After about a year and a half without any significant changes to the look and feel of the Sleep Deprived Films branding, I decided it was time for a bit of an update. The idea came from a a job I was doing recently that required a lot of roto-scope work and a significant amount of depth of field and lens effects. There was something in it that triggered a new idea. I wanted something that had depth, but was still simple and streamlined.
There is a rule of production: "Good, Fast and Cheap; you get to pick two, because it won't be the third one". I have been a subcontractor of the Guerrilla Wanderers, an LA production company currently working out of the New Jersey/New York area. They hired me to do some animation and 3D work. I was very excited to be a part of this project and to work with the Guerrilla Wanderers. I had seen their work before, and had previously been tempted by another job with them.
By Adam Benson
Wednesday morning started with a hectic bunch of phone calls that began pouring in about an hour before I got up. I already had a pretty full plate for the rest of the week, but now I was suddenly being asked to bid on a job that required me to up and drop everything for a six and a half hour drive to Gallup, New Mexico. I had a couple of bombs to defuse. My girlfriend Michelle was in Sacramento and needed to get picked up from the airport the next day. We have a cat that needs daily doses of medicine; I'd have to find someone to administer the cat-juice. I had two jobs that needed to be finished by Friday. I had a teaching gig that I had just accepted that I'd have to re-schedule the orientation for. And the trash needed to be taken out. I spent all morning making all the pieces fall in place only to lose the bid to a kid willing to work for almost nothing.
Even though we were nearly out of water, sunburned and in pain we didn't complain. We had a goal, and we were determined to make it. We knew we were close, but that doesn't mean that our spirits weren't getting down. Every time we got closer it felt like we hadn't made any progress at all. By now, Michelle had developed a healthy limp and I was beginning to walk like John Wayne. We finally came to another waterfall. It wasn't listed in the orientation and it also marked a fork in the canyon. We dropped our packs and got out the map. The map showed a tiny waterfall legend very near to our destination, but the scale was misleading. We scouted around a bit trying to figure out which one of the two arms of the canyon we were supposed to follow. In this regard the map was a bit confusing. It showed the ruins residing in a small arm off to the west, with a main arm continuing north, and just such a situation existed where we were currently scouting, but there were no ruins in the small arm to our west, no ranger station, and no campgrounds. This could not have been it after all. Another disappointment, but now which way were we supposed to go? Just as we were about to break down and scream we noticed footprints in the mud heading north. That was our path. It must be close!
In an effort to centralize our branding and unify all of the elements between www.SleepDeprivedProductions.com and www.SleepDeprivedFilms.com, one of the new ideas that crept up was something that at first seemed extremely frivolous, The Recipe Of The Week. While in the middle of a complete redesign and reprogramming of the entire Sleep Deprived Films site, Michelle, my marketing and sales genius, suggested that we post a new recipe each week or so and put it up on the home page. My first thought was, "Nah, let's try to keep this 'business'". It was probably about 15 minutes later that I started programming the new "recipe" page.
In my years of working in Visual Effects I have often been faced with the "Fix it in Post" challenges presented by many independent filmmakers. These days, people assume that, with the advent of the personal computer and After Effects, creating complex visual effects at the last minute is as easy and cheap as pushing a button or loading a plug-in. And after spending mind-bending hours trying to get After Effects to create "Lord of the Rings" effects on a Tuesday night budget, these filmmakers often fail and end up posting an ad on Craigslist looking for someone to do their effects for them for whatever meager pennies are left in their already spent budget.
Clan Destine II and Trampled Fruit Records are proud to announec the release of "Operation Peace", the amazing new album by Clan Destine II! Operation Peace is a long awaited triumph with potent grooves and infectious songs that will leave you wanting more!
In recent years the American Drug companies have opened a floodgate of drugs onto the American people. Often times the drugs are designed to treat minor irritations, or as more often is the case, disorders that simply did not exist fifteen years ago. And its not that we've recently discovered many of these disorders, its that many of these disorders were invented as a marketing campaign for a nearly useless chemical compound that a drug company has found a use for. Which is not to say that all drugs fall under this terrible category. Plenty of conditions out there warrant the use of drugs, and without these drugs many people would suffer far more than they have to now. The problem lies within the fact that drug companies are now chemically treating lifestyle symptoms, and not just medical conditions.
After a long wait Sleep Deprived Productions finally has its new Demo Reel ready for display! This is the culmination of years of work and experience. As with any demo reel, its only as current as the most recent job. Which is why so few ever get completed; because there's always another job. Thanks to summer 2008 there was finally a little time to put one of these things together for the general public!
The Phoenix based Native American group Clan Destine II are finishing up work on their new album, "Operation Peace" at Trampled Fruit Records right now and are looking to release this much awaited opus sometime soon in the early fall of 2008. They have spent almost every day in the studio since January 2008 and have been working diligently to make "Operation Peace" truly unique!
