"Felix" and "The Barrier"

I started to get back to my story "Felix" this week, although I am still involved with "The Barrier". Just before Christmas may not be that good a time to start a new project.

"Felix"

I wrote a first version of "Felix" a year ago. It is a science fiction tale that I based on a H. P. Lovecraft story. I changed the setting to Mars. I left it since then because I find it easier to rewrite if I can distance myself from the story.

I reread the story this week. It was different than I remember. For one thing, I had planned to have parts of the story told in flashback. In the version I did, I had done it in chronological order. I forgot I had done that. Lovecraft himself recommended that if you want to tell a story in non chronological order, that you start with it in chronological order, then rearrange it later.

I've come up with some ideas to revise the story. I know I need to develop the characters more, but I haven't given that much thought yet.

"The Barrier"

I had some more good feed back this week. No bad feed back. My plan was to leave the project for at least several months before I do anything more on it. I didn't think that there was much I could do unless I redid the movie from scratch. However, as I contemplate the comments I've had, I can see how I can do some improvements with out a complete redo.

Someone suggested that I add music. That could help, but I find it hard to imagine what kind of music would be appropriate. The suggestion was that I could use it to set the mood of each scene. I may set aside some time to review the options.

Another person suggested that I redo the voices with real actors in place of the computer generated voices. I think that can be done. I may try doing one character in one scene to see how it goes.

Initially I had some comments that questioned the validity of some of transportation planning details. That doesn't seem to be an issue anymore.

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

On to My Next Project

I am done with "The Barrier" for now. I still plan to promote it and cogitate on the feedback I get, but I want to move onto another creative project. I decided a while ago that my next project would be "Felix", a science fiction story I started over a year ago.

"The Barrier"

I am tempted to revise "The Barrier" based on ideas inspired by the feedback I have so far. However, I think it is better to leave it for now and come back to it later. There are very few changes I can make to the movie with out a major effort. The program I used to create it, Xtranormal Desktop, is no longer available. I would need to either shoot live action, or redo the movie with a different program.

If you haven't watched it yet, you can find it on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LOUNSEKac

"Felix"

I went through several drafts of "Felix" between October 2012 and January 2013. It has been almost a year since I last read it, so I think I can approach it with fresh eyes. In the interim I have had some ideas that I would like to incorporate into the story.

I think the main thrust of my rewrite is to build up the characters more. While the story is primarily plot driven, I think the characters need to be more fully developed so it will appeal to readers.

As an aside; I read someplace that in a short story the characters support the plot, while in a novel, the plot supports the characters. What I have now is kind of in between those two extremes. I guess that means the plot and characters need to support each other.

The last version of the story ran to just over 8,000 words. I suspect that with the changes I have in mind it will end up at over 10,000 words.

I have a sense that something important is missing from the story. I really don't know what it is.  Hopefully I can get a better handle on what that might be when I rewrite it. The first step though, is to read it over again; several times.

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

"The Barrier" Criticism Considered

A few years ago, I saw an interview with the Smother's brothers. Tommy talked about some musicians who would practice for years before they went on stage. He felt that was wrong. He said that you really don't learn how to perform in public unless you perform in public. The audience will tell you what is working and what isn't. On your own, you'll focus on the wrong things.

When I posted "The Barrier", I knew that it wasn't a final version. But, if I didn't show it to anyone, and in particular people that didn't know me, I would lose out on some important lessons.

I've had a range of responses to "The Barrier" so far, from very positive to very negative. I am pleased that most of the responses have been positive. Even some people who had criticism did have positive things to say.

I was disappointed when people didn't like the movie, but you can't expect everyone to like what you do. If only one person in 1,000 like your work, that is still 7,000,000 people.

It is tempting to get snarky with some commenters, but that isn't a good way to build support for my movie. Not only will it put them off, but other people who see the posts will be discouraged as well. I used to say I wish my word processer had a diplomacy checker.

I knew that my movie had some problems, but I've been surprised that people pick up on things I hadn't expected, and don't seem bothered by what I thought were the "real" problems. A lot more people were put off by the animation and computer generated voices than I expected. In part I think that was because, in my mind, I imagined the film with live action and live actors. On the other hand, some people really liked the animation.

Another comment I got was that it didn't seem like very much was at stake. Strictly speaking, the stakes are quite high, but that isn't made explicit until the very end. I can see that as a problem from a pure story telling perspective. However, it has to be that way to express a specific  idea, which is one of the main reasons I want to tell the story. I'll need to think about how I might address that.

I still want to hear more about what people think of the movie. Please take the time to watch it and tell me what you think. If you already have, please encourage other people to watch it as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-LOUNSEKac

If you have any suggestions about where I can find people who might enjoy the movie, I would like to hear that too.

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

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" 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" Almost Done. Again?

I remember when I moved from my apartment to my house I went back to the apartment for one last visit to see if I'd left anything. I ended up going back about a half dozen times! Each time I found something I'd forgotten. My experience with "The Barrier" feels almost the same. Every time I'm think I'm done, I find one more thing to do.

I did pass a major milestone this week. I uploaded the movie to YouTube. It took 14 hours to upload! I have it set to private for now while I prepare for the release. I want to do a good write up for the YouTube page and my mail outs.

I decided to create subtitles for the movie, and that took up much of my time. I tried to use the Premiere Pro voice to text system. The file has each word as a separate item, so I decided it would be too much work to reformat it.

I thought YouTube would generate a subtitle file when I uploaded the movie. I thought I use that after I cleaned it up. It turns out that YouTube won't generate a subtitle file for a long video.

I went back to the text file from Premiere Pro and found a way to reformat it into a subtitle file. There were some problems with it. Sometimes I would get some very long subtitles I had to break into two or three. Sometimes the voice to text didn't work very well, and I got subtitles that were vastly different from what the characters said.

I started to review the file manually and make adjustments as I went through it. I am on my second pass through now and I think I will need one more before I am done.

I think I will be done this week, but then I thought the same thing last week.

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