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This one takes a different twist.

Of course I’m haunted by a few editing choices, and some bad rotoscoping, but it was my first round with light sabers. All in all I think I spent 15 hours on them, and it panned out pretty well.

Yes there is a Zippo lighter app, and no it doesn’t light anything on fire. That would be cool, but it doesn’t do that.

The song is Phantom, by Justice, and yes it is that cool. This (as well as iSaber 3) was filmed by my buddy Andrew Taylor, whose name I messed up in the credits: “Taylor Andrews.”

It was thanks to his skateboard that we could attempt the vertigo effect and almost pull it off. Brian’s looks better than mine, but it’s possible that it’s because he’s that much cooler than I am.

Someone corrected me once on saying “2G Networks” when I should have said Edge, but I recently discovered that 2G networks do exist so take that… er, I mean I knew that when I said it.

In case you were wondering why we had the closeup shot mid fight where all you see is either Brian or me with just our light sabers, it’s because that type of shot comprised about half of the lightsaber fights in the original trilogy. Funny… joke…

Caleb broke two of those fluorescent lamps over my back, leaving shards of glass in my sweatshirt both times. It hurt a lot, but was well worth it in the end. Especially the second shot which I used because a huge portion of the tube bounced directly over the camera.

Why “Frank?” No idea, it just worked well in the moment. To be honest Caleb’s “Frank” is probably my favorite character in any of our skits, he makes the iSaber series what it is.

This is a fairly disjointed conglomeration of thoughts, but if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments below and I’ll answer them!

Interesting fact: We use sticks to fight, wooden dowels to be exact, which makes it possible to add the lightsabers in later with the proper angles and blur.

Slightly less interesting fact: That epic archway Brian stands in at the beginning is part of the science department at Eastern.

VASTLY less interesting fact: Well, more an embarrassing fact, I didn’t make the saber mark on the wall in other shots after the first one. And the mark I made wasn’t quite as good as it could have been… in fact one could say it sucked.

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Ah the beginning of such a good thing. And to think no one thought this was a funny idea.

Well, not no one. I think Seth Gossler and Daniel Fockler thought it was funny… maybe Jenny, but they were probably laughing at me more than with me. Basically we were all sitting around talking about our iPhones, or at least my iPhone and Seth’s touch. I’d downloaded the Force Unleashed’s light saber app and we were playing with it while we should have been working.

I thought (out loud) about how funny it would be if you saw two nerds walking across campus that stopped when they saw each other, squared up, and then unsheathed their iPhone light sabers (hereafter shortened to “iSabers”). They laughed, and I thought about it and figured… why not? So we did it.

Brian Ross, who’s been with us since the beginning, has such a bad ass face with well pronounced features that he made the perfect sith nerd. I had the shaggy, been-out-with-the-sand-people-too-long Obiwan look going so I donned brown (which is why I didn’t wear the traditional good guy white for the last time!).

Caleb shook things up with his mad camera skills and his girlfriend Jenna provided our reality check mid-way through. Obviously filmed on Eastern’s campus we managed to get the whole thing finished in a few hours. This would not be true for iSaber battle 2, iSaber battle 3, or least of all iSaber Battle 4…

And for those of you nerdy enough to understand (or catch), in the opening dialogue I am talking about how to create two columns in an html document using floats. The trick is to put a div underneath them with a clear:both value.

Interesting fact: When in France that beard was long enough that I could grab it with my fist against my chin and have hair protrude out the bottom.

Slightly less interesting fact: The interesting fact above just ensured I would remain single for the remainder of my days.

VASTLY less interesting fact: The music and sound effects we used were all recorded off the light saber app itself.

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After 3 months I’ve finally finished it. I put in upwards of 76 hours, which I’ll describe in more detail in its dedicated blog entry, but it’s done. Hope you like it!

If you got here because of the facebook blitz, sorry to spam you but we’re so bad at promoting our videos half of our friends don’t even know they exist. You can become a fan of us on Facebook though if you feel so inclined, just click on the facebook link in the “find me on” section on the sidebar (to the right).

Leave a comment here (no account necessary) or on YouTube after you SUBSCRIBE! Plenty more details to come.

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iSaber Battle 4 is almost done, I’m working on the credits as we speak. Hopefully it’s worth the wait.

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My Irish friends would probably disown me if they saw this.

The best part is the animation (IMHO), which may have taken a while to make but was fun nonetheless.  This was another quickly thrown together announcement for New Community, like all our videos. This time about the Irish Folk Dance party we were going to have last spring.

Obviously(?) I’m not British; I did have fun making this even though it’s more embarrassing than entertaining. Ah to reminisce back to when I had a sweet beard and long hair.

The dance party was a smashing success, and my video didn’t offend anyone beyond reconciliation so it was a win win situation for everyone. Much to my disappointment it turned out I was completely wrong about how the Irish dance. I need to scrounge up that little website I made, or at least that animation to share.

Though you wouldn’t know it my sister, Kaarin, filmed this. She’s pretty good at everything photographic.

Interesting fact: The island commonly referred to as Ireland is occupied by two countries, Ireland and Northern Ireland (which is part of the UK).

Slightly less interesting fact: While staying in Dublin I met a Danish kid who sounded purely Scottish when he spoke. My buddy Clive Strawbridge (who’s from Chard, just south of Bristol) and I were flabbergasted.

VASTLY less interesting fact: My towel started to fall off at the end there, thankfully my tactful editing skills saved you from losing part of your vision.

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This is probably the most odd video we have, which is saying something. (come back later for photos, I’m currently away from my external hard drives)

I made this to promote FORMA (a retreat) for New Community. The guys dancing are two of the pastors, Rob and Ryan. Rob, if you didn’t notice on your own, is featured twice.

I made this whole thing in Photoshop and After Effects,with their somewhat express permission. At least they let me take photos of them in strange poses. The dance floor was animated by simply brightening different squares at random times (it was a static image). The dancing pastors were created with the Puppet Tool in AE, and the song is Technologic by Daft Punk.

I think it worked, there was a good turnout, and no one has ever asked to see more of the dancing in the year that’s followed.

Interesting fact: I photoshopped all the pimp gear on the duo.

Slightly less interesting fact: I can’t listen to this song any more, I went crazy animating to it.

VASTLY less interesting fact: If you like Daft Punk you’ll LOVE Justice.

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The original Christian Pill got taken down from YouTube for being too awesome. They claimed that it was due to copyright infractions, but we all know the truth. So I’ve finally gotten it up on Vimeo instead, and here’s how it used to look and sound in all its glory:

This video was quickly becoming our most popular when it got muted. I was looking up the search terms people used in finding it and was amused to discover that most revolved around “crazy Christian.”

This is (obviously) a satirical take on what much of Western Christianity has become in the US, at least how many people view it today. We made it for a college retreat, and I’m sad to say it wasn’t received as well there as it has been elsewhere. At least they didn’t seem to really get it (although the pastor that solicited my help still thinks it’s hilarious).

Jimmy Van Orsen is simply a character that I compiled out of my impressions of sleazy car salesmen and televangelists.

Kyle Taylor did a good job being the depressed white trash, and we had a fun time working together. He didn’t really drown, in case you’ve been worried this whole time.

Interesting fact: If you buy the Christian Pill it won’t do anything for except make you healthier because it was actually a multivitamin.

Slightly less interesting fact: The benefits listed at the end of the video are totally worth watching.

VASTLY less interesting fact: I’m not sure when exactly in our chronology this was released, so it’s finding its way into the blog at this point as an approximate release order… ish…

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I wanted to write you from last decade but got wrapped up in a New Year’s Eve party that lasted all night and now I’ve missed my chance. I have fallen into a new year unawares and am kind of sad that I missed my chance to write you from 2009 one more time.

Which is kind of weird because: who cares?

Anyways, I’m headed to my parents’ house to watch the Rose Bowl and eat snacks, and tomorrow we’re going to the WSU vs. Oregon State game! Stoked!

What are you doing for New Years? Leave a comment and let me know!

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Ok ok ok ok. So I’ve had a lot of pointed, almost angry questions about this video because people simply don’t get it. Step 1) It’s not a true sequel. It’s a public service announcement to encourage people not to bring food into the lab that we put up on the big screen at the entrance.

The reason it’s called “A Day in the Life of  a Ninja Con 2″ is because there was an original that actually followed a ninja through one of his ‘regular’ days. This video was quaint, and enjoyable, and completely unrelated to our video. But since people knew that one in the lab, we figured we’d name this one after it. Why?

Step 2) BECAUSE IT’S A SPOOF OF NINJA CAT COMES CLOSER WITHOUT MOVING FOR PETE’S SAKE! If you haven’t seen it, watch it below, then watch our video below that and it will all make sense. Beautiful, beautiful sense.

Above is one we didn’t make, below is the spoof we did.

There is one cool camera trick in here where the pop magically ends up in his hand. This was done with a simple cross dissolve between blurry shots, one where the pop was on the desk and one where it’s in his hand. I just made the same motion twice and voila. If that made no sense to you, don’t worry, I’m not going to go any further with the explanation.

Interesting fact: Jeff’s face is on that little “no food in the PUB Lab” sign I smack at the beginning of the video, so he technically IS in a video.

Slightly less interesting fact: I’m shown using myspace in the video, quite possibly the last time I ever touched my profile.

VASTLY less interesting fact: You’d be surprised how often people think they can get away with eating in a “no food” zone and try to weasel out of it by getting angry with you like it’s your fault they broke the rules. I still want to slap people like that, despite not working there since June.

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I was out in the great white north of internet-free wonder called “Okanogan, Washington” this week visiting my grandparents. So I’m A) behind on video blogs and B) sorry I didn’t get a MERRY CHRISTMAS!! out to you all.

But I’m back, and got some work done on iSaber 4 while at my grandparents. Just because you don’t have the internet doesn’t mean you can’t do something useful with your computer; I had forgotten this. It was weird not having the webz at my beck and call, however. Especially when rendering previews; I ended up staring at my computer wondering what on earth I was supposed to be doing.

We got some sweet Spite and Malice time in though, and it was a great relaxing time with my family.

Hope to have the new video up soon, but in the mean time go check out our latest 140 Second Chances on YouTube. I’ll post it in blog format here when it comes up chronologically… I think. I’m not really sure how to go about all this. Bah, I’ll just post it now. But you should still go to our YouTube page and subscribe.

Seriously, we didn’t even make it in the dang contest. Go subscribe.

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