Last Friday I posted my first mini-product for sale a writers tracking spreadsheet to help improve productivity when writing. Apparently my mind thought all the work poured there surely deserved missing the post on the following day. Yep, that's the second day I miss the daily post. I was the whole Saturday working (or fighting) to develop the web for my upcoming wedding and at the end of the day I just wanted to go to bed and keep my reading of A storm of swords.

Today I had another session to work on the Oppa! video project, but the weather was so awful that we ended in a cafeteria and nothing worthy to be speak of was made. Because of the way the project is this was expected to happen anytime. I wonder why do I want to make a project that relies so much in the weather if I am in the UK.

I have also been writing, and using my brand new and cool tracking spreadsheet for the first time. I wrote 1583 words in two sessions, with an overall speed of 590 words per hour. I was working on character notes and synopses. I don't have enough data yet to draw conclusions, but it seems that I can spot a pattern appearing. My speed is a bit higher on my second session during the day. I will keep an eye on that since this is just a vague hypothesis, I don't even have proper data about long sessions or days in a row working.

See you tomorrow.

I am having a terrible toothache now, I already have an appointment for the dentist but I hope the pain recedes a bit until I go.

That being said, there a lot of things a would like to talk about, so I guess I will make a short summary:

• I forgot to say that the video about projections in yesterday's post was made because I am applying for a residence at Watershed. And I wanted to show some things I have done with projections and tracking because my proposed project will be mainly about that.
• The AdWords campaign experiment keeps running and it is in the second round helping already to find the words that are most attractive while describing what I am doing here. I´m taking notes so I can make a full and interesting report.
• I would love to show and share what I am doing as a wedding invitation, but it is not time yet. I have to keep it private until it has been sent, and is somewhat private so I want to change the content a bit before showing it. I went to a printer, and they told me that it's the most complicated design they have ever thing. Correct aligment is essential and they are not doing it. Luckily we are achieving a fairly decent quality and aligment with the printer at home, and I have bought the special paper we need to print it ourselves.
• Today I had another work session for the Oppa! video project, We were just three gathered around a cup of tea and a piece of cake (my tooth was not aching yet) while reviewing last day's work and taking notes (that I need to write in the production document).We also did a small testing dancing using our fingers so we could experience the possibility of really slowing doing movements without worrying about balancing your body. I will upload it soon, as usual.
• Finally I have been at another class of the NLP course. It has been very interesting by itself, but because of my teeth I wasn't in the most comfortable position to be relaxed. As the positive side, I have been able to "experiment" and get some doubts, that I will ask to the teacher, involving interferences (such as pain), while programming yourself. If you are a bit into NLP maybe you can understand what I mean, or even have something to say by yourself. While doing some of the exercises I couldn't focus, or I didn't want, as I didn't want to relate, what were supossed to be clear and bright positive images and thoughts with the pain I was feeling. On the other hand, I was more comfortable and focused while being the guide for another studing during and exercise.

Here it is the result of one morning work on Saturday June 8th at Castle Park.

From this day's work there are a lot of resulting script notes that must go to the production document along with more conclusions and resources that would be needed. More comments on future posts!

Today a warm sun in Bristol finally gathered a group of 6 people for a big test on the Oppa! video project. We managed to plan, prepare and shot a 20 minutes take including transitions and different props. The video is already edited and it is still rendering so I will post it tomorrow!

For today, while you wait, I am publishing this new little test. A new attempt of the coordinated couple step with a "hip hit" that I explored further and improved with my girlfriend. First we tried to learn and reproduce the original step at normal speed. Then when we were more aware of the details we started to look into a way to translate to a slow movement. We tried the jump that comes first in a different take and we managed to find some good ideas. We are quite happy with the result of the jump. The other two steps in the movement are a very different thing. While it is still correct in terms of timing, the look and feel is quite difficult to achieve. I guess that we will need help from professional dancers at some point!

It is a short video, enjoy it.

We keep exploring how to shot gangnam style music video in one take dancing in slow motion and then speeding it up. This new test was made last Wednesday before the drama&improv class at the Folk house.

The resulting segment is very short and we made 4 attempts. I think the fourth one is clearly the best but it is far from good. We haven't rehearsed the step prior recording this, so we were learning the movement on the fly.

Tomorrow we are meeting to shot longer tests. Hopefully we will get some interesting footage and learn new things about how to develop the project.

Some different things have been happening along the last two days that I haven't talk about.

First of all, today I was at the Best of Britain Indie Meetup at Bristol. It has been great people there and the presentations have been very specific, focused and interesting. Which is something refreshing for me to see at these kind of events. Yay!

Yesterday, before the drama class started, we got to shot some new tests which I haven't edited yet. Hopefully I will do it tomorrow and publish them right away. Specially because we are meeting on Saturday 11:00 at Castle Park for more gangnam fun.

Three days ago I started a new small experiment involving AdWords and a 2€ daily budget. Testing names and phrases that could explain quickly what I am doing here. The idea is to see what ads have the higher Click-through rate (CTR). It can also bring people interested in reading the blog and subscribing. Right now there are only two ads running whith one of them having clearly a better CTR, actually more than twice the other. There are getting like 40 clicks each day right now. I will be creating new ads doing split tests until I get something interesting or I reach 50€ (that would be ok for at least 5 rounds of tweaking).

The "sped up gangnam style in one take video project", or oppa! project for short, keeps going. After some days of bad weather and bad timing tomorrow is time for a new test before the drama class. And by the way I just saw that the weather forescast for the weekend is warm and sunny, so I will try to arrange a rehearsal at the park.

I will try to boost the work on the Oppa! project script and production document so we have the opportunity to try something new. If you feel like you want to contribute anything you are free to edit the document on your own. Come on, try it!

In other matters, today I have started a NLP course, so I may be including some comments about this topic from now on.

So much fun today at the drama&improv class.
And we got to make a quick test before the class. Here it is!

Here it is. The video I was shooting yesterday. I got a lot of new ideas about how to handle the script, indications to the performers and make transition between takes.

The video is recorded at 5% the speed using a modified version of the original video. The video plays so slow that audio is not and option and verbal cues must be given by an assistant along with the video in slow motion.

Then the video is edited and sped up 2000 times to get in sync with the music again.

Take 2.1 is the first try I did at 5% speed.
Take 3.1 and 3.2 were shot next to Watershed at Bristol, UK
Take 3.3 was shot at Castle Park (Bristol)

There is a lot of difference between the take 3.1 and 3.2. The second having a better performance. During the first try we found what kind of cues where needed. The laptop screen is hard to see on sunlight but it is very helpful, specially on scene changes. On the take 3.3 I could rely a lot more on the verbal indications. Lip poses are a thought one yet. When the coreography and poses are memorized you can easily follow time cues such as "leg going up" and "leg going down" which are easily represented by one assistant waiving the hand up and down, for example.

I think next individual tests will focus on "lip syncing" (methods for recalling lip poses) and "using props". I also need to start testing shots with more people and see how to manage different people while dancing and doing scene transitions.

Today I have made more tests for the "Sped up Gangnam style in one take video project" (I´m thinking about calling it oppa for short). The results are rendering just now, so I will show them in tomorrow's post.

I have shot two tests of ~5min next to Watershed and another one (the same segment) at Castle Park. Looks like Castle Park can be a very good location for the shooting, and also for rehearsals because there is lots of space and there is people around (that will serve as contrast when speeding up) and we are less likely to annoy the people passing by.

This morning before going out I read the Intùiti cards for myself. Yes, just like in reading tarot cards. It's funny and interesting to do so, and you can always get to some iluminating or relaxing thinking.
These are the cards I draw. The one in the left are supossed to be the "positive" ones that are giving some kind of source to my creativity/energy. And the two on the right side can give me hints of things that are blocking me.