This past Monday we went into the new Darkhouse Productions studio (visit Darkhouseonline.com) and recorded the final three vocal performances for the movie. Darkhouse is a company co-founded by our producer, Andy Carlson, which specializes in audio recording, mixing and mastering for bands and vocal talent.
In other news, Lipsync's Mimic is becoming more of a curse than a blessing. It's voice recognition ability is fairly simple and rarely gets the lip movements to match the spoken word. For this latest scene I ended up becoming so frustrated with it that I went back to the old Raven / Raven 2 way of manually doing the lip sync using Poser's phoneme library. Time consuming, yes... but for this instance it produced more accurate results.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Monday, May 8, 2006
Full Speed Ahead
Despite the lack of updates to the Production Journal, animation on the movie is progressing at a good clip. There are two short sequences left to do that will act as a bridge between two lengthy sections of the film; once they are completed I will have a uninterrupted seven minutes that I can farm out to my music and sound guys for their analysis. It's exciting to see the movie's narrative start to emerge.
Co-producer/post audio supervisor/casting director Andy has scheduled a recording session for the final three voice parts this Thursday. Once I've got them, I'm anxious to begin work on a flashback sequence that I intend to model on the aesthetic of the Universal films.
More as it happens...
Co-producer/post audio supervisor/casting director Andy has scheduled a recording session for the final three voice parts this Thursday. Once I've got them, I'm anxious to begin work on a flashback sequence that I intend to model on the aesthetic of the Universal films.
More as it happens...
Wednesday, April 5, 2006
Restructuring the Workflow
Still working on the aforementioned animation sequence; its looking pretty good. There's a special effect involved now, a lit torch weilded by the Monster. I'm using Panopticum Fire in After Effects and tackling it by producing the shots in layers.
The couple of days ago I decided that the storage space issue needed to be resolved before things went too much farther. I've been producing by taking the PSD frame files from Poser and converting them into uncompressed AVIs. These resultant files are huge, and add to that the fact that I'm producing four versions of the movie (left eye, right eye, anaglyph, interlaced). I am working with an 80GB storage drive and the space available was no longer efficient.
So, I did some investigation and decided to recompress the footage with a lossless video codec - in this case Huffyuv. In the process, I took a look at the completed footage and did some more tweaking. I've never been happy with the look of the opening scene of the film, as it looks very Poser-ish. It takes place during broad daylight and there's no room for any mood lighting. Everything is very bright and sterile.
But not anymore. I went back and color corrected the hell out of not only the opening scene, but also a couple of other sequences later in the film, brining them more in line with the lighting schemes present in surrounding scenes.
Now that I have the left and right eye video files at a more manageable level, I've been re-evaluating the post-production 3D process as well. My original idea was to produce four different versions of each shot, but give them all the same name and store them in seperate folders. I would edit the left eye version in Premiere Pro, then export the finished movie directly to DVD compliant MPEG 2. Following that, I would load the anaglyph version - since the clips bear the same name, all the edits would be kept intact - and render that out, and so on.
After doing some tests with some After Effects plugins (including one made just for this purpose, called 3D Glasses), my new strategy is to have only two versions of the movie on my HD at any given time, the right and left eye versions. Once the edit is finished, I'll create full Huffyuv encoded right & left streams and combine them in After Effects. From there I can produce both anaglyph and interlaced composite MPEG 2 files for DVD distribution.
I'm also leaning towards Windows Media 9 for all video downloads and trailers that will eventually be available from this site.
The biggest downside I've seen this week is my inability to get an anaglyph version of the movie that will work well on NTSC television sets. All test versions produced work extremely well on a computer monitor, but end up producing a substantial amount of ghosting when played back on a TV. Hopefully, the anaglyph will test well on a front projection system. But right now it seems like the optimal way to see the movie in 3D on your TV is via the field sequential shutterglass version, and on your computer via the anaglyph version.
The couple of days ago I decided that the storage space issue needed to be resolved before things went too much farther. I've been producing by taking the PSD frame files from Poser and converting them into uncompressed AVIs. These resultant files are huge, and add to that the fact that I'm producing four versions of the movie (left eye, right eye, anaglyph, interlaced). I am working with an 80GB storage drive and the space available was no longer efficient.
So, I did some investigation and decided to recompress the footage with a lossless video codec - in this case Huffyuv. In the process, I took a look at the completed footage and did some more tweaking. I've never been happy with the look of the opening scene of the film, as it looks very Poser-ish. It takes place during broad daylight and there's no room for any mood lighting. Everything is very bright and sterile.
But not anymore. I went back and color corrected the hell out of not only the opening scene, but also a couple of other sequences later in the film, brining them more in line with the lighting schemes present in surrounding scenes.
Now that I have the left and right eye video files at a more manageable level, I've been re-evaluating the post-production 3D process as well. My original idea was to produce four different versions of each shot, but give them all the same name and store them in seperate folders. I would edit the left eye version in Premiere Pro, then export the finished movie directly to DVD compliant MPEG 2. Following that, I would load the anaglyph version - since the clips bear the same name, all the edits would be kept intact - and render that out, and so on.
After doing some tests with some After Effects plugins (including one made just for this purpose, called 3D Glasses), my new strategy is to have only two versions of the movie on my HD at any given time, the right and left eye versions. Once the edit is finished, I'll create full Huffyuv encoded right & left streams and combine them in After Effects. From there I can produce both anaglyph and interlaced composite MPEG 2 files for DVD distribution.
I'm also leaning towards Windows Media 9 for all video downloads and trailers that will eventually be available from this site.
The biggest downside I've seen this week is my inability to get an anaglyph version of the movie that will work well on NTSC television sets. All test versions produced work extremely well on a computer monitor, but end up producing a substantial amount of ghosting when played back on a TV. Hopefully, the anaglyph will test well on a front projection system. But right now it seems like the optimal way to see the movie in 3D on your TV is via the field sequential shutterglass version, and on your computer via the anaglyph version.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
I'm Not Dead
Yep, lo and behold, I am still alive. I took a break for the December holidays and couldn't work myself up to come back to the painstaking process of animation. But now, at long last, I hope to make a return to the project.
I wish I could report more, but truth is I'm still working on that same chase sequence. Our heroine, Leeta, has been cornered in a sinkhole by the Wolfman and is about to meet the Frankenstein Monster and his Golden Retreiver, Yip. Action scenes, as I'm sure I've stated before, are my bete noir. They require multiple setups, each only seconds long, and take forever. I'm much more comfortable laying out lengthy dialogue sequences, where the focus is mostly on camera placement and character staging.
Andy has been working 'round the clock building a storefront recording studio, the first tentpole in the Darkhouse Productions umbrella. As such, he's been unable to get time to edit down the remaining character voice tracks. Unfortunately, two supporting characters who appear in numerous scenes are included in that batch... which forces me to work on the action sequences.
Thankfully, along with Spring comes the start of festival submission season - and although I have nothing ready for prime-time this year, I need to get cracking on this sucker in order to have something ready for next year!
Stay tuned ...
I wish I could report more, but truth is I'm still working on that same chase sequence. Our heroine, Leeta, has been cornered in a sinkhole by the Wolfman and is about to meet the Frankenstein Monster and his Golden Retreiver, Yip. Action scenes, as I'm sure I've stated before, are my bete noir. They require multiple setups, each only seconds long, and take forever. I'm much more comfortable laying out lengthy dialogue sequences, where the focus is mostly on camera placement and character staging.
Andy has been working 'round the clock building a storefront recording studio, the first tentpole in the Darkhouse Productions umbrella. As such, he's been unable to get time to edit down the remaining character voice tracks. Unfortunately, two supporting characters who appear in numerous scenes are included in that batch... which forces me to work on the action sequences.
Thankfully, along with Spring comes the start of festival submission season - and although I have nothing ready for prime-time this year, I need to get cracking on this sucker in order to have something ready for next year!
Stay tuned ...
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Missed Anniversary
Well, I was looking back on this log and discovered that I had missed the one year anniversary of the start of production, which would have been December 4th. I wish I could report more progress in that time, but I can't say that I've been working non-stop for the entire period either.
The timeline on the movie now stands at 9min 11sec of completed footage, and I'm still expecting it to clock in around 20-25 min in length when completed. I'm still working on the first chase sequence in the film, the one that introduces us to the Wolfman. There was a moment that called for a splash of water, and I am still not comfortable around post production particle effects (and I have no idea how to pull them off within Poser). Instead, I opted to use a bunch of minature 3D balls, made translucent and shiny, to replicate the effect. It's not great, but it works.
In 3-D movie news, there's a remake of Night of the Living Dead in 3-D on the horizon. You can visit the website here at nightofthelivingdead3d.com, where they've posted a 3-D photo gallery you can view with your red/blue 3-D glasses. As the project was filmed using a system developed by Dimension 3, the red lens of the glasses has to be over the right eye in order for the effect to work.
The timeline on the movie now stands at 9min 11sec of completed footage, and I'm still expecting it to clock in around 20-25 min in length when completed. I'm still working on the first chase sequence in the film, the one that introduces us to the Wolfman. There was a moment that called for a splash of water, and I am still not comfortable around post production particle effects (and I have no idea how to pull them off within Poser). Instead, I opted to use a bunch of minature 3D balls, made translucent and shiny, to replicate the effect. It's not great, but it works.
In 3-D movie news, there's a remake of Night of the Living Dead in 3-D on the horizon. You can visit the website here at nightofthelivingdead3d.com, where they've posted a 3-D photo gallery you can view with your red/blue 3-D glasses. As the project was filmed using a system developed by Dimension 3, the red lens of the glasses has to be over the right eye in order for the effect to work.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Universal Pictures Homage
Hope all of you U.S. visitors had a Happy Thanksgiving. I indulged in so many left-over Thanksgiving dinners over the past couple of days I fear I will never be able to eat again.
I've only recently been able to see the complete series of Universal Frankenstein movies. I had only really seen the original and the Bride of Frankenstein. Last year I picked up the Frankenstein Legacy Collection DVD set and finally sat down to watch all of them. They kind of go to seed from Ghost of Frankenstein on, but Son of Frankenstein, with it's great Expressionist sets and long shadows, is visually a neat experience.
One of the things I love about those movies (and this applies to the Wolf Man movies as well) is the use of gargantuan indoor stages to create outdoor environments. To see it produces a surreal effect, as if the movies take place in some kind of Gothic fantasy land and not necessarily our reality. I used to think this was done on purpose by the filmmakers, but I recently came across an interview with James Whale, in which he proclaimed a realistic interpretation of the story, and that it took place in the modern (1931) world!
Intentional or not, the effect is something that I was hoping to design into Frankenstein vs the Wolfman as a bit of homage to those classic films. Again, the movie I'm making is not a sequel or in any way related to the Universal films (the characters of the Frankenstein Monster and The Wolfman are quite different than those established by Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr), but I thought it would be nice to acknowledge the inspiration.
I've just completed a couple of quick shots that mirror a moment in Bride of Frankenstein - Leeta, being chased by the Wolfman, runs through an artificial forest of tree trunks, with a large cyclorama of a cloudy sky serving as the backdrop - just like Karloff all those years ago. 
I've only recently been able to see the complete series of Universal Frankenstein movies. I had only really seen the original and the Bride of Frankenstein. Last year I picked up the Frankenstein Legacy Collection DVD set and finally sat down to watch all of them. They kind of go to seed from Ghost of Frankenstein on, but Son of Frankenstein, with it's great Expressionist sets and long shadows, is visually a neat experience.
One of the things I love about those movies (and this applies to the Wolf Man movies as well) is the use of gargantuan indoor stages to create outdoor environments. To see it produces a surreal effect, as if the movies take place in some kind of Gothic fantasy land and not necessarily our reality. I used to think this was done on purpose by the filmmakers, but I recently came across an interview with James Whale, in which he proclaimed a realistic interpretation of the story, and that it took place in the modern (1931) world!
Intentional or not, the effect is something that I was hoping to design into Frankenstein vs the Wolfman as a bit of homage to those classic films. Again, the movie I'm making is not a sequel or in any way related to the Universal films (the characters of the Frankenstein Monster and The Wolfman are quite different than those established by Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney, Jr), but I thought it would be nice to acknowledge the inspiration.
I've just completed a couple of quick shots that mirror a moment in Bride of Frankenstein - Leeta, being chased by the Wolfman, runs through an artificial forest of tree trunks, with a large cyclorama of a cloudy sky serving as the backdrop - just like Karloff all those years ago.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Returning to Work
Ok, I'm lying. I haven't returned to work... but I plan to return to work.
I haven't done anything on the movie for the past 3 months. I consider this time a vacation - some time away to get some perspective on how things are going. I've rewatched the existing footage multiple times in that period, and screened it for friends. I expected to be happier with the results than I have been, and I've been trying to get a lock on the problem.
My biggest complaint lies in the visual look of the film. It's very bland. Part of this is due to the constraints of working with 3D. You are restricted in how much you move the camera, and especially on how you angle the camera. Tilt shots are difficult, if not impossible, because they throw off the vertical registration of the stereo image.
The second hurdle is the lighting, again dictated by the 3D process. I'm trying to design the movie towards whichever format the most people are going to see it in. We know that the field sequential 3D version is probably going to be seen by the smallest group, so that leaves either the red/blue anaglyph 3D version or the 2D version as the one which will get the most exposure. If most people's experience with the 3D version will be anaglyph, then I find I have to over-light my scenes in order for everything to show up in detail all the way back into the frame.
By over-lighting everything, I'm losing the moody, shadowy look I had on RAVEN 2. Even the night scenes here are brightly lit.
There's also an issue with the speed of the action. When animating, I find it difficult to accurately judge how the speed of something will look when the clip is finished. I've been spending some time going through the assembly edit doing some fine cutting, and have changed the speed of some slow action in the fight scenes to make things a bit more natural and exciting. However, since we're eventually going to be dealing with an interlaced version of the film, I'm concerned that those clips that have been sped up will contain flickering artifacts in the field sequential version.
So, I'm warming myself up for a return to production (hopefully by this weekend) by designing a new main title sequence. The old one was kind of dull, so this new one takes the basic concept and spices it up a bit.
I also took the opportunity to back up a bunch of the raw video files that were sitting on my crowded hard drive, in order to free up more production space. I'm filling a small stack of DVD-Rs with the stuff.
More as it happens...
I haven't done anything on the movie for the past 3 months. I consider this time a vacation - some time away to get some perspective on how things are going. I've rewatched the existing footage multiple times in that period, and screened it for friends. I expected to be happier with the results than I have been, and I've been trying to get a lock on the problem.
My biggest complaint lies in the visual look of the film. It's very bland. Part of this is due to the constraints of working with 3D. You are restricted in how much you move the camera, and especially on how you angle the camera. Tilt shots are difficult, if not impossible, because they throw off the vertical registration of the stereo image.
The second hurdle is the lighting, again dictated by the 3D process. I'm trying to design the movie towards whichever format the most people are going to see it in. We know that the field sequential 3D version is probably going to be seen by the smallest group, so that leaves either the red/blue anaglyph 3D version or the 2D version as the one which will get the most exposure. If most people's experience with the 3D version will be anaglyph, then I find I have to over-light my scenes in order for everything to show up in detail all the way back into the frame.
By over-lighting everything, I'm losing the moody, shadowy look I had on RAVEN 2. Even the night scenes here are brightly lit.
There's also an issue with the speed of the action. When animating, I find it difficult to accurately judge how the speed of something will look when the clip is finished. I've been spending some time going through the assembly edit doing some fine cutting, and have changed the speed of some slow action in the fight scenes to make things a bit more natural and exciting. However, since we're eventually going to be dealing with an interlaced version of the film, I'm concerned that those clips that have been sped up will contain flickering artifacts in the field sequential version.
So, I'm warming myself up for a return to production (hopefully by this weekend) by designing a new main title sequence. The old one was kind of dull, so this new one takes the basic concept and spices it up a bit.
I also took the opportunity to back up a bunch of the raw video files that were sitting on my crowded hard drive, in order to free up more production space. I'm filling a small stack of DVD-Rs with the stuff.
More as it happens...
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