Slow but steady

It's been an interesting time since my last blog entry. Since my last entry I have finally gotten my HD video editing capable Linux PC and ADSL and an iPad, for other extraneous creative things, mostly musical though. 

So now I have 6 Canon Powershot A480's and 3 Powershot A1200's and I just love the super macro focus on those little A480 cameras. I also have CHDK installed on them (that's Canon Hack Development Kit for the uninitiated) which allows soooo many other functions beyond the camera's initial design and its scriptable and controllable via various pulse widths on the USB port. 

Now today I tweeted about having a breakthrough drilling 20mm holes cleanly, and that was on two pieces of 20mm thick aluminum bolted together for exact hole registration. This is for a motorized camera slider I've wanted to have for ages. So now I am substantially closer to that goal having milled the ends of the two blocks nearly identically the same and also having drilled two 20mm holes exactly in register in both pieces. I have two 20mm stainless steel rods fitted nicely through the drilled holes and 2 linear bearings sliding on each rod. Next to machine a little platform, and bolt a threaded bold to the base of the plate for some kind of makeshift rack that a geared motor on the platform can track on.

I have some tiny PC boards that fit into the plug end of a Nintendo Classic Controller and it is my hope to make an arduino based programmable LCD driven interface, with the classic controller for programming the interval shooting and speed of the platform movement, including pan and tilt and perhaps focus too. But this is phase one, building the hardware.

Fresh blood in the creative membranes

Its always awesome for me as a screenplay writer to find good solid scientific elements that can make a more believeable "hard sci-fi" story and today I have found two such elements to strengthen two stories, so I guess I'm throwing myself back into the screenplay writing mode.

I've used Celtx until now, and recently I've found Trelby as scriptwriting software for Linux, but very recently I've found a great free collaborative writing tool called plotbot.com and I'm very excited about that. I just hope other writer folks are not paranoid about their scripts being stolen because its a collaborative cloud solution.

Ok, scratch that off the list

Yes, I can rig a lattice modifier. Some time later and many tutorials watched it's all coming into focus.
More significantly I have a new desktop pc and ADSL so now I'm Linux enabled, and I must say I like it. No GPU yet but that will follow in time.

Right now I'm enjoying the idea of dreamy focus pulled images in HD - video shot with my DSLR. And if it weren't for the fact that my sennheiser headphones are in for repair under guarantee, I'd be familiarising myself with shooting and recording separate audio too.

My itch that remains unscratched is for an automatically motorized camera slider or dolly and it's driving me crazy. I have a nice stepper driver board nearly populated and having cheap components but one or two component absences are still there. More delays. Eish