On the implementation of my fiendish plan . . .

I know, it's been a while since I've posted anything. For anyone who may have noticed, I apologize.

I've been quite busy, actually. I mentioned a while back I was going to get into filmmaking, and to that end I bought a camera--a Canon EOS 70D. I also got an iMac so I can run Final Cut.

I've never been all that into photography so I've got a lot to learn there. I'm getting there, mostly through trial-and-error, which is the best way for me to learn anything.

I've always been a PC-guy so it's also taken me a little time to get up-to-speed on the iMac, but I think I know enough now to get by. I'm using it to type this, actually. I have to say, this huge Retina 5 display is amazing.

One gripe I have, though, is with whoever writes the "Help" documentation for Apple's software. Trying to figure out how to create a master in Garage Band only brought up a definition of what a master is, not instructions on how to make one. Fortunately I could resort to Google to find an article that explained it. Still, it's really frustrating.

Final Cut is the software a lot of people in the film industry use to edit video, which is why I made the substantial investment in this new computer--as well as for the software, which also ain't cheap. I'm going to make this little film starring some toy dinosaurs I have--I've already recorded the dialog using Garage Band, and now I'm going to create the video and edit it using Final Cut. Maybe I'll make the final result available on You Tube or something, or maybe not. It depends on how happy I am with how it turns out.

I also managed to register with the Writer's Guild and copyright a script for my short film, "Niobe," today. So even though it's a holiday I'm not just sitting around eating and watching football.

So, after I finish fooling around with my toy dinosaurs I may shoot one or two more little films featuring those guys before moving on to filming something with actual people in it.

Of course, with the holiday I've got some time off from work, and I'm going to use that to work on this short film. I need to shoot the video portion, edit it and associate it with the dialog I've already recorded, put it all together so that it makes a witty and entertaining little film.

Or trash the whole bloody thing and start over. Either way, I will have learned something!