Happy Holidays from the CaveFam to yours!

Here is our annual holiday video, the one we send out to folks as a DVD/holiday card.  We extend our wishes to all of you.  May the light shine upon and within you!

We were inspired with making  holiday videos a few years back, when we stumbled upon the videos made by Melancholy Smile and her family.   (go check them out- they are cute, creative, and fabulous!)

Be a DIY filmmaker...15 seconds at a time!

What fun!  Star Wars Uncut was a project undertaken a few years ago, in which volunteers recreated one or more 15-second scenes of Star Wars. (episode 4)  Once the everyday filmmakers uploaded their scenes, they were edited together into a full-length feature movie.  You can watch the entire feature right here:  Enjoy!



Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

In 2010, Star Wars Uncut won the Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media.

But wait...there's more!!!!

Currently, the same folks are  orchestrating Empire Uncut- the Empire Strikes Back!  Once again, everyday filmmakers like you and me are invited to claim one or more 15-second scenes, and recreate them on video.  Another full- length feature film will be edited together. 

The Cave Kids have worked together to complete two scenes, here they are:
This scene was done with stop motion animation, using legos



This scene features Auntie's hand-knitted Yoda, and Joey Rain, the Webkinz Koala. (as Luke Skywalker)

There is still time to claim your scene, and mix it up with your own creativity!  Act, animate, and/or bring out the toys!  Draw or paint! Make some costumes and homemade props!

Have fun watching, or participating!  Or both!

Tree of Heaven

paintcan pinhole camera, paper negative, 15-minute exposure, developed in caffenol C, colorized in Photoshop

Ok..so it is really just a weed growing out of the cement, not a tree. I pass it every time I walk in or out the door. I cheer it on as it struggles to grow out of the cement, knowing that I can live with my own struggles, as it does.

Image made August 21, 2012

 

gymnastics and filmmaking all winter and spring..

It's been so busy, but a transition is in the works....

 

Here's a salute to Daughter's first competition season in gymnastics...

It was an exciting, suspenseful, and fun-filled season!

 After her last meet a few weeks ago, the first thing Daughter did was to paint her nails....(there is no nail polish allowed at meets) 

 

Hot pink and neon orange!!  It was her way of celebrating the season, and welcoming in the off-season workouts.

Now they are learning new skills and trying new tricks at practice.

(it's fun to watch!)

And soon the parents will be invited to join the Saturday morning conditioning workout.

(I've been running up and down the hallway to get myself in shape)

And...............................

 

 Son will be completing his first college course in a few weeks- it's a filmmaking course offered at our local community college.

So he is busy drawing storyboards writing scripts, participating in film shoots and editing the footage.  

Here he is in action, during the filming of a documentary at a pottery studio.  They were interviewing the instructor, and filming the firing of raku pottery that day.  

It's been a good experience in communicating and working with others,  as well as learning about film production, and using professional equipment.  

It's been greatwinter/spring.

 It's been thrilling, it's been hard at times, too.

A real growing experience for the CaveFamily.

And now, we are all tired!

We await the summertime, when our schedule changes.

It might still be busy, but change is good.

(-:

 

 

Growing fast, college classes, gymnastic meets, and nose to the grindstone

Boy howdy, did we ever hit the 2012 pavement running! Not that we weren't dragging ourselves to the finish line of 2011- we've been ragged for awhile. We are all full on activities. No more new stuff for awhile!

Son turned 16 right after New Years. He towers over me now, and is within an inch of Dad's height. I'm still the boss of him, though. (-:   As excited as I am to see he and his sister grow up, I feel the aches of empty nesting on the horizon. It will still be years before it happens, but I feel it just the same. Son got his driving permit a few weeks ago, and we are off parking and three-point-turning in the empty parking lots. On top of that, he started his first course at our local community college a few weeks ago, too. It's a video production class, 3 credit hours, twice a week. He is interested in media production as a career, so I hope this gives him a little taste of the possibilities.   Son also continues to work as a gymnastics coach at our gym, which rounds out his activities. 

Daughter competed in her very first USAG gymnastics meet last weekend, up in two-big-cities-to-the-north. She has wanted to be on the team and compete for quite a long time now, and we are thrilled for her! She did well, and we all had a good time at this fancy, very large meet. We also got to watch an exhibition of the really good gymnasts the night before Daughter's session, and were wowed! (it was the highest-scoring level 7-10 optional teams of the meet, for those who know what I'm talking about)  It was a fun, humorous event, to boot, and saw some very amazing gymnastics.  My parents and aunt came out to watch Daughter compete, so that made it special, too.

If you want to see Daughter's floor routine from the meet, you can find it here.

Being brand-new to the meet experience, and not quite sure as to what we might expect,  I am happy to report that it was very good- the atmosphere was relaxed and low key, even for such a big meet.  The gymnasts relaxed with their coaches between events, and teamates openly supported each other.  In the years working up to this experience,  one thing I had wondered about is if the negative behavior that can be found in other youth sports would be found at our meets.  I am glad to say there was none of it, in my experience, that day.  I'm sure it happens, but am glad we didn't see it.  The parents, coaches, gymnasts, and spectators all acted admirably, from what I saw.     Two Olympic gymnasts were on hand to talk to and write autographs, as well as give out awards at the end.  (one of these gymnasts was actually the meet director)  Every gymnast got an all-around medal, and a custom leotard.

As fun as it was, it was a lot of activity for me and my introverted family.  After 4 hours of all the people and happenings and noise, we were ready for a battery recharge.   Lots of carbs and chocolate sounded good to us- Olive Garden was the last stop before hitting the interstate for home.  (-:

Daughter's next meet is this coming weekend, one One-City-to-the-north.  We're getting geared up for another meet week!

In other news, we got the winter/spring garden started this weekend.  I don't always have a garden in the spring, but we opted out of our summer garden last year, because of the drought conditions.  We had pulled all the garden beds out back then, and tilled the dirt to be exposed to the elements and "rest".

We have two new beds rebuilt now, and have put in the peas, bok choy, and roquette/arugula.  Next month, we can put in spinach, soy beans (edamame) and green onions.  I March, we'll put in carrots, parsnips, and try some casper pumpkins.  My regular pumpkins have not made it the past few seasons, getting infected with borer beetle larvae.  They made for good science experiments, but not for pumpkins!  This casper variety is a white-skinned squash, and it can be planted earlier than regular pumpkins.  I hope to avoid the beetle problem with the different variety and planting time.  If they work, and we want orange jack-o-lanterns this year (or any other color!) perhaps we can spray paint a few.  (-:


Happy Asian New Year!  It begins tomorrow, and it is the beginning of the Year Of The Dragon.  Husband and Daughter are both dragons, so they are very excited.  We are making spring rolls tonight, and hope to make other Asian dishes as the week progresses, as we fit dinner into our hectic schedule.  Off to shred the napa cabbage for the spring rolls.....

Great holiday video greetings

There are wonderfully creative people out there making very uplifting work!  Here are some of my favorite holiday greetings I have come across this season:

I really want to be involved in a flash mob like this one someday:





I was inspired to do a family video greeting this year, as was this family- enjoy their underwater Christmas greeting!



And then there's the incredibly talented Fosters, who was my source of inspiration for making our own video:



I hope you feel lightweight and happy, as I do!

Season's Greetings from my family to yours- via our holiday "video card"

We had a blast yesterday, filming a video holiday greeting at our city park.  We just might be making a tradition out of making a video greeting to send to friends and family.  Last year, we made a slideshow of the lovely fall foilage in a nearby canyon, set to music.  This year, we did a silly lip-sync to "We Wish You A Merry Christmas- John Denver and the Muppets-style.







The lip sync idea was completely inspired by a family video greeting I saw last year on Vimeo.  This family does a first-rate, professional, ultra-creative video production- and I bet you might thoroughly enjoy their holiday videos, even if you don't know them!  Go visit Melancholy Smile- it's her family that does the videos, and take your pick of great videos to view-from the right sidebar of the blog. 

In order to have the key prop for our video, we had to make a figgy pudding!  We used the recipe from this NPR article on the history and making of figgy pudding.  Ours turned out great- really an "old world" taste.  I like the taste much better than the packaged Christmas puddings we tried in England a few years ago.  Even though we didn't use the alcohol, our rum and fruit extract substitutions really made for a nice flavor.

The video was a real challenge- I really enjoy making videos, but aligning a video track with a separate audio track proved to be really difficult!  We took the music track out to the park with us, and sang/moved  along to it in our individual segments.  That helped a lot with synching up the music with our mouths.

We are pleased with how it came out!  We hope you enjoy!

Have a very enjoyable holiday season!

Mama arts and crafts

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone who is celebrating today!

I have a moment between turkey and sides prep to blog. Here's a peek at my newest artsy project. I like having my own "Mama projects" to feed my own creativity and sense of self-expression. I also believe in the notion that it is good for my kids to see me engaged in my own projects- to witness my own enjoyment, frustrations, puzzlements, satisfaction, struggles, determination, concentration, etc. I hope I am as positive of a role model as I can be..on most days.

Anyway, I have decided to make 2012 calendars this year for some special friends- using my pinhole photography, and my fledgling bookbinding skills. It will be a softcover mini-calender to carry in a purse or pack. Here are the front and back covers:

and the back cover:

 

I have been figuring out, and making, the layout in Photoshop. I have it set up so that four pages (front and back) fit on the front and back sides of a sheet of 8.5x11 -inch paper, so I can print the calender at home.  To make sense of the mindboggling task of knowing which pages go on any one sheet of paper, I made a little mock-up book with regular copy paper first:

 

and labeled the pages front and back....

 

So all I had to do is separate this mock book to see the proper layout. 

The layout truly seems haphazard!  Photos of one month are paired up with calendars of other months.  It comes out right in the end, though....

I am indebted to several individuals who have helped me to make this project a lot easier!  These folks offer up items of their talents for free, and here is my shout out to them:

Photography Blography has some great free Photoshop calender template options to download- thank you so much, Photography Blography!

Kim Klassen makes spectacular textures and backgrounds- and  offers a free texture every week to subscribers.  I used one of her textures for the cover pages.  I am grateful to you, Kim!

I downloaded some free fancy, scallop-doo-dad clip art to add some nice decorative touches from about dot com's clip art site.  Thank you, Folks!

When I have completed the print/binding phase of this project, I would like to offer my little calendar in pdf form for free download to anyone who wants one, for their desktops/portable devices.  It's just a little artsy gift from me....continuing the sharing, giving and gratitude to you friends, and those who helped make the project so much nicer!

In order to do that, I need to complete a dvd workshop on making pdf multimedia projects, which is taught by Brooks Jensen of Lenswork. I'm looking forward to making this my first pdf!

Happy Thanksgiving!

How to make a scene

This ranks as one of my favorite TED talks- it really launched me out of a funk the other day- laughter is truly wonderful medicine!

Son is getting interested in the theater, and along with his video production interests, I thought he would like this talk about improvisation  in public places...

Enjoy!  (I think you will!)





Check out Charlie Todd's website: improveverywhere.com.