Hi, I'm Topher nice to meet you. » after effects http://toe-fur.com Toe Fur Productions Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:21:54 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 Giveaways at VisualFXtuts.com http://toe-fur.com/2009/05/18/giveaways-at-visualfxtutscom/ http://toe-fur.com/2009/05/18/giveaways-at-visualfxtutscom/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 14:45:49 +0000 Topher http://toe-fur.com/?p=100 Hey everyone, just wanted to show you the new little VLOG I put together to tell you all about some giveaways we are going to be doing here in the next month!  Enjoy

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2009/05/18/giveaways-at-visualfxtutscom/feed/ 0 Another Article Published! http://toe-fur.com/2009/04/18/another-article-published/ http://toe-fur.com/2009/04/18/another-article-published/#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:36:52 +0000 Topher http://toe-fur.com/?p=97 Who loves coffee?  I love coffee.  Who loves tutorials?  I love tutorials… and apparently so do all of you.

My newest article at AEtuts+, The Vente AE Tutorial Roundup From Around the Web showcases a ton of tutorial created in After Effects in the last month or so.   Please drop by AEtuts+ and give it some love!

As for other things on the horizon, I may be writing for a couple other sites, possibly helping with some training DVD creation, and quite possibly getting around to doing some tutorials of my own.  Now if I could only find the time to just breathe.

Also, something really worth mentioning, if you haven’t seen them already go to Nick Campbell’s GreyScaleGorilla.com and submit something to his 5 Second Weekly Projects.  Go out and MAKE COOL SHIT!

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2009/04/18/another-article-published/feed/ 0 I am now published at AEtuts+ http://toe-fur.com/2009/04/10/i-am-now-published-at-aetuts/ http://toe-fur.com/2009/04/10/i-am-now-published-at-aetuts/#comments Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:38:51 +0000 Topher http://toe-fur.com/?p=95 There is a new amazing tutorial site on the horizon for After Effects.  It is a subsidiary within the Envato Network, and a sister site to popular tutorial websites like PSDtuts+, Nettuts+, Vectortuts+, and Audiotuts+.

AEtuts+ has finally launched and has been running strong for a couple of months now.  This is a tutorial site unlike any other out there, because they are user-run, and only accept high quality effects and tutorials.  They have featured tutorials on popular effects like Pierre Michel’s Particular Signature effect, and various, very cool kinetic typography tutorials.

Run by Lloyd Alvarez of AEscripts.com, AEtuts+ is quickly growing to be one of the daily stops for a lot of rising AFter Effects artists.  I have been fortunate enought to have a weekly article that gets released on Fridays on various subjects such as inspiration, tutorial roundups, and informational articles like my latest article this week:  A Concise Guide To After Effects Keyboard Shortcuts.  If you click the thumbnail, it will take you to my author page at AEtuts+ so that you can see all the different articles I have published.  I am working on a tutorial for the site based on the beginning of the RockNRolla title sequence where Johnny Quid pulls out his guns and it shows the name of the movie.  The tutorial will be basically showing how to do the shifting in depth of field, moving in 3D space, and the transition from video to illustration.  =

That’s it for now, so check back often to see when I have new stuff published, and feel free to check out my Demo Reel.

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2009/04/10/i-am-now-published-at-aetuts/feed/ 0 Demo Reel for March 2009 http://toe-fur.com/2009/03/03/demo-reel-for-march-2009/ http://toe-fur.com/2009/03/03/demo-reel-for-march-2009/#comments Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:47:08 +0000 Topher http://toe-fur.com/?p=75 So, I know a big thing that has been missing from my site has been a demo reel, but I haven’t had that much stuff that was useable and worth putting into a demo reel, due to the fact that in the last year I have made the transition from editor to motion graphics and vfx.   But finally I got some good enough stuff to stick in it, so it makes it worth watching.  So go ahead and check it out.  Leave me feedback on what you think, and what I can do to improve it!

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2009/03/03/demo-reel-for-march-2009/feed/ 4 New Batch of Projects… http://toe-fur.com/2009/02/18/new-batch-of-projects/ http://toe-fur.com/2009/02/18/new-batch-of-projects/#comments Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:05:26 +0000 Topher http://toe-fur.com/?p=68 I have been working on a new batch of projects this week for a place in Capitol Hill in Seattle, Wa.  They are for in store promos for a video store called On 15th Video.  I have 7 that I am doing, but I have one finished, and another one almost done.  For the first one I used Andrew Kramer’s SURE TARGET preset to get the message across.  Since there was no audio or dialogue, or even music for that matter, I wanted a way to still give the peice life, with being silent.  Check it out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is a promo for Mondo247.com, they are having a contest so that you can win a bunch of stuff… this spot also uses Andrew’s 3D text technique.

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2009/02/18/new-batch-of-projects/feed/ 0 If AE Crashes… http://toe-fur.com/2008/11/28/if-ae-crashes/ http://toe-fur.com/2008/11/28/if-ae-crashes/#comments Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:44:19 +0000 Topher http://topherthevideoguy.wordpress.com/?p=38 This might be one of the problems.  I just got over a 3 hour dillema of AE shutting down whenever I scrub in the timeline, or for that matter, even click inside the timeline.

It is wierd, because my computer has been fine for the last… well forever, since I installed my Nvidia QuadroFX540 video card like, 3 years ago.  Well, for some reason, it didn’t want to let me work in the timeline.  After about 3 hours of system restore, preference file tweakage, re installing and all that good stuff… I installed a trial of AE CS4.  (I work in CS3) SAME PROBLEM!  But this time instead of just crashing it gave me error messages saying something about OpenGL.

I went back into AE CS3 and went into the preferences, unchecked USE OPENGL… and there ya go.  That was my problem…
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g LKSgflkdigosadjgoiasjdfhogasner0t9 gj3w409fjbsdfngaof2w394843nt3weng4fokendvscskdvafvoaerngoae rfgoaijrfg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO MAD right now… but at least I got it fixed and now I can get back to work.

Moral of the story:  Try the easiest solution first, even if it doesn’t make sense at the time.

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2008/11/28/if-ae-crashes/feed/ 2 New Animation… http://toe-fur.com/2008/11/13/new-animation/ http://toe-fur.com/2008/11/13/new-animation/#comments Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:33:31 +0000 Topher http://topherthevideoguy.wordpress.com/?p=35 Courtesy of videocopilot.net and the amazing Andrew Kramer, I have made a new animation that actually includes my son, Brennan acting in it.  I know you’re like “he’s only like a year old”  well… I actually just laid him on the ground and he got really pissed off and started crying… so naturally I filmed him.  haha.  Anyways the animation is that of him “getting his soul sucked out” by a Dementor… one of the monsters out of the Harry Potter novels.   I also did some cool motiong graphics at the beginning… some videocopilot.net stuff… some my own.  Check it out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

So I thought it was pretty cool… I have a friend coming over today and we are going to try to make the Poor Man’s steadicam for $14 so that will be a fun endeavor.  I am also going to have a couple more things coming up like my son and his “Lightning Ball” powers, Boujou motion tracking with 3D text like in FRINGE, and some more videocopilot tutorials.

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2008/11/13/new-animation/feed/ 1 Season Ending… http://toe-fur.com/2008/09/18/season-ending/ http://toe-fur.com/2008/09/18/season-ending/#comments Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:02:15 +0000 Topher http://topherthevideoguy.wordpress.com/?p=30 So I am sad to say that the season at Emerald Downs in ending and that means that…. well I will be out of the editing/shooting gig that I have been loving so much for the next 4-5 months or so.  It sucks, I know, but I probably wouldn’t be doing that much video production anyways.  If I were to stay on, it would be engineer type of stuff, but no real video stuff, not till around February.   Oh well, it gives me a chance to try my hand at some new careers… possibly selling used cars?  I will probably be doing video stuff for hobby for a while, but one good thing is, I have access to the HPX-500 whenever I want, as long as I don’t take it out of Emerald Downs.  So, I will be able to do HD After Effects tests and stuff like that, which is pretty cool.

I have a new little video I made the other day, a simple cloning video, I had never done one, and I got bored one day while Brennan was sleeping so I made this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Basically what I did, is I set up an extra tripod (you can use a stick or something else) right in front of my face on the left, so that the top would be where the second me on the right would point the gun.  Then I filmed myself on the ground, on my knees and did about 10 takes.  Then I did the same thing with me shooting the gun, and then I did one more take with the tripod gone, for my clean plate.

it was really easy, I just took the three layers, masked out the two with me in them, and then stuck the clean plate on bottom and whala!  Stick some Videocopilot Blood and Muzzle Flash in there and you got yourself a murdering clone!

I am thinking about making a video tutorial on this, so stay tuned… it will be my first tutorial, so bear with me… hopefully its good.

Oh and if anyone in the Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia area needs video done, or has a studio or anything that is hiring, check out my resume… it is quite impressive, and give me a call.

Toph out.

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2008/09/18/season-ending/feed/ 0 New Project on the Horizon http://toe-fur.com/2008/08/27/new-project-on-the-horizon/ http://toe-fur.com/2008/08/27/new-project-on-the-horizon/#comments Thu, 28 Aug 2008 01:54:45 +0000 Topher http://topherthevideoguy.wordpress.com/?p=28 So for the past couple of months me and my freind Sean have been talking about me directing and editing the new music video for his band Tsavo.  We aren’t sure what song it is going to be, but its going to be a larger scale production than what I am used to.

I’m not gonna lie… I am freakin’ excited.   The video is going to be shot in a desert setting, so there is gonna be some traveling involved, as well as some intense days.  We are going to be shooting (more-than-likely) on a Panasonic HVX-500 P2 camera.  I was thinking of doing it to HDV, for the easiness of switching out tapes, but I can’t find a small enough camera that can shoot in 720P on HDV tape that would fit onto the steadycam and jib that we are building.  So I think we are going to have to go with the P2 camera.  Which is an awesome camera, except for the fact that it only hold 2, 16 GB cards  which equals out to around a half hour of footage.  So I am hoping that my work will let me borrow the 4 P2 cards that we have and the HD unit.  Oy… freakin confusing.

But yeah I mentioned that we were building a jib as well as a steadycam… if you are thinking of doing the same I suggest that you check out these resources here:

STEADYCAM

http://www.vimeo.com/1394069
http://videopia.org/content/view/202/229/

JIB ARM
http://video.thedvshow.com/video/Weekend-Extra-DIY-Jib-Arm-Cam
http://www.indymogul.com/post/3874/

I am going to making some modifications to the Jib Arm so that we will be able to control TILT up/down as well as linking into an external monitor so that the cameraman can see whats going on.

Anyways… not much else is happening in the meantime… except for me getting laid off for a few months at Emerald Downs while the season is taking Winter Break.  I’ll be back there in about 4 months but in the meantime I have to find a placeholder job, or possibly a full time BETTER job.  Either or, I’ll be working somewhere new in about a month… preferably in the industry.  Let me know if you have any leads.

Ummmm my newest haunt has been the new Videocopilot.net Forum so if you wanna check that out I hit up the After Effects subforum about 13 times a day

]]> http://toe-fur.com/2008/08/27/new-project-on-the-horizon/feed/ 0 A Couple Of New Videos… http://toe-fur.com/2008/08/18/a-couple-of-new-videos/ http://toe-fur.com/2008/08/18/a-couple-of-new-videos/#comments Tue, 19 Aug 2008 03:16:49 +0000 Topher http://topherthevideoguy.wordpress.com/?p=20 I know that I haven’t really been too busy on this blog as of late, but seeing as I have been so busy with work and gearing up for the Longacres Mile which took place YESTERDAY (by the way my horse, won… WASSERMAN… in hindsight I really should have bet that $14 ticket I had… would made like $186). But now that thats over… all the hype is going downhill… and we are just waiting for the season to end. Which means, I might have to be looking for new work. I shouldn’t have too much of a problem… but it IS stressful. I don’t know if I am going to stay on full time in the off season… I really hope I do, because I love my job.

Oh, BTW here is the newest video I did there… I am really proud of it… its the commercial for the Longacres Mile…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Lets see… What else is new, oh yeah… the Kane Hodder Music Video Shoot… remember that? well I finally finished that as well. Well, I actually finished it a couple of months ago, but like I said its been crazy lately… so I haven’t had a chance to update any of my stuff… I like the way it turned out… Mike Silver shot all the video, but I directed the whole thing as well as edited the whole thing and did all the post production and visual effects. Check it out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

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