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" 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

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

“Pete’s Plan”, “The Barrier”, and Various Distractions

I was disappointed to get another rejection of my short story “Pete’s Plan” this week. “The Barrier” is almost one-third done now. My various distractions may delay progress.

“Pete’s Plan”

I got another rejection for my science fiction short story “Pete’s Plan”. It took them 3 months to respond and, by the time I got the reply, I’d forgotten to whom I submitted the story. It was a disappointment and part of me wants to give up and post it on my website like my other stories. I still have a long list of places I can submit to though.

“The Barrier”

I got seven more scenes done on “The Barrier” this week. Most of them were quite short, so they only added about 9 minutes. In total, I have 27 minutes done.

I feel confident that the final film will be feature length when I’m done. I took a short break from creating scenes to plan the whole film a little better, so I know where I’m headed. I’ve done 17 scenes now and in all I have 58 scenes planned. My average scene so far is 1:35 and if I keep that average, the final film will be a little over 90 minutes.

When I edit them together, I’m sure to lose some time. Some of scenes are quite bare bones, so if I develop those further, then I should make up for the lost time.

My plan is to get all the scenes done and edited together. After I’ve had a look at how it works, I plan to do some clean up work and revisions. When I’m done that I’d like to release it as Version 0.9 and ask for feedback.

I find the story interesting, but I can’t be sure if anyone else will be willing to watch it all the way through. For a film to be successful, people would enjoy it enough to recommend it to others. Maybe that is too high a goal for now.

I picked up a few more tricks in Xtranormal. I’ve started to experiment with the smart camera feature. In several of my scenes, I have the characters move around the set. That makes it very difficult to set up camera angles because you have to watch the movie to see if you got it right. I think the smart camera may make that easier.

I may try the smart cameras on a couple of scenes I did already. After I watched them, I felt that I wanted to use different sets. I hesitated because redoing all the camera set-ups was such a pain. If this works, it may not be so bad.

Various Distractions

I would like to put more time into “The Barrier” to get it done, but it isn’t the only thing in my life these days.

Spring is finally here. With that comes allergy season. That tends to slow me down. I’m in itchy sneezy mode these days. With spring comes yard work and garden work. I do enjoy the yard and garden, but it does take up my time.

I just watched a video where the speaker says that you need to take time away from your thinking in order for you to keep you mind clear and focused  (http://fora.tv/2013/02/24/Maria_Konnikova_How_to_Think_Like_Sherlock_Holmes) So maybe it is good to have distractions.

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

A Feature Movie is Difficult to Make in Many Different Ways - Version 1.0

Back in 2004, after I shot My Most Difficult Case, I decided that my next movie would be a feature. I felt I was ready for it, but seven years have gone by and no feature yet. I’ve started to consider some of the difficulties I’ve run into. I hope that will help me overcome them.

I expect that my knowledge and views will change and become better organized. That is why I call this version 1.0.