Dark Matter Momentum Logo

This week's blog post is a bonus, since its not required.

In AP Physics C this year for labs we are racing 1/10 scale Nascar RC cars. We split up into four different teams. Each team gets a car and works on it to try and achieve peak performance.

What would a racing team be without a name? So after some brainstorming, I came up with Quantium #1 or Dark Matter Momentum. The group decided upon DMM.

On the long car ride to my brother's College for family weekend, I decided to make the team logo. I could have done it all on the computer, but I wanted it to have a more old school, gritty feel so I drew each piece of the logo.

I wasn't sure what the logo should look like. Dark matter doesn't emit light and can't be seen by most devices so what would I make to represent it? With no answer to my own question, I just wong-it.

The first thing I did was sketch an atom, because it's sciencey and looks kind of cool.

Next I decided to write the team name thinking I might use it for the logo or for a decal to put on the car later on.

Our name is rather long, so I thought it while I am drawing it would be best to write the initials down so once I started using Photoshop I would have everything in front of me.

Lastly I drew a car that looked like the car we were supplied with. The car that we got looked a lot like a 1969 Judge GTO so I based the sketch off of that.

Now that I had all the pieces, it was time to combine them. I took pictures of each drawing and put them into Photoshop. Then the toying began.

The first thing I was able to decide was that our full team name would not work. "What should the order of the sketches be?" was the next question that needed an answer. Putting the initials in the back made them get lost. The logo was for a RC car team so it wouldn't make sense for the atom to be in front of the car.

With the atom sitting in the background, it was a battle between the car and DMM for the front spot. After playing around with ordering and filters for a while, I decide to have DMM be on top. But DMM would have an overlay filter, so it would show what was behind it.

It still felt like the design was lacking something though. The atom in the back didn't really add much. So I selected an arch area of the atom sketch and inverted the colors. I put this in back and rotated the current atom to make it look as if it wrapped around the car.

Finally I selected the name and went through a few steps changing the selection to make it look like Dark Matter Momentum was written with a dying Sharpie on an old piece of paper.

The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

This week's post will be different in three ways from past posts; I made this video over the summer, the video is part of a larger project and the video was created in a less formal process (not really planned out ahead of time).

This video is part of a short movie I am making titled Good for Great (GFG). GFG is about the journey of a man trying to find his place. Good for Great is similar in structure to the book Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. The movie is made up of music videos that could be watched by themselves or could be watched together to create a greater meaning. At this point of the film, about half way through, the main character is wondering if Washington D.C. is the place for him.

My brother, Kyle, lives in Washington D.C. or as he calls it "DC!" Kyle is madly in love with the city. If you were to talk to him, I can guarantee he would bring it up. In mid June, my family headed to the Capital for the U.S. Open golf tournament.

I enjoy making a video for each trip I take. People always ask "what did you do?" I find it more interesting and enjoyable to actually show them than to just use words.

So I knew that I wanted to make a video on the trip but I wasn't sure what it would be about. Almost every movie in theaters today focuses on on a person or animal. I like to focus on other things; in coming videos you will see me focus on forests, lights, water, boats and the process of walking.

In this video I focus on a city, DC. Without even thinking about it, I knew what song would play on this video, The District Sleeps Alone Tonight by the Postal Service. The song is all about DC, Kyle showed it to me, it would fit what I wanted the mood to be at this point in GFG and it's just a good song.

After the eight hour drive, I  knew I was going to make a video about DC set to The District Sleeps Alone Tonight and it was going to be my birthday present to Kyle (his birthday was in a few weeks). What I didn't know was what I was going to put in the video.

I decided that I would just take pictures and video wherever I was and I would piece it together at the end of each day. I like to throw pictures into videos; it gives a nice effect, going from motion and all this information to still pictures.

We went to the Capitol, the Botanical Gardens, the National Cathedral, the National Archives, Arlington Cemetery, Library of Congress, the Museum of the American Indian and many other places. At night we saw the monuments: Lincoln, Washington, Vietnam, Korean, etc. Kyle showed us some of the best food in the city: Crumbs' giant cupcakes, Shake Shack's delicious burgers and fries, Good Stuff Eatery's milkshakes.

 The National Gallery of Art is spilt into two building. To get visitors between the two galleries there is an underground people mover. But its not a normal people mover, this one is a mix between a people mover and trampoline. You can bounce on it, you can jump up and down. Wait there is more, the walls and ceiling are curved, covered in mirrors and have thousand of little light bulbs. This can be seen at 3:11 - 3:33 in the video.

Anyone who has been to Washington D.C. (and they weren't on a school trip) knows that the Metro is how you travel. The Metro is DC's train system  that weaves its way under the Capital. So after taking the Metro  five or six times, I decided that I would have it portrayed in the video similar to how it's used in real life; as the in-between.

When I put the video footage and pictures all together the storyline of the video becomes a person leaving their hotel room at night and going to look at all the monuments. The person stays up all night, goes to museums and tourist attractions and then goes back to their hotel to go to sleep alone.

Portrait Propaganda Posters

I saw Contagion on Friday; the new terrifyingly realistic movie about a spreading illness. In it Jude Law plays a devious blogger that leads those against the government. In the devastated streets there were propaganda posters for him. They were very simple; his face and the word "prophet". I just loved the effect and the movie. 

So after the movie I was sitting at home thinking about the different aspects of it. I couldn't stop thinking about the posters, so I went to my computer to search to see if they were any pictures of them or ones similar. I couldn't find anything online so I just started to work off memory.

I opened up Photo Booth to take some pictures because I planned on being "the Prophet". I couldn't remember if the picture of Jude Law was in color or was black & white though. After pondering upon this for a few minutes, I recalled the poster as being yellow and blue and lacking most other color, so I took my pictures in black & white.

I experimented with different facial expressions (looking at the camera, looking up, smiling, grinning, etc.) until I had taken a picture that satisfied me. Now I need to get the rest of the poster made.

The Contagion poster had a worn look to it. I began by googling "crackle paint" and "old paper". I imported a picture from each search into PhotoShop. A large amount of using PhotoShop is just toying with filters, effects, opacity and layers; What does this filter do? Which layer should be on top? Does changing how much this picture is seen make for a better effect? etc.

I had the background and picture. Now I needed to combine them and find the right text. After playing with a few filters, I was able to make it look like the picture had been printed on the paper. Now I needed to choose the right text to give off the effect I wanted. 

Typography is a science; the history of font is one that is intertwined with that of mankind. Different font types express different emotions and when combined can mean different things entirely. Colleges have semester long classes that are dedicated to Typography. So choosing the right font can be a difficult task, I went through every font I had on my computer before deciding on which to go with.

I was done. I had finished. I had it all together, well not quite. I wanted to experiment further and see how different effects could be produced depending on the background, font, colors and the portrait. I thought of an idea with people raising their hands to a "leader" or "legend".

So I went through the same basic steps as I did for the Prophet poster, but I just felt like "legend"  or "leader" didn't fit. I felt that this was a better propaganda poster for a Prophet and the first poster I had made was better for a Legend. People would be raising their hands to a Prophet and Legends go down in the history books so its fitting for it to look like a page from one.

The posters have an "Andy Worhol"-esk feel; repetition of general form with changed details. I like how the posters looked, so much that I made 3 more. One that makes fun of those who "fear" monger. One that tries to bring attention to stereotyping and grouping of people by showing a bunch of my pictures of pigeons on the streets. Most would say the pigeons all look the same and by doing so each pigeon becomes "anonymous". The last one was just trying to embody the mind set of a "mogul".

By this time it was 1:30 am. But I had the sudden thought why not do a few in honor of 9/11 so I went to work. At around 3:15, I had finished and had 3 more portrait propaganda posters, but these ones had deeper meaning. I tried to make my facial features less noticeable in these ones because these ones aren't about or for me, they about those who lost their life, knew someone who lost their life or risked their life on that day.

This first one is "Patriot". The background is filled with American flags, which represent freedom. The silhouette has part of its face covered to represent that a true patriot doesn't care about the publicity of what they do, they do what they do simply because they know its right and is what needs to be done.

The second one I made is "Hero". The background is filled with firefighters walking towards and away from Ground Zero. There is also a picture of firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero after the attacks. The face is white and transparent to represent the souls of those who alive and dead that risked their lives on 9/11 helping others.

The last one is "Remember". It meant as a reminder to never forget what on 9/11. In the background there are pictures of the Tribute of Light (annual NYC 9/11 ceremony), the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial and the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The face is a silhouette because a single person wasn't affected by the events of 9/11. The silhouette represents all those affected, all of those impacted.

The Eye of a Fish

The Eye of a Fish

This slo-mo animal-distorting video was shot just last week. As you will see in the next few weeks, a decent amount of my videos include fast-forwarded footage, so I wanted to "slow things down" for a change. I had also just purchased a fisheye lens for my Flip video and wanted to use it so I combined the ideas.


The night that the lens arrived in the mail, my family was going up to Chipotle to eat so I put it on and taped all the way there and back just to see what it would be like. When I got home, I plugged my Flip into my computer to look at the videos. It had a very cool, distorting effect on the road. But I have done numerous videos involving driving, so I wasn't sure if I would use it and if I would what else I would shoot to go along with it. 


I had thought of a rather complex plot that might work, but I wasn't sure about it so I decided to just let the whole video idea "marinate" in my head.


As some may have seen, fisheye lenses and animals make a cute and goofy combination; the "duo" now cover gift cards, calendars, mouse pads, etc. I had seen a lot of fisheye-animal pictures, but had seen no video. So when my cat, O'Malley, was lying on the counter I figured I would try it out and see how it turned out. 


I really loved how the footage of "Mr.Kitty",O'Malley, turned out so I shot some more of him and my dog, Moose. I went over to my grandma and grandpa's house that night. They have two cats, Ben and Jerry; they're named after the ice cream. Jerry is the fat one who really hates me because I enjoy chasing him to watch his feeble attempt to run. I know its terrible!


So I videotaped Ben and some fish in the backyard pond and then I went searching for Jerry. I found him hiding in my grandparents room. I turned on the lights and he gave me a death stare. I approached him and he began to hiss and show his fangs. After 5 seconds of my video camera in his face, he pounced and slapped my camera with his paw! He hit the lens off my camera! This of course didn't stop me from getting about a minute more of him hissing at me on tape before I ran from the room fearing for my life.


Ever since Kanye and Jay-Z's Watch The Throne came out I had wanted to do a video with one of the songs, "Illest Motherf**ker Alive". It has a part in the beginning where Kanye says "I  need a slow motion video right now. Cause I'm moving in slow motion slow motion". So I took pieces of that and "H•a•m"and I had my soundtrack. 


If I were to give my "artsy-fartsy" explanation of this video it would be that the viewer should feel like an animal (probably cat) who is watching these other animals and goes for a car ride. Sometimes the other animals are nice and friendly to you and other times they are trying to pick a fight. Then the animal (viewer) goes on a car ride and this so foreign of an experience that it is fascinating to them.