A Painful Step Forward

I completed the conversion of the images I captured for “Contingency” into video files this week. It really was painful.

I got about half the images done the week before. For some reason, the last half took more time. I found the technique of overlaying a negative of one image worked well. It was easy to tell when I had a frame aligned properly. By the end, I got pretty good at it. Nevertheless, with well over a thousand images to adjust, it took a long time.

I didn’t notice it before, but this week I found the work was painful. I had to sit in the same position for hours while I made very precise changes with my mouse. That gave me repetitive strain injuries. I had my arm all tensed up at the same time, which created pain as well.

They say that an artist must suffer for their art.

One of the things that surprised me about filmmaking was how physical the work was. Even if you are the director, you are up and about all the time, even if you don’t do any of the heavy lifting.

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“Contingency” Video Conversion Challenges

My conversion of Contingency to video moved ahead this week. I have about half of the images converted to video now. I had to overcome a few snags.

The whole film runs a bit over 3,800 frames, but since I already have video of some of the shots, I didn’t need to transfer all of them. It still left me with 2,300 frames to convert. This week I got 1,100 done, or about 48 per cent.

The week before I shot all the frames I wanted on the optical printer. It isn’t too difficult to import them into Premiere Pro and create a video. Unfortunately, I ran into a few problems.

The first was that the images were in RAW format, which I couldn’t import into Premiere Pro. I converted them to jpg’s with Picasa. I started with the same resolution as the raw files (3522 by 2348), but that really slowed down Premiere Pro to the point I couldn’t use it. I changed to 800 by 534, which is still larger than the 720 by 480 video I want to produce. That worked better.

The next snag was image jitter. Apparently the optical printer didn’t align each frame in exactly the same spot. I don’t know if it was a problem with the machine, or with how I loaded it.

Premiere Pro allows you to move the images around in the frame, so it was possible to adjust each frame to remove the jitter. That was easier said than done.

The first show wasn’t too bad because it was a title. I over lay a horizontal line and moved each frame so that the title aligned with the line. It was very finicky work though.

For the next shot, also a title, I overlay one of the frames on top of the other frames, switched it to a negative, which is called invert for some reason I don’t understand, then made it 50 per cent transparent. When I aligned the frame properly, I would get a grey screen. It never fit exactly, but it was easier and faster.

The rest of the shots were not tittles, which was a little harder. I used the same technique, but it turned out that since the camera moved during the shot, the edge of frame would move in and out of view. I had to go back and move every frame up a little so the edge wouldn’t show. I also had to zoom in, which took more time.

After a couple more shots I did a little research and found I could use the paste attributes feature of Premiere pro to save a bit of time.

Eventually I came up with another trick that made a big difference. I put the frame images into a sequence that set up as high definition. When I was done with the HD version, I would set up a standard definition sequence and put the HD version in the time line. Then I could move and zoom the whole shot to give the image I wanted.

That also allowed me to use the frame borders to align the frames. There were always imperfections in the border I could use for alignment.

I had a lot of trouble with Premiere Pro crashes. The process seems to have pushed the system to the limits. It got better as I got more practice.

I know that some video cameras have an image stabilizer function, which should mean that there is a software method to do all the realignment automatically. I wasn’t able to find one. I didn’t look too hard though.

The rest should take a couple of days to do. Then I need to incorporate all the shots into a final video. Some of the shots could use some colour correction. I hope to post the final video by the end of next week.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Contingency Update - 2012 September 16

I took another step forward on Contingency this week. I used an optical printer to digitize the images from the film so I could create a video of the film. I will reconstruct a video from the images next.

It took me a couple of days down at the CSIF to get the images digitized. I used a piece of equipment called an optical printer. Filmmakers originally developed optical printers for special effects in movies. Orson Welles used an optical printer for several scenes in Citizen Kane.

The CSIF got a modification done to their JK Optical Printer so that they could use it to convert film to video. In place of the film camera, they use a digital still camera. It is all supposed to be automatic; press a button and watch it go.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the automatic mode to work properly. I had to press a button to move the film forward one frame, and then press the button on the camera to take the picture. That was rather slow and tedious. I also got some repetitive strain pain in my arm and shoulder.

I already had video for some shots. Because it took so long to convert, I skipped those scenes. At least I hope I have video for those other shots.

A few months ago, I tried to do the conversion, but ran into image problems. This time I did some tests at the start of each shot to ensure I got the light level and focus right. That was finicky work, but it does pay off.

I borrowed a memory disk for the still camera from my wife and another from my brother. I didn’t think my wife’s disk had enough memory. In the end, I used both disks.

The next stage is to import the images into a video editor and convert them into a video. That may also be tedious, but less physically demanding. I have to remind myself that patience is a virtue. I’ll try to get that done this week.

I wonder if there is an easier way to do this. I suppose I could send it to a commercial outfit for transfer, but that costs more money. I thought I could rig up an old projector and camera to do the same thing. It is easy to imagine what to do, but I’m afraid my mechanical skills may not be up to that.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

Thoughts About Long Form Stories

Most of the work I’ve done has been in short forms (short films, short stories or short articles), but I want to move to longer form works. It has been difficult, but I have made some progress.

I’ve done four feature length scripts and started a couple of novelettes, but I didn’t feel I really understood the essential differences between long and short form writing.

“In a short story, the characters support the plot. In a novel, the plot supports the characters.” - Unknown

I came across this quote recently, but can’t remember who said it. I thought it was a good quote to remember. It was only later, when I recut Make ‘em Squirm, that I started to appreciate the point of the quote.

The YouTube statistics had shown that most people only watched the first minute of the nine-minute video. I felt that most of the “good stuff” was in the latter part of the video, so only a few people actually saw that.

When I did the recut, my goal was to get the viewers to watch more of the video. First, I split the video into 14 episodes and then I added a “teaser” at the start of each episode. I also changed the way I promoted the video.

What I realized was that in a longer form story you want to dwell mostly on the characters. In a short story, people don’t expect to get deep characters, so you can get away with superficiality. The role of the plot in a long form story is similar to the “teaser” in my video. It is to get the audience to watch long enough to get to the good stuff. In a long form story, the good stuff is the characters.

The beginning of a story should focus on plot long enough to get the audience involved. Then you can move on to your characters where you can start to say what you wrote the story to say.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

My Science Fiction Stories

I have four science fiction stories on the go now. Over the last few weeks I made progress on a couple of them, but I need to focus on one at a time if I want to get any of them finished. I’d like to find some people to critique my stories.

The Science Fiction Market

I thought I might try to sell my story Heat Wave to a science fiction magazine, so I did a little research on-line. One magazine, Strange Horizons, has a list of the type of stories they don’t want to see: http://www.strangehorizons.com/guidelines/fiction-common.shtml. I’ll need to look at it a bit closer, but Heat Wave just might be one of them. That prompted me to think of other possible stories.

I picked up a collection of the best science fiction of 2010 at the library. Well, actually my wife picked it up. I wanted to get a feel for the kind of stories and style of writing they feature. It didn’t look to me as if there is a big change from the last time I read a lot of science fiction, back in the 1980s. I think the stories I’ve developed wouldn’t be out of place. That is assuming they turn out OK.

Heat Wave

Heat Wave is the story of a climate researcher who doesn’t get along with his new boss. I wrote more after my last post about it http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/science-fiction-story-update-2012-august-5/, but not in the last week. The first draft runs about 5,700 words now and I think I am about half done. The final story would end up at about 11,000 words. That said, I think I can develop the story more, which could make it a novelette or even a novella rather than a short story. I’ll leave that decision until I do another draft.

I based the story partly on some of my own experiences and partly on what one climate researcher told me about the threats she’d received.

Pete’s Plan

It is the story of a man who lives in a future time where unemployment is so high, that people who have jobs are unlikely to ever meet someone else who has a job. The story is set at a time after the singularity, when some people have become immortal and the rest haven’t.

I got started on it when I woke up from a scary dream early one morning and found it hard to get back to sleep. The dream inspired a story idea for me. I got up and wrote a short first draft in my notebook. I completed a second draft of it this week. It runs about 900 words. My brother has agreed to read it and give me a critique.

The Helix

One story, The Helix, I based on a Lovecraft story, but I moved the setting to Mars. It features a Mars rover I call Felix. So far, all I have is a few notes and a first attempt at an outline. I might change the name to The Spiral Tunnel, because I called the rover Felix. I don’t intend the story to be part of the Cthulhu Mythos, although the story I based it on was.

The Two Davids

The Two Davids, is about a man who wishes he could be two people so he wouldn’t have to choose between two life paths. It doesn’t turn out well for him.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog