4 McIntosh Apples

It looks like April’s great crafty skills has helped the Indiana McIntosh family win the 1st McIntosh Holiday Challenge.

Great job, April! I know how much you disliked the putting the icing on and the fact that you wouldn’t let me bloody the horses head and have the other animals eating it.

I won free tickets to see the Colts play the Jets on December 27th. Unfortunately the coach decided to the loose the game for them and pull most of their starters when they only had a 5 point lead and allowed the Jets to come back and win by a large amount.

The roads were very snowy as we got about 3 inches of snow throughout the whole day and the roads were not always fast moving.

Other than that – we had a blast as it was April’s first professional football game and Lucas Oil Stadium was huge and a great place to be as a fan!

From Colts Vs Jets

From Colts Vs Jets

From Colts Vs Jets

Here is the slide show of our day:

After watching some things online about Lego Stop motion, Ean and I decided to try our hand at it as well.

Here are some early screen tests that we worked up. I’m waiting for Ean’s Christmas table, which will have four of the green lego boards glued to the top to help reduce the movement on the table before we get any additional movies movies made. Ean learned that he didn’t have the patience to do a long movie because wants to move the guys immediately, instead of a step by step process.

What is even the most amazing part is that everything was free except my camera.

This was the first test using a webcam and a free software application:

Luke Skywalker Screen Test from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

Ean and I were playing with Star Wars Legos and decided to attempt some stop motion.

Second test using a multiple motion movements in it. Still using the webcam.

Hoth Attack from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

Han is returning from patrol and he loses control of his Tauntan and starts to run. Lo and behold a snowtrooper makes an appearance.

Next I get to play with with a better table, lighting, and maybe even sound effects.

Tried using our smaller digital camera, but the autofocus kept focusing on the legos in the back

Sword Play Test from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

I’m still playing with different camera settings to see if I can get it looking better. The camera was in autofocus and focused into the legos on the back of the table.

The first attempt at audio on our first small feature film. I used my Nikon in manual focus mode. The only downside is that there was no preview so it was harder to go back and see where everything was, so something would get out of focus or in the wrong location.

The Lost Son from Dylan McIntosh on Vimeo.

A fan made video made by Ean and Dylan to continue the story after Return of the Jedi.

I think in the end, I liked how the webcam part worked because I could preview and see where the images were before snapping it (even though I got a few hands in it). Keep an eye out for additional ones especially after Christmas of 09

April turned the Big 3-0 on Saturday. For a surprise, without her knowing, I took her up to the Southwest side of Chicago. She had a a night of shopping, a great dinner, a late viewing of “New Moon” and an all day shopping visit to Ikea (one of April’s favorite stores).

We stayed at the Aloft hotels in Boling Brook, IL and it is a very neat hotel. Our room looked like it was furnished by Ikea so it had some interesting furniture and a comforter that I wanted to take home.

We didn’t take alot of pictures, so there aren’t alot and some of them were from my iphone.

Happy Birthday, sweetie and I hope you had a great weekend! Wish it could have been longer.