Brief heads up for you filmmakers: an article I wrote about 3D Previsualization is in the current issue of Moviemaker magazine. This, for anyone following the saga – is not the article that has given me such grief over the last several months. This is a fun tech-geek article about some awesome software I use called Antics3d.
The Pre-viz is finished! Well, it still has a few more things to be done. I'm going to replace a voice and trim two shots, but basically it's finished; Finished enough that I'm able to start thinking about other things. Though this is an industry tool – I'm putting it online for your viewing pleasure. I don't know how long it will remain online, but I see no harm in doing so now. Currently the file is rendering. My laptop is running at a toasty 75 degrees Celsius and the processor is at full bore – almost literally cooking through the file. This project has been fun but it's also been a lot of work. It took about two months of ten-to-fourteen hour days to do the ten minutes that you can see – which included learning, improving, and honing my skills with the software itself. The details are what really take the time in these projects. Anyone who has done 3D work will know what I mean. A basic move or virtual world might not take too long to build, provided you know what you're doing -- but getting things to go juuust right… That's the time suck. Every camera move, every person, every virtual inch of the set – the world – is created. If you re-direct an 'actor' to go somewhere a little more quickly, it means that every camera following his/her/its action has to also be adjusted. And so on with every aspect of the world. 23 minutes left of render time… I could go on describing the difficulties, but that's not the point. So what is the intention of this pre-viz? The screenplay for Diamond Chasers is getting very good reviews. That's great, but that's certainly no end game. It's just a start. As it "goes out" into the world, I'm giving it an extra push with these ten minutes. There will be other elements to demo it in addition to what you'll see. This ten minutes of this pre-vis represent pages 20-30 of the screenplay: The ACT 1 break. Here are the actual pages from the script. You might have fun comparing them to the actual pre-viz. The pre-viz not only visualizes the pages, but also visualizes them in the way I would do it; so it's also a demo of my directing style… this is pretty much the way I see these pages (as live action, of course) If you like it, it not only means you'd like the movie as a screenplay, it means my native directing style would be to your liking. 12 minutes left of render time… When working in the 3D world, it's very easy to do camera moves that would be absolutely impossible to do in real life. The WOW factor might be very high but that's not really the point. It's not supposed to remind you of a video game, it's supposed to be like a live action movie. It was "directed" as a live action piece. This means that I didn't really use the conventions that an animated piece might use to accentuate character emotion. Take this into account when you watch the characters faces – these will eventually be live people, grimacing, gaping, wondering, screaming… The HOW of it all Except for two shots – the shots of fuel gauges, this pre-viz was done with ANTICS 3D. The fuel gauge shots were done in After Effects. Any custom set stuff was either done in Photoshop (when 2d) or exported from 3D MAX (which I don't know how to use past making extremely simple models based on unaltered primitives) 4 minutes left of render time… Done… 9 minutes to upload…
And now – here it is…
Just a quick note to let people know I'm actually alive. I'm still in full 3D mode on the pre-viz, but the light at the end of the tunnel has gotten pretty bright. I'm (I believe) about a day away from being done with the visuals; and then I can move on to sound, blessed sound. My friend, mathboy pointed out that this would represent ten percent of the movie. Quite a bit of screen time for such a relatively short period of work. It's also - in terms of animation - some of the more difficult stuff - though the bar room brawl, and the final aerial hand-to-hand battle would be pretty tough too.
In the meantime, I've put a new little do-dad on the right column of the blog. It's an IM of sorts. Good for if you wanna send me a quick note that's not specific to a blog post.
The Me7erg Ergohuman office chair by Raynor is quite a great piece of engineering. Before you think I've sold out and am shilling for the company, I'm not. It's just that I've been spending twelve and thirteen hours glued to my chair, in front of the computer and – no pain. Wow, wonderful! Since plenty of people peruse this blog because a google search for a good office chair has led them here, I thought I'd mention it once again. It deserves it. I'm in the midst of building the pre-vis for The Diamond Chasers and yesterday, I goofed around with adding some sound. Something I say every time I post a movie or show of some sort is how important sound will be. I've said this to countless past clients as well as many a test audience, however, I never cease to be amazed by just how effective music is. Every time I add sound (music and/or effects) to a project, I am as amazed and thrilled as the first time I did it. Doing this pre-vis has given me a chance to experience the drug-like rush without having spent the millions (which it would be in this case) of actual production. As I'm watching some of the roughs, with sound, I firmly believe that if I can't fast track the movie based on these, I should go into carpet sales. Or maybe masonry. I've always fancied that. Anyway, short story – I am deeply immersed, not exercising or eating and slowly going insane as I maneuver little people on, over and into virtual biplanes. But man, am I having a good time and my back isn't aching. Tomorrow I start recording voices for the pre-vis. First up is a friend of mine who, in addition to TV and film acting, does quite a bit of game VO (voiceover). I'm looking forward to hearing him do some accents and eccentricities. Soon my masterpiece vill be complete!
Generally, I try to title my blog entries with something clever – something that might not make sense till the entire entry has been read. This is a practice shunned by those trying to get the most readers possible. Rightfully too; people looking through the various feeds, and google searches, etc. – would have no idea what the heck "The Old Grind", "Itchy Fingers on Keyboard", or "Partial Reveal" are about. I don't care as I'm not obsessing about building a reader base or anything of the like. Not at the moment, at least. Ironically, the most frequent searches taking people to this blog are for the ME7ERG Ergohuman office chair (which is the incredibly great chair I'm sitting on now as I write this) and Miniwax Polyshades (awful product btw), which I described when I was building a DVD shelf. I break my tradition of obscure blog titles because I DO want people to surf to this entry – to learn more about this product. I'm currently pre-visualizing several scenes from the movie I'm in pre-production on (to be known from now on as The Diamond Chasers) and have to report – this is one of the coolest pieces of software I've used in a long time. I'm excited in the same way I was when I moved from tape to digital editing with audio so many years ago; the same feeling as going from a typewriter to a word processor. This is a radically important piece of software. It works and it works well. It not only makes it possible to visualize a movie before it's made, it enables one to really practice directing; honing visualizations or creating entirely new ones one that might never have been thought of on set - where the ever present knowledge of cash vanishing into the ether rightfully stifles the creative musings of a director in flux. Incorporating ik (inverse kinetics), lighting, character movement – as well as gaming logarithms AND some AI, this stuff is nuts. It's a big program and it does bog down the computer after a while, but man o man… so cool. I am not a 3D person, as I previously wrote, but this software really allows people who don't do much with 3D to avoid the mind-numbing modeling and other work, and get right to the creative stuff – creating a scene. I will be putting the actual pre-vis online when it is finished, but for the moment – I tease with twenty seconds of part of it. There's still geometry crashing through itself, lighting and shading is super basic and still in test mode, timing isn't right, I'm still playing with camera angles – and it's obviously silent – but it gives an idea of what can be done with this incredible program.
Okay, I'm back with an honest to god entry. It's bad when people start razzing me from other continents. Somethings I've noted about why personal blogs and websites are or aren't updated in general: By the way, I don't really think #4 exists – unless you are a paid writer. I am a paid (occasionally) writer, but since this blog is strictly for kicks, it gets updated last. And I admit to having been guilty of all the above enumerated reasons. That all said… The script for the next project is done. Well, at least it is as done as it's going to be until the next set of changes falls upon it. That's the way it goes. I'm happy with it, the happiest I have been with any script I've written. Early word back from readers is that - this is it. Which is good because it's going out. "Going out", for those not familiar with the vernacular of show business types who have the pathologic need to drop dopey phrases to appear 'in', means – The script is going to be sent to people who could help move it to future phases. "It's going out" is most frequently used by people who "Do Lunch" and "Take Meetings". In case you're rolling your eyes about how infantile everyone in Hollywood is, these are expressions most frequently used by people who aren't actually 'in' but are rather, desperately trying to appear 'in'. I will leave further snarkiness about Hollywood to those that do it better and focus instead on what I'm beginning to do now – which, actually – is really cool and also the title of this entry. PREVIS Given the cost of making movies and given the collaborative nature of the form, from early on, pictures, sketches, still photos, etc. have been used to demonstrate the director's vision. This is most often done for stunt scenes or situations where camera coverage has to be done absolutely perfectly and hopefully as best as possible, artistically. A conversation between two people is not so important. Any decent director should be able to come up with an interesting way to cover those on set. Or perhaps, not so interesting a way, but still a serviceable filming thereof. Okay, some directors should pre-vis a conversation between two people. Pre-visualizations are also a way to aid in pitching the movie to those who might become instrumental in getting the damn thing to happen in the first place. Frequently these are the same people the movie "goes out" to. Pre-visualization of stories has, over the years, become quite sophisticated: moving from pencil sketches to beautiful oil painted renderings, to full animations, or clips from other movies; all to demonstrate, "It'll look something like this!" That's what I'm doing now. I'm beginning to work on a visual and audible demonstration of what parts of the movie will look, but more importantly, feel like. Basically, it's a fancy sales tool. The idea is that it will help people actually pick up the script and read it – and get it. An unfortunate (and I am one of these people) problem is that reading scripts is a drag. For one thing, there's so many of them. There really has to be a reason. Either you're doing it as a favor, or it's a potential gig. Though a good script can be a great read, I don't think anyone actually reads them for pleasure. Watching something for a few minutes is much easier. Though I can't draw my way out of a paper bag, I'm a pretty handy animator when it comes to doing 2D animation on a computer. Certainly, I'm no Scott Hale, or any of the wiz kids working up North, but I can get by. 3D though has never been my bag. Too much scrolling around a virtual world, and I always end with 3D characters that look fine from one angle, but from another angle have arms three feet away from their bodies. If you've done any 3D work, you might know what I'm talking about. In researching methods of doing previs work, I found several pieces of software which I've demo'd. In this brave world we're in, there seems to be a tool for every job. Of all of them, one blew me away. Designed specifically for this exact job, thus far it seems very workable – even for a 3d challenged person. You build a set, inhabit it with characters, direct them, place cameras and move them… and it creates full motion, with all the camera dollies, cranes, lens, etc. built in. Depending on how crazy you want to get, it can do some pretty decent shading and rendering (that roughly translates to – how realistic it looks in the end). Though it was rather expensive, I just bought it, and am now crash coursing myself on how to use it properly. I feel certain that it will worth the investment. This is also a tool that could really allow for an idea I proposed around 'town' about nine years ago. More on that in future entries. So, there you have it. Expect to read much more about the previs of Diamond Road, and hopefully soon, see some examples.
