“Speed Date” and Revised “The Barrier” Videos Posted

I posted one new video and a revised old video on YouTube this week. I am slowly working away on my backlog of projects.

“Speed Date”

This project began as an experiment with NAWMAL about four years ago. It came together quickly. Unfortunately, the feedback I got was quite negative. I think the main sticking point was the computer-generated voices I used. I intended to record actors eventually but didn’t do that for the initial version while I worked on the script.

The blowback caused me to abandon the project.

A few months ago I revisited the project. Initially I recorded the voices myself and used voice.ai to give the different characters distinct voices. This worked better, but my acting skills are not much better than the computer-generated voices.

I brought in Mona Dallmann, who acted in my film “My Most Difficult Case” to rerecord the dialogue.

I finally finished editing “Speed Date,” this week.

You can watch it on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH7FUnTkeMM

“The Barrier”

One of the comments I get about the videos I’ve done with NAWMAL is that the movements all seem too slow. As an experiment I revised my video “The Barrier” by speeding it up. It was a bit tricky because after speeding up, the voice pitches were too high. In my initial attempt it turned out that threw the sync off. I didn’t pick it up until someone posted a comment on YouTube.

I reworked my process, and I now have a new version of the video that fixed the sound sync issue.

 

The new version is available on YouTube now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi2cWiRUjX8

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

“Ted Writes a Novel” Recording Demonstration Posted

Over the last 2 ½ years I’ve been recording the writing exercises I’ve done in the writer’s group I joined. Recently someone who heard about this asked me to do a demonstration video about how I did it. I’ve posted that demo video now.

I’ve used some of my writing exercises as the basis for a few of the short, animated videos I’ve done. Part of the reason why I started to record and post my writing exercise was to develop my skills in recording voices for my animation videos.

At first I was reluctant to do such a demonstration, because I felt what I was doing was rather primitive compared to what others could do. Eventually I convinced myself that there were some people who could benefit from my experiences.

For my demonstration, I wrote a very short story, “Ted Writes a Novel,” so the demonstration video wouldn’t run too long.

I use Audacity on my PC computer for recording and editing. The microphone I use is a Yeti Blue USB. I modify my voice for different characters using voice.ai. I use Natural Reader text to voice for some characters.

I used OBS Studio to record a video of the process of recording, cleaning up, and editing the video. After some procrastination I edited the 32 ½ minutes of raw video into a 10 ½ minute video. I wanted to keep the final video short, so I cut out or sped through repetitive sections. I also used the opportunity to cover up some of the mistakes I made.

I finally finished the video this week and posted it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ffwmb9_XIs

I hope you find this useful.

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

Project Updates 2023 February 5

This week I worked on my new script for the Older Filmmaker’s Club, and started to explore Unreal Engine.

Older Filmmaker’s Club short film script challenge

I worked on my script for the Older Filmmaker’s Club short film script challenge. Last week I had written part of it as a short story. This week I got a draft script done. I decided to leave it for a bit before I had another go at it.

I have mixed emotions about it. It seems to me that it is too superficial. At the same time, I find myself getting very emotional about it. I feel that it was good for me to write it, but I am not sure that I really want to share it with other people.

Changing Priorities

I had planned to do some more experiments with ChatGPT this week. My idea was to feed it one of my story outlines and ask it to write the story based on it. I wanted to see if that would be of any use in helping me write.

However, I changed my mind.

Last year I bought my new computer so I could use some of the newer animation programs. Even the new release Blender, which I had experience with, wouldn’t work on my computer. I felt that it would be better for me to spend my time learning and testing those rather than diving deeper into ChatGPT.

Cascadeur

I looked at Cascadeur, an animation program with AI features. In other programs, when you adjust one body part of a character, you need to adjust all the other parts to fit. For example, when you take a step forward, the rest of your body will shift to maintain balance. With other programs, you have to do this body part by body part. This program uses AI to do it automatically.

It is an interesting approach, but, after a bit of investigation, I decided that it really wasn’t what I was looking for.

·       https://cascadeur.com/

Unreal Engine

Last year I looked at iClone and Unreal Engine, but neither of them would run on my old computer. That is why I bought my new computer.

I had leaned toward iClone, but since Unreal Engine is free to use on movie projects under $1,000,000, I decided I should try it first.

I found a 4-hour long training video on YouTube teaching Unreal Engine for Blender users. Since I have used Blender, I figured this would be a good option. So far, I’ve only watched about 20 minutes of the video. I kept stopping to go try out what they showed. It does seem easier to get the photo realistic look. I was never able to get that with Blender.

·    https://www.reallusion.com/iclone/

https://www.unrealengine.com/

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