EVERYTHING else is older stuff that she’s found via antique dealers or auctions, so I can’t really complain when she’s going out sleuthing on a holiday morning.

Instead, I’m sitting in front of the computer, watching Nuke render out my latest daily, enjoying some alt/folk and sipping my coffee. I love iTunes’ ability to make up the ultimate morning/coffee playlist complete with Andrew Bird, the Decembrists, Rogue Wave, Bon Iver, Wilco, Eliott Smith, Death Cab and Bob. It turns into a crank every stereo in the house and knock some things out morning. Doing laundry while the computer churns, and I’m nodding along to my favorite contemplative tunes.

The reason I’m brain dumping now, is that I’ve realized I need to write and post more of my progress. If I force myself to post that means I have to a.) post more pics to go with it and b.) post my progress on my personal projects. Since I can’t link to most of the work stuff, I have to feel like I’m adding something out the interwebs.

Although, I did find the disney ad I worked on last winter on the youtubes the other day. It’s for EuroDisney (Disney Paris) and I worked on 2/3s of the roto you see in and around the cabin. Here’s the link.

Also, here are a couple of nature photos. One is of this amazing spider web I caught in our backyard, and the other is from the Fieldstone Orchard from last fall. This past week it’s been feeling like fall is just around the corner, which means picking our own apples and Teressa’s amazing apple pies.

Last but not least here is the latest daily in my super project. I’ve done a lot of roto (cutting people out of the frame) over the years, and while it’s an incredibly manual process, I challenged myself to key and roto this shot without a single keyframe of animation. Instead I used the 3d track from before, projected my rotoshapes onto 3D cards and ran it through the 3D camera solve. Turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. Just needs a little touch up where the street lights pop and a railing, but way easier than rotoing 1600+ frames of buildings. You may be asking what in the world does this accomplish? Well, two things really. One, I can perform a sky replacement now and punch up what was a pretty blah sky. Second, I can now animate objects so they look like they are passing between the buildings. Exciting stuff I know. Next up, I promise something a little more thrilling than red outlined building, but this is just another step in creating something good.

First up…WE MOVED!!!

Two blocks.  Down the street.

Teressa found this adorable rental house that just so happened to open up when we needed it. Fate really. That was back in February, and we moved in late April.  We’ve been spending most all of our free time painting, gardening, settling in and building furniture (more on that in a later post).  Oh, and obsessively catching up on This Old House. Tom Silva is turning into my personal hero.

It’s a great house, and we’ve just about got all of our stuff where it needs to go. Best part of the house?  Teressa and I both have our own workspaces, so now we can both burn the midnight oil on projects and not annoy each other.  Although, I do kind of miss being able to spin around in my chair and annoy her with some thing on the internet…but now I can just yell it out around the corner.

A Trip

In early July we both made a trek up north to Chicago for a joint, but separate, bachelor/bachelorette party for our good friends Zach & Cortney. Since we were already booking flights we decided to stick around for a few days and check out the Chicago scenery and finally drop in on Ben & Martha.  As per usual I forgot to take pictures of the people we went to visit and got hung up taking pictures of the environment.  Here are a few photos from the fabulous architecture boat tour, couldn’t recommend it enough.  I ended up spending most of my time focusing on the gorgeous bridges and towers that line the Chicago river, and pushing them a little further than normal, but Teressa is already planning on framing a few…so mission accomplished.  What can I say, I’m really just trying to impress her.

A Camera

Which brings me to my new favorite gadget.  While Teressa probably wouldn’t admit it my gadget lust has subsided over the years. I’ve been more interested in what I can do with the things I have (ala Merlin and John), and not so much on the latest and greatest.  However, Canon has been introducing stills cameras that have a built in HD video mode…and I finally had to break down and buy one.  The t2i to be exact. It’s fantastic.  I’ve been shooting video personally/professionally since I was about 10 years old but I’ve never owned my own video camera.  One word; revelation. I can get up a 6am and run around town shooting magic hour sunrises and I have zero permissions to obtain to do it.  Well, except for Teressa’s…but I tend to make up for that by bringing back bagels.

If you can’t tell I’m super excited to be able to scratch this itch again, and I can’t wait to show you some of the actual results.  But patients…video/mograph is a dish best served slowly in this regard.  To tide you over dear reader, here is a daily from my matchmove test on some footage I shot from the river.  Now I just need to roto, animate, composite and color correct it.  Who said technology was making things easier again?  Freelancing/Day job tend to get in the way of me making pretty short films for fun..but trust me they are coming.

There’s an update on what’s going on around here.  I’m going to quite promising to post more work/freelance related stuff on here until I’m ready to post it.  Creating impressive demo reels is hard, and I keep getting distracted by actual work (thanks boundaryvfx guys), but I promise it’s coming soon…if for no other reason than my mother might finally be able to understand what it is I do for a living.  It’s something with computers and cameras I think….

Basically, I’ve been working on the LAUG website, organizing and creating our web relaunch, along with a bit of freelance Roto work and some consulting, which results in this project feeling a little neglected. I finally got some time this weekend to knock out one of the more convoluted steps and I’m glad that I can get things back on track.

I also picked up the 3DGarage.com – C4D training which should arrive later this month to round out my 3d skills and I just booked a flight to San Fran for some covert opps. I’ll post more when I can about it, but I’m very excited about the opportunity.

I know, I need to post more blah, blah but I’ve been busy actually working so deal with it. ;)

I’ve spent most of the weekend strapped to my desk working on a backlog of tutorials and how-tos that have been clogging up the todo list. Teressa’s Mom came up for the weekend to put together their annual mother-daughter Christmas goody delivery, so I’ve been mostly left to my devices, hence the catching up on stuff. Every once in a while a head peaks into the study asking if I’ll run to the grocery store to pick up this or that. Although, I did get a pair of pants out of the deal, so I can’t really complain. I love a comfy pair of casual slacks.

Anyway, back to the tutorials. Many friends have no idea what I actually do for a living, even though I explain it as simply as possible. I always get the blank stair back. While I can’t normally post my freelance work, or what I’m doing at the day job, due to NDAs, I can post some of the stuff I’m working on for funsies. So, here is a canon digital camera modeled in Luxology’s Modo, based on a great tutorial by Andy Brown. I’m only like 5 percent into it, but I wanted to give people an update, and it also gives me a reason to finish the tutorials since my progress is now public!

In a weird sort of coincidence I ordered a camera (Canon SD1000) very similar to this one off of eBay on Friday for around 50 bucks. I’m looking at is as my sort ‘burn camera.’ By that, I mean one that I can take places where Teressa’s DSLR is either to big and bulky, or runs the risk of being damaged. While I’m under zero delusions that it will produce an image as nice as the DSLR, I am going to hack it with the CHDK firmware to at least have access to 10-bit raw files the camera captures. Once those are converted to DNGs I’ll be ready to rock with them in Aperture.

That’s all that is going on in these parts, I’ll be sure to post some pics when the camera gets here as I’m very excited to let it loose at the Gordon wedding this weekend!

In August I applied and was accepted into the PixelCorps.com compositing team . The team is basically an opportunity to work on projects for a variety of PixelCorps clients as well as to enhance your skills through additional training.

Recently we were given the opportunity to work on a real feature film for Patrick Read Johnson and one of my visual fx heroes John Knoll. The film, entitled ’77, is a pseudo-autobiography of Johnson’s first encounter with the VFX industry and more importantly Star Wars. Here is a link to the trailer:

Yes, I know, there couldn’t be a better project for me to receive my first feature film credit. The film turned out to not only be a chance to push my own limits, but to work with a great team and have the work showcased in such a public way. Here are a few more links such as the full film credits, which include my peoples from the Pixel Corps TCC team. Oh and look whose name is right next to mine…yeah, that’s right John Knoll. For once being named Kappenman has paid off. Also, here’s the link to my rather small but exciting credit’s page: Matthew Kappenman

Hopefully I’m not divulging anything that is still covered under the film’s NDA. Since the credits have gone live on IMDB, I’m assuming we’re in the clear. Now, I know you’re asking when can I see the film? Well, after a successful screening at the Hamptons International Film Festival the director is now putting the finishing touches on the film. Basically, when I know a release date you’ll know a release date.

Hope everyone is planning a great holiday. Unfortunately we’ll only be in Hutch for a few days this year, so if you’re going to be in town hit me up for some coffee or a drink at one of Hutchinson’s fine establishments.

Enter iMovie ’08. This new release looks to be an entirely different way of working with home movies and it should make life easier for the causal/home video editor. There are some tools, namely Final Cut Server, on the pro side of things that are similar to the new iMovie workflow, but nothing in the true consumer market. Gone is the standard timeline with tracks of video and audio, and now there is a project workspace where you just piece your movie together.

The new release is really exciting but I noticed a menu item in the new iMovie that could really change the game in rough cuts. Check out the photo above. There is now an option to export your project to FCP with the “Export Final Cut XML” command. What this does is allow you to export your project into a format that Final Cut can understand and have your movie instantly setup and ready for further refinement in FCP.

I’m dying to give this to some of the producers at my office as Final Cut tends to be way to bloated for the simple rough cuts they are preparing. Also, with iMovie ’08 there is nothing to stop schools from teaching simple editing with iMovie and then taking that project into FCP to teach the kids the essential finishing and audio editing techniques.

I usually yawn at every new version of iMovie as it means more work for me when I sit down to help users at the LAUG meetings, but with this version I’m actually excited to show people a new way of thinking about their home movies. Again, where’s that (office) credit card!?

I was asked at work this morning if we could have our green-screened-narrator hold a box and have an image green-screened and tracked over it. By the end of the day I took it one step further and tracked some video on as well. So, I thought I would throw up my test….the key is is very rough, but remember it is a test.

All I was really trying to determine was whether or not we could track the little narrator on the video box I’m holding and have her move realistically. Pay attention to how she moves as I move the box she is playing on. Notice how she rotates and scales up and down to compensate for my movement? I showed my co-workers and they loved it…so success!

p.s. It didn’t hurt that Teressa called and picked me up for lunch…which turned out to be a wonderful picnic in the park. As I said above, today was one of those good days.

Now I get to spend the rest of my day installing programs and transferring files. Whoopee!

Shoot me an email or a comment if you are heading out there this year, or if you have any good tourist picks.

“At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation’s leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical–if risky–experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.” -Business Week

That last sentence is the one that makes me jump with glee. “Performance based on output instead of hours” is something freelance and .com peeps have known for years. It has taken some serious rogues to make an environment like this thrive at a corporate headquarters set up to work in the old system. Here’s to Best Buy paving the way for a more distributed form of productivity.

For some more thoughts on this check out an old post from last spring.

Via: Web Worker Daily

*While I feel like I have tremendous freedom in what I do at my current employer, I am however tethered to my behemoth of a G5, 20 inch and 17 inch screens in order to get my work done. Hopefully the tethered aspect might be changing soon…. :)