Freekstorm VFX Blog

Work on our new little movie for the DVX Monster Fest continues apace, squeezed in tiny gaps between running the day-job, looking after three boisterous kids on their school summer holidays and managing house & home.

The script was written over a champagne-fuelled brainstorming session (champers discovered lurking at back of grubby office cupboard, courtesy of happy customer last year.) I’m not saying it was brilliant (the script I mean – the champers was very nice) but no doubt the plot will change and grow slowly over time (sorta like a fungus I suppose) as Rich decides how it needs to be modified to fit in with the CGI monster, whom I’ve called “Mervyn” because…well…he’s just a Mervyn kinda guy. Just look at those big scary eyes on the banner below. Doesn’t it scream “Merv” to you? Yep, exactly.

Incidentally, the title took hours to sort out – my Latin is atrox (terrible), and that’s a huge understatement! I wanted to call the movie the Latin equivalent of “monster in the house” but there was no exact translation and the nearest alternative wasn’t exactly snappy, if you catch my drift. Hence “Diabolus Domi,” literal translation “Devil at Home.” The movie does what it says on the tin, and I’ll leave it at that. To give away any more would reveal too much.

Producing wise, I’ve been buying CGI software (gulp!) and creepy foley sound effects (double gulp!) which will come in handy for scaring the kids late at night if they misbehave (kidding of course, but they don’t know that – hey, it’s been a long summer holiday and their mother is getting desperate – any morally dubious parenting device to reassert authority comes in handy! Whatever works, you know?)

I’ve also been dispensing coffee, enthusiasm and soothing the Director’s sweaty brow as he has agonised over his “ambient occlusion,” which sounds kinda kinky but apparently is the slight shadow produced where Mervyn the monster touches objects – makes ol’ Merv look like he’s really in the room rather than just pasted there. Impressive stuff, but waaaay over my head.

Rich has also been deeply immersed in designing and animating the monster. No small task, but our resident CGI artist has risen magnificently to the occasion and Merv is looking very impressive. Rich is using a combination of Mudbox and Softimage (which cost an absolute fortune – sob- but the results are definitely worth it and Autodesk sure love us.) Now all he’s got to do is get Mervyn moving, and then it’s on to filming…

To that end he has also been designing a camera dolly made out of glue, plastic pipe, castor-cups and old roller-skates (we more-than-blew our budget on the software, so it’s a Mr Maker DIY dolly, I’m afraid.) Yep, that’s my hubby: a true creative! He can make something amazing out of nothing and it’s always a success (shame the bathroom taps still leak terribly, but we can’t have everything.)

Anyhoo, my five year old daughter was tremendously excited about her Daddy making her a dolly for her movie, and watched her father’s artistic efforts with much fascination and daughterly devotion. So imagine how gutted the poor thing was when she found out that the finished dolly wasn’t called Barbie and didn’t wear a frilly pink dress. Talk about confusion.

You try explaining movie-making to five year-olds. They just look at you as though you’re nuts.

Trouble is, they’re almost certainly right…