Rivernorthexile

Author: Martyn

  • Transformers

    I’ve loved “Transformers” as far back as I can remember. At least since 1986, because I went to see the animated movie for my 8th birthday.

    It was… well, “traumatic” would be too strong a word, but I was up out of my seat within the first 15 minutes. As soon as Autobots started killed (like, REALLY, smoking ruin killed), all bets were off. Optimus Prime gets a classic theme song and heroic dialoge before he’s dead too. There’s actually a voiceover at the end of the UK versions promising the return of Optimus Prime.

    Image comics just published an omnibus edition of the Marvel UK comics (and annuals) from around the same time, all 1,000+ pages of it. I’ve only leafed through it so far, but there are panels that are still burned into my memory. Will be good to actually have story context for them.

    Bumblebee

    I’m not a huge fan of the live-action movies. The first is pretty good, but “Revenge of the Fallen” is a slog. I only watched “Dark of the Moon” recently, which turned out to be pretty good. If nothing else Michael Bay knows actions scenes and how to make CGI shots stand up.

    The real surprise was “Transformers One”, the animated prequel. The Optimus and Megatron origin story was handled really well.

    I picked up a couple of figures to build based on the “Bumblebee” movie (which I still need to actually watch). They were an absolute faff to put together, especially compared to the Gundam figures I’ve done so far. Also did a quick paint-and-spray job on them. Will likely give them to my nieces. One of them like robots and they’ll have to have one each like with Gundam. As long as I can keep finding pink robots, it’s all good.

    Arcee

  • In which I try to justify my Photoshop subscription

    I know Adobe are a terrible company, but I can’t face learning Affinity. Plus Photoshop works with my Tourbox.

    Latest poster is a stab at Brutalism. Still really want to try Vectorheart, but the punk / zine thing also appeals. Just doing my part to bring the 90’s back.

  • Another Photoshop moment

    Still writing the next video essay. It’s going to be a chunky one (first draft is already 2300 words at about the halfway mark). Well, chunky by my standards. It’s meant buying a capture card and recording a load of B-roll while I play through four “Assassin’s Creed” games. Plus reading a book of critical analysis of the series. Plus a visit to Birmingham library, which I don’t actually mind. Love wandering around that building.

    I even streamed some gameplay during a couple of recording sessions. Seems OBS isn’t quite as awkward as it used to be. Unlike being on camera for two hours.

    Last night was the first time I’ve sat down to make anything else of note recently. Rewatched a YouTube tutorial on making posters based on albums, which included a Photoshop template. Sure enough, once I’d successfully finished one I sat and made three more. May actually get a couple printed.

    There’s ideas for a couple of other projects, but it’ll take some more learning and practice. It’s been nice to take a quick detour, though

  • Return to Photoshop

    I’ve finished with Davinci Resolve for the moment while I research and write the next essay (1 book to read, 1 movie to watch, 3 games to play/record). To relax of a Sunday afternoon, I decided to load up Photoshop and do some colouring for the first time in a long (relatively) time.

    I got a new, larger drawing slate for Christmas, so I don’t have to zoom in as far for snalled brushstrokes which is good. It’s also less fiddly overall. My only problem is, there’s something about working in layers and clipping masks I seem to have a mental block on. I know they make things easier when you use them right, but I seem to keep moving layers, attaching and removing clipping masks through the whole process. I guess I’ll just keep at it until something clicks. Still, this was the end result, which I can’t complain about.

  • “The Monkey”

    Only two weeks between videos this time! Writing remains the hardest point of the process, but keeping video in mind to illustrate it at the same time is becoming habitual. The actual editing and voiceover recording come a lot easier, just working on improving sound design. Messing around with tonal sound effects, which means using music in the same key throughout. I’ve got no ear for it, so I drop a few tracks into DJ software and pick whichever match.
    This one’s the shortest yet, but anything else would be waffling/padding. Next essay will  need more research before I start pulling my chaotic list of points together. I’m not putting a deadline on myself though; this isn’t a job.

  • “Dead Again”

    This one took far longer than I thought it would. It also came out shorter than previous videos. They’ve all been getting shorter, in fact. Maybe I have less to say or the edit is getting tighter.
    I recently finished reading Rick Rubin’s book “The Creative Act”, where he writes about cutting a work back as far as possible, seeing how much you can remove and still keep the essence of the work. That was definitely in mind when making the video. I’m not monetizing my videos, so hitting the 8-minuite mark to add mid-roll ads isn’t a concern. I say what I need to in order to make my point, not just in the voiceover, but the video that goes with it. I see a lot of essays that are text-first, with video clips just laid over the top that go on for 20-30 minutes. Maybe it’s because my attention span has worn away or the fact I HATE writing, but I just want to be concise. Big fan of using match cuts to make connections between movies, the “Dressed to Kil” to “Psycho” to “Fatal Attraction” one is probably the best example.
    Next video will also be short, but that just fell out of my head in one sitting, rather than two months building a patchwork of deas into a coherent whole. As ever, I had visual ideas (and the thumbnail) ready to go and have to write something that’s essentially captions for when I’m trying to convey.
    The two after that will be longer and take a while (lots of research), but I’m doing this for the process as much as the end result.

  • Another 50’s movie poster

    The title of this movie was a random joke on a Hammor horror podcast I listen to. Just couldn’t let it go. I spent the first 90 minutes of a Saturday morning doing this instead…

  • Most. Sequel. Ever.


    I had a basic idea for this essay for a long while back. Originally it was about the different forms sequels take, with a few examples of each. I’d even dug out the DVD’s to rip for footage, but as I wrote the thing, “The Matrix Resurrections” just took over. There’s so much going on with it, the other stuff just fell into the intro.


    It’s something Rick Rubin mentions in the book I’m reading, “The Creative Act”, “The work reveals itself as you go”. I‘ve definitely realised this, as I hack away from scribbled notes and random concepts to bullet points and eventually a mostly-coherent essay. I hate writing and it takes weeks on end to come up with 1400 words, but they change as I go.


    Even as I’m writing, the video part starts to take shape. The final edit of the text is on the timeline in Resolve, cutting and shifting lines of the voiceover. I could never just work in prose, the video illustrates what I’m trying to articulate so much more easily.


    Next essay will be a way off. I’ve got the basic idea, but there’s a stack of movies to watch (plus a re-read of “Heart of Darkness”). We’ll see what it actually turns into.


    In the meantime, it looks like I’ll be playing around with a poster idea in Photoshop.

  • Trailer

    I was working on the next video essay (about movie sequels) and – surprise! –  got sidetracked. This time it was movie trailers, specifically the editing and structure. The essay centers around “The Matrix Resurrections”, so I pretty much know the movie backwards and forwards at this point.

    It was a good way of learning some more functions in DaVince Resolve, especially with sound design, plus how the structure of a trailer works. This was done with royalty-free music and sound effects, got to avoid those YouTube copyright strikes.

    Uploaded on a Tuesday night, woke up to 400+ views, which makes it my most-watched video. Picked up a couple of subscribers, too. Hilariously, the first comment was “Why have you bothered to make this?!”. So tempted to just reply, “Fun”.

  • Cyber City Oedo 808

    Sometimes it’s tricky to pin down where an idea actually comes from. I don’t mean the end product, but the original spark. I don’t really have that lightbulb-goes-on “Aha!” moment. Maybe it’s just from following so many YouTube-algorithm rabbit-holes. I was playing around with Photoshop, all my recommendations seemed to be on making Brutalist-style posters (I guess that’s what the cool kids are into). Somehow that changed into making a vintage-looking t-shirt design.


    Being a Gen-X’er, it’s been inevitable I fell for the nostalgia trends happening now. Accepted wisdom seems to be it’s roughly 20 years, but the Synthwave and Vectorheart I’m into run a little further back. I can now add nostalgia for VHS-era anime to the list.


    I can’t get into the post-Pokemon/One Piece PG era we’re in now (if I hear the word “Isekai” one more time, I will go crazy and take you all with me). Give me the pre-Internet era, before the Sub vs Dub debate when you couldn’t choose which you got. Give me the gratuitous violence and swearing of Manga Video. Give me “Ninja Scroll”. Give me “Fist of the North Star”. Give me “Cyber City Oedo 808”, which I got on Blu-Ray a while back and loved as much as when I taped it of Channel 4, back in the pre-historic past.


    This is what I made the t-shirt design of. Not like there’s a lot of merch out there. The character art rules, but the logo is just generic text, so I found a YouTube tutorial on retro text and T-shirt design.
    Downloaded a copy of the character art from the cover of the Blu-Ray. A couple of hours later, I had this:

    Damn, even the shoulder pads are cool.


    Had a T-shirt printed with it on that came out… OK. Still, a fun project I might retry with a different subject at some point.