Internal and External Conflicts in "The Barrier"

In the past people often told me that there was no conflict in my stories. I found it hard to understand why they said that, because I did have conflict. It took me a long time to realize that most of the conflict in my stories was internal to the characters and these inner conflicts did not come across in my writing.

I didn't know how I could bring out these internal conflicts in my stories, so I decided to shift more to interpersonal conflict in my stories. I felt it would be easier for me to depict interpersonal conflict. Although, I was reluctant to do that because I felt that internal conflict was more important.

Over the last few weeks I have tried to absorb the feedback I have had on my last movie: "The Barrier". I started to see that interpersonal conflict can be used as a metaphor for internal conflict. in the barrier. I'm sure I had been aware of that from other people's work, but had not thought of it for my own work. It seems pretty obvious now.

When I developed the movie, I thought of the characters Arthur Macdonald, Brandon Baker and Dennis Kennedy as different aspects of myself. The conflicts between them, and with some of the other characters, reflect my own internal conflicts.

I can see places in the story where I have used this concept, although I didn't realize it at the time. There is one point where Arthur argues with Dennis in a scene and in the next scene Arthur tells Ling that he actually agreed with Dennis. I know that I had the same kind of argument internally many times in my career.

Over the next few months I will decide what I should do with "The Barrier". I think I can use this insight to develop the story further. Certainly it should allow me to work more depth into the interactions between these characters.

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

A Look Back at 2013

It is the time of year to look back at My Goals for 2013 and see just how I did.

Some Days . . .

I had this film ready in time and it was shown in the Hundred Dollar Film Festival. Personal responsibilities kept me from attending the screening. I had some positive feedback on it.

I posted the film on YouTube (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/somedays/)and got a reasonable number of views. Not a huge number, but generally positive. It did quite well on audience retention, although, at 40 seconds, you'd expect that.

My Most Difficult Case

I didn't do anything on this project this year. I have no excuse.

Xtranormal Movie (The Barrier)

I wanted to do another movie with Xtranormal, and I was far more successful than I had expected. I completed The Barrier (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/) in late November and posted it on YouTube. At 85 minutes, it was by far the longest movie I had ever done. The Barrier allowed me to draw on my experience as a transportation planner to give the story a realistic background.

Unfortunately, Xtranormal shut down their program, so I can't do anything with it anymore. I found that Xtranormal was very valuable writing tool, because it allowed me to hear and see what I was writing as I wrote. I'd like to use it just for that alone.

Stories

I finished off the first draft of Felix, a science fiction story, early in the year. I wrote up some notes for changes to it.

I worked on this year was Heat Wave, another science fiction story. I made good progress on it, but then I got bogged down and couldn't work on it. Some of the issues were too personal for me to deal with at the time. I put it on hold and worked on The Barrier instead. I'm not sure if I want to go back to this project.

I wrote up ideas for changes to Bright Freedom, although I didn't do any real work on it. I wanted to combine and rewrite my two transportation planning stories, The Gladstone Barrier, and The Glencoe Project, into a longer story. I used them to do my movie rather than writing a longer story from them.

Work Habits

I wanted to be more productive with my time this year. I wasn't completely successful with that, but the changes I did make helped me bring The Barrier to completion.

In next week's blog post I will lay out my goals for 2014.

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

"Felix" and "The Barrier"

I started to get back to my story "Felix" this week, although I am still involved with "The Barrier". Just before Christmas may not be that good a time to start a new project.

"Felix"

I wrote a first version of "Felix" a year ago. It is a science fiction tale that I based on a H. P. Lovecraft story. I changed the setting to Mars. I left it since then because I find it easier to rewrite if I can distance myself from the story.

I reread the story this week. It was different than I remember. For one thing, I had planned to have parts of the story told in flashback. In the version I did, I had done it in chronological order. I forgot I had done that. Lovecraft himself recommended that if you want to tell a story in non chronological order, that you start with it in chronological order, then rearrange it later.

I've come up with some ideas to revise the story. I know I need to develop the characters more, but I haven't given that much thought yet.

"The Barrier"

I had some more good feed back this week. No bad feed back. My plan was to leave the project for at least several months before I do anything more on it. I didn't think that there was much I could do unless I redid the movie from scratch. However, as I contemplate the comments I've had, I can see how I can do some improvements with out a complete redo.

Someone suggested that I add music. That could help, but I find it hard to imagine what kind of music would be appropriate. The suggestion was that I could use it to set the mood of each scene. I may set aside some time to review the options.

Another person suggested that I redo the voices with real actors in place of the computer generated voices. I think that can be done. I may try doing one character in one scene to see how it goes.

Initially I had some comments that questioned the validity of some of transportation planning details. That doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

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

On to My Next Project

I am done with "The Barrier" for now. I still plan to promote it and cogitate on the feedback I get, but I want to move onto another creative project. I decided a while ago that my next project would be "Felix", a science fiction story I started over a year ago.

"The Barrier"

I am tempted to revise "The Barrier" based on ideas inspired by the feedback I have so far. However, I think it is better to leave it for now and come back to it later. There are very few changes I can make to the movie with out a major effort. The program I used to create it, Xtranormal Desktop, is no longer available. I would need to either shoot live action, or redo the movie with a different program.

If you haven't watched it yet, you can find it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LOUNSEKac

"Felix"

I went through several drafts of "Felix" between October 2012 and January 2013. It has been almost a year since I last read it, so I think I can approach it with fresh eyes. In the interim I have had some ideas that I would like to incorporate into the story.

I think the main thrust of my rewrite is to build up the characters more. While the story is primarily plot driven, I think the characters need to be more fully developed so it will appeal to readers.

As an aside; I read someplace that in a short story the characters support the plot, while in a novel, the plot supports the characters. What I have now is kind of in between those two extremes. I guess that means the plot and characters need to support each other.

The last version of the story ran to just over 8,000 words. I suspect that with the changes I have in mind it will end up at over 10,000 words.

I have a sense that something important is missing from the story. I really don't know what it is.  Hopefully I can get a better handle on what that might be when I rewrite it. The first step though, is to read it over again; several times.

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

"The Barrier" Criticism Considered

A few years ago, I saw an interview with the Smother's brothers. Tommy talked about some musicians who would practice for years before they went on stage. He felt that was wrong. He said that you really don't learn how to perform in public unless you perform in public. The audience will tell you what is working and what isn't. On your own, you'll focus on the wrong things.

When I posted "The Barrier", I knew that it wasn't a final version. But, if I didn't show it to anyone, and in particular people that didn't know me, I would lose out on some important lessons.

I've had a range of responses to "The Barrier" so far, from very positive to very negative. I am pleased that most of the responses have been positive. Even some people who had criticism did have positive things to say.

I was disappointed when people didn't like the movie, but you can't expect everyone to like what you do. If only one person in 1,000 like your work, that is still 7,000,000 people.

It is tempting to get snarky with some commenters, but that isn't a good way to build support for my movie. Not only will it put them off, but other people who see the posts will be discouraged as well. I used to say I wish my word processer had a diplomacy checker.

I knew that my movie had some problems, but I've been surprised that people pick up on things I hadn't expected, and don't seem bothered by what I thought were the "real" problems. A lot more people were put off by the animation and computer generated voices than I expected. In part I think that was because, in my mind, I imagined the film with live action and live actors. On the other hand, some people really liked the animation.

Another comment I got was that it didn't seem like very much was at stake. Strictly speaking, the stakes are quite high, but that isn't made explicit until the very end. I can see that as a problem from a pure story telling perspective. However, it has to be that way to express a specific  idea, which is one of the main reasons I want to tell the story. I'll need to think about how I might address that.

I still want to hear more about what people think of the movie. Please take the time to watch it and tell me what you think. If you already have, please encourage other people to watch it as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LOUNSEKac

If you have any suggestions about where I can find people who might enjoy the movie, I would like to hear that too.

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

Preliminary Response to "The Barrier"

I released "The Barrier" last Monday. I have had several people send comments on it so far. I plan to promote the movie more to get more comments.

I was particularity happy with the response from one person who had expressed scepticism when I first told him about my idea. After he watched it, he said that he got caught up in the story. That is the kind of thing I really like to hear. He went on to say that he found the story was a realistic depiction of  what transportation planners do.

A former co-worker said one of the characters reminded him of a mutual acquaintance. That wasn't something I intended, and don't really think there is a resemblance. Nonetheless, I think it is a good sign if the characters are realistic enough to have them compare to real people.

Several people said that they thought the story was something that only transportation planners would be interested in. I certainly hope that isn't the case, although it was a worry I had while I worked on the movie. I didn't think people would have any trouble with the humour, even if they didn't understand other aspects of the story.

One person told me that he stopped watching after five minutes because he objected to the use of a median barrier as a safety measure. He said that modern traffic engineers don't use barriers to separate cars and pedestrians.

I thought that was an odd comment at first, because in the story the barrier isn't used that way. It separates two lanes of traffic in an area where there wouldn't be any pedestrians.

After I pondered his comment a bit, I think that the early part of the movie may mislead viewers about the situation. I think it become more clear later in the movie, but that would have been long after he stopped watching.

In any event, the barrier is what Alfred Hitchcock called a McGuffin. It is what the characters in the story think the story is about. The real story is about how the hero has to struggle with the financial and political constraints to do what he believes is the right thing.

You can watch "The Barrier" on my Website or on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LOUNSEKac

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/the-barrier/

I would really like to hear more comments about the movie.

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

"The Barrier" is Now On-line

Finally! You can now watch "The Barrier" on-line.

I wanted to fix more problems, but then remembered what Leonardo da Vinci said: "Art is never finished, only abandoned." Not that I claim my movie is Art, but it is time to let people see it.

You can watch it on YouTube or on my website:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LOUNSEKac

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/the-barrier/

Please let me know what you think of it and pass it along to other people you think could be interested.

I intended this to be a serious story, but some humour did creep in; some of it was even intentional.

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

"The Barrier" Almost Done. Again?

I remember when I moved from my apartment to my house I went back to the apartment for one last visit to see if I'd left anything. I ended up going back about a half dozen times! Each time I found something I'd forgotten. My experience with "The Barrier" feels almost the same. Every time I'm think I'm done, I find one more thing to do.

I did pass a major milestone this week. I uploaded the movie to YouTube. It took 14 hours to upload! I have it set to private for now while I prepare for the release. I want to do a good write up for the YouTube page and my mail outs.

I decided to create subtitles for the movie, and that took up much of my time. I tried to use the Premiere Pro voice to text system. The file has each word as a separate item, so I decided it would be too much work to reformat it.

I thought YouTube would generate a subtitle file when I uploaded the movie. I thought I use that after I cleaned it up. It turns out that YouTube won't generate a subtitle file for a long video.

I went back to the text file from Premiere Pro and found a way to reformat it into a subtitle file. There were some problems with it. Sometimes I would get some very long subtitles I had to break into two or three. Sometimes the voice to text didn't work very well, and I got subtitles that were vastly different from what the characters said.

I started to review the file manually and make adjustments as I went through it. I am on my second pass through now and I think I will need one more before I am done.

I think I will be done this week, but then I thought the same thing last week.

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

"The Barrier" Not Quite Yet

I had hoped to have "The Barrier" done and posted this week, but I'm not quite ready yet. I watched the version 0.4 video. I saw a lot of things I would like to change, but I would have to remake the movie from scratch to fix them. I thought about my goals for this version of the movie and there were several things I want to use it for.

Firstly, I want to get some feedback from people about the story and characters. I have some ideas about changes I would like to make, but I feel I am still too close to the story to be objective. People may dislike what I like and like what I dislike.

Secondly, I want to use this version as a way to develop an audience for the final version. I've started to think of this version as an animated treatment to show what I want to do with the idea. The final version would likely be quite different.

Thirdly, If I go ahead with a final version of the movie, I will need to look at crowd funding to pay for the production. I can use this animated treatment to help raise the money.

Based on these thoughts, I decided that I would go ahead with the movie as it is.

I prepared a short introduction to put at the start of the movie. In it I ask people to help me make the movie better. This is of course the main goal of this version. In addition I see it as a way to manage the expectations of the viewers. I added in the introduction to create version 0.5 of the movie.

One last bit of work I want to do it add subtitles to the movie. I had thought there was an easy way to do this in Premiere Pro. There isn't. I can create an XML file that has all of the words with the times they are said.

Unfortunately, it provides only individual words, not sentences or phrases. I am sure that there is a way to convert the file, but I just don't know how. A couple things I tried looked like they would take a long time. Maybe I'll post without the subtitles and add them later.

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

Closing in on Version 0.4 of "The Barrier"

Work on "The Barrier" this week went faster than I expected, but I'm still not done version 0.4 yet. It shouldn't take very long to get it done. I'll watch it, and if there is nothing I want to change, I will post it to YouTube.

Re-Editing "The Barrier"

The way I have structured my editing is to have three levels of Premiere Pro project files. The first level is for individual scenes. The second level is for sequences, which I build up from individual scenes. Finally, in the third level, I build up the final movie from the sequences.

I finished my revisions to the individual scenes. In most cases the changes were quite minor, so this part took less time than I had expected. What took the most time was how I redid the sections I sped up. Originally I had just used the speed adjustment in Premiere Pro. I was disappointed with the results, since it merged individual frames into one. Instead, I cut out individual frames to achieve the same effect. I think it looks better this way.

For some scenes I had done edits in my sequence files rather than in individual scenes. I decided to redo these as separate scene files so that there was a minimum of editing in the sequence files.

I redid the office back ground sound file. I increased the length from 3 minutes to 6 minutes. I spread out the various sounds so they didn't overlap as much. I added in more people talking in the background. I also adjusted the volume of some of the sounds so they were not as dramatically louder than the other sounds I had.

Finally I redid the sequence project files. I replaced the old scenes with the revised scenes and redid all of the office background noises. While I did that, I found several more problems with individual scenes, so I went back and redid those before adding them to the sequence. I finished 7 of the 9 scenes. The last couple and the full movie shouldn't take long.

More Computer Problems

On a down note: I started to have trouble with the new computer. It crashed Monday and gave some vague error message that suggested there was a hardware problem. However, when I read up on it on-line they said it could be a software problem too. Not very clear.

Later in the week, the new computer started to have the same issue as the old one - the monitor wouldn't display anything. The first couple times, it started to work after a minute or so, but Saturday I had to shut down and reboot before it would work. Again, I have no idea what the problem is, or how to fix it.

I have a suspicion that the problem has to do with the heavy use I make of the graphics card for my video editing. The original crash happened while I was doing some video editing.

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

Next: Onto Version 0.4 of "The Barrier"

I reviewed version 0.3 of "The Barrier" this week and have now started to work on version 0.4.

I watched version 0.3 of "The Barrier" twice this week. The first time to get a sense of how it looked. The second time I made notes about changes I want to make for version 0.4.

I went through my notes and planned out what I had to do. I identified changes in 27 scenes. There are a total of 60 scenes in the movie, so nearly half need changes. Most of the changes are minor, and if I hadn't been so eager to move on with version 0.3, I would have caught and fixed most of them already.

I set up the Premiere Pro project files for all of the scenes I want to change, but I  only started to work on one so far.

In some scenes I sped up the movie to have the characters walk faster. A couple times I had used the speed control to do the speed up. In others I cut out individual frames to have the same effect. Cutting the individual frames produces a much better look, but takes a long time. I plan to do the frame cutting despite the extra effort.

Another problem I want to fix is the background noise for the office scenes. In most scenes it is too loud. Some sounds in particular are much louder than the rest. I want to fix that.

I'd created my own office noise file from various sounds I had. It runs 3 minutes, which I think was too short now, because the same noises are repeated too often. I plan to extend it to 6 minutes, or maybe longer.

When I did the first version, I used some of my own voice along with lines from the characters in the movie. In version 0.3, I replaced some of the character voices with voices I had recorded for my other films. For version 0.4 I want to do more of that, so I have a greater variety of voices. I want it to seem like there is more than 2 or 3 people in the office. I got permission from everyone except my brother and niece. Since they are family, I didn't think they'd object.

I started to think about promotion of the movie. I'm not sure that many people will want to watch a movie about transportation planning. I'll need to find a way to briefly explain the movie so that people will give it a try. Since it is still a work in progress I think I'll use the approach that I need their help. I will want some feed back before I move onto a final version of the movie.

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

"The Barrier" Version 0.3 Done

I finished version 0.3 of "The Barrier" this week. It came in at 85 minutes, just a little shorter than version 0.2. I trimmed a few scenes and added more sound effects. After I review this version and create version 0.4, I think I'll be ready to post the movie on YouTube to get some audience feedback.

The bulk of the work I did this week was on the sound track. Primarily that was back ground noise to add more ambiance to the movie.

I had done a 3 minute audio clip of "office noise" that I used in the office scenes. I redid that clip this week. I had used voice clips from the movie and they were too recognizable. For the revised version I used some voice clips from "Line of Taxis", and clips of my brother and niece. I think the volume on the new version was higher than the previous version, so I may need to adjust that.

I tightened up the edit of several scenes. Fairly minor cuts by and large. I wanted to eliminate dry spots and also make characters interrupt each other.

I will watch this version, probably several times, to see if I can catch any more problems that I can fix. I can't make any major changes to the movie without starting over from scratch, so that limits what I can do at this point.

I'll hope to create one more version (version 0.4) which I can then post on YouTube. I plan to ask people to watch it and tell me what they think of it. I don't plan to do any further work on the movie until next year, to allow time for more people to watch and comment on my movie.

If you know of anyone you think might like to watch a movie about transportation planners, please ask them to get in touch with me, so I can ask them to review my movie. Thanks.

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

"The Barrier" Makes Noise

I made some good progress on "The Barrier" this week. Mostly I added sound effects to the sound track. I've added ambient sound to about half the movie now. I added some specific sounds, such as foot steps. That isn't easy to do, but fortunately most of sets look like they have carpet, so I can get away with out the footsteps most of the time.

In scenes where people talk on the phone, I processed the dialogue to sound like it came over the phone. I did a little research on-line to find out how to do that. It wasn't as complicated as I thought.

I tightened up some of the scenes. Usually it was just cutting out some pauses in the dialogue. I did some dialogue overlap in a couple places to make it seem that characters were interrupting each other.

In one place a character says "that looks impressive" while she watches a simulation of a microsimulation model on a computer scene. Unfortunately, the animation I produced wasn't very impressive, so I cut out that line.

Some of dialogue is a little hard to understand. There isn't much I can do about that because it has to do with the artificial voices, which I no longer have access to. One thought I had was to add captions to the movie. That will be a lot of work though.

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

"The Barrier" - On to Version 0.3

Last Sunday after I posted to my blog, my wife and I watched "The Barrier". She said she liked it, but thought it was a little slow in places. She said that the main character reminded her of me. Most of the characters are based on me.

I took that as the sign to go ahead, so I began to work on the next version 0.3. The first step was to make a list of changes I want to make. There were still some video issues I wanted to fix, but the bulk of the changes involve sound effects.

I fixed a small video glitch that I missed earlier. I only noticed one while we watched. some video problems I'd noticed. I also spotted a scene where I forgot to composite in some computer screens. I got that done.

I did a couple of experiments to speed up the pace of the movie a bit.

In the first experiment, I sped up some shots of people walking. I can only do that in shots where no one talks, which means there are only a few places I can do it. I found that I could speed it up a bit without it looking comical.

In the second experiment, I trimmed some of the pauses between speakers. I did this in a scene where one character repeatedly interrupts another. I overlapped the dialogue there. I thought that turned out OK, but I will have another look at it before I do it elsewhere.

The main thing I want to do in version 0.3 is add sound effects. To start, I created a back ground ambiance sound file to use in the office scenes. I have phones ringing, people talking, Xerox machines, doors opening and closing, and I added in a couple of coughs. I did the coughs myself. When I recorded them, Myreil got worried about me and asked if I was OK.

I plan to post the full length video to YouTube. Normally you have a 15 minute limit, but I thought they had raised mine. I checked that and I don't have a limit to the length of my videos.

There are some other problems I'd like to fix, but I can't make them unless I redo the whole movie in another system. Mostly they are problems with the technical details of the work the transportation planners do. Transportation planners would pick up on them, but others wouldn't. They are really a Mcguffin, so I'm not too concerned about it now

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

"The Barrier" Version 0.2 Done

I got version 0.2 of "The Barrier" done this week. This version runs 87 minutes. That was about a minute longer that the previous  version. I cleaned up some more video glitches and added some sound effects.

The full version of the movie took a long time to out put, and I had to leave it overnight. The final run time was something like 18 hours.

After it had run I did an investigation to see if there was a way to speed it up. It turned out that the default power settings were for a laptop on batteries. The computer would go to sleep after about 20 minutes. When it was sleeping, the program ran very slowly or maybe not at all. I changed the settings, so it won't do that anymore. I haven't retried the same output, but I think the problem is solved. It does seem to let the programs run faster.

My plan was not to do anything about the sound track for this version. However, there were a couple of places where it is hard to understand what was going on, so I did those. I did a few other sound effects at the same time.

I found and fixed some more video glitches. When I watch the movie again, I won't be too surprised if I find a few more. I found one scene where I hadn't put in the computer scenes. I must have missed that when I went through the scenes earlier.

The next stage is to show the movie to my wife. We sat down to watch it the other day, but she hadn't realized that it ran an hour and a half. She thought it was like most of movies and was only 3 or 4 minutes long. She said she'd have time to watch Sunday. If she likes it I'll move on to the next version.

I've noticed some problems with the movie that I can't fix unless I redo it from scratch on a replacement for Xtranormal. I had planned to post the movie as a work in progress, but it looks like I won't be able to develop it as far as I would have liked. That said, I do think I should have a watchable movie.

I want to do a blog where I talk about what I'd like to change with the version I post.

I believe that this will be the first movie ever made where transportation planning is an important part of the story, and not just an interesting detail of one character.

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

"The Barrier" Version 0.2 Almost Done

Work on "The Barrier" went fairly smoothly this week.

I finished adding the computer screens to the scenes that needed them. That took much of the time. I had to go back and create some more screen images.

There were a bunch of other scenes where I fixed some video glitches. I'm not sure what caused them, because not all of the scenes had them and a few had more than one. In all but one case, there was just a single frame that was messed up. In the other case there were two frames. That made it easier to fix. I just copied the frame after and overlay it to cover up the frame with the glitch.

I started to compile the scenes into sequences. When I have all the sequences done, I'll compile them into the full movie. I have the first four sequences done and have five more to do. I did the fifth one too, but forgot to do something, so will need to redo it.

I had planned to just do the images for this version of the movie (version 0.2), but decided to do a few of the sound effects I had planned to do. Mostly phones ringing. I'll leave the bulk of the sound work to the next version (version 0.3).

I should have this version of the movie done this week. I plan to show it to my wife when I'm done. If she likes it, I'll start on the next version.

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

A Movie I Want to See and Other Notes

I moved forward a little on "The Barrier" this week. I also made some changes to my website, and cancelled my Bukisa account.

A Movie I Want to See

A while back, I wrote a blog post about my goals for "The Barrier" (http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-goals-for-the-barrier/). This morning I thought about it some more and realized that one of my goals was to make a movie I wanted to see. "The Barrier" isn't finished yet, but I think that I have accomplished that.

The big question now is: will anyone else want to see it. I believe that if I want to see something, then other people will as well. If my tastes are one in a million, then there are only a few thousand people in the world who want to see it, but if my tastes are one in a thousand, then there are several million people who want to see it.

It's times like this that I hope that my tastes are not uncommon.

"The Barrier"

I did some work on version 0.2 of "The Barrier" this week. my main objective was to review the videos I have now and identify which ones needed more work before I can put the movie together.

I left the computer screens blank in scenes where they are seen, so I need to create images for them and composite them into the video. I started to prepare the images this week and have most of them done. The ones I still have left to do are more complex and will take me a while to do.

Another problem I found was that some videos have "glitches" where the video breaks up. For the most part, it looks like it is just a single frame that is messed up. I have some tricks I can use to cover that up.

Later I will need to add in some more audio; sound effects mostly. I also want to process some of the dialogue, such as people talking over the phone, so it sounds like they are on the phone. I wonder if there are places where I can add some music. I need to find some free music if I want to do that. I plan to leave the sound work to version 0.3 or later.

Website

I did some modifications to my website this week. I've had a donation button and a store page, but they never generated any money for me. I changed my tactics and replaced the donation button with a link that asks: Do you believe that artists should be paid for the work they do? That links to a "support my work" page. I have my donation button there and some other suggestions on how to support me work. That hasn't generated any money either. At least not yet.

I changed the web page Monday, but I get the old version of some pages for some reason. Apparently they get cached somewhere. I'm not sure how to refresh the cache.

Bukisa

Bukisa is a website where I published some of the articles I wrote. It did generate some money for me over the years. About $18 altogether. Good thing I have a pension.

They sent out a note this week that they had lost their agreement with Google to handle advertizing. They won't have any money come in anymore. They tried to encourage people to leave their articles on the site, but I decided to just dump them all. I cancelled my account too.

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

Onto the Next Phase of "The Barrier"

I made some very good progress  on "The Barrier" this week. I completed the backgrounds for the "open house" scene and composited them into the scene. Now I can get onto the next phase.

I gave up on trying to convert the orientation parameters in Xtranormal into their equivalent in Blender. I came up with a more brute force method that worked out OK.

I used the location markers in Xtranormal to identify the corners of each camera's frame. Next, I unzipped the state file, edited the document.xml file and got the location marker coordinates. I used those coordinates to create a plane in Blender which formed a target that I used to adjust the orientation and focal length of the camera.

It was slow going to begin with, but it went faster as I did more. Of course, now that I have what I need, I won't likely need to use it again. In my work in transportation models it was often that I would spend a long time working out how to do something, use it once and then never use it again.

Next week I can start on the next phase of the project. Some of the scenes have stuff like computer screens that I left as green screens. I have the images I want for most of them, but will need to do a few more. Then I can composite them into the scenes.

I've started to think about the sound. I have all the dialogue and some sound effects already done, but there are some long stretches of silence I want to fill in. Also, I think some other scenes could be improved with appropriate background noise.

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

"The Barrier" and Blender

All week I tried to find a way to convert the camera specifications in Xtranormal into Blender, so I can create the background images I need. I made some progress.

I had success with the focal length. Xtranormal's specification is some kind of inverse of the specification that Blender uses. By trial and error I got an equation that approximates the relationship well enough.

Blender focal length = 1054.6 time (Xtranormal fov) ^-1.0149

I find that I still need to adjust this when I do a new camera.

I finally figured out the co-ordinate system Xtranormal uses. I had the y-axis and z-axis switched. I thought that would fix the problem with the orientation parameters. It didn't solve the problem. Xtranormal appears to use quaternions, but when I use those in Blender they point the camera in the wrong direction. Frustrating.

I really don't think I will come up with some easy way to transform the orientation parameters. I did come up with an approach that seems to work, but is very time consuming.

1. In Xtranormal I use the location markers to define the corners of a camera image.
2. I save the STATE file and get the and used them to identify the corners of the camera frame.
3. I unzip the STATE file and get the co-ordinates of the corners from the document.xml file.
4. I use those co-ordinates to create a plane in Blender
5. I adjust the camera orientation and focal length to match the plane I created.

It is only an approximation, but I think it should work well enough. I have done five cameras so far. There are 30 cameras altogether. I think some of them are duplicates, or close to duplicates, so I won't need to do them all.

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

Another Computer Crash, but "The Barrier" Moves Forward

My computer crashed again this week. My wife bought me a new one and I got back to work on "The Barrier". The camera orientation conversion from Xtranormal to Blender still has me stymied.

New Computer

Our computer finally packed it in this week. We got a new one Tuesday and I started to reinstall my programs. By weeks end I had most of the old programs set up again. It is  a Windows 8 machine, and I found it a bit tricky to understand at first. I have a better handle on it now.

I had a big scare when I couldn't install Premiere Pro. I thought that the version I had might not work under Win 8, but it turned out there was a conflict with a program already installed on the computer. After I fixed that it worked just fine. If I had to buy a newer version, it would have cost me $1,000!

"The Barrier"

With all the computer problems over the last week, I didn't get much done on "The Barrier" this week. Mostly I worked on creating some background images for the open house scenes.

I have most of the set for the transportation plan open house built in Blender now. I still have to add some set decoration; wall posters mainly. I had a bit of a struggle with the lighting. I kept getting too much, or two little. I think I have it the way I want it now. I am a bit concerned that the set isn't big enough and may expand it somewhat to make the room look bigger.

The biggest snag I have is with the camera settings. I think I have the co-ordinate conversion right now, but given the other problems, maybe that isn't the case.

At first I couldn't adjust the camera focal length, but stumbled into how to do it this week. I think I have that worked out now, although, until I have all the problems resolved, I can't be sure about that yet.

The main issue now is the orientation parameters. The system Xtranormal uses has 4 co-ordinates and at first I thought that Blender only used three. I did some experimentation and thought I could just multiply three of the parameters to give degrees, but that didn't produce what I expected.

I found that Blender also has a orientation system called quaternions, which I never heard of before. It has four parameters. When I transfer those, it comes closer to what I want, but is still off a bit. I'm kind of stuck for now. One idea I plan to try is to change the way I convert the co-ordinates. If I can't find a way to convert soon, I may just try to eyeball the images.

I suspect that someone else has worked out the conversions before, but I'm not sure how I can find them.

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

Building a Set for “The Barrier”

This week I experimented with a 3D model program to create a background set for some of my scenes in “The Barrier”. I made good progress, but have much to learn yet.

I need to create a background for a few of my scenes, because the ones available didn’t fit. I output them with green scenes, so I could drop in background images.

This week I started to work on how to create the background images. My original idea was to create flat images and then distort them to look right. That would have been a lot of finicky work, and likely would still not look any good.

I looked into 3D modelling programs. One, called Blender, looked like a good choice. http://www.blender.org/ They said it was easy to use, and it was also free. Some of the free ones let you have the program for free, but then you can’t use the images you create in a commercial product. Blender does.

It wasn’t as easy to use as they said it was. After a couple of days I was about the give up. Then I got one thing to work the way I wanted to, and started to build on that. Over the course of the week I learned a fair bit, although I’m sure I only scraped the surface of what can be done.

I created walls and a floor for my set. The initial versions weren’t very good, so I did new versions. Version three looks OK to me. I still need to build the whole set. Besides the walls and floors, I want to put some posters on the walls and add some doors to the room. Beyond that I would like to add some other set dressings, but at this point I think I should hold off on that. It could be a lot of work.

Once I have the set, I need to set up the cameras. I’ve done some work on translating the camera settings in Xtranormal into the camera settings in Blender. I think I know how to do it, but I haven’t actually done it yet. Surprises may await me.

I did a test to see how the composited image compares to the same shot on an Xtranormal set. The XN logo ends up green, which looks funny. At this stage I don’t think that is important.

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

Update on “The Barrier” 2013 August 4

“The Barrier” project passed a milestone this week. The animation program, Xtranormal, I used for the movie shut down. I think I can complete an initial version of the movie with what I have, but I will need to find a different way to make a final version. Xtranormal needs verification from their website to output videos, and with the website shut down, I can’t do that any more.

“The Barrier”

Last week I reviewed the whole movie and found a number of things I wanted to change. I got one round of changes done by Tuesday. I reviewed what I had again and then started a second round of changes. I got most of them done before the system shut down Thursday. What I didn’t get done were nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves. I believe that I have enough to do a complete movie now.

I need to add some picture elements – mostly computer screens and a TV screen. I have a group of three scenes where I will need to build a complete background. Xtranormal didn’t have a set that was appropriate for the scenes. I used one of their sets to create the scenes, and then used a trick to get the same scene on a green screen background. That will allow me to put in a background. I don’t know how I will create the background yet.

I talked to a guy I used to work with. When I told him I was working on a movie about a transportation planner, he seemed a little sceptical. I hope other transportation planners won’t feel the same way.

Xtranormal Replacement

I spent some time investigating some of the programs that I might use to replace Xtranormal. Some are really too limited for the kind of thing I want to do. Others are much more powerful, but look like they may be quite difficult to use. I’ll do a blog post about the options later.

One big snag from my point of view is that Xtranormal had artificial voices built in. The others don’t. You need to create your own dialogue. The artificial voices are not cheap, but neither are real actors.

I plan to leave a detailed evaluation until I have “The Barrier” version 0.9 done. I will do another blog post about the options later. I have identified eight so far. There are four that look like reasonable replacements to me.

Stateplus - http://stateplus2.hackernewbies.com/

Muvizu - http://www.muvizu.com

iClone - http://www.reallusion.com/

MovieStorm - http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/

The others I found were: Carrara 8, goanimate, toonboom and powtoon. There are plenty of programs that do animation, but they are not really the same kind of thing as Xtranormal.  If you know of any other programs, please let me know.

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

First Cut of “The Barrier” runs 86 minutes

I made good progress on “The Barrier” this week. I compiled all my scenes into a complete film. It came in at 86 minutes. My goal was feature length, so I'd say I've accomplished that.

After I did the edit, I watched the entire movie, with only a short break in the middle. I was pleasantly surprised at how it turned out. I am too close to it to really be objective, so I'm not sure any one else would like it. I hope that other transportation planners will like it though.

I did spot a few problems and things I want to change. I started to revise some of the scenes. Xtranormal shuts down in three days, so I only have a very short time to redo the scenes I want to change. I’ll need to focus on the most obvious errors.

It frustrates me to have to cut short my work on the project. There are so many little subtleties of dialogue and action that can give the movie so much more depth. I’ve done that in a few scenes. There are several scenes where I’d like to have some characters wandering about in the background. I did that in a few scenes where it was necessary, and not just an enhancement. I hope I get the time to do that.

I want to look into alternatives to replace Xtranormal, but I have to leave that until later. For now, I want to get as far along as I can before the shutdown.

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

“The Barrier” - Now onto the First Cut

I added three new scenes this week. One isn’t very long, just a few lines. It is mainly a line I want to add, but I haven’t found a way to tie it into the story. I’ve left it out for now.

I got all of the video files output from Xtranormal, so I have something to work with if I don’t get a chance to rework some of the scenes I would like to.

I began work on the first cut of the movie with Premiere Pro. In keeping with my previous experiences, I have run into trouble with Premiere Pro. Mostly it seems to be issues with the Windows Media files. I think I have that fixed now. I hope so anyway.

It has been a struggle over the last few weeks. A friend of mine said I should name my films with more positive titles, like “That was Easy”, or “Piece of Cake”.

I learned some more tricks in Xtranormal, but since the software will be stop working in 10 days (2013 July 31), that doesn’t help me much. I’ve heard rumours that there might be a way to use Xtranormal after the deadline, but I wouldn’t want to count on that.

I have a little program I set up to convert the Xtranormal State files into a script. I developed it a few weeks ago, but now it doesn’t seem to work properly. I did manage to get a script I could use. It helped me catch a couple problems in the dialogue so far. I had the wrong names for a couple of characters. I thought I had caught and fixed them all.

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

Another set back for “The Barrier”

I thought I was on a roll with the project, and then my computer crashed. It took me most of the week to get it mostly operational. I managed to make a little progress on “The Barrier”.

Computer Issues

Monday, my computer had a freak-out. I spent all day Tuesday trying to fix it. In the end, I had to do a factory reset. That formatted the hard drive and reinstalled Vista. Fortunately I back up our data every week, so I didn't lose much there.

In the course of reinstalling vista, I had to do all the updates. I had trouble with service pack 1. I found out how to fix it on line, but it appears that it wasn't installed on the computer before. That meant I didn’t have service pack 2 either. That might explain the some of theproblems I’ve had with the computer.

I found it difficult to reinstall Xtranormal, the program i use for my movie. After a little help from the support people at Xtranormal, and a few little tricks of my own, I have it up and working. I hadn't expected much in the way of support, because they are shutting down at the end of the month. I was pleasantly surprised.

I don’t think the problem has really been solved. I may still need to get a new computer.

“The Barrier”

I finally got back to "The Barrier" by the end of the week. I did a few minor fixes to a few scenes, but mostly i have output new video for the movie. The default resolution is 720, and I switched to 1080. It uses up more space and takes a long time to render. I think the better quality is worth it.

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

Initial Versions of all Scenes for “The Barrier” Done

Work on “The Barrier” went well this week. I completed initial versions of all of the planned scenes done. There is still quite a bit of work to do.

I finished seven scenes this week, with a 9:51 run time. I ended up with 90:35 run time for all the scenes. Once I edit the movie together, I expect that will end up a few minutes shorter.

I started to go through the scenes a second time. Mostly I focussed on standardizing names and scene titles. I made some minor revisions or added dialogue to a few scenes. In a couple of scenes I decided to add some background characters to make it feel like there was a big crowd of people around. That took a lot of time. I want to do that to a few other scenes, but will leave that until later.

Xtranormal will shut down at the end of the month, so I need to get everything completed before then if I want to finish the movie. There are things that I can do after it shuts down, so I’ll leave those until August.

I investigated some alternatives to Xtranormal. I didn’t get too far with that, and plan to leave any serious follow up until August. There are some promising systems. Most seem to be based in the UK for some reason. Xtranormal is based in Montreal. I’d like to support a Canadian company.

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

A Major Snag for “The Barrier”

I made good progress this week, but “The Barrier” has hit a barrier. I am almost done the initial versions of all the scenes, but the problems with Xtranormal, I am not sure I can finish the movie.

Xtranormal

I used a program called Xtranormal to create the video. Saturday morning I discovered that they would shut down the website and program at the end of July. They say they will be restarting, but don’t when. Some comments I’ve seen posted suggest that it likely won’t restart.

I don’t see any possibility that I can finish “The Barrier” before the deadline. I will try to get it as far along as I can.

I use Xtranormal Desktop, which will still “work” after July 31, but I won’t be able to output the videos. That doesn’t make it very useful. On their FaceBook page, several people suggested that the company could modify the Desktop version so it would work after the shut down date. I added a similar comment. I hope they do that. I’m not too keen to switch programs at this point.

Progress Update

Prior to this foo-fa-ra, I made good progress. I got eight scenes done. They were a bit shorter; one was just 19 seconds long. I added about 9 1/2 minutes and now have just under 81 minutes done. As of today, I have done 51 of the 59 scenes I had planned. Some of those will be fairly easy to do, but the rest are scenes that will be more difficult. I might be done next week, but I can’t count on it.

Seven of the new scenes are from sequence eight of the movie. The movie has nine sequences. That sequence focuses on the presentation of the development proposal to the development committee. There were several challenging scenes. Most of the scenes occur at the same location in continuous time, but I broke it up into four scenes to keep it simple.

The four scenes together run about six minutes. I have eight characters in the scene. That slows the program down quite a lot. I think I got some really good action. That is, action in the sense of movement, since I wanted to evoke ideas through some subtle movements.

I have my fingers cross and hope that I can still pull this project off.

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

Update on “The Barrier” - 2013 June 23

I was a little more prolific on “The Barrier” this week. I completed five new scenes and added 9 1/2 minutes. That puts me at 71 minutes in total and I am about 72 per cent completed. The previous three weeks I averaged only about 5 1/4 minutes.

I completed 43 scenes so far and have 17 more planned. That should add another 28 minutes and bring me up to 100 minutes. With some editing, that should end up at around 90 minutes.

So far, I have done most of the scenes in sequence, although I have skipped ahead a few scenes a couple of times. This week I skipped ahead to the final scene. It is an important scene and I thought it would be straightforward. It went quite well. I was tempted to use “Final Scene Done” as my post title, but decided it was too much of a tease.

As I wrote it, I realized that I’ll need to change one of the scenes I skipped to match it. It is a good thing I skipped it. Sometimes I think it makes sense to do your last scene first and your title last.

I did another scene out of order as well. I see it as an important event in the story because it eliminates a major character. That makes the last sequence of the movie more difficult to deal with.

The animated characters do “act” wooden, but as I work on the movie, they do seem to become more real. Maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part.

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

“The Barrier” Progress and File Conversion

Progress

I did four new scenes for “The Barrier” this week. That added about a minute and a half, which brings me up to just under 62 minutes in total. I expect the total will end up a bit over 100 minutes, although it will end up a bit shorted after I’ve cut it all together.

The scenes I did were fairly simple. Each had just two characters, and the characters didn’t move around much. For the most part, the scenes come directly from the stories, which made them easier to do. Two of them were scenes where Arthur’s boss chews him out for something he did.

I started on a fifth scene, but didn’t get far with it.

File Conversion

I wanted to convert the Xtranormal state files into Celtx files so I would have a script of the movie. I experimented a bit and came up with a way to do the conversion. The method is a bit clunky, but works well enough. The method doesn’t convert the actions in the film. I can add that, but I’m not sure that it is worth the effort, since I would need to edit them extensively.

The Xtranormal state files are zipped files that contain several files. One of these, document.xml, is an XML file that contains the dialogue and actions. The process uses two batch files to extract this file, builds up a larger file with all of the scenes, and then uses an XSL file to convert the XML file into HTML. Finally, I use copy and paste to put the dialogue into Celtx. I’ve listed the batch files and XSL file below.

I had to over come a few snags. I had to add the lines “<wholescript>” at the top of the file and “</wholescript>” at the bottom of the file, otherwise the XSL wouldn’t work. When I combined the files, a “” was added after each new file. I don’t know why that happened. I have to edit the combined file and delete all of the “” or the XSL won’t work.

My programming skills are somewhat limited and I’m sure that a more skilled person could improve this method. If anyone does come up with a better version, please let me know.

barrier_cnv_main.bat

erase t1.xml erase t1.zip erase script.xml copy top.xml script.xml call cnv_sub.bat Scene01.state call cnv_sub.bat Scene02.state copy script.xml+bottom.xml

cnv_sub.bat

copy %1 t1.zip "c:\program files\winzip\wzunzip" t1.zip document.xml copy script.xml+document.xml erase document.xml erase t1.zip

top.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?> <?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="convert.xsl"?> <wholemovie>

bottom.xml

</wholemovie>

convert.xsl

<?xml version="1.0"?> <xsl:stylesheet version="1.0" xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform">    <xsl:template match="scene"> <html> <head> <title>    <xsl:value-of select="@title"/> </title> <style> p.sceneheading { font-family: "courier"; test- transform: "uppercase"} p.character { font-family: "courier"; test-transform: "uppercase"; text-indent:250} p.dialog { font-family: "courier"; text-indent:150} </style> </head> <body> <p class="sceneheading">    <xsl:value-of select="@title"/> </p>    <xsl:apply-templates/> </body> </html>    </xsl:template>         <xsl:template match="line"> <p class="character">    <xsl:value-of select="@speaker"/> </p>    <xsl:apply-templates/>    </xsl:template>    <xsl:template match="text"> <p class="dialog">    <xsl:apply-templates/> </p>    </xsl:template>    <xsl:template match="listener">    </xsl:template>    <xsl:template match="stance">    </xsl:template>    </xsl:stylesheet>

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