After a week or so on other projects, I got back to work on the
Sharkbiter video I did with
Xtranormal.
When I left off, I had created several versions of the video
from different angles. This week I reviewed them in detail. I printed a copy of
the script and made notes as I watched.
The first thing I looked for was pronunciation problems. A
common problem with artificial voices is that they have trouble with some
words. I tried to fix those with changes to the spelling. I wasn’t very
successful with that. Other times I rewrote the line to avoid the problem word.
Strangely enough, I found that while one voice would have trouble with a word,
the other one wouldn’t. In a few cases, I could shift the phrase from one
character to the other.
My next goal was to revise the script. I found that it
really helped to watch the video. It made it much easier to spot problems with
the dialogue. So much so, that I think I’d like to use the program with all my
script writing. I’m not sure exactly why it helps. In the past, I’ve found text
to voice software was useful when proofreading.
Sometimes I find it difficult to rewrite a script, but this
time it was much easier. Often I’m reluctant to make changes. After I watched
the video, I think it was easier to decide that the dialogue needed to change.
A third goal was to revise the expressions and gestures.
Xtranormal allows you to make the character to express some emotion and make
some gestures. There are only six facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear,
joy, sadness and surprise), which does limit you. There are almost 80 gestures,
which gives me a little more flexibility.
The facial expressions allow you to change the intensity of
the emotion. I found that most of the time I set the intensity too high and
needed to dial them back. The gestures don’t allow you to change the intensity,
although sometimes I was able to substitute a less intense gesture.
I also found I needed to change the timing of gestures and
expressions. This is a bit of a trial and error process. I expect that after
more experience I should be able to get it right the first time.
In the previous version, I had one camera angle for the
whole video. This time I put in over the shoulder shots and close ups. I had
planned to do several versions with different angles, then edit them in
Premiere Pro, but I learned a few tricks over the course of the week and
decided to go with what I could do in Xtranormal.
I rewrote the script, and then revised the Xtranormal input.
Finally, I output a new video. I experimented with different output formats.
When I tried before, I couldn’t import the AVI file into Premiere Pro. I still
had that problem. I was able to work with the AVI file with Encore, Windows
Media Player and Windows Movie Maker. I found that I could import the WMV files
from Xtranormal into Premiere Pro. I used Premiere Pro to add the titles.
Next week I’ll review the new video and make more changes.
I’m not sure how many versions I want to make before I decide to go with what I
have.
This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog
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