Monday, 1 March 2010
How to Make a Big Stompy Robot!
About a week ago, Rich discovered a completely awesome short film about Big Stompy Robots and was consequently inspired to practice animating his own. For several days and nights I barely saw him, but today I eventually managed to drag him out for coffee and force him to tell me what exactly he was doing (in words of one syllable that a mere mortal like myself could actually understand):
Step 1: Rich went shopping for a Big Stompy Robot model which would be suitable for animation. He eventually chose a suitable Poser figure, exported it from Poser into Softimage and then broke apart the model into various body parts (poor little thing) that would need animating, eg feet, legs, thighs etc.
Step 2: He then rigged the model. Given that the model has a very unusual joint structure, it took quite a few attempts to make a rig that moved in a realistic motion. The final rig had only three controls: the main centre of gravity for the hips and a control for each foot. This allowed complete animation of movement. (Note for future: Rich intends to later animate the gun barrels and add rocket launchers. Personally I think he’s been playing too much Supreme Commander!)
Step 3: He then added a bump map to the model. This was created by doing a high pass filter in Photoshop on the texture map for the model.
Step4: This involved building a walk cycle animation, which caused lots of fun because Rich didn’t realise that he had put one of the feet on backwards! The result was that the leg moved in all three axis when he tried to animate it, so he had to break the model apart again and re-do the rigging in order to get it right.
Step 5: After animating the walk cycle, Rich loaded the model into the matchmoved footage of our ping pong table (from last time, if you recall) and finished the render. To add a bit of interaction to it, he added a model car (a Mercedes – they really do deserve to be stomped on) and enabled “hard body simulation” in Softimage. This allowed the car to react when the Big Stompy Robot walked into it.
So here’s the result:
Kinda cute, eh? I think it’s kinda dainty-of-foot for something that’s supposed to be so big and scary, so it’s obviously a girl robot. Let’s call her Tippitoes. In fact Tippitoes is so darn cute that I’m thinking of casting her in a future movie. More on that in due course...
Step 1: Rich went shopping for a Big Stompy Robot model which would be suitable for animation. He eventually chose a suitable Poser figure, exported it from Poser into Softimage and then broke apart the model into various body parts (poor little thing) that would need animating, eg feet, legs, thighs etc.
Step 2: He then rigged the model. Given that the model has a very unusual joint structure, it took quite a few attempts to make a rig that moved in a realistic motion. The final rig had only three controls: the main centre of gravity for the hips and a control for each foot. This allowed complete animation of movement. (Note for future: Rich intends to later animate the gun barrels and add rocket launchers. Personally I think he’s been playing too much Supreme Commander!)
Step 3: He then added a bump map to the model. This was created by doing a high pass filter in Photoshop on the texture map for the model.
Step4: This involved building a walk cycle animation, which caused lots of fun because Rich didn’t realise that he had put one of the feet on backwards! The result was that the leg moved in all three axis when he tried to animate it, so he had to break the model apart again and re-do the rigging in order to get it right.
Step 5: After animating the walk cycle, Rich loaded the model into the matchmoved footage of our ping pong table (from last time, if you recall) and finished the render. To add a bit of interaction to it, he added a model car (a Mercedes – they really do deserve to be stomped on) and enabled “hard body simulation” in Softimage. This allowed the car to react when the Big Stompy Robot walked into it.
So here’s the result:
Kinda cute, eh? I think it’s kinda dainty-of-foot for something that’s supposed to be so big and scary, so it’s obviously a girl robot. Let’s call her Tippitoes. In fact Tippitoes is so darn cute that I’m thinking of casting her in a future movie. More on that in due course...
Labels: test, tutorial, visual effects
Thursday, 18 February 2010
The Great Garage Experiment: Part 2
Does anyone remember Part 1 of the Great Garage Experiment from a few weeks ago? No we hadn't forgotten about this gripping VFX project, but the day-job work has been hampering our efforts somewhat, so it has taken Rich slightly longer than usual to complete his experiment.
This time the objective was to matchmove the 3D model of the garage (which we prepared last time, if you recall) into the real world - and to do it convincingly. Alas we never did manage to get any decent footage of a real road (weather and moaning kids did not permit) so...erm...we used footage of our very own table tennis table. Yeah, yeah, I know you don't see too many real garages located on ping-pong tables, but the proof of concept is the same - combining real world and CG so that you can't tell the difference.
The process for aligning the garage on the table was to photograph an HDRI globe (big shiny silver ball – purchased from local garden centre - no expense spared) so that we could capture the environmental lighting of the table and then use image-based lighting for the render. This was so that the lighting and colouring of the render matched the table. The next stage was to put some tracking markers (in this case ping-pong balls) and shoot the video that we wanted to use with a camera on a dolly.
Next we loaded the footage from the camera into SynthEyes and we tracked the ping pong balls so that we obtained a virtual camera which matched the real one. The output of Syntheyes was then loaded into Softimage so that we had a virtual camera in Softimage that matched movement of the camera in the real world. We then loaded in the garage model and positioned it appropriately on the virtual table. We created two render passes, one image based lighting (IBL) and one ambient occlusion (AO). This completed the rendering portion of the experiment.
We then moved to Adobe After Effects CS4 for the compositing stage and we loaded the original camera footage and our two render passes. This gave us three layers. At the bottom we had the original camera footage, overlaid on that was the IBL pass which contained the colour and shadows, and finally on top of all of that was the AO which contained the overall brightness and darkness of parts of the model. After adjusting the various levels of each layer and adding a noise overlay, it was ready for final output:
Personally, I think the result is pretty darn realistic, don't you? Now what would be really cool is if the little toy car on the left there (which is real) would drive itself up into the garage and park itself. The resident visual effects artiste tells me that he is working on it. Stay tuned...
This time the objective was to matchmove the 3D model of the garage (which we prepared last time, if you recall) into the real world - and to do it convincingly. Alas we never did manage to get any decent footage of a real road (weather and moaning kids did not permit) so...erm...we used footage of our very own table tennis table. Yeah, yeah, I know you don't see too many real garages located on ping-pong tables, but the proof of concept is the same - combining real world and CG so that you can't tell the difference.
The process for aligning the garage on the table was to photograph an HDRI globe (big shiny silver ball – purchased from local garden centre - no expense spared) so that we could capture the environmental lighting of the table and then use image-based lighting for the render. This was so that the lighting and colouring of the render matched the table. The next stage was to put some tracking markers (in this case ping-pong balls) and shoot the video that we wanted to use with a camera on a dolly.
Next we loaded the footage from the camera into SynthEyes and we tracked the ping pong balls so that we obtained a virtual camera which matched the real one. The output of Syntheyes was then loaded into Softimage so that we had a virtual camera in Softimage that matched movement of the camera in the real world. We then loaded in the garage model and positioned it appropriately on the virtual table. We created two render passes, one image based lighting (IBL) and one ambient occlusion (AO). This completed the rendering portion of the experiment.
We then moved to Adobe After Effects CS4 for the compositing stage and we loaded the original camera footage and our two render passes. This gave us three layers. At the bottom we had the original camera footage, overlaid on that was the IBL pass which contained the colour and shadows, and finally on top of all of that was the AO which contained the overall brightness and darkness of parts of the model. After adjusting the various levels of each layer and adding a noise overlay, it was ready for final output:
Personally, I think the result is pretty darn realistic, don't you? Now what would be really cool is if the little toy car on the left there (which is real) would drive itself up into the garage and park itself. The resident visual effects artiste tells me that he is working on it. Stay tuned...
Labels: matchmoving, visual effects
Friday, 15 January 2010
Face Tracking Test
Resources: SynthEyes, Softimage, After Effects, camera, sticky dots + willing victim.
This was an experiment to practice object tracking to see if I could effectively match move Mervyn the Monster’s head onto a real human head (many thanks to Michael, who bravely volunteered for this task.)
First I put tracking markers on Michael’s head. These were simple sticky red paper dots that you can buy from any stationery store. The dots were specifically positioned on his head so that they wouldn’t move relative to each other. Then I filmed him moving his head around.
The next step was to transfer footage to SynthEyes and perform an object-based match move on the markers. This results in all of the markers being treated as part of the solid object and the output from SynthEyes is the movement in that object. I then took the results of the match move and loaded it into Softimage. This gives you a virtual camera that sees the object move in 3D in the same way as it does on film. You then load in the object that you want to composite onto your footage, which in our case was the large chunk of Mervyn’s head. I created a mask that hid the part of Mervyn’s head that I didn’t want to be visible and then rendered out the sequence. Finally I composited it into Adobe After Effects which produced the final output.
Voilà! Boy and Monster are as one!
The total time taken for this was around six hours. Please note that I didn’t make any effort to ensure the cut-out of Mervyn’s head fit cleanly, so the match move isn’t perfect. This was a proof of concept – and it worked! Next time I will do better!
This was an experiment to practice object tracking to see if I could effectively match move Mervyn the Monster’s head onto a real human head (many thanks to Michael, who bravely volunteered for this task.)
First I put tracking markers on Michael’s head. These were simple sticky red paper dots that you can buy from any stationery store. The dots were specifically positioned on his head so that they wouldn’t move relative to each other. Then I filmed him moving his head around.
The next step was to transfer footage to SynthEyes and perform an object-based match move on the markers. This results in all of the markers being treated as part of the solid object and the output from SynthEyes is the movement in that object. I then took the results of the match move and loaded it into Softimage. This gives you a virtual camera that sees the object move in 3D in the same way as it does on film. You then load in the object that you want to composite onto your footage, which in our case was the large chunk of Mervyn’s head. I created a mask that hid the part of Mervyn’s head that I didn’t want to be visible and then rendered out the sequence. Finally I composited it into Adobe After Effects which produced the final output.
Voilà! Boy and Monster are as one!
The total time taken for this was around six hours. Please note that I didn’t make any effort to ensure the cut-out of Mervyn’s head fit cleanly, so the match move isn’t perfect. This was a proof of concept – and it worked! Next time I will do better!
Labels: test, visual effects
Friday, 20 November 2009
New Freekstorm Web Site
Welcome to our new look web site! Rather fabulous isn’t it?
Humungous thanks to Rich who has spent a huge amount of his spare time beavering away to make it look all shiny and sparkly. Not that the old web site wasn’t...erm...groovy, but it wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes. Freekstorm now has a glossier, more professional feel, which is good news as we’re tentatively planning for it to become part of our day-job one day. Yup, it’s a crazy idea (especially in the middle of a recession) but we love making VFX movies that much!
As time goes on we will be adding more to the web site, not only our indie films but also tutorials (visual and written) and we may even...pause for dramatic drum roll...decide to make an actual indie computer game or two (we’re talking far distant future though – dreams are wonderful things!)
As for me, your trusty writer, I’ll be waffling away on the blog and Twitter. I’m intending to chronicle how we actually make our indie films and discuss everything we learn as we go along – yes, including the many mistakes we make along the way. I am also working on a series of articles about indie VFX filmmaking for fellow newbies, including advice, tips and resources for other folks who are crazy enough to want to do this too.
Rich and I are both really excited about our new adventure! There’s a whole new world to explore out there: so much to learn, so much to share. We hope you will join us on our new quest-fest for knowledge and enlightenment in the Fine Art of Filmmaking.
Humungous thanks to Rich who has spent a huge amount of his spare time beavering away to make it look all shiny and sparkly. Not that the old web site wasn’t...erm...groovy, but it wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes. Freekstorm now has a glossier, more professional feel, which is good news as we’re tentatively planning for it to become part of our day-job one day. Yup, it’s a crazy idea (especially in the middle of a recession) but we love making VFX movies that much!
As time goes on we will be adding more to the web site, not only our indie films but also tutorials (visual and written) and we may even...pause for dramatic drum roll...decide to make an actual indie computer game or two (we’re talking far distant future though – dreams are wonderful things!)
As for me, your trusty writer, I’ll be waffling away on the blog and Twitter. I’m intending to chronicle how we actually make our indie films and discuss everything we learn as we go along – yes, including the many mistakes we make along the way. I am also working on a series of articles about indie VFX filmmaking for fellow newbies, including advice, tips and resources for other folks who are crazy enough to want to do this too.
Rich and I are both really excited about our new adventure! There’s a whole new world to explore out there: so much to learn, so much to share. We hope you will join us on our new quest-fest for knowledge and enlightenment in the Fine Art of Filmmaking.
"Quest is at the heart of what I do -
the holy grail, and the terror that you'll never find it,
seemed a perfect metaphor for life."
the holy grail, and the terror that you'll never find it,
seemed a perfect metaphor for life."
(Jeanette Winterson)
Labels: filmmaking, visual effects
Saturday, 24 October 2009
Acid Pro 7 does not work on 64 bit
The title of this post says it all.
We have a week to go to the movie festival deadline. We are now on the final lap, and Rich was all set to do the sound this weekend. It's only a short film, so we were confident that the sound wouldn't take too long. Needless to say, our confidence was misplaced.
Unfortunately, it appears that Acid Pro 7 does not work on 64 bit PC’s. The program crashes constantly and it changes the playback speed of audio files, so the timing is inconsistent. Sony says Acid Pro 7 is Vista 64 Compatible, and we purchased the software a while ago on that basis. Now we discover that Sony does not guarantee stability on 64 bit. My opinion on this is quite vocal and unprintable here. Suffice to say, we wasted a lot of money on software which doesn’t work. Sony needs to fix Acid Pro 7c and issue a new version 7d with a specific Vista 64 bit driver. Our guess is that Sony won’t bother fixing this problem until v.8, then they can fleece customers for an upgrade charge.
However, our more immediate problem is: OMG! Our movie has no sound! We’re doomed, DOOMED, I tell you!!!
Solution: Rich is now trying Adobe Audition 3 on the 30 day trial. So far the signs are good (apart from the small problem that we can't afford it.)
Welcome to the uphill struggle that is “making an indie VFX movie.”
Filming the movie is the easy part. It’s battling the bloody software that causes the headaches.
Time to put up our resident British motivational sign, methinks.
Hey, didn't we do this last time?
We have a week to go to the movie festival deadline. We are now on the final lap, and Rich was all set to do the sound this weekend. It's only a short film, so we were confident that the sound wouldn't take too long. Needless to say, our confidence was misplaced.
Unfortunately, it appears that Acid Pro 7 does not work on 64 bit PC’s. The program crashes constantly and it changes the playback speed of audio files, so the timing is inconsistent. Sony says Acid Pro 7 is Vista 64 Compatible, and we purchased the software a while ago on that basis. Now we discover that Sony does not guarantee stability on 64 bit. My opinion on this is quite vocal and unprintable here. Suffice to say, we wasted a lot of money on software which doesn’t work. Sony needs to fix Acid Pro 7c and issue a new version 7d with a specific Vista 64 bit driver. Our guess is that Sony won’t bother fixing this problem until v.8, then they can fleece customers for an upgrade charge.
However, our more immediate problem is: OMG! Our movie has no sound! We’re doomed, DOOMED, I tell you!!!
Solution: Rich is now trying Adobe Audition 3 on the 30 day trial. So far the signs are good (apart from the small problem that we can't afford it.)
Welcome to the uphill struggle that is “making an indie VFX movie.”
Filming the movie is the easy part. It’s battling the bloody software that causes the headaches.
Time to put up our resident British motivational sign, methinks.
Hey, didn't we do this last time?
Labels: problems, visual effects
Saturday, 10 October 2009
Monstrous Moments
After several weeks of filming, including two marathon eleven-hour-straight-shoots, we’ve finally finished the shooting part of the movie. Hurrah! Our young thespian actors performed magnificently! Indeed, they acted their little socks off, and we’re mighty proud of both of them!
Looking good so far....so over to the Visual Effects Department for a week or so of planned and prepared CGI and hey presto, the movie is finished!
Aren’t theories grand?
Of course it all went horribly wrong. This time the scriptwriter is DEFINITELY NOT to blame, thank goodness. Let’s just say we hit a few technical issues...
Well it all started with the release of Softimage 2010, which Rich had been wittering on about for months. He was really excited because not only would the new version of Softimage be smoother, faster, cooler and whizzier than the old version 7.5 that he was using before, but it also included the apparently-totally-amazing Autodesk Face Robot...free of charge. Yep....thousands of pounds-worth of cutting-edge software, totally FREE!
Woo hoo! Finally Rich could animate Mervyn The Monster so that Merv could do something other than just sit there and look handsome. We even delayed the start of production until mid-September so we could wait for the release of the latest version. So it was with no small amount of anticipation that our trusty director loaded Mervyn into the new software and began the horribly complicated task of rigging and animation.
As my daughter likes to say, “Oh disaster! Oh calamity!” (we’re a tad dramatic in this house I’m afraid.) To cut a very long (and incredibly technical) story short, the new 2010 version of Softimage has proved to be totally unstable. Several weeks' work has been lost, and for a horrible couple of days, we actually thought we would have to abandon the movie altogether.
The first problem became apparent when Rich discovered that the new 2010 file format was incompatible with the old version 7.5. Apparently the new 2010 version could load the old v7.5 files, but it saved them in an updated format so that you could not load them again in 7.5. Upgrading was a one-way trip. The second problem was that the 2010 version was completely unstable. So many things caused it to crash that it rapidly became totally unusable.
Face Robot was also totally useless. Mervyn’s mesh was so complicated that it just crashed the software all the time, resulting in huge amounts of frustration (and that’s an understatement, by the way.) Rich has now scrubbed the whole lot and has been forced to go back to version 7.5 and the original Mervyn he designed a few weeks ago.
This Producer estimates we have lost around two weeks' solid work and a great deal of money has been wasted because of this truly crappy software, and production has been severely delayed. We will be lucky to make the 30th October deadline.
The Director and Producer were sitting contemplating their woes over coffee this morning. They remembered that movie-making was supposed to be an enjoyable and relaxing hobby.
Whoever thought having fun could be so darn stressful?
Rich, makin' Merv
Looking good so far....so over to the Visual Effects Department for a week or so of planned and prepared CGI and hey presto, the movie is finished!
Aren’t theories grand?
Of course it all went horribly wrong. This time the scriptwriter is DEFINITELY NOT to blame, thank goodness. Let’s just say we hit a few technical issues...
Well it all started with the release of Softimage 2010, which Rich had been wittering on about for months. He was really excited because not only would the new version of Softimage be smoother, faster, cooler and whizzier than the old version 7.5 that he was using before, but it also included the apparently-totally-amazing Autodesk Face Robot...free of charge. Yep....thousands of pounds-worth of cutting-edge software, totally FREE!
Woo hoo! Finally Rich could animate Mervyn The Monster so that Merv could do something other than just sit there and look handsome. We even delayed the start of production until mid-September so we could wait for the release of the latest version. So it was with no small amount of anticipation that our trusty director loaded Mervyn into the new software and began the horribly complicated task of rigging and animation.
As my daughter likes to say, “Oh disaster! Oh calamity!” (we’re a tad dramatic in this house I’m afraid.) To cut a very long (and incredibly technical) story short, the new 2010 version of Softimage has proved to be totally unstable. Several weeks' work has been lost, and for a horrible couple of days, we actually thought we would have to abandon the movie altogether.
The first problem became apparent when Rich discovered that the new 2010 file format was incompatible with the old version 7.5. Apparently the new 2010 version could load the old v7.5 files, but it saved them in an updated format so that you could not load them again in 7.5. Upgrading was a one-way trip. The second problem was that the 2010 version was completely unstable. So many things caused it to crash that it rapidly became totally unusable.
Face Robot was also totally useless. Mervyn’s mesh was so complicated that it just crashed the software all the time, resulting in huge amounts of frustration (and that’s an understatement, by the way.) Rich has now scrubbed the whole lot and has been forced to go back to version 7.5 and the original Mervyn he designed a few weeks ago.
This Producer estimates we have lost around two weeks' solid work and a great deal of money has been wasted because of this truly crappy software, and production has been severely delayed. We will be lucky to make the 30th October deadline.
The Director and Producer were sitting contemplating their woes over coffee this morning. They remembered that movie-making was supposed to be an enjoyable and relaxing hobby.
Whoever thought having fun could be so darn stressful?
Rich, makin' Merv
Labels: autodesk, visual effects
Thursday, 20 August 2009
Busy, Busy, Busy
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.
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…
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…
The legendary Mr Ikon and his trusty sidekick Coppertop on a mission to build the perfect Barbie doll. A doll barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild her. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic Barbie...with the help of the cat of course.
Success! Even if it won't work without Bang's Patented Bionic Bungee Technology!
Labels: Diabolus Domi, producing, visual effects
Saturday, 6 June 2009
The Vertical Learning Curve
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
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
Saturday, 18 April 2009
Visual Effects For Directors
The lastest Hollywood Camera Work tutorial DVD's are now out. They specialise in special video effects. Watched the trailer, want the DVD's.
I have the Camera Blocking course and its fantastic so this should be really good.
Apparently it took 4 years to produce.
Hopefully, with my birthday not too far off I might get lucky :)
You can read more here
I have the Camera Blocking course and its fantastic so this should be really good.
Apparently it took 4 years to produce.
Hopefully, with my birthday not too far off I might get lucky :)
You can read more here
Labels: visual effects
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Freekstorm on Facebook
Links
- DVXUser
- Effects Corner
- Visual FX Blog
- Lux Visual Effects Blog
- VFX Talk
- Visual Effects Society
- CG Society
- The Smalls
- Indy Mogul
- Filmmaker Blog
- All About Indie Filmmaking
- Living the Romantic Comedy
- Truly Free Film
Archives
- December 2008
- January 2009
- April 2009
- May 2009
- June 2009
- July 2009
- August 2009
- September 2009
- October 2009
- November 2009
- December 2009
- January 2010
- February 2010
- March 2010
RSS Subscribe