WATCH THE VIDEO HERE!

UPDATE - OCTOBER 2016: It took me roughly a year, but I delivered everything I promised in this post and a lot more unexpected content. I guess I should be in politics, right?

I know, Sunday's passed and I haven't uploaded a video. I ran into some trouble and couldn't finish it on time. I'm working to get it up early in the week and wanted to let you in about what I have planned for the upcoming experiments. I mentioned a few times that I'm running out of lenses and that is very true. This week I'm posting the review for the Isco 16:9 Video Attachment Mk I and that leaves me with the Foton-A left and a small focus through Iscomorphot.

I'm trying to get my hands on an SLR Magic Anamorphot (1.33x stretch for now), so I can compare it to all the other 1.33x attachments. Once I have it I'm also doing a shootout mixing ALL the 1.33x lenses to see if the difference between them is that easy to notice. I'm very likely teaming with with Matt Leaf for that so we don't end up with a pointless test, but something that also has some content other than the test itself. If you have an SLR Magic Anamorphot around that you could send over for a week or two, please drop me a line!

Besides that, which depends on me getting the lens, I have a Helios 44 on the way, for a special Chop Shop on how to open it up and get an oval aperture inside. After that is done, I'm giving the lens away to one lucky random person. I wanted to do the same for the Pentacon 29mm (since I did it two years ago and I know it's possible), but there are no cheap offers on eBay. Once that is out, I'm talking about the cool DogSchidtOptiks, their mods, the TRUMP and their optical attachments for longer and shorter focal lengths along with what's the difference between using such thing instead of simply picking a 35 or 85mm. I don't think it all will fit in a single video so I might have a few episodes on these.

Mythbusters strike again and I'll test the theory of inverting the rear element of the smaller Century Optics anamorphic to see if it makes the lens any better. I also need to find a decent 3d-printing place nearby for that Panasonic front filter I think I mentioned earlier. If it works, I'm releasing the model/file free here so anyone who owns a Panny can print their own with no fees other than the printing itself.

Then I'll also have an episode explaining diopters. It's one of the most common misconceptions out there, how they work, why do they improve image quality and such. Once that one is out I can make another for variable-strength diopters, clarifying how the Rectilux, FM Lens, Rangefinder and Iscoramas work their black magic (black magic, see what I did there?).

As you can see, there's still a lot of anamorphic subjects even though not having lenses around to test! I'm sorry for not being able to clearly define the order these videos will be released, but my shooting schedule is way too random. At some point I might have a great opportunity with a particular lens and I'll have to postpone whatever I had planned to shoot that week. I know you all shoot your own stuff and can understand how that works, right?

Subscribe to check the episodes that are up already and so you're notified as these other ones I mentioned are here too! I'm Tito Ferradans and I'll see you soon!

I spent the week thinking of what to write, every day shooting down my ideas, not considering anything worthy of sitting down and mashing the keyboard. Ok, there's that, there's work, there's Catan and there's May. But now I'm here and I'm writing.

Yesterday I went for my daily seawall round when the weather cleared up a little in the morning. After one lap I thought "yeah, maybe it'll be raining tomorrow, better go again, I'm not even tired". After the second lap, "Hmm, the weather forecast is saying the entire week will be rainy and the WeatherCaster is crashed due to faulty updates... Three is the lucky number". And then, midway through I came up on closed gates. Actually, I failed to describe how it felt like a massive storm had swept along the coast. The ground was covered with dead leaves, small sticks, large branches and at some points entire trees had fallen down. Even though it was a Saturday, there was almost no one there and the wind was killer. At some bits of the track I had to gear down almost to the point of stopping just to counter the wind and still move a few inches forward. After getting to the closed gate I turned around and found a park ranger informing people to return to the city because the entire park was closing down due to a windstorm warning issued to coastal areas. I ended up leaving through the most random route ever and had to fight uphills with my already tired legs until I could get home.

After that I felt great, though. I mean, if I can bike under these conditions, the winter can be conquered. I just need to sort out some technical issues such as waterproof clothing.

Today I went for an afternoon ride. It's been little over a month since a small deer was seen wandering around downtown. It seemed to have taken refuge inside Stanley Park. I saw a few photos and news about it, and wondered how come I had never seen it on my 40+ laps while the little thing was living in there. Then today I had the pleasure of meeting him (or her). A random dude closed me off on the regular path and I had to drop to the asphalt in order not to crash. This caused me to switch my route a bit and get back to the seawall a few hundred meters ahead. As soon as I started moving again (after going down some steps carrying the bike) I saw something on the corner of my eye and turned. A few seconds later some more people noticed it and gathered around to take pictures. I never cursed so much for not having the camera on me at the moment. Tried my best with the phone and it turned out no better than OK, but OK is enough.

I stood there in its presence for quite a while, just watching it pick the little yellow flowers among the green grass. There were some kids around too, curious and a little scared at the same time, coming close and then moving back as the creature made any sign of acknowledging their presence. Eventually I realized that I had dropped my bike at some point and it should be there abandoned to its fate since I wasn't around. The deer decided to take a tour through an overgrown patch and based on that I decided that I should get back to the bike and go about my way.

The fun thing in this whole encounter was how much it brightened my day. The sky was still as grey as it could be, and there were some rain drops here and there, but I was completely mesmerized by how unlikely that was to happen. I mean, what are the odds of having a deer in such small patch of trees, what are the odds of running into it, or the odds that it wouldn't go away for this entire time or that something bad didn't happen to it. Still going on the odds, how come it's not afraid of people, or at least tolerates our presence so close without fleeing right away, and just chill there, doing its business of chewing small buds? Right?

It's not everyday that I have this kind of philosophical wondering, this kind of thinking needs feeding and random events like these are amazing ways of doing so. Now I think I should go back to work since there are videos to shoot, plates to clean and fake plugins to develop. See you guys soon.

This video has the explanation of the question raised last week about a +0.25 diopter between the taking lens and the Panasonic LA7200.

USEFUL LINKS:

• Watch the results test video
• Eyepatch Entertainment's video that speaks about the +0.25 hack
• Look for a Panasonic AG-LA7200 on eBay
• Look for a +0.25 diopter on eBay
• Look for a Canon 50D camera on eBay
• Look for a Canon 5D3 camera on eBay
• Look for a Canon EF 17-40 f/4L on eBay
• Look for a Canon EF 16-35 f/2.8L on eBay
• Look for a Canon EF 24-70 f/2.8L on eBay
• Look for a Contax Zeiss 28mm f/2.8 on eBay
• Look for a Contax Zeiss 35mm f/2.8 on eBay
• Watch the Panasonic AG-LA7200 review
• Check Gearbase Camera Rentals, in Vancouver

All the RED links on this post are part of eBay's Partner Network, so if you purchase anything through them, you're helping me to keep this project going.

You can support this project on Patreon. Make your contribution and help the Anamorphic Cookbook!

Actually, it should be "The Things I Play". I'm always making adjustments or justifying the title in the first paragraph, it's getting a little annoying and I'll try doing it differently. Probably going with "MORE ACCURATE TITLES", what do you say?

I tried to start writing today's post super early - like mid-afternoon - and wouldn't settle for any particular subject so I decided to play something for a while, waiting for ideas to come. Today's pick was "The Vanishing Of Ethan Carter". During the game it came to me how different my taste for games is nowadays, especially when compared to what I used to play right before coming to Vancouver. I'm not saying I don't like the games I used to, I still like shooters - a lot! - but I've grown pickier about them. Good visuals aren't enough to captivate me anymore, and decent story is a must, along with not-absolutely-linear levels/missions.

The last good shooter I played was FarCry 4, last year. It might be THE LAST shooter I played, actually. It does have astonishing visuals and a pretty decent story - very similar to FarCry 3, indeed, but that isn't a bad thing at all. I think I've written about this before, how I used to love games that feel like movies and then realizing that games aren't movies, hence they can share some similarities, but if the narrative is too narrow and the player's actions and choices don't affect it at all, what's the difference between actually playing it or watching someone playing on youtube?

Based on that, I've gotten more interested in games that have a strong visual style - not necessarily in a realistic manner - such as Transistor or Limbo. I've played A LOT of indie games this year. More than all the years before summed up together. And I'm enjoying it, because they can be bold in ways traditional blockbuster games can't. They can have ZERO EXPLANATION of how to play, no sort of hints that'll make you lazier about making choices or figuring out puzzles, strong visual styles, LOTS of dialogue, many different ways of getting to the end, no end at all, tougher enemies, darker themes, real choices that affect how the main narrative will turn out, and so on.

A few days ago I was playing Life Is Strange. It doesn't have amazing graphics but it's so stylized that everything looks kind of dreamy. It doesn't even have lipsync and has a ton of dialogue. The story itself is so compelling that you wanna keep going, exploring each corner of its world. It's like a mash up of Donnie Darko, Butterfly Effect, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, vintage photography and teenage drama. I'll probably get back to talking about this game soon, I can't get it out of my head. It's the kind of game that inspires you. I'm dying to see some real-life recreations of its universe, like a short movie, photos or something like that. It's amazing, really.

I don't know how to continue, since now I'm looking for Life Is Strange fan material. Enjoy the trailer above, and I'll be back tomorrow with even less important matters!

I know it's past midnight and I don't care, this post is for yesterday - I mean today! oh, crap, I mean August 21st. It's one English post every day and I'm trying to stick with that. Yeah, I KNOW YESTERDAY'S WAS IN PORTUGUESE, damn! I don't make the rules, ok? Actually, I do, but I'm still trying not to break them ALL at once. Let's get to what matters, shall we?

I finally realized that even though this song has followed me the entire last year - through the good and the bad - I never mentioned it here yet. Well, it all started in the Modeling 1 classes, when François would put random indie tracks for us to listen while we tried to understand which poor life choices had caused us to move that specific vertex out of line and fuck up the entire asset - very likely the Chair. So, among these tracks there was a specific one with some whistling (yeah, indie tracks, I know, lots of them have whistling) but also catchy lyrics. It took me weeks to finally identify bits and pieces of words to find its name. "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men.

After that, I became increasingly addicted to it. I've had days (plural!) which this was the only music I'd listen to, on repeat. I'd bike to and from school listening and singing and whistling to this tune. I thought the lyrics were beautiful, but that was pretty much it. After some time, I started to create some empathy with what it said, for it somehow related to a couple things in my life. Winter came and so did other songs.

Many months ahead, last week, to be precise, Spotify throws an acoustic cover by Julia Sheer and Jon D. in one of my random playlists. What a fortunate reunion. First because their version sounds great, second, its minimalist approach got me. I started listening to it constantly, whistling and singing out aloud while biking on the seawall.

It's been more than a few weeks since I started to feel an urge to play with After Effects. The hunt for good audio to make a kinetic type video was going on and last night I realized that this one could be a good call. I was too worried about making something outstanding and amazing when I should just worry about DOING ANYTHING AT ALL. For that I picked the last verses and chopped them in three blocks, each one under 15 seconds. Throwing that into After Effects with a square aspect ratio, I had decent instagram projects that could be finished in no longer than a couple of hours.

It was nice to remove some of the rust over the commands and effects, and remember how to do things working in layers instead of nodes. There are plenty of things I learned this year that I could port into my workflow. Since this was supposed to be simple, and match the song, I didn't go crazy and kept it all minimalistic, black and white, without excessive movement or lens flares.

Tomorrow I'll post the last piece. Then I'm restarting the hunt for interesting chunks of recorded voice in order to have a next project.

Yes, this song still says a lot to me, and I try to always be inspired by it in positive ways.

O mundo acabou à meia noite de Sábado para domingo.

Ok, isso ficou um pouco sensacionalista. O "Mundo" não "acabou". As leis da física que dizem respeito à eletricidade é que resolveram tirar férias. Nada mais produzia corrente. Nem turbinas, nem painéis solares, hélices, nem aquelas lanterninhas mecânicas que fazem um barulho desgraçado produziam qualquer ampére, volt, watt, nem um mísero joule.

Pilhas e baterias não perderam suas cargas num passe de mágica, mas era impossível recarregá-las. Geradores viraram pesos de papel exageradamente grandes. A única eletricidade que ainda existia eram os raios, mas ainda vamos chegar nesse ponto.

A gente sempre acha que tá preparado pras coisas, quando na verdade a gente tá "mais ou menos" preparado praquilo que podemos imaginar, prever. Te digo que não tve um cientista prevendo data de validade pras teorias dos titios Faraday, Tesla, Franklin e por aí vai. A "Fé na ciência", haha, prevejo um grande aumento na religiosidade ao redor do mundo depois dessa pegadinha científica que praticamente sustentava a sociedade.

Aquela primeira frase foi tão exagerada que vale a pena colocar mais um aviso: esse não é um conto megalomaníaco. Não tem guerra, zumbis, aliens, nem esses clichês de fim de mundo - Mad Max, Eu Sou A Lenda, Guerra Mundial Z, Walking Dead, The Last Of Us - ou sociedades totalitárias - 1984, Admirável Mundo Novo, Equilibrium. Se você está ok com essas informações, vamos adiante.

Por motivos de exaustão e tédio, Pedro deitou para dormir às 20h30. Desde que chegara em sua cidade natal, três semanas atrás, não tinha conseguido acordar depois das 4 da manhã nem sequer uma vez. Suas olheiras eram profundas. "Melhor dormir cedo pra tentar descansar um pouco mais". Ele sabia que iria acordar às quatro e estava determinado a continuar dormindo. Essa decisão lhe custou a primeira chance de entender o que estaria acontecendo.

Dito e feito, como máquina, seus olhos se abriram às 4h15. O quarto estava claro, iluminado pela tela do notebook. "Alguma coisa deve ter desativado o descansador de tela". Ao fundo os apitos do nobreak da casa perdendo carga preenchia o silêncio. Levantou-se, foi até o computador e abaixou a tela. Aí é que percebeu como o mundo estava escuro lá fora, sem os postes para iluminar as ruas do condomínio. "Falta de luz de madrugada? Essa é nova..."

Depois de sucessivas tentativas fracassadas de desligar o nobreak para fazê-lo calar a boca, resolveu que fechar a porta do quarto teria que bastar. Voltou e deitou-se para continuar seu sono. Se tivesse aproveitado aqueles últimos minutos de bateria tanto do notebook como do nobreak, poderia ter descoberto na internet que não era uma mera falta de luz. Pela manhã ambos os aparelhos já estariam sem carga e sua chance escorregou por pouco. Bom, ele teria que descobrir as coisas no caminho. Que história chata seria, se o herói já soubesse tudo de partida, não é mesmo?

Way to go, Tito. Promise one post every day and go the subsequent two days with no posts at all. Way to go.

In my defense, the past two days were CRAZY, action-packed, life-changing, superlative-adjective days. For starters, Monday was the final delivery for our reels. As you might've read in the previous post, I finished mine on Sunday, but still, I can't remember having such a relaxing night of sleep in the past months. Being free from that project by completing it feels like the second best thing in the world.

Later on Monday we also had a huge class dinner, where I sat at the largest and fullest table I've ever seen in my life. By the end of it just the Brazilians remained, chatting about life and work. Lots of fun.

On Tuesday I had May's graduation from Sound Design. We met earlier to chat with an immigration lawyer to see what were our odds of being able to stay in Canada, work permits, permanent residence and so on. After that we had the graduation ceremony, which was beautiful - specially when compared to our 3D grads, which are looooong. May gave the best speech ever, and her final project was pretty amazing. Later on we had a class lunch/dinner with everyone and families. That was one of those moments when I realized I'm very different now since I ordered a spinach salad - out of my own will - and enjoyed every single bit of it. If that wasn't enough, afterwards we went to a nearby bar and lots of other sound design students showed up along instructors and further acquaintances. By then I was already too tired to go on and went home.

And then we had today. Today I was able to rip off one of the pedals of my bike along the seawall. I have a metal stump sticking out now, which I'm using as a pedal. Tasks for tomorrow include getting this fixed. Also on the task list is "find a proper huge personal project to invest some time", since not having school or any responsibility at all feels weird and I really miss doing motion graphics and After Effects. I wanna see if all I learned at VFS will help me in some drastic way with the stuff I used to do before.

Very mudane posts, I know. I'll change gears eventually, just hang with me. Getting used to writing more, writing constantly and writing in English.