Modest Short Film "REVENGE OF A MONKEY'S UNCLE" gets
rebooted, amped, wired and ready for Special Edition release

It's no secret if you have been following TJPARSONS is that there is an insane amount of things in the works. One thing that was scheduled for the end of summer was the "Special Edition Revenge of a Monkey's Uncle ". We have unearthed tons of fun things, extras, and more material than the actual short film itself almost two fold. This short film has achieved an underground cult status that registers on the WTF meter since its premiere at the Donen Indy Grits Film Festival -  It may be just a little bit later than expected, but one thing is for sure some questions will be answered and the feature is going to be packed with more fun than a barrel of .. well.. you know. Good things will come to those who support Uddershiet Films and buy this DVD when it comes out.

"Its the first time I've really gone this far in terms of a DVD before, I'm liking the idea of being able to load it up with features. It's a situation where Uddershiet is getting to the point where if we think it, we can do it. And that's an awesome feeling. We are genuinely having a lot of fun. I'm probably going to shed a tear when we have to put a lid on this thing and release it to the public, its just that much fun putting something together we know beginning filmmakers and beginning weirdos are going to have a blast with. Its going to show people why we do what we do and goes an extra step to thank them for the support."  - TJPARSONS  on set of LONGFOOT

Uddershiet is looking for sponsors and advertisers as well. DVD's  have adverts, and TJ expressed a duty to help businesses and musicians in his circle/locally. The ads on this DVD are permanent, and are exposed to many people so it seems like a pretty good deal. Send enquiries to tjp@tjparsons.com.  If you know him personally, you know what to do (send a bat signal or something like that)

Some of the rumored features are said to include:

Animated Menu
Interactive

Subtitles/Captions in:
English
Spanish
French
German
Russian
Chinese
Japanese

Extras rumored are:
Character Bios
Camera Tests or cuts
An Uddershiet Slideshow
Production Diary - for beginners
2 other short films
Trailers
Commentaries by TJPARSONS and 2 other commentary tracks that have been cloaked in secrecy
and last but not least a short by a guest Director

* and I wish we could confirm this, but rumor also has it that the first many copies will come with a life-size monkey from the movie.
 

Unless you've been living under a rock, or possibly leaving that rock to go on vacation under the rock next door, I'm sure you have seen articles, posts, trends, and shares on both Ben and Jerry's new ice cream flavor "Schweddy Balls", and Nike's new Air Mag shoe that is a retro-future style accessory from the "Back to the Future II" movie.  In film it is always good to know how to market yourself appropriately, and these are two of the best examples of viral marketing that I've seen in recent times- Including the quickest trend "spread" with possibly the largest coverage. Nike Air Mag is being sold in limited quantities for a good cause , namely Michael J. Foxes foundation for Parkinson's. I commend the foundation's efforts to reach this epic awareness scale. I commend both products for proving twice within the span of a week that life does in fact imitate art - all the time- more often than we might be aware of.

  I can remember a short time ago when I saw a very modest  Youtube video with a young lady that fashioned a prototype of the "Back to the Future II" self lacing Air Mag shoe. It was handed back and forth between many of us in our geeky little film community, but our imaginations continue to run wild on the possibilities of this being an actual for sale product. This smart woman won some funding to complete another prototype (clip seen below), but the ones that Nike ended up using apparently dropped the automatic laces. Bummer sort of, but it goes for a good cause and her idea lives on.

  It came to reality.  And whether the online community had time to differentiate it from a hoax or not it spread like wildfire on Facebook, Google Plus, Buzz, and the like.  This was quite a phenomenon as I was just seeing it for the first time and logging in and seeing multiple posts in the activity feed passing along the news of this truly unique product that catered to our imaginations inspired by "Back to the Future II" from our nostalgic memories.  Then comes "Schweddy Balls". SNL (Saturday Night Live) aired a sketch that lampooned NPR and through that idea in art form came reality. My guess is that Ben and Jerry's decided the potential, had a good sense of humor, and decided to go with it.

The news of this new ice cream flavor spread faster than possibly any other food product in preparation for release, that I've ever seen in my entire life.  These posts proliferated faster than news of the recent East Coast Hurricane and Earthquake combined.  One can only imagine the power behind such a simple low cost idea as viral marketing in these uncertain times.  People talk.  People talk about things that amuse them.  People post.  Ideas get around.  At times I get some grief for sticking with the name Uddershiet Films, but in actuality I've probably gotten recognition and product identification from the sheer simple fact the name is fun to say or try to say than anything I've ever tried - 19 years still strong. Is this a sign I should stick with it?  The lesson here is it doesn't take very much money to virally market an idea as long as it's fun and people are intrigued.  Though I may not be able to afford the "Back to the Future II" Air Mag shoes, I will tell you I would almost give up my life savings for one of those Hoverboards.  So what are your feelings on viral marketing? What compels you to post or re-post an idea? Humor , Nostalgia? In this case a little bit of both? In most cases at least in my mind- I believe it's something I think someone would want to know/see and several people are thinking the same thing (then it just spider-webs outward exponentially), then I guess maybe we just got to the heart of viral marketing.

Thanks again,
TJPARSONS

     Some food for thought: I promise not to get too technical-This general themed piece goes over color correction which  applies to both film and still images- so think of film and video as just a series of still images for the purposes of illustration.

     Skills you may use to strive for that that perfect look in your still images and moving images (Film or Video) employ many of the same concepts of composition and basic ground rules for general still photography. Now higher quality cameras of both the still and video variety are getting more accessible to consumers (below a $1000). With this comes a great amount of disappointment when pictures do not turn out to be "magazine" or "pro quality" and videos are grainy with with an amateurish feel. Lots of disappointment, and lots of sad eyes when people realize that after years of scoffing at many photographers shows and  saying things like "It's a tree! I could take a picture just like that" -  they get the camera know nothing beyond the automatic features, nothing about lighting,Fstop, shutter speed, ISO, frame rate, or general good composting -   and they are bummed or feel cheated out of $1000 or whatever the price of their new SLR. 

      Its suffice to say that many people starting out in film or photography do not understand the work and thought that goes into getting the desired image in the end, and just look at it as a matter of spending more money for something shiny and running around clicking away. Which leads this discussion to stylizing and color correction.  There was a time in my youth where I was running around with a video camera having fun like every young'un does, and felt seriously disappointed when I noticed that my camera footage looked nothing like the movies, and my still pics  just didn't have the same flair as a stylish magazine ( I had no knowledge of photographic principles at that time either). I had no idea about how to use lighting, or what its functions was and certainly had no idea there were colorists, that made those movies I loved so much pop out of the screen and make my eyeballs tingle with excitement. Colorists get very good money to ensure the look of a film is graded and toned right. Both digital and actual film has its limitations/plusses and minuses so its good to know exactly what you can get out of something, and how far you can push it. But no matter what it starts with a good photograph using everything the camera has to offer- so learn the basics like shutter speed, ISO, f-stop, frame rate and its influences on general conditions and lighting and I will meet you below with some quick tips on color correction.

     When I got older and feasted my eyes on this Blue-Ray technology, and ingested with my eyes some glorious cinematic eye candy like Book of Eli, 300, and O' Brother Where Art Thou  I realized the practical applications of refining your images (moving or still) to get the desired look or tone and giving your subject the proper focus. Many people do not realize until the pics are harvested for the 1st time from a digital camera that the camera does not pick up exactly what the eye sees. Disappointing ? Sure, at first but there are many tools both in camera and out to help us get what we need out of the situation. Just remember: get to know the camera manual inside and out. Always think: start with a great picture it yields a great picture; start with a crappy picture end up with- well, a crappy picture. Check specifically on how to adjust white balance, and know why you use it. Also it wouldn't hurt to see how your camera reacts to different types of light and take note ( I promised I wouldn't get too technical).

(top left) the original photo: This photo is fine on its own merit, shot summer vacation style just to have a record of a journey to Our Nana's Attic an antiques store in Braselton, GA. Little did anyone know that these would be the photographs I would be working with to make a commercial for the truly unique antique outlet some months later.

Starting off, we notice right away, that the harpoon, captains wheel, small table with bottle, and framed captain is the center of focus. The elements that pull focus away from the subject are a) the light switch, b) the doorway, c) the fire extinguisher.

The end result, where i was going to be using this photograph, was in photograph where I antiquated this photo and then faded it into a color version, that made the audience feel like history was being pulled into modern day and is accessible. The definition of the subjects could stand to pop out a little more, and fading a brown antiquated photo into a brown toned photo just isn't quite as dramatic.

I will not give you a complete detailed version of every little adjustment but what I will do is tell you where to look, and what to play with in your photo editing program (many programs can do what I'm about to illustrate, but I use Photoshop). I realize not giving you specific instructions seems strange but I honestly think you may benefit from looking at some high profile photos and pictures you like and trying to understand how balancing a few things (listed below) can benefit your images in a profound way to either stylize or just make your subject a little more eye friendly.

Start with appropriate cropping; adjustments to whites, mediums and shadows; hue; saturation; simulated camera filter;and brightness. There are more, but this will get you started.

"But TJ!!" you may ask, " Why not just use pluggins?". This is a good point. You could. As a matter of fact that is what most people do and there is really nothing wrong with it. If you are doing a TV or internet show and you have to blaze though production to meet a deadline, things like Red Giant's Magic Bullet comes in handy. And if you have the means to buy and hire somebody to run a Davinci (Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve ) then awesome, your production is going to rock!

I personally am one of those people that for most part of my life loved driving a stick shift vs. an automatic because of the control over the car you get on the road, around turns/uphill, downshifting etc. When my dad taught me how to drive he took me out on the worst conditions on the worst hills, His philosophy being if I knew what the car was capable of doing  and how it reacted in every situation I would have a better understanding over all- flash forward years later - I'm applying that philosophy to color correction. Sure, I could use some quick filters and it might be easier but I'm usually not happy with the outcome if I can't finely tune it. Its good to know the nuts and bolts of how something works even if you do end up using a program or pluggin at a later point.

(middle left) This picture has been cropped, adjustments have been made to better distinguish the absolute brights from the darker colors of the wood and lines. The saturation has been brought down slightly, the fire extinguisher, handkerchief and light switch have all been taken out.

A conscious decision was made to work with the hue and an artificial camera filter together to create  a blue-ish aquatic hue to give the photo tone that would easily contrast better with the animated morph that would be forthcoming in the television commercial this was designed for.

Notice the wood grains "pop" a little more, the glass on the bottle looks a little more "like glass", and the portrait is sharper with just a few subtle changes.

(bottom left) The last step in this particular exercise was to antiquate the photo for the commercial. Photoshop has a feature which allows you to record "actions" that you do when sweetening a photo so you can reapply it to other photo's. Anyone can make an action and many can be found in various places on the web. I typically set up the function in the actions window of Photoshop to stop or pause after each step. I sometimes use part of several different actions, and if you set up for actions window the same as mine to stop on each action, you can in a way learn how to use Photoshop in ways you never expected, as well as learning what that cool tool was on the tool bar that beckoned you but you were afraid to touch. If this cheating? In my opinion if used correctly you can learn a lot from actions, in the way that you can learn a lot from a recipe in a gourmet recipe book - to fit the analogy- following a set of instructions (as actions are programmed set of instructions as well) in a recipe book is not cheating you are measuring, cooking, planning, cleaning; now if you hired a chef to come over and fix the same meal for you then pass it off to your lover or win a blue ribbon and take credit - yeah that's cheating.

I used parts of thee actions and some of my own fine tuning (at left) . first step was finding a picture of the time period that I was trying to simulate, taking note of the colors in that era and limitations - then used a combination of several different things to get the specific look I was going for.

Water spots were added to give it a more nautical feel, and a border. Then for the effect which lasted a total of about 3-4 seconds in the actual commercial, the antiquated photo (bottom left) morphed into the modern "sweetened" photo (middle left).

You read correctly - what I have just explained to you is in actuality only 3-4 seconds on the screen. As time goes on you will get faster and more efficient; and if you didn't know before, maybe you do now:  making media entails some tedious work, but pride of making something of "quality"  takes a little of the sting out of it.