Freekstorm VFX Blog

Well, the masterpiece (?!?!) is nearly complete and thankfully everything did come together at the last minute, despite my worries that we'd never get it all done in time. Hurrah! I'm not quite as bad a producer as I thought I was!

This little film has certainly been a steep learning curve for all of us. Whoever thought that a six minute movie short would take four intense months to create and would absorb so much time and energy? Not only was this our first movie, but it was our first experience with acting, script-writing, directing, producing, green-screening, compositing, editing, sound-recording, mixing and production.

Thanks to the cast and crew for all their hard work and their endless patience! Well done!

And lastly, no action packed movie is complete without its first Major Blooper!

So kudos to Assistant Director Sam for spotting the Bulbous Blooper during the final proof of the movie (literally just before the upload to the festival web site!) Cripes, we'd forgotten the main prop in the penultimate scene! Time for a last minute emergency re-shoot and audio revamp!

Nearly complete now, folks. Only a few days to go before viewing opens....

Only a few days? Yikes! Back to work...

Labels: DIAPP, producing

For new filmmakers, the first rule of camera blocking is “Never cross the line.”
But what exactly is “the line?” Your clueless producer sought clarification from the aforementioned filmmaker, and he was kind enough to assist with a little example.

At any particular instance the line is the to-and-fro between the current active characters. So yes, the line is about camera angles, but it’s fundamentally much more than that.



Have a look at the example above. When these two characters are talking, there is an invisible line which exists between them. This imaginary line gives visual continuity. If the camera moves across the line it causes the spatial relationship between the characters to change, which is very confusing for the viewer because it interrupts the visual flow and leads to viewer disorientation.

To use a simple example, if a character is on the right then they should STAY on the right through the different camera moves and despite different camera shots. If the character suddenly moves to the left, the viewer would then lose the relationship of where the characters are supposed to be, and would have to pause and mentally reset the line between the two characters before continuing with the movie. This basic error would prove to be very annoying for the viewer and must be avoided at all costs.

Crossing the line is therefore a huge faux-pas and is the mark of an amateur filmmaker It’s bad enough when this rule is broken with two characters, but the problem is compounded when you add more because the line shifts around constantly as the interchange between the characters also changes. It takes a skilled cameraman to figure out where to position the cameras, so that the line is not crossed at any point in the film.

If all this sounds horribly confusing (as it did for me) don’t panic! You have a way round this conundrum: Previs is your friend. Because you have extensively planned the character positions and camera angles before beginning shooting, you can eliminate this sort of basic mistake and concentrate on the rest of the movie. As the saying goes, “It pays to plan ahead. It wasn’t raining when Noah built the ark.”

Labels: filmmaking

In my last post I mentioned that much of Rich’s time was taken up doing horribly complicated technical stuff on the computer. It sure looked impressive but to be honest I had no clue at all what he was doing, other than it fell under the label of “previs.” As I’ve been allocated the rule of producer, I decided it was time for a bit more research.

For those of us who are unfamiliar with “previs” or “previz”, the term is short for “previsualisation” which is where scenes in a movie are extensively planned and visualized before the start of filming. The storyboard is effectively translated into artwork so that movie scenes and sequences can be meticulously planned in advance. The director can then experiment with different lighting and camera angles, and see which scenes work and which ones don’t, without having to waste costs on actual production.

Francis Ford Coppola was the first director to use previs techniques on his movie One From the Heart in 1981, although this was before the days of modern filmmaking software. Coppola and American Zoetrope designed a high-tech video-viewing centre which was housed in an Airsteam RV trailer which was called The Silverfish and which also came complete with pink interior and a hot-tub! The Silverfish was used as an audio support set and for capturing the pictures coming from the camera via a video tap. Story board artists had already been charged with drawing some 1800 drawings which were then shot and stored on an analog videodisk along with a reading of the script, where they could be instantly recalled when Coppola needed them. To this store was added extensive movie footage during the making of the film. Coppola would then examine the movie clips on video immediately after filming and use them to shape the next day's shooting. This was the first true “previs.”

But hurrah for technology! Nowadays, the process is somewhat easier.

Rich used Autodesk Softimage (formerly XSI) to previsualise his movie. He built a virtual set, inserted some virtual characters and used the static models to represent people so he could see the camera angles which were be required for particular scenes, and he could see which scenes worked, which didn’t and how to change them. So in effect, each scene from the movie was extensively planned even before he picked up the camera. Each scene was modelled in XSI and the original XSI simple models were used when fleshing out the concept, but these were then further refined to give the final CG output for compositing.



Our movie-short is CGI heavy (as all our movies will be) so most scenes were filmed against a green screen in our studio. Green-screened movies usually require previs (unless the director is a genius) because there are no visual props or clues at all and thus there is no physical frame of reference. Because the actors are working in an empty room (which is horrendously difficult to do, especially when your actors are kids) it helps if the whole thing has been meticulously planned in advance, so that the cast and crew have printed artwork to look at before each scene and they know where to move and what to do, and also where to position the camera and which angles and lighting to use.

Even with groovy software like XSI, Rich still struggled in places. For example, the most complex scene in the movie was the bridge scene, which had nine virtual cameras and involved very complex choreography, all performed against a green-screen backdrop. The previs allowed Rich to experiment with different options and see how each change affected future scenes. He could work out the correct scene cuts and play around with different scenarios before deciding which scenes worked best. He could then finalise his choices and print a final storyboard, which was important not only for the actors (who could look at printed examples from the previs in order to visualise out what was happening) but also so that Rich could work out the photography as well as making sure that the crew never crossed the line (I’ll be blogging about “the line” at a later date.)

Previs is undoubtedly the future of filmmaking, particularly when complex CGI and special effects are used. Mercifully, with the advancement of technology, we no longer have to resort to Coppola’s tedious and complicated methods in order to visualise and plan our movies. Modern filmmaking software now makes scenic previsualisation available to the indie filmmaker, allowing him to explore his creative vision in a flexible virtual environment at minimal cost.

Alas, XSI doesn’t come with a hot-tub though. I guess we indie filmmakers can’t have everything…

Labels: DIAPP, previs

Eeek!

We have three weeks to go before The DVX Fest deadline, and it looms before us like a big scary abyss, not unlike the bottomless cavern which features in our new, mega-awesome CGI movie extravaganza. Roll up! Roll up! We have princesses, we have heroes, we have oodles of big scary trolls…(near) death, glory and redemption …just what a good Quest-fest needs!

Yeah, yeah, you can tell we’re beginning to panic, eh? We’re less than three weeks away and we still haven’t finished shooting. AND because this is a CGI-heavy movie, I’d planned at least a month in post production. AND we’ve blown the budget, yet again. AND we haven’t even STARTED on the audio. AND the actors are having paranoid fits and declaring that they’re all terrible (why didn’t anyone tell me that producing a movie is primarily about massaging actors’ bruised egos?)

In fact, I think I’m rather struggling at this whole “producing” caboodle. It’s my first time, you know. I guess my mental state veers between “clueless” and trying to keep the cast and crew motivated. I have pinned a large sign to my wall with the slogan “KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON!” and I’m trying to follow that mantra. Although the whole movie seems to be in pieces at the moment, I’m hopeful that in around a week or two’s time, it will all miraculously and suddenly gel together. It has to! (As I said, blind optimism works for me right now.)


As of today, the only thing that IS definitely on track is the meticulously planned and executed CGI. I wish I could tell you the ins-and-outs about what Rich has been up to regarding the artwork, but it’s so horribly technical (see above) that it goes completely over my head. However, he has promised me that when the movie is over, he’s going to share some of the “how did I do that?” aspects, as well as some of the outtakes (which are paralytically funny, but I would say that because they’re my kids and I think they're incredibly cute.)

So, all in all, despite varying levels of panic from the Director and existential angst from the cast and crew, I am going to say something very Producer-like to my movie-making crew:

Remember, this is our very first movie! Winning isn’t important. No, not at all. Why? Because, we’re really doing it! We are making a movie!!! Do you realise how HARD that is? How few people actually do it? Just finishing will be a huge achievement!

So…

KEEP GOING GUYS!!!

Nearly there…

Labels: cast, producing, visual effects