Bradley Olsen

I've learned a lot in the last ten years.  While I like to think that I'm the same as always, experience has definitely had an impact on me. One constant is that 'The Lord of the Rings' has remained my favorite movie franchise.  It's a pinnacle in cinematic achievement and an inspiring series of movies.  They haven't lost their luster.  However, I don't care for the extended editions as much as I once did.  I now recognize that the theatrical releases are superior edits in most ways (the one exception to that is the exclusion of Saruman's death). It was easily foreseeable that 'The Hobbit' would see its big screen debut with all the money there was to be had.  I'm glad the same New Zealand team took on the project.  Much of the world has looked forward to returning to Middle Earth through their unique perspective. Peter Jackson did loose some credibility with his overindulgent 'King Kong' movie.  When I first saw 'Fellowsh...

Kim and I finally got to the Zoo before the end of the summer!  We brought our cameras.  Combined we took over 650 photos!  I posted a few here.  Kim took the one of the polar bear, the rest are mine.  Too see more pictures taken by Kim visit her blog .

Those of you who have read my previous post about Final Cut Pro X already know that I'm a fan.  I've been using the software for a year now.  I am still enthusiastic about it. I recently completed an 80 minute feature called " Saint Street " which was written and directed by independent filmmaker Rob Diamond .  And I used FCPX to do it.  Everything from organizing the media, syncing sound to picture, assembling the rough cut, trimming a fine cut, color grading the footage, mixing and sweetening the audio, creating the titles, and exporting the final deliverables for distribution was done using this software application alone.  Essentially I used the program exactly as Apple advertised it, an all-in-one post-production tool. Where this software really amazes me starts with the intelligent ways it manages data through keywords and metadata organization. Synchronizing sound was a breeze.  Its trimming functionality beats anything else out there....

 

This is a movie I've been looking forward to seeing for a couple of years now.  It all started in March, 2010 when Michael Stone (aka "Garrett") asked me if I would take a long drive with him to the Wahweap Recreation Area just outside of Page, Arizona and back to Salt Lake, all in one day.  He had an interview lined up for a production assistant position on what we were told was "Pixar's first live action movie."  The hope was that I could be squeezed in for an interview too if I tagged along. Plus he wanted to take turns driving.  Anyone who knows me knows I said I'd go, absolutely! I was thrilled to get even a remote chance of being a part of such an amazing project.  Andrew Stanton (of Pixar fame: Finding Nemo, Wall-E) was directing his first live action movie and it was based on a classic sci-fi book published in 1917 (that unfortunately I'd never heard of) called "A Princess of Mars".  It sounded so cool. There wasn't a s...