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