Update

I have been ill. And during my illness i have had the opportunity to view many movies on DVD. Listed are the films and what for.

• A Scanner Darkly--for the video effect. And I liked Dick's story of Bladerunner
• Gods and Generals--I am of Southern blood
• Gettysburg--same as above
• Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World--I love period naval films and Russell Crowe is outstanding
• Das Boot--simply the best submarine film ever.
• Gladiator--I like Ridley Scott films
• Kingdom of Heaven--same as above
• Entrapment-- Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Sentinel--a good story
• Phone Booth--a simple story, minimum number of actors, shot in seven days
• The Generals Daughter--Trevolta at his best
• The Last Samurai--Tom Cruise begins to act
• Highlander: Endgame--The last chapter of Christopher Lambert as the Highlander. I liked the TV series better.

And there were others and will be more before I am back to normal.

The Finishing Touches

Why not make your home grown DVD's look like the professionally produced videos. It's easy to do. If you are familiar with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements the project is simple. Here you see the cover I did for our Alaskan video. You can layout the entire cover in Photoshop or another image processing program and create the cover art from acratch or you could go to http://www.bmyers.com/public/1299.cfm?sd=60 and download the template. There is also an informative video to explain how to use the template. Basically, each element of the layout is on it's own layer. You simply replace the elements in the template with your own as illustrated below. Incidentally you may want to eliminate some of the elements. The layers with these elements are just left out of the final.

Remember that the background color can also be changed as well as other elements such as the green line. Once your familiarize yourself with the template it's relatively easy. You'll find it's easy to create professional results.

It's finished

Yes I finally finished this video. I seem to have more than my share of problems. Technically, that is. But it's probably my fault or at least I increase the probability by pushing everything. I want to see all the big screen stuff on my little screen. Like multiple images on the screen simultaniouly with several soundtracks. This shorty is almost right. I could have given more time to the preamble to the action either verbally or written. But I didn't. More editing of the scenes would have made things better, but , alas.... If you look at the pros and you see that thay may have 15 differend shots for a minute of action, the process becomes overwhelming. But it was fun to make.

Once upon a time in Texas

I was thumbing through this old sketchbook the other day when I found these pages referring to Billy Bob's Texas. The pqages brought back some memories of the largest honky tonk in the whole wide world. I'm thinking that a honky-tonk is a country-western bar. Billy Bob's fills the deal there in spades. It is the only honky tonk that has it's own rodeo and capacity for over 6000 guests. The place was once a holding pen for cattle when Fort Worth was a big stockyard town. Cattle would be gathered from all over Texas in Ft. Worth before being shipped north to the slaughter houses. The place doesn't smell like cattle but the floor does have a slope to it so it could be easily washed out. One thing that will catch your eye is a crystal sadle hanging over one of the many dance floors.

You'll see in the picture above that I do more than sketch in my sketchbooks. There's a Lone Star beer label obviously peeled from an ice cold long-neck while I was watching some Japanese cowgirls line dance. People from all over the world visit Billy Bob's and there is always live entertainment. You can learn your line dancing too. Instructors are always on hand. The great country music entertainers such as George Jones, Wilie Nelson and George Strait perform there. So, if you're ever in the Fort Worth, TX area, drop by Billy Bob's. I'm not sure that everybody knows your name. But as Mickey Gilley would say,"The girls always look better at closing time!"

If you want to know more about Billy Bob's here are some links:

• http://billybobstexas.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bob
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Bob

The Whatzit!

Once upon a time I was into designing web pages. Before I was aware of style sheets or any of the wild and crazy things that are now done at the norm. I wanted to design a web page for Claudette and Tony's website. From my sketchbook I found some drawings of old portable electronic equipment. So, I decided that the website would have this sort of look. It would be distressed yet high tech. This was created without the benefit of Photoshop and only a very rudimentary image editing was used.
The features are as follows:
From the top left, clockwise.

• "The Year in Pictures" is a slide show with the control underneath
• "Buddy Sings" is a video, a Windows mediaplayer is embedded
• The anime is just a pin-up image
• The "Panic" button causes the entire image to vibrate when clicked
• "X" marks the spot - - mouse-over links to games
• "Music" links to music as listed -- songs will play sequential

It was upgraded at Christmas for a vocal Christmas message. Creating this was a lot of fun and I would like to build another with more realistic appearance and RSS feeds.