audio tracks and music removed, then overdubbed with my own carefully selected soundtrack. Some of the clips had to be sped up or slowed down to match the high and low points of the epic score. All of this was done on my MacBook using iMovie and no other software that didn't come packaged with my computer. I will say this: video editing is not as easy as the millions of youtubers make it appear.  It takes dozens of gigabytes of storage, even with 2 gigabytes of memory my laptop was struggling and overheating.  You really need a Mac Pro or a dedicated workstation for video editing, and an external hard disk for the file storage is a must. at 40 gigabytes, this video project almost killed my poor laptop. 

You probably wish it was longer, but I'm afraid this is the best I can do so, sit back and enjoy.

Some of the footage used:  NASA Archives, Public Domain World War II newsreels, the 1983 movie The Right Stuff

Music: "Garador's Flight" and "Ascencia" by Jo Blankenburg, "Mars" by Terry Devine-King, "Song of Heroes" by Chris Blackwell

An image that took me almost 3 years to create.

You have no idea how hard it was to take these photos and have them all look exactly the same. It took me almost 3 years to find a perfect sunny day with no one else in the park and remember the exact spot where I stood.
I missed two chances and had to wait another year to try again. It takes patience. :)

Oversaturation turns dirty, ugly urban textures into Modern Art

About a year ago, I was walking around in my city taking pictures of things like stained concrete, stone walls and rusty metal. Anything that looked decayed for use as "stock textures," to manipulate or alter somehow in my digital artwork later. But at the time I wasn't sure how I would use them. 

Today as I was playing around with these images in Photoshop, I discovered that simply over-saturating these images creates an explosion of hidden color. The effect looks very Andy Warhol -inspired, like Pop Art. Over-saturation is a photographic term which means too much color.  Usually the effect is undesirable in photography. But the subjects I chose for the photos are very plain, boring stuff, things people walk by all the time and don't notice. This almost gives a vibrant new life to the ugly parts of the city people would rather not look at. I find a certain beauty in old decaying things though. Maybe it's just me. 

I like the way these turned out, some really do look like modern art paintings.  Below are the before and after comparisons.

...By the way, I've read in science books that the image on the right side is more how the world looks as seen through the eyes of birds, certain insects and reptiles (and possibly dinosaurs). Their eyes have more color receptors than ours do and they can see wavelengths of light that we can't...so they can see colors we don't even have names for.

                                        BEFORE                                                        AFTER

Drainpipe underneath an old stone bridge

Lichen-encrusted exposed rock by a hiking trail

The more you zoom in on the texture, the more abstract the photo painting becomes.

Mossy tree bark

Stone wall in a drainage ditch

Underside of a railroad bridge

Exterior of a church

Stone wall

Cracked pavement

Water-damaged tunnel ceiling underneath a bridge

Vines climbing up a concrete foundation

Door latch on an abandoned barn

Peeling paint on another old barn

A wall attacked by graffiti

Rusty basement door to an abandoned building

Who knew that so much color was hiding in plain sight?

Advice from a jaded designer

To you creatives out there, here's what I learned from my 5 years in the field.

Anytime you have too many people involved in a creative process, the result is counterproductive. A design project should involve three people at most. The designer, the client who gave you the job, and one other person to give a second opinion. The third party should be a marketing director of the client's company, someone from your own design firm, or whoever is responsible for producing or delivering the end product. Nobody else. 

Whenever a client tells me my work will be "submitted to a design board for approval" I gotta just roll my eyes. Each member of a group thinks they are right and everyone else is wrong. 

If the so-called "design board" (usually made of non-designers) can make any decision, it will be a weak compromise based on your least favorite concept, or a mish-mash of elements from other people's ideas that don't work together, they'll even want to go back to an old idea you threw out when you started because you already knew it wouldn't work. 

The result will be cluttered, incoherent and unsatisfying to look at. Once you get to iteration #8 or so of the concept, you realize the work you did up to that point won't mean anything and wasn't worth the effort or time you put into it. Committees are indecisive, prone to changing details at the last minute, telling you the work is done then calling you a day later asking for "one more little thing" and it never ends. It takes all the fun out of the creative process and it makes you regret ever taking the job in the first place.

A creative process should be an intimate one. Design is not a democracy, nor is it a republic of squabbling bureaucrats. Design is kind of a dictatorship. You're the artist, if you're being paid to do the job, then you should be allowed to do it.