Monday, June 22, 2009

Road Trip Postponed

Due to a series of unfortunate events, our road trip to California is being postponed a week. Instead of leaving this coming weekend, we will be leaving the first weekend of July.

Three friends and I were driving down to a house in Brooklyn when I noticed my [automatic] car beginning to feel like a stick shift with a bad driver. As we pulled off the highway, the car accelerated extremely slowly, and had a clear problem changing gears... Right as we were turning onto our street, the car failed to accelerate at all, so we jumped out and pushed it out of the intersection into a parking spot!

Today I found out the transmission blew... which will cost $2700 to repair!! And I won't get it back until next weekend... At least it didn't happen out west on our trip I suppose.

We also have an updated trip schedule... Turns out we won't be meeting up with Katie, so Texas is out. We also knocked out San Diego and Los Angeles (basically the places that require money). We added in a few other national parks such as Bryce National Park in Utah. Everything is still changing by the day though, depending on when we leave and what reservations I successfully make...

Below is the updated road trip map plan... If anyone lives near anywhere we are going let me know maybe we can stop by!




View Summer '09 Road Trip in a larger map

Friday, June 12, 2009

How to Create Smooth 60i to 24p Slow Motion Using Adobe After Effects

This tutorial uses the NTSC format, so PAL users may need to adjust...

Make sure your camera is set to record on the 60i - or HDV mode. The footage has to be shot at 60i in order for this method to work.

1. Make a new composition with a frame rate of 24fps.


2. Right click your clip, and under "Interpret Footage" select "Main...".



3. Select "Conform to frame rate:" and change the frame rate to 24 frames per second. Make sure "Separate Fields:" is set to "Upper Field First", and check "Preserve Edges". Click "OK".

4. Drag the clip into the timeline. Right click the clip in the timeline, and under "Time" select Time Stretch. Increase the "Stretch Factor" to 200%, and select OK.


5. That's it! Just make sure you keep the frame rate at 24fps and export as a progressive file.




To see a before and after example, or if you get confused at all, check out the video tutorial below:


Thursday, June 11, 2009

The Summer of Travels

I have hardly done anything productive so far this summer, yet I feel as though I have been extremely busy... I became really excited when I was given the idea to start a blog, but I can't find the time to discuss anything! This is also my very first blog or journal of any kind, so I'm sure I will get better at writing down my thoughts as time goes on...

Although this summer is nowhere near its end, I have already come up with a title for it. Just as last summer became known as "The Summer of Drugs" (for reasons to be mentioned later...), this summer will be referred to as "The Summer of Travels". I realized I have been going on a lot of spur of the moment road trips, such as Cape Cod, MA, Baltimore, MD, and Shelter Island, NY. I have also found myself developing the unofficial title of Town Chauffeur. I drive my friends everywhere!

Before I fall asleep at the keyboard, here is my plan to top off the Summer of Travels: a cross-country road trip! I love to drive, and this has always been a dream of mine... Greg, Ben, myself, and hopefully a few other lucky ones will take my 1998 Toyota Camry to the Pacific and back, with plenty of awesome stops along the way.

Quick Outline for Summer '09 Road Trip:
Camp in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TE
Camp in Big Bend National Park, TX
Camp in Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
Las Vegas for a night...
Drive through Death Valley, into San Diego.
Up the coast, staying in LA and San Francisco
Camp in Yosemite National Park, CA
Stop by Greg's sister's home in Reno, NV
Camp in Yellowstone National Park, WY
Climb Mount Rushmore, SD

Obviously, we are poor college students and are trying to do free, nature-inclusive activities such as hiking and camping. Gas will be expensive, but I plan on living off of peanut butter sandwiches for the three weeks we are gone to save some money... Below is a map of the plan...

Please comment if you have any advise!!




View Summer '09 Road Trip in a larger map