The Second Video

Jason, Jacob and I are all a little over watching the first video cut, and re-cut and decided it was time to shoot our second short.

When I came home from work on Sunday, I started walking to the front door when I saw this huge green sheet on the floor.  I remember Jason telling me about his cheep green screen that was sitting in our living room, ready to be used and abused.  When he was shooting his Star Wars videos about ten years ago he found the "perfect green" sheets at Ross.  Apparently they were defective, but they were just perfect for him.

That "perfect green" sheet was sprawled out in the middle of the courtyard and I could see the guys on our third floor with the camera shooting right at it.  I walked right into our second short.

Turns out Jacob convinced Jason that since he had got to be in the first video, it was Jason's turn.  It also meant Jacob was in front of the camera.

After shooting for a couple of hours we wrapped.  Jason looked at the footage and we learned something really important that day.

Lesson Learned: Set up the green screen before the sun is at the right angle.  By the time the guys set up the green screen, there were too many shadows and the shot was ruined.

-Posted by Jessica

The Never Ending First Video

So over the past couple of weeks Jason has been editing the first short.  He's been saying, "This is the last time I am going to render it out." And then wait - he renders it out again.

Lesson learned: There's no such thing as "the final cut".  The only final version will be when it is actually uploaded to YouTube and there's "No Take Backs".

Once we got the video to a certain point, Jason uploaded it to YouTube for Jacob and I to watch.  We both screened it, gave him feedback and then some more renderings happened.

Now, our video was ready for our harshest, meanest, critics- our friends.  Jason, Jacob and I all showed the video our specially selected crowd and we seemed to get positive feedback.  Most of the feedback ended with conversations ofhow it all started and then of course some YouTube binging.

The video is not finished yet, and probably won't be for a while.  We are definitely learning and it seems that every day we are that much more ahead than the last.  Who knows where we'll be next week.  One thing is for certain, this is going to be one very educational ride.

-Posted by Jessica

Our First Video Shoot

This past weekend Jason and Jacob shot our first video.  Jason had been going through the first idea for the video all week and when I came home from work on Saturday, he told me it was happening that night.

I was just getting over a cold and was exhausted after my long day at work.  As the supportive team mate, I went through the motions and blocked out the video with him in our garage that night.  Half an hour later we had the whole video mapped out, we were ready, we just needed our talent.

Jacob got hustled into volunteered to be one of the actors and Jason's friend, John, came over to play the second.

The only problem was - my exhausting work day and cold made me pass out even before our fabulous actors came over.

After a long and uninterrupted sleep, I woke up and Jason told me everything went great.  We ran through the "dailies" and at that point I realized Jason might actually be able to do the whole shooting a video thing...

-Posted by Jessica

What's In Our Name

Jason, Jacob and I were thinking about possible names.  I knew I did not want something too difficult, with case variation or anything too out of the ordinary.  We wanted a name with meaning and pizzaz that defined us.

After a certain point we knew we wanted something with motion.  We started thinking of variations of physics words that describe motion- energy, kinetic, velocity... But then once we started thinking of names, we realized they were too long, and just didn't have that "Apple" factor.

We wanted a name that could stick and was short.  The new Apple, Microsoft or McDonalds.  We realized we needed one single word that said anything and everything about us.  I guess we then decided we had to frankenstein a bunch of different things to get the effect that we wanted.

Even in the beginning days we were editing, editing our name.

One day it just clicked - Cinetic. It was a combination between CINEma and kinETIC.  Motion within film.  Perfect! We had our one word.  The only thing left was deciding what the stereotypical studio ending word would be.  You know, like studio, production, house, entertainment, films, etc. The debate was on.

After tossing around all of the stereotypical words we settled on studio. But then Jason and I went back and forth between making the word plural or singular.

Finally it was settled - Cinetic Studios.

-Posted by Jessica

How It All Started

Jason and I were watching tv one night and started skipping through the commercials.  As we were skipping over we heard two seconds of this beat that sounded interesting.  Instead of passing through the commercial, we stopped and watched.  Then, we watched it again. And again. And again.

I cannot tell you what we were watching at the time but I remember the Dr. Pepper commercial.  It was a collage of different YouTube videos linked together by a catchy beat.

After watching it several times we started researching various clips and watched other videos in the channels we liked.  Our tv show was put on hold and all of a sudden we found ourselves hours into a YouTube binging spree.  We found the professional end of YouTube and realized there is a whole different side of the internet.

That night Jason and I watched videos of DevinSuperTramp.  Later that week, Jason and I found RocketJump Studios and Corridor Digital.  We totally binged through VGHS in two days and realized this was something we wanted to be a part of.

Jacob came over during the week and Jason filled him in too.  And then our journey began.  We binged YouTube even more, Jason started watching tutorials and all our hangouts were based on what we had learned since the last meet-up.  And then, Cinetic Studios was formed.

-Posted by Jessica