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>

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My Goals for “The Barrier”

It may seem odd to talk about my goals half way through a project. While I haven’t written them down, I have had them in mind all along. I felt it was time to articulate them better.

When I started to make films with the CSIF back in the early 90s, I knew I had a lot to learn. Before I began a film, I would decide what it was I wanted to learn as I made the film. When I made “Line of Taxis” I had very clear goals and I believe that helped make it a success.

I do have quite a few goals for “The Barrier”, and I doubt that it is realistic to expect to achieve them all.

1. The first goal, of course, is to make a feature length movie. That has been a goal of mine for many years. After I decided to get serious about making a feature length movie back in 2005, I learned that a feature is a large, and expensive, leap from the films I did before.

2. A second goal is to see if I could make a feature length movie with Xtranormal. I did one shorter movie, “Make ‘em Squirm”, with Xtranormal that gave me a feel for what it could do. I felt that I could use Xtranormal for a longer project and wanted to try it out. Although I am not finished yet, I am confident that I will meet this goal.

3. A third goal is to make an interesting movie. In other words, can I make a feature length movie that doesn't bore viewers to death? The computer-generated voices can become boring after a while, and the emotional range of the animated characters is limited. A more skilful use of the system could help with these limitations, but in the end, the story itself must be very interesting. While I would hope to make the story interesting, it may be too difficult a goal for now.

4. A fourth goal is to make a movie about transportation planning that people will find interesting. I worked as a transportation planner for over 30 years and want to draw on that experience for a story. Transportation planning is a small field, so not many people would understand much of the background. Many people told me that it wouldn’t work, but I saw similarities with the police procedural, which is a popular film genre. I also keep in mind that what really interests people is other people.

5. A fifth goal is to make a feature length movie about transportation planning that transportation planners will agree is a realistic portrayal. This goal and my fourth goal are somewhat at odds with each other. It will be hard to strike a good balance.

6. A sixth goal is to express my opinions on how to do transportation planning. This is a legacy of my previous career and I expect that few viewers will appreciate what I have to say. I feel that any work of art is propaganda for the artist’s worldview, so this provides an opportunity to express my ideas.

I see this project as an experiment. While I hope to achieve all of my stated goals, the underlying goal is to learn and to grow. If this movie does not fully succeed, what I learn will help me with later projects.

I plan to release the movie as a version 0.9, and ask for viewer’s feedback. Based on that feedback I may develop the movie further, or accept my lessons and move on. I do hope I will get feedback that is more detailed than “it sucks”. That doesn’t really help me much. Even if all people ever tell me is how far they got before they gave up that would be more useful.

I would like to hear people’s opinions of my goals, so please feel free to comment.

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

“The Barrier” Update 2013 June 9

I made good progress on “TheBarrier” this week. I finished one scene from last week and did three new ones. The movie is inching closer toward feature length.

Productivity

I added a little over 6 minutes this week, which puts me at 56 minutes total. I think I have about 44 minutes left to do. Unless I pick up the pace, it will take me another couple of months to finish the first version. In my better weeks I’ve done up to 10 minutes of new material.

Once I have all the scenes done, I expect I’ll need to do some tidy up work. I know I added some elements in later scenes that I’ll need to introduce in earlier scenes. I noticed that I have two characters who have almost the same clothes on. I’ll need to fix that somehow.

Scenes

The scene I finished and two of the new ones make up a single scene that I broke down into three separate scenes to make it easier to work with. It is set at a public open house where Arthur, out hero, tries to gain support for the barrier. The other new scene is a follow up to that scene where Arthur has to placate a person who complained about how Arthur treated him at the open house. I skipped a few scenes in between, which I will have to go back to.

Problems and Ideas

I couldn’t find a set I thought was appropriate for the public open house, so I used the coffee area set, which has a sort of large empty room that I thought would work. I am not happy with it and I plan to convert the scenes to the green screen and create my own backdrops. Previously I worked out how I can change a set and keep all the dialogue, movement, and camera positions for the scene.

Typically, they hold open houses in school gymnasiums. I expect that will be difficult to create backdrops that match the proper perspective.

I came up with a suggestion I plan to make to the Xtranormal people. It would be nice to be able to create your own sets, but that could be quite difficult to set up. I noticed that some of the sets have the option to change “screens”, which allow you to add your own images to the sets. My thought is that if they were to have a set that had six screens forming a box, then it would be easier to create your own sets. They would be rather rudimentary sets, but for my gymnasium set, it would work fairly well.

Another idea I had been for props. Currently props, like chairs, tables and so on, are fixed within the set. I know it might be difficult to create a new class of objects to be props, but I wonder if they could create props as a special type of character. They would be characters that don’t have any animation, but that would allow you place props around the set.

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

“The Barrier” - Halfway There?

I didn’t accomplish much on “The Barrier” this week, but I did pass the halfway mark. Although, halfway done the initial version isn’t halfway to a completed movie.

I worked on one old scene and started three new ones.

Old Scene

The old scene was where Arthur tells Dennis about the transportation model review. This had been the longest scene I’d done so far at 2:49. For the most part the changes were to the camera angles. The original version had some very poor shots, where you couldn’t see the characters. I made some minor changes to the dialogue and I added about 3 seconds to the scene.

I’d like to go back later and add some more emotions and gestures. That said, it doesn’t look too bad as it is.

New Scenes

I created one very short scene (29 seconds) where Arthur sees a woman who smiles at him on the street. I plan to bring her back in some later scenes and make her part of a small subplot.

I created a scene between Arthur and Ishita that sets up a scene I did last week between them and Brandon. I’d skipped over it previously because I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to happen in the scene. An idea came to me this week and allowed me to get this done.

The last scene I worked on is actually part of a long scene that I broke up into three scenes to make it easier to handle. It is a scene where Arthur takes his barrier project to a public meeting. The first part of the scene is a conversation between Arthur and Ling, as they get set up for the meeting. Two of the three scenes come directly from the short story I wrote.

This “big scene” will be a technical challenge. I want there to be posters on the walls behind the characters, but Xtranormal can’t accommodate that with any of the sets I’ve checked. I have an idea about how to use Premiere Pro to work around that. It will involve a lot of green screen and compositing.

Movie Length

The total run time of the scenes I’ve done is 49 minutes and 49 seconds. I have completed versions of 31 of the 61 scenes I have planned. That puts me at 51 per cent complete.

The average scene length stands at 1:36. If I maintain that average scene length, the final run time will be 98 minutes. Of course, once I start to edit the scenes together, I expect I’ll lose some of that to transitions and trims.

My guess is that would be a reduction of between ten and fifteen per cent, which would give me an 85-minute movie. Titles and credits might add a bit, but I won’t need much in the way of credits for this movie.

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