The Quest To Rule The Galaxy

2005-05-15T18:35:00.000-05:00

my portfolio is up at

this location

please note that i did in fact do a "podcast" to go with it. the podcast ends before my father even begins to speak (leaving the interviewer and the other interviewee only), but i streamlined everything down the way that the piece about NPR talked about.

Stay glued to your TV set.

2005-05-04T05:06:00.000-05:00

This is my totally exciting bricolage. I used my previously seemingly useless video archives as well as archive.org and Wire's 1977 release, "Pink Flag" to produce this. I wanted to do more with this, but it was more of a matter of keeping it down to 2 minutes, and several of the clips I had gathered were in wmv format and I was working on a mac. Besides, wmv, I have found, is obnoxious to reencode from. I have a higher quality version that is considerably larger, but the quality hit from the compression is not all too substantial. So here is my 37mb render of it, "A Brief Film By Brian Ledden".

"A Brief Film By Brian Ledden" by Brian Ledden

Any feedback is appreciated. Also, Wire is totally awesome. So what I was attempting to do was to convey a sort of standard SUBVERT THE DOMINANT PARADIGM approach to it. One of my favorite pieces of media I used in the creation was this half hour piece called "Media Burn", the highlight of which: a burning pyramid of televisions which they drove a car through. Yep. So I hope you enjoy it.

Baby in the pyramid?? No way!

2005-04-15T23:35:00.000-05:00

I used to really like this song by The Telephone Company. I won't be able to listen to it for a while, because I had to keep listening to it over and over and over while working on this, but there are still parts about the final product that make me laugh, and I've had to look at them quite a bit, so overall I'd say it is a personal success in the very least. So I hope you enjoy it, because I think it is a pretty positive creation.

the html output currently ruins the synchronization of audio to my animation, so i am going to work that out, but the project is finished, nonetheless, and can be found here-

in html version
and in raw swf.

edit: i got it worked out, but it still doesn't seem to like browsers all that much. it works flawlessly for me with flash player. it worked great once running the swf in firefox, but running the html on firefox or ie keeps making the audio lag about .5 seconds behind for the opening, and that lag drifts considerably towards the end. if anyone knows how to fix this, i would appreciate it very much. otherwise, everything is completely done. watch it in flash player if you can.

2005-02-28T18:36:00.000-06:00

we're about to get all up in this illustrator thing, but i found this site and have deemed it one of the most important things i have ever read.

check it.

2005-02-16T17:29:00.000-06:00

I am posting my goofy photoshop filters project.

The first is chalk and charcoal. It is pretty useless if you ask me.
The second is bas relief. It would probably be a bit more useful if I wasn't using it on the sky.
Next I chose poster edges. I actually kind of like that one, to me it is vaguely reminiscent of the noir vibe they tried to achieve in Max Payne.
Then I crystallized. Weh.
Next was dark strokes, and that was a bit more useful. Plaster is pretty useless. Ink outlines can also be pretty cool. I think I might want to try that in conjunction with dark strokes or poster edges or both. I just tried that in the adjacent cell. Not too bad. Pinching and cross stroking are kind of silly to me as well. I can't really see myself using "craquelure" much either. For the last cell I decided to add a SWEET lens flare, then did find edges and glowing edges on it. TOTALLY AWESOME!!1eleven

So, here it is:

AWESOME!

Clever Title!

2005-02-14T20:05:00.000-06:00

Today I missed some class and I was late, because I had to have my beloved car, Danger Cart Number 1, towed away to a junkyard. I need to go find a 40 to pour out for my fallen "homey". The positive side to this is that I didn't have to pay to have them tow it away, and I made a whopping 50 bucks from having them do it. 50 dollars is not just compensation for the best car, ever. Last night I played a show in Corpus Christi, and the night before I played in Waco.

Oh, I just remembered about Coinbird. If you aren't down with Coinbird, I don't know if we can be friends.

2005-02-07T20:00:00.000-06:00

Today in class, I told MC Chris that he sucked at the internet.

I was thinking though, maybe he would like this website if he hadn't seen it. I enjoy doing that. Today's lab is kind of uninteresting to me, I feel like I already have a decent grasp on photoshop basics.

So I made this. Subtle?

I considered making that a photo link, but decided that might come off as kind of stupid. There are zombies, monkeys, spanish peanuts, and a creepy dude.

I feel kind of weak today. Vaguely sick-ish. School and I are not friends today. Tonight on "These Aren't The Droids You're Looking For", I don't know what we are going to talk about, but I am hungry. I have band practice at 10. My kitten is very cute.

I don't post in here enough, I realize. I resolve to do so more. Huuuuugs.

2005-01-31T18:24:00.000-06:00

Today in class, I talked about one of my favorite webcomics, Achewood. I highly suggest checking it out. I also like Nothing Nice To Say, which is supposed to start updating regularly on Wednesday, after a very extended hiatus. Control Alt Delete comics is also a quality production, as is 8 bit theatre, Exploding Dog, White Ninja Comics, Bill and Erik, Sam and Fuzzy, and VG Cats. Although, I don't enjoy the latter 2 as much. Achewood is probably my favorite though, and the characters have their own blogs that are updated semi regularly. I like some other comics, but right now, I can't think of them. I might have a slight fixation on webcomics. They entertain me at all hours of the day and/or night. I just ate some salad. I love food, and everybody. HUGS!

edit:
this is the epic page of awesome I made in lab today.

2005-01-24T19:06:00.000-06:00

My name is Brian.

I have been playing with photoshop for years. I have experience using 3dsmax, bryce, poser, terragen, flash, and even a little bit of povray and that sort of thing. Most of what I've done is just dabbling in it, but, I suppose it's experience none the less. Also, I am an MS Paint master. Examples of my work in MS Paint are available upon request. This keyboard setup is totally bunk. Ergonomic my ass. I do work with final cut and such in the labs on my free time. I like computers. I am really a huge nerd, and I have no qualms about that. I started working on computers at a young age, and I was in junior high when I built my first box. It was totally sweet, it was all overclocked....awesome. That 300a fad was where it was at. Oh boy. I am usually pretty verbose. I have a lot to say. You will love my blog. I should probably update more than twice a week, just because it will be that awesome. I play in a band, but the past week has been rocky. And not good rocky, because we do play rock music. I will know soon how things are on that front. I host 2 radio shows on 91.7 - a music one on friday nights (saturday morning) from 1-3 am, and a star wars talk show from 830-9 on monday nights. Tonight we are having the Brobdingnagian Bards come play and talk about star wars. Check out their site at www.thebards.net . I was also the dude who said that his cat has a livejournal on the first day of class. You can see it at www.livejournal.com/users/scratchfury. Damned if my kitten isn't cute.

That's all I've got. Expect a revolution to spring forth from this "blog".