CarBoy Films

CarBoy Films iPhone Wallpaper

2011-01-03T17:08:00.000-08:00

Hey, now you can have the CarBoy logo on your iPhone.

Download from our flickr account

CarBoy Beer Label

2010-10-19T18:11:00.001-07:00

I just made a label for our next batch of beer!

The Director Episode #1

2010-08-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Here is the first episode in our latest "dog" series.

Starring McGrueder, voiced by Will & Kevin, w/ music provided by Matt Soule.

Enjoy!

YouTube Message from Nashville

2010-06-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I checked our YouTube Inbox and there was a message from a guy in Nashville. He had some constructive criticism about our "Homemade Steadycam" video. I thought I would share:

Hey guys, I've only seen one of your videos so far...well, I'm a 62 year old granddad and only have so much time to spend on YouTube.... Anyway, as an old pro musician/entertainer/producer et al, I want to compliment you on your work, your creativity and mostly....your style. You guys are very entertaining and I look forward to watching more of your productions.

The video I saw was your steady-cam project...something I'll probably work on a different design for my own hi-def videoing. Here's my constructive criticism... I have moderate hearing loss in the high frequency range and have trouble understanding voices that aren't clean and clear. I had trouble understanding what you guys were saying...for a couple of reasons. One, you could stand to enunciate your speech more distinctly, but the second point would help even more....GET A COUPLE OF MICROPHONES ON BOOMS (OUT OF THE FRAME) UP ABOVE YOUR HEADS AND AS CLOSE TO YOU AS POSSIBLE. That would improve the sound situation a thousand percent. Even cheap mics up close would be better than the camcorder mic at the distance you were working on the video I saw.

That's my 2 cents. If you've already worked out your audio bugs, please disregard my tip. And keep up the good work fellas!

Unicorn Obstructions: Bob DeRosa 2

2010-06-09T11:16:00.000-07:00

Here is the latest video in our Unicorn Obstruction project. Here we seek a compromise on one of Bob DeRosa's obstructions.

You can see all of Bob's obstructions and the original "Unicorn" short film we are remaking as well as all our video on our websites: http://www.carboyfilms.com

Elephant Seals

2010-05-27T15:50:00.000-07:00

So here is some footage I shot of some elephant seals just north of Cambria, CA. They gather here every year to molt their skin. And they smell terrible. I used my new Canon Rebel T2i with the 18-55mm kit lens.

We're going to use this camera to shoot some new projects. A new 55-250mm Canon lens just came in today, so I'll be posting some test footage soon.

Back In The Saddle

2010-05-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

We're back after a little hiatus, with new projects, beer, and a new human. That's right, Kevin and his lovely wife Katie are expecting a girl in August! Can you believe it? We'll be posting some short stuff soon and are working on a special project for the summer. In the meantime, get into a comfortable position wherever you're reading this, have a beer, or a shot, or a doob, or some keyboard cleaner - and take a long, hard look at the picture attached to this post (you can click on the pic). You'll thank me.

4000 Blog Hits

2010-03-01T13:03:00.001-08:00

4000 Hits! Thanks for watching.

Amish Condoms Commercial #3

2009-11-06T16:48:00.000-08:00

This is our third and last internet spot for Amish Condoms. This is the one the client liked most.

Amish Condoms Commercial #2

2009-10-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

Here is another internet spot we shot for www.amishcondoms.com featuring our very own Will Bowles and Katie F. Ward.

...and don't forget to visit our website to see all our videos www.carboyfilms.com

Amish Condoms Commercial #1

2009-10-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

Here is the first of three internet commercials CarBoy Films shot for a company called amishcondoms.com. These guys literally sell wooden condoms. They look like tall skinny birdhouses. We shot these back in April, but we are just now at liberty to put them up on the blog.

George Washington - Beerthusiast

2009-08-22T22:35:00.000-07:00

The Father of Our Country loved his beer. English–style porter was George Washington’s drink of choice and whenever he could he would seek out the product of Robert Hare, a brewer in Philadelphia who was one of the first to make porter in the U.S. Washington was no stranger to homebrew either and this recipe from a personal notebook he kept will make 30 gallons of ale, enough for a large household like Mount Vernon.

"Take a large Sifter full of Bran, Hops to your Taste---Boil these 3 hours. Then strain out 30 Gallons into a Cooler put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler. Strain the Beer on it while boiling hot let this stand til it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold cover it over with a Blanket. Let it work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask. leave the Bung open til it is almost done working---Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed."

"To Make Small Beer” is the title of this recipe. “Small beer” is normally brew made from the second runnings through the mash for strong ale and the beer that is created has very little alcohol (about 3%). However, a note on the NPR website says that the above recipe produces a beer with an alcohol content of about 11 %. If this was George’s “small beer” then consumption of his “large beer” must have somehow disrupted space-time for its imbiber. Compare that ABV to a popular modern American brew, say Sam Adams Boston Lager at 4.9%, and you realize that “Town Destroyer”, as the Iroquois nicknamed Washington, wasn’t effin around. In fact, I think he might have been trying to kill himself and the people around him.

So if you try this recipe use caution (or just less molasses) and for God’s sake send us pictures of the aftermath.

Image by cliff1066

3000 Blog Hits

2009-07-15T11:04:00.000-07:00

Hey we got 3000 hits on our blog. Hurray!!! Thanks for watching. (and reading)

Unicorn Obstructions: Bob DeRosa

2009-06-09T19:26:00.000-07:00

Having been inspired by the film, "The Five Obstructions", we went to friend and screenwriter Bob DeRosa. He gave us a demanding list of obstructions to remake our short film: "The Unicorn." Take a look at the most recent installment to the Unicorn Obstructions.

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See all our videos at our new website: http://www.carboyfilms.com

The CarBoy Films Website is Up!

2009-06-06T11:56:00.000-07:00

We just officially launched the new CarBoy Films Website a couple of days ago. We are really excited about it. All our videos are there as well as some nice things to look at. Please go visit the site and let us know what you think:

http://www.carboyfilms.com

We're still going to post new videos to this blog, but now we also get to use the blog as more of a blog. We'll be posting more CarBoy Films news, articles, and essays about the things we think are interesting enough to be on a blog. You'll find many of our usual favorite subjects like filmmaking, beer, and filmmaking about beer. But we'll be sharing so much more. Stay tuned and go to the website!

Betty Cocker

2009-04-05T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is a sketch we shot for our good friend Jason Moyer featuring a character from his live show: Betty Cocker. Enjoy!

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Urthel Hop-It - CarBoy Films Beer Review

2009-03-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

Here at long last is our second beer review where we discuss a Belgian beer called Urthel Hop-It.

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Will gave this beer 4.4 out of 5 Gnomes while Kevin gave it 3.75 Gnomes for an official CarBoy rating of 3.975 Gnomes. Not bad.

You can learn more about this beer at: http://www.urthel.com

2000 Hits Celebration

2009-03-21T15:08:00.000-07:00

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CarBoy is celebrating its 2000th Hit. Thanks so much for watching!

Daniel's vlog

2009-02-17T22:39:00.000-08:00

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This is the first sketch we shot for our friend Jason Moyer in a series we are shooting for him to use in a contest for "The Big Gay Sketch Show."

Homebrew Blooper

2009-01-21T14:26:00.000-08:00

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It's not often you get a blooper clip on video when making beer in your kitchen, but we got one. Enjoy!

The Unicorn Obstructions: Proposal

2009-01-11T11:47:00.000-08:00

We are big fans of a documentary film called “The Five Obstructions” in which Danish director, Lars von Treir, challenges his mentor, Jorgen Leth, to remake a short film of his from 1967 entitled “The Perfect Human.” He has to remake the short five times, each time incorporating some of Lar’s “obstructions.” Under the guise of making Leth a better filmmaker and in turn, a better person, von Treir’s obstructions are more mean-spirited attacks than helpful suggestions. They include making a cut in the film every 12 frames and shooting in India or Cuba for no apparent reason. Lars will ask him questions so that Leth will admit to things he doesn’t like. He will then make him do these very things. This is generally followed by a light snack of caviar. Much to Lar’s chagrin, Leth’s remade films turn out to be very good. The man is a terrific filmmaker. It forces him to make interesting variations on his original theme. It is a brilliant movie, breathtaking in its pretension.

So in the spirit of experimenting and doing things for no other reason than, “It sounds like fun,” this film has inspired us to propose our own obstruction experiment. We’re no legends of Danish cinema, but sometime ago, we made a short film called “Unicorn” in which Will plays a guy with a mustache who is stalked by a stuffed Unicorn. It is riveting, some of our best work. It is also a pretty good “neutral” scene (at least we think so.) The goal is now to find people we know to challenge us with their own obstructions. We will try to choose people who not only have strong feelings about film, but who we think can push us creatively and as filmmakers to make a better, more interesting film.

You can watch “Unicorn” in one the posts below. We plan to post all developments that arise from The Unicorn Obstructions as they happen on the blog, so please stay tuned.

Doritos Commercial

2008-11-20T12:15:00.000-08:00

We shot a spec Doritos commercial for their "Crash The Superbowl" contest. Take a look and please go to their

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Hop 15 - CarBoy Films Beer Review

2008-10-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

For this, our first ever CarBoy Films Beer Review, we tried a beer called "Hop 15".

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According to our sophisticated and ever-changing rating system, Will gave this beer 3 out of 5 Reindeer while Kevin gave it 2 1/2 Reindeer, giving it an official CarBoy Rating of 2.75 Reindeer. Which is certainly a score to be proud of.

Hop 15 is a double IPA from Port Brewing Company in San Marcos, CA. You can check them out at http://www.portbrewing.com

The Necessary Evils of Video Compression

2008-09-30T01:00:00.000-07:00

Compressing video is terrible. You spend an absurd amount of time finessing and tweaking your short film just for it to look like some washed out, pixilated shell of its former self. Of course, by “short film” I mean footage of your best friend hurting himself in some hilarious yet life altering way.

There are as many opinions about video compression as there are for making a Thanksgiving turkey, who made those crop cycles, and which presidents were in the Illuminati. This is just the best way I have found to compress video for the internet after trying a lot of time consuming and frustrating methods. I’m sure there are some who will read this and have all sorts of rage to share on the subject, but they can write it on their own blog.

Most of this comes from advice I received from our friend Coplin. At his suggestion I started using Compressor for all our compressing needs. If you are using Final Cut Pro to edit your video, which is my recommendation for almost all low budget productions, then you probably already have Compressor. It is a program that comes with the Final Cut Suite. It’s easy to use and produces great results. If you don’t have Compressor, find the guy who installed it on you computer or burned you the disc and have him give you this too. It’s worth it.

So from your Final Cut sequence, make sure you don’t have an in or out marked and go to > File menu > Export > Using Compressor. This will open compressor and place you sequence in the Batch Window.

In the Setting Window find the plain old h.264 preset. Depending on which version of Compressor you’re using, it should be under Apple > Formats > Quicktime.

H.264 is by far the best codec for the internet. It gives you more bang for your buck: quality vs. file size.

From here hit the Encoder tab in the Inspector window and adjust your audio and video settings.

Under video just move the quality slider to just above medium.

You want your audio to be AAC, Mono, 44 khz. This should be plenty of quality for internet use.

Now go to Geometry tab in the Inspector window ad make your dimensions width 640 x height 360 for 16:9 or width 640 x height 480 for 4:3.

That’s it. Hit the Submit button and you’re done. Enjoy uploading all that footage of getting kicked in the balls.

Women for Sarah Palin

2008-09-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

CarBoy Films teams up with One Hott Mess.

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This is a sketch we just did for an all female sketch group called One Hott Mess. Some of you may have already seen it. As of right now, it has been viewed on funnyordie.com 18,235 times.

Prohibition Style Beer "Sneaky Pete" (a.k.a. Alaska Bush Beer)

2008-08-31T21:00:00.000-07:00

This is a recipe I pulled from The Alaskan Bootlegger's Bible by Leon W. Kania, a fascinating DIY reference for the homebrewer. This book has recipes for wine, beer, liqueur, and whiskey; and it also covers equipment and brewing techniques.

This recipe was handed down to Kania from his grandmother. He admits there are a few flaws, "i.e., no fermentation lock, bottling the murky wort before it clarified, using bakers yeast and not much hops", but it's basic and cheap. "There's probably been more of this beer made in Alaska than any other style. The ingredients are easy to get and when you're packing in several months of provisions to a remote homestead or mine, it can mean the difference between beer or no beer." Indeed, I think many of us are from time to time haunted by visions of remote homesteads with no liquid bread.

So if you're looking for an easy first homebrew experiment, this might be it. Kania says the Blue Ribbon Malt is available in most grocery stores (I haven't done any recon on this yet). Let us know if you make some and if you do send us pics/video and if possible, a sample.

SNEAKY PETE
3 Lb. Can Blue Ribbon Malt Syrup (hops flavored)
4 Lb. Cane sugar
5 Gal. Water
1 Pkt. Bakers' yeast

In the biggest pot you can get your hands on, boil and dissolve in a total of 5 gallons of water, the malt and sugar. Put this wort in a primary fermenter (a crock in my younger days) and when it's cool, crumble in a cake of bakers' yeast. When almost all the little bubbles stop, bottle it, adding 1/4 teaspoon of sugar to each bottle.

Our Trip to the Stone Brewery

2008-08-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

So we recently went to the Stone Brewery in Escondido, CA just outside of San Diego. We took the tour, ate some great food and drank some terrific beer. Here are some of the things we saw.

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Carboy Films Arts and Culture Series - Agriculture: Demon Engine of Civilization

2008-08-14T23:30:00.000-07:00

In keeping with our commitment to improve the world through beer-making and the Video Arts, we humbly present to you the Carboy Films Arts and Culture Series - a panoply of significant contributions to the human experience that we feel should be savored like a fine wine (or beer). From time to time this blog will highlight such items for your edification and enjoyment.

First up is John Zerzan's inconvenient essay Agriculture: Demon Engine of Civilization. Zerzan is an anarcho-primitivist philosopher living in the Pacific Northwest who doesn't pull punches. Some of you may consider this work a big downer, but sit with it a while and you might find a certain resonance with your inner gatherer-hunter.

Agriculture, the indispensable basis of civilization, was originally encountered as time, language, number, and art emerged. As the materialization of alienation, agriculture is the triumph of estrangement and the definite divide between culture and nature and humans from each other...

Setting Up the Greenscreen

2008-08-08T09:22:00.000-07:00

It's hard work making films about talking dogs. So to prove it, here is an old-timey silent film to show you how we did some of it.

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A friend of ours, Joel Svensen, gave us a butt roll of greenscreen material and we built a pvc frame to hold it based on plans we found online. It's a very inexpensive way to have a lot of fun.

Dog School Part 1

2008-08-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

Professor McGrueder teaches his students the finer points of American History. Enjoy!

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Homemade Steadycam

2008-04-11T17:22:00.000-07:00

We made a homemade steadycam based off of plans we found online prepared by Johnny Chung Lee. It cost us more than the $14 he claims it will, but we are very happy with the steadycam. Here's how we did it.

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We've tried this steadycam with our tiny Sony DCR-HC20 and a Canon GL1. It works really well with both cameras. It works great as a "hand held" option.

This is our first "how to." It's mainly an experiment with the format, trying to give information in a concise and helpful way that is also entertaining. Let us know how we did.

Unicorn

2008-03-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone. Here is a short film that we shot a really long time ago. In fact, it is probably the first CarBoy Film. We shot it on my little cheap Sony MiniDV camera, a DCR-HC20 to be exact. We finally got around to finishing it. The footage has been sitting on a firewire drive for quite sometime. I'm glad we get to share it with you. Enjoy!

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Contributors to CarBoy Films

2008-02-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

Contributors to CarBoy Films:

WILL BOWLES - Creator, Executive Producer, Writer, Director

BOB DEROSA - Writer & Actor - provided the voice of Shirt and Tie McGrueder in "Dog School Part 1"

JOSH FLAUM - Actor & Writer - provided the voice of Blue Shirt McGrueder in "Dog School Part 1"

JESSICA FUNCHES - Producer & Filmmaker - gave us a great interview about managing her rheumatoid arthritis

COPLIN LEBLEU - very talented Graphic Designer & Animator - gracious enough to let us borrow his Canon GL1, as well as a wealth of technical and creative advise

MCGRUEDER - my dog

TARA OCHS - Actress and funny lady - gave us some greenscreen floor panels to use

BEN ROCK - Director, Filmmaker - always a wealth of helpful info and advise and generous with gear, was kind enough to loan us all the equipment needed to shoot "Silent All-Nighter" - Instant Film

JOEL SVENSEN - All around swell guy - was kind enough to give us a roll of greenscreen material.

UNICORN - both a terrific actor and stuffed animal

KEVIN WARD - Creator, Executive Producer, Writer, Director

Above is an ongoing list of contributors to CarBoy Films. We will update this list as more people share their time, talents, stories, and stuff with us. So please check back with this posting to see the list grow.

Cowboy Hat Logo

2008-02-24T13:50:00.000-08:00

So here is a new CarBoy Films Logo from something Will came up with.

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6 secs

More Cell Phone Animation

2008-02-11T22:06:00.000-08:00

So here is another animation made with a notepad, a marker, and a cell phone. The only media came from my Treo 650 and even though I monkeyed around with it in After Effects some, it's still a very basic idea. Animating something in a simple way is a fun little exercise and gives me some ideas about how things can work on a larger scale.

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(37 secs)

Anatomy of Santa

2008-01-26T16:10:00.000-08:00

This is a sort of a holiday homage to the famous title designer Saul Bass. He did everything from "Vertigo" to the original "Ocean's Eleven" to "Good Fellas." It is based on his opening title sequence for "Anatomy of a Murder" and features Santa Claus.

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And here is a split screen of the same piece with Bass' original artwork included for comparison.

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"Your LA" News Piece

2008-01-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

So I saw someone I hadn't seen in a while and he told that he saw me on TV a couple of months ago. I immediately thought he was mistaken. Why would I be on TV? But he insisted. It later donned on me that maybe there was a news story about Instant Films, the 48 hour film festival I entered in November. (You can see my submitted short below.) Sure enough "Your LA", a local news show aired a piece. It is all about my film. I remember a little crew on set and being interviewed, but I didn't know what it was for and that we were the only film being followed. In any event, here it is:

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Also, it is a new year (Happy New Year by the way) and we are really trying to commit ourselves to getting this blog off the ground. We are setting a goal of posting a new video every two weeks. I can't imagine us generating a finished short film at that pace but we can at least post videos related our movie making activities and show you what we are up to in a raw form as well as a finished product.

Thanks for watching!

Halloween Pic Logo

2007-11-12T15:10:00.000-08:00

The WGA is on strike and I had a little more time on my hands at work today than I am used to. So here is a stab at a temporary logo I made today using a photo of us from this past Halloween. Will has something in the works for a real logo, but until then I thought I'd monkey around:

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Silent All-Nighter

2007-11-08T09:32:00.000-08:00

This is a short film we shot for a 48 hour film festival call Instant Films. This is the exact cut that showed at the screening on Sunday night. It has not been altered or re-cut in anyway.

We received a script and three randomly selected actors on Saturday morning at about 9am and turned in this movie Sunday night at around 7pm. With daylight savings being Saturday, that's a turn around of about 35 hours. We had an amazing crew and were lucky to pick three great actors. It was a really cool event, we had a lot of fun (a specific kind of fun), and I hope we get to do it again sometime.

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Safari or Firefox?

2007-11-07T10:55:00.000-08:00

Try using Safari when viewing this blog.

I just looked at our blog with both Safari and Firefox. I was surprised to see that Safari worked better. The video played back weird with Firefox. There was a little bar on the right side that would freeze on the last frame. Safari did not have this issue. I'm a mac user, so I don't know about Internet Explorer on a PC.

If anyone has some insight or you are having the same issues, please let us know. We are trying to get this thing working as well as it can. You can email us:

carboyfilms@gmail.com

I know we've been slacking on this project, but we are trying to get back on the train and we've got some videos to post soon. Over the weekend, we shot a short film for a 48 hour film festival call Instant Films. It's a really cool event and the short turned out pretty good considering it was shot in 13 hours or something like that. That will be up in the next couple of day.

Cell Phone Animation

2007-04-22T13:46:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when you have a notepad, a marker, a cell phone, and a little extra time at work. Done right, it looks like you're really working. (Unless you're a stripper!) Union work is awesome.

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Greenscreen Test

2007-04-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

A little while ago, a good friend gave us a roll of greenscreen material. (Thanks Joel!) We made a frame to hang it on with PVC pipe using plans we found online. It was easy to make and it works great. So, in a continuing attempt to show people not just what we are doing, but how we are doing it, here is a sample of some footage that we shot with the greenscreen. We used the "Green and Blue Screen" effect in Final Cut Pro to key in out.

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FCP Greenscreen Test

Launch!

2007-04-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

Hello. We are Kevin and Will. CarBoy Films is our attempt to explore the world of film and video through available basic technology. We want to use this blog as a container for ideas and finished pieces. We will try to post as much of our "process" as we can in the hopes of communicating and corresponding with like-minded folks. We've also been experimenting with homebrew, so there's going to be some of that mixed in as well. Really this is going to be used for whatever we want; but I needed to put up the first post, so this is it.