More Thoughts on a Final Version of "The Barrier"

I've given some more thought to the next, and hopefully final, version of "The Barrier". From that I developed a sort of to-do list.

I have a version of "The Barrier", my transportation planner movie, posted now.

(See http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/the-barrier/). I am not totally happy with this version and want to do a revised version before I try to promote it more widely. The main change I want to make is to replace the artificial voices with real actors.

Because of my personal responsibilities, I will need to rely heavily on other people to make this work. As I talked about in my last post, I may try to recruit a collaborator/co-director to handle much of the work. (See: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/a-final-version-for-the-barrier/)

I see several major steps I need to take to get the project done.

·         Produce a script of the existing movie

If I want to revise the script, I will need a script. When I made the movie, I didn't write a script, and then create the Xtranormal files; I created the Xtranormal files interactively. I did create a script from these files, as I documented in an earlier post: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier-progress-and-file-conversion/.

That was before I finished the final movie, and I didn't update the script with changes I made later. That in itself could be a major project. I could go back and rerun the file conversion system I created, but I seem to recall that when I tried it later, it didn't work. The converter only converted the dialogue and not the action. That could be an issue.

·         Compile the ideas I had and others suggested for changes to the script.

Several people were kind enough to suggest some changes that they thought would improve the movie. I have some of my own ideas for changes as well. I also had some criticism, which I might be able to address as well. I want to compile all these ideas together before I try a rewrite of the script.

One example of a change I want tot make is the scene where Arthur shows Meera the simulation that Dennis did. It starts at 35:50 of the movie. In the current version, she is impressed with the simulation. I want to change it so that she isn't convinced, but Arthur convinces her to send it to Brandon. I think that is a more realistic response for her to have. I think it works better with what happens later.

·         Revise the script to incorporate changes

While I "wrote" the script in Xtranormal, I think that I will do the rewrite in a script format. I can always fine tune the dialogue and action when I redo the scenes in NawmalMAKE.

·         Revise some of the computer screen images

When I did created the computer screen images for the earlier version, I mostly used PowerPoint to create the screen images. I also indulged myself in some inside jokes. As a result I cut the length of the shots of the screens quite short, so that people wouldn't be distracted by the images. Some people didn't like that.

I should remove some of the inside jokes so they won't be a distraction. While I'm at it, I should also try to improve the look of the screen images.

One of the things I'd most like to do is replace the simulation Dennis did in the scene I mentioned above with Arthur and Meera. Like the other screen images, I used PowerPoint. It doesn't really look too convincing. I think I can do a better job by revising the Blender animation I created for the opening scene. It's been a while since I used Blender, so I worry that I'll need to relearn how to use it.

·         Character descriptions for the actors

I want to write notes about each of the characters to help the actors understand what I want. If, as seems likely, I am unable to work closely with them in recording the voices, this kind of information could make a big difference.

·         Dialogue descriptions for the actors

I need to write notes to describe the emotions each character has for each of their lines. These notes could also suggest what the characters want or think. For example: when a character says something, are they angry, sad, bored, frustrated or have different feeling. I want to make it clear what I want, but at the same time, I want to give the actors some leeway about how they interpret the lines.

A good actor can bring more depth to the character in ways that I can't. I would like to get some feedback from the actors about the facial expressions and gestures the animated characters use.

·         Recruitment of a collaborator and actors

I find it quite daunting to recruit people to help me on projects. I'm always somewhat reluctant to ask for help, but I'm also unsure who would be a proper choice. I think the most important thing is to find people who buy into the story, and believes in what I want to say.

This is particularly important with the collaborator/co-director I want to work with. Since I will not likely be able to work directly with the actors, this person will have to communicate what I want, while they allow for their own input and that of the actors. I have some ideas about who to approach, but I'm reluctant to ask them unless I am willing to commit to them. A kind of chicken and egg problem.

If I do decided work with a collaborator, I would like to have them handle the recruitment of the actors. If not, then I'll have to do that part of the job. AT the moment I tend to lean toward people I've already worked with, but then there are several characters for whom I don't know people who might work.

·         Recording and sound quality

Since I plan to record the actors and then use those with the animation, the arrangements for the recording and the recording sessions themselves will form a major component of the project. I've done a little bit of that, but this is a much larger effort.

I'll likely do the sound recording piecemeal, so I need to be concerned about consistent sound quality between sessions, and maybe between studios. I am not a real audio guy, so I'm somewhat unsure what I need to be concerned about. That is another reason I'd like to work with someone else.

·         Combining audio and video

One of the nice things about NawmalMAKE is that you can import pre-recorded voices and the program will sync the lip movements to the voices. This will make it much easier to do a new version. I haven't done much with this capability before, and worry that they're may be some challenges when I comes to the timing of actions.

Once I have the scenes output from NawmalMAKE, I plan to use Adobe Premiere to edit them together. The experience I had before makes me think this will be relative straight forward. The hardest part at this stage is to drop in the background images and computer screens I've created elsewhere. This can be tricky, but it is also the kind of work I enjoy.

I'm a little unsure where to start. Either I start to recruit an collaborator, or I start work on the script rewrite. At the moment I'm inclined to start with the script because I worry that if I bring in a collaborator too soon, then they'll lose interest and drift away before I finish the script. On the other hand, if I have a collaborator in place, that will be an incentive to push forward with the project.

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

More Blender Animation for "The Barrier" - 2014 September 14

I continued to work on the revised opening scene for "The Barrier" this week. Progress has been slower than I hoped, but I enjoy most of the work, and I've learned quite a lot from what I've done so far.

In the opening scene, my hero, a young transportation planner drives down a road and is almost hit by a truck. In the scene in the current version of "The Barrier" this isn't very clear. I hope to get a much more impressive opening scene with Blender.

It took me most of the week to create the car for the scene. I wasn't happy with the first version I did, so I scraped it. I did learn a few tricks when I did it though that helped me when I did the new version. When I did the second version, I based it on a specific car. It didn't look much like it when I was done, but it did look more realistic. I don't want it to look too realistic though. After I got the initial version done, I added some seats. At first I made them a dark brown, but then decided a light tan would look better.

I gave the windows for the car a slight blue colour, a little reflectivity and a slight opaqueness. I thought that looked good, but then ran into a problem where the inside of the car was too dark to see anything. I made the windows more transparent and even deleted some of them. I lightened the colour of the seats, and moved the Sun so that it would better illuminate the interior. Finally I put a light inside the car. I was reluctant to do that because I was concerned that it would look wrong. However, it didn't look too bad.

I did some more animation tests, mostly to see how the car looked when I travelled down the road. One of the issues I have to solve is that car can fly up above or drop below the road unless I get the key frames right. That is finicky work. The river beside the road is static, so I did a test to see if I could animate it as well.

At the end of the week I started to work out the animation plan in more detail. I need to know where to put the car, the truck and the cameras for each key frame. I have the car worked out, but ran into trouble with the truck. I'll try again next week. I haven't done anything about the cameras yet. The ones that move need to stay in the same relative position to the car throughout the scene. I hope that I can find a way to link the cameras to the car, so they move when the car moves. I find it difficult to work with the co-ordinate system in Blender. It seems like each object has its own system.

I wanted to add new objects to the animation, so I searched for a video demonstration on-line. I've found that videos about most everything I need to learn about Blender are available on-line.

I still have a lot of work to do before I'm done with this video. I need to finish the car: I want to add head lights and a steering wheel. A rear view mirror would be nice, but I think I can skip that. I also would like to add some detail to the interior of the car.

The one major piece of work I have to do is create the truck. In the script I have it as a semi, but I think that would be too difficult to animate, so I think I will do some sort of van. That will be a bit trickier than the car. I don't think I will need the interior detail, which will help.

I'm not sure how much longer this scene will take me to complete. Every week I start with the thought that I'll get it done this week. It turns out to be wishful thinking.

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

"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" 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" 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

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

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

“The Barrier” Tops 45 Minutes

I passed an important milestone this week when I passed the 45-minute mark on my transportation planning movie “The Barrier”. In the final version, I expect that will turn out a little shorter, but for now it’s nice to feel like I’m half way to my first feature length movie.

Earlier in the week, I made some major changes to the outline. I realized that several of the scenes I had planned wouldn’t work very well, so I removed them. That left the outline too short for feature length, so I reviewed my ideas file and developed some new scenes. Before the changes, I had done 47 per cent of the scenes in the outline, while after the changes I had done 43 per cent of the scenes. The projected movie length went from 90-minutes to 100-minutes.

My average scene length is about 90-seconds now and my longest scene runs to 2:49. I’ve broken up some of my scenes to make them easier to work with.

I worked on four new scenes this week and redid an earlier scene. The new scenes still need some work and I will need to go back to them later. I am impatient to be done, so I have been a little laxer about “finishing” scenes. I took most of these scenes almost directly from the short stories, so I didn’t need to make many changes. The scene I redid was to change the set I used.

I created a webpage for the movie http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/

I started to post daily updates about the movie on Twitter. I might start to post them on FaceBook as well. I’ve written some notes about the story, characters, and concerns I have about the project. I’ll turn some of them into blog posts over the next while.

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

“The Barrier” Progress Report 2013 May 19

I finished two scenes I had started last week, reworked two other scenes I’d done earlier, and added three new scenes. I’m at just over 37 minutes now. In the final cut, that would run a bit shorter. That puts me about 40 per cent of the way through.

Characters and Story

I need to do some work on the characters. I’ve gotten a little confused about them. Sometimes I have Arthur’s name as Ralph. I should do a write up about each of the main characters for the blog. I may also create a web page for the film.

I have been reluctant to post much information about the story. That is a silly thing for me to do since the movie is based on two short stories that I posted on my website. (“The Glencoe Project” and “The Gladstone Barrier”) I plan to post a bit more about the story in the future.

First Sequence

I redid scene 1 to change the set I used. It is the scene between the Mayor and Arthur’s boss Brandon. I decided that the office I used wasn’t appropriate for a Mayor.

It was not too difficult easy to copy over the dialogue. Xtranormal stores its data in a .state file, which is a zipped file containing several files. The dialogue, camera positions, and various actions are in an xml file.

First, I created a new scene with the new set. Then I unzipped the .state files and did a copy and paste from the old scene to the new scene. I copied the camera positions and actions, but had to recreate the markers manually. Unfortunately, the set was too different and I needed to revise all the markers and camera positions. That took almost as long as it took to do the original scene.

Third Sequence

The two scenes I finished from the previous week were the last two for the movie’s third sequence: scenes 18 and 19. Both of these scenes focus on the Glencoe story line. For scene 18, I added a short bit at the end to move the Gladstone story line along.

I had run into a problem with how to end scene 19, which was why I’d left it. The scene had some escalating conflict and needed to find a way to resolve it. In the end, I split part of the scene off and added it to scene 20. It helped both scenes, since scene 20 was really too short. Scene was a little tricky to do because I had it the hallway of the boardroom set. From the hallway some of the walls are transparent, so it was difficult to position the camera so that wasn’t obvious.

I expanded scene 17. It was a conversation between Ling, Arthur’s mentor and Ishita. I added a piece on the end to set up a subplot that involved Ling. In the process, I think it developed her character more.

Fourth Sequence

The fourth sequence focuses on the Gladstone story line. I did scene 21 and then skipped several scenes to get to scene 25. I may eliminate scene 22. With the Gladstone story line, I’ve had to toss out most of the material from the short story. I don’t think any of the scenes in this sequence have any counter part in the short story.

In scene 21, I have Ling advising Arthur about both of the story lines. I think I went overboard with Ling’s advice. It sounds too much like a lecture. I think I can cut out much of it. I finish the scene with a bit of an aside to build up Ling’s character. I need to do more of that with Arthur.

In scene 25, Ishita and Arthur try to convince Brandon to support the barrier. I think it turned out fairly well. The end of the scene sets up the next scene.

In the intervening scenes, Arthur will put together a case for the barrier and convinces Ishita to go along with it.

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