I made a couple more videos about things that probably only interest me.

How to be villainous:

And a thing on characters in movies that notice things:

I finally got around to sticking Jethro Atom up on the web:

My first special-effects extravaganza.

The Crossing, the latest game on Orisinal is kind of lame. I stopped playing when I still had three extra deers, because I had lost interest.

Now, I'm not saying this just to complain that the free game that a complete stranger made for me is not good enough. I will use this to illustrate a factor in making a game fun.

What I have now identified as rookie mistakes when making puppets:

1) Putting the hand-hole dead centre, when it should be further towards the back of the head than the front.
2) In general, focusing on the appearance of the puppet to the detriment of the flexibility of the puppet.

I got to try out the electric turkey carver on some couch-foam, before the 20-year-old device self-destructed. But it is a pretty good tool for foam-carving.

So, I slapped the projector lens on again, but this time, I had it only about five inches away from the camera. Since it was more portable than my three-foot monstrosity, I went on a short walk and grabbed some pictures. When it's closer to the camera, it can focus on objects further away, and it doesn't enlarge them as much. But it's still better for bug pictures than the 18mm-55mm lens than came with my camera.

Here's something I got:

Here's a couple videos I put up on Youtube lately, where I show clips from movies because I found something in how they were shot interesting.

Inspired by these instructions on making a macro lens, I decided to grab the lens from a slide projector I had lying around, and figure out how to take a picture with it.

I made a 3-foot long tube out of black bristol board, stuck the lens in one end, my Nikon D40 in the other, and took this picture of the Queen on the back of a quarter.

There's a thing on instructables.com about how to make a 3D camera.

It's a cheap solution, but I see one problem.

Note here, because the red eye has the extra reflections, it will be as though that eye is a few inches further back than the blue eye. (Imagine taking the path the light follows, and straightening it out.)

The 1000 Dollar Film guy posted about directing actors, and the common failings of indie film directors, with some ideas I will try to take to heart.

Second, my stuff is usually very precisely scripted, with very short shots, which doesn't lend itself well to improv. I've been working with some fellows that do more improv, so I've been hoping to pick up on how that works.

This is the first time I've been gonged at the gong show when I tried not to get gonged.

Lesson learned: not everyone thinks explaining things badly is as funny as I do.