"The Barrier" Script Rewrite 2015 February 21

I made progress on my rewrite of  "The Barrier", my transportation planning movie. The script is matched to the movie now. I started to work on the revisions to the script.

Conform Script to Current Movie

I conformed the script to match the caption file I created for the movie when I first released it. As I went through the script later, I caught several places where I'd missed some bits of dialogue.

Version 0.6 of the movie is still available on-line. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATcKnFAwlU0

Action Descriptions

When I created the script from the Xtranormal STATE files, I wasn't able to convert the actions and expressions. This left the script with just the scene headers, character names and dialogues.

I went through the script to add some action descriptions. I decided to keep the action descriptions to a minimum. Maybe I was too terse, but I wanted to move onto the next phase.

Character Descriptions

After I thought I was done with the action descriptions I came across an article about the Jane test (http://www.wired.com/2016/02/jane-test-movie-gender-roles/). It focussed on the sexist slant of the character descriptions  for female characters in the script. I had a look at my descriptions, and realized I didn't really have much to say at all. For example:

ARTHUR MACDONALD drives his car along a country road between a river and some hills.

LING PANG walks by.

ZELDA ZIMMERMAN and another woman sit at a table in front of the coffee shop.

I added some brief descriptions, which I don't think are sexist:

ARTHUR MACDONALD, a transportation engineer in his early 20s, drives his car along a country road between a river and some hills.

LING PANG, a transportation engineer in her mid 40s, walks by.

ZELDA ZIMMERMAN, a woman in her mid 20's, and another woman sit at a table in front of the coffee shop.

I was tempted to describe Zelda as "attractive", but decided it wasn't necessary.

These character descriptions are not really that critical to the script, since I had already chosen the characters from Xtranormal for the movie. I felt it would be a useful exercise for any scripts I write in the future, where I will need to include them.

Change Notes

As I went through the script to make the changes above, I inserted change notes where I came across something that I wanted to change. Most of these were cases where I felt that the dialogue didn't fit the character. For example, Ling says "oh my" to express her surprise and concern for Arthur when he tells her about his near accident. Not only do I feel that isn't what she'd say, but the character Meera says the same thing several times. I think it is appropriate for her.

When I first released the movie, several people sent me comments and suggestions. Since then I've written down several more ideas for changes. I went through the script a second time to insert notes where I wanted add those changes. Most of these changes were to clarify the story and dialogue where people were confused or put off.  There were a few places where I felt the scene was weak and could be improved.

Since I finished, I came across a few more ideas I'd forgotten about, and will need to add those as well.

When you make changes one place in a script, you often need to make changes elsewhere to keep the story consistent. I'll need to do at least one more pass through to fix those.

Rewriting the First Scene

I took my first stab at the rewrite with a go at Scene 8, where Arthur and Vincent Campbell first meet. My objective with the changes was to explain the hierarchy in the office, which some people found confusing.

I had Campbell play a mind game with Arthur, to force him to explain who he works for. Campbell, of course, already knows who's who and wants to put Arthur on the defensive right away. I think the result has some humour to it, and also reinforces Campbell's personality.

I thought I was done with the scene, but afterwards I started to think that I could delete or shorten some of the dialogue to tighten up the scene. For example I have a rather long introduction between two of the characters that is both dull and adds very little to the scene.

Ideas for Other Changes

I got an idea for a new scene where Arthur shoots a video of the dangerous curve in the road. I would need to change a couple other scenes to accommodate that. It would be a short scene, but would be as complicated to make as the new opening scene I added in version 0.6.

My other ideas involve improvements to the computer screens animations. I don't plan to add anything of substance, just improve how they look. Again, they might be quite complicated to create.

What to do After I have the New Script?

I haven't given too much thought to what my next step after I'm done with the script revisions. I could work on the extra animations I want to add, or I could get NawmalMAKE and start to create the new scenes. But, what troubles me is how I will handle the voices in the new version. NawmalMAKE has different voices from Xtranormal Desktop.

For the final version I want to hire vocal actors to do the voices. This could be expensive. I found commercial rates posted on-line that suggest it could cost me more than $2,000. I would prefer to use local actors. I haven't talked to any of the actors I know about what they would charge me. I made a vow that in the future I would always pay anyone who helped me with my movies. As an interim step I could use the new artificial voices that come with NawmalMAKE.

I've also thought I could use the voices from Acapela that I used the first time. From what I can see on their web site, I don't think I can download them and use them in NawmalMAKE, but I can use their Acapela Box website to create the audio. (https://acapela-box.com/AcaBox/index.php). This would cost me at least $920 for my whole movie. Possibly much more. I think it would be cheaper, about $600, to buy the voices to work with another program. If I did that, I could use the voices on other projects.

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

Maybe It's Time to Get a New Secret Cabal to Run the World

I don't believe that there is a secret cabal that runs the world, but if there is one, they don't seem to be very good at it. Maybe it is time that we replace them with a new secret cabal and see if they can do a better job.

Back when I made "Who Shot the President" I read a lot about various conspiracy theories. While secret conspiracies have existed in the past, and some may well exist now, it is doubtful that most of the large conspiracy theories have any basis in reality. A recent study demonstrated that large conspiracies unlikely to stay secret for long: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/math-vs-conspiracies/

Nevertheless, the concept of a large scale secret conspiracy to run the world still attracts people's interest. If nothing else, it certainly provides much fodder for fictional treatment.

For quite a while now, I've rejected the idea on the basis that if there was a secret cabal, they didn't seem to be competent. Eventually I came to think that if they were so bad at their job, they should be replaced. This might make a good story.

I need to have is a reasonable way for the secret cabal to be replaced. Of course, if it is more of a satire, I could come up with an absurd method to replace them.

I have the feeling that a lot of people who fervently believe that there is a secret cabal that runs the world would probably be very offended by any kind of satire. I got several threats of violence when I posted "Who Shot the President" on YouTube.

Maybe I could have the secret cabal's replacement put to a world wide democratic vote. The secret cabal would need to campaign to convince people to keep them in power. Other potential secret cabals would propose how they would run the secret world conspiracy. The unfortunate draw back is that I don't think I am ready to write something of this sort.

Another possibility is to have a higher level secret cabal that can hire and fire the lower level secret cabal. That could mean that there is an even higher level secret cabal that can hire and fire the higher level secret cabal. There could be an infinite number of levels of secret cabals. This could turn into another absurd story.

Maybe someday I'll be ready to take this on as a project, but for now I think I need to let it percolate through my mind. Maybe more inspiration will pop-up.

You can watch "Who Shot the President"  here: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/who-shot-the-president/

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

How to Deal With Jargon in "The Barrier"

One of the problems some viewers had with "The Barrier" was the amount of transportation planning jargon I used. I think I've come up with a way to deal with that. I also moved forward with my recreation of the script and creation of new subtitles.

How to Deal With Jargon in "The Barrier"

Some people commented that they didn't understand the jargon I used in the story. I don't want to completely replace the jargon because that would create long complicated descriptions all the time. I also want to avoid injecting "As you know Bob ..." dialogue to explain what the terms mean.

The approach I will try is to have the character Vincent Campbell play dumb. I don't want the character to be dumb. He just plays dumb as a tactic to manipulate people. He would deliberately misunderstand jargon, and force other characters to explain what they mean. There is already an example of this in the movie where Dennis needs to explain what a travel survey is. If I can make Campbell's misinterpretations humorous, that should keep the explanations from sounding too dry.

For example, when Arthur says he is concerned about the trip generation, Campbell's response would be, "Why would anyone care about drugged out old hippies?"

Recreated Script

I have all of the dialogue matched against the captions now. There were quite a few discrepancies I had to fix. Many of them were changes I made to improve pronunciation. There were only a couple of places where I had new dialogue to include.

I still need to add in some more action descriptions. I already did this for the first few scenes. I don't want to over do the action descriptions, because I don't need them for what I plan to do. I think they will help the voice actors understand the situation better.

The script is still in an Excel spreadsheet. For the rewrite this might be OK, but I think I need to convert it to a script format. I'm not so sure how to do that easily.

When I matched the dialogue, I noted some of the places where I want to make changes for the next version of the movie.

Revised Subtitles

When I made some changes to the movie back in 2014, I added some time at the start and so the old subtitles were out of sync. While I worked on the script recreation, I had to bring the old subtitles into the spreadsheet I used. This allowed me to adjust the times when the subtitles are displayed.

I had to work out what the adjustment should be. That took a couple of tries to get right. Although, there is a few places where I still think they might be off. Not by more than a half second though.

You can check out the new subtitles here: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/the-barrier/

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

"The Barrier" Script Match and the Next Step

I continued to match the script to the movie this week and I had some more thoughts on the where I go next with the project.

Match the Script to the Movie

The script I had was done before I finished the movie. I knew it wouldn't match exactly, so before I could start to revise the script, I needed to conform it to what was in the movie. I thought this would be a long slow process. I'd watch the movie and note the changes against the script along the way.

I wanted to find a quicker way.

I remembered that I had created a captions file for the first version I posted. It didn't match the current movie exactly either, but it was only a few lines at the start of the movie that were different.

I reformatted and imported both the captions and the script into Excel. This allowed me to align each line of the script to the corresponding line in the captions. There wasn't a perfect match because in the script each dialogue line in the script was a paragraph, while in the captions each dialogue was a sentence.

As I went through the file I had to split up the script paragraphs into sentences so I could do the comparisons. I had a formula that compared the line from the script with the line from the caption and flagged them when they were different.

So far I haven't found many cases where the actual dialogue was different. Most of the time I had modified the script to help the artificial voices pronounce some words. For example in the name Campbell, you don't hear the "p", so in the script I have it was cam-bell.

I am about half way through the script at the moment. It shouldn't take too long to get that completed. I'm unsure how I'll convert the Excel file back into a script format. I wonder if I really need to do that though. Certainly for the rewrite I won't need it. When it comes time to hire actors to record the voices, I likely will.

Notes on Changes to the Script

As I go through the script to conform it, I have started to add notes about the changes I want to make. I plan to go through the script again, but I thought it would be easier to make a note when I happen to spot something I want to change.

I noticed that I had many of the characters use the same phrases. Real people usually have their own pet phrases for how the express different feelings. I need to think about what kind of phrases each character would use, and come up with ones that add some uniqueness to each character.

I've had comments from some people that they found the transportation planning jargon confusing. I know I can likely come up with ways to replace the jargon with more common words. What I am reluctant to do is eliminate the jargon entirely because I think it adds realism to the story. I want to avoid "As you know Bob ..." kind of dialogue to explain the jargon. What I might do is have the character Vincent Campbell claim to misunderstand the jargon and force other characters to explain. This could be played as humour so it isn't so distracting.

An Intermediate Step to the Final Movie

The plan I have now is to rewrite the script and then hire some actors to redo the voices and then create a new version of the movie. This week I started to consider a different approach.

I made the movie with Xtranormal Desktop, which has now been replaced with NawmalMAKE. At some point I'll need to convert all the movie files to the new system. What I've started to lean to, is to do the conversion first and produce a revised movie with the same artificial voices from before. Then later, I would get actors to replace the dialogue.

NawmalMAKE doesn't have the same artificial voices as Xtranormal Desktop, so I'd either have to use the voices that are available, or buy the rights to use the old voices. The voices are from Acapela and you can create and buy clips of their voices on-line. https://acapela-box.com/AcaBox/index.php I figure it could cost me close to $1,000 to do this. That is quite a lot.

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

I Actually Did A Little Work on "The Barrier" This Week

I've procrastinated on "The Barrier", my transportation planning movie, for a long time. This week I actually did something.

I began to prepare a new version of the script that conforms to the movie as it currently stands. Once I have a baseline script, I can start to decide what changes I want to make.

I found an old version of the script that I created from the Xtranormal STATE files. It was a LibreOffice file and when I opened it, nothing showed. It turned out that the styles I'd set up for the script format had gotten deleted somehow. I managed to convert the file to MS Word and was able to fix it there.

According to my notes, after I created this script, I made some more changes to the STATE files before I created the video that I used in the movie. I might have cut some lines out when I did the edit. I don't remember for sure, so it is better to assume that I did. In 2014 I replaced the first scene. The original version had no dialogue, but thee new one did.

I tried to run the conversion program I created to turn the STATE file into the script format, but that didn't work. Rather than try to fix the conversion program, I just edited the STATE file and extracted the dialogue I wanted. I added that to the old script.

One of the limitations of my conversion is that it can't convert the actions into description. A few scenes had no dialogue, and so consisted solely of the slug line. I began to work my way through the script to add in the actions. I got through about 12 scenes, out of 60 scenes in total.

I wanted to check my script against the dialogue in the current version of the movie. My original plan was to play the movie and read the script along with the audio. I remembered that I had created a caption file for YouTube, and I realized I could use that instead. I haven't started on that yet. It may be a better idea to play the movie and use that instead of the caption file. It might help me identify changes to make.

It looks like this could be a long slow process.

Note: the current version of "The Barrier", version 0.6, can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATcKnFAwlU0

I would like it if you could watch it and tell me what you think.

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

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

A Final Version for "The Barrier" ?

A few weeks ago I wrote about my plans for my next project. I had decided my next project would be my Agatha Christie in Egypt video. Since then I got some encouragement to do a final version of "The Barrier". That got me to have another look at it.

Two Barriers

There were two barriers I have to over come to make a final version of "The Barrier".

The first was that Xtranormal, the program that used to make it, had been shut down and was no longer legally available. I did look at what other similar programs were available that I could use, but didn't find anything I felt would work for me. Fortunately, the  rights for the Xtranormal software was sold to Nawmal, which has made it available again as NawmalMAKE. That solves my first problem.

The second was that I want to replace the artificial voices with voice over actors. Several people said they found the synthetic voices annoying. I didn't mind them, but I they do lack emotion. Voice over actors would bring more depth to the characters, and would be more pleasant to listen to.

Unfortunately, I can't commit to any kind of schedule to work with the actors or attend recording sessions. I've started to think about ways I might be able to work around that.

Option 1: Co-director

The first option I came up with is to recruit a co-director, who could work with the actors and attend the recording sessions. The big advantage of this approach is that the actors would have a better opportunity to collaborate with the director. In my experience I know that when actors are given some flexibility, they can often come up with something much better than what I wrote.

The issue for me is that it may be difficult to find an appropriate collaborator. The movie is very personal to me. With its focus on transportation planning, people with out that back ground may not be attracted to work on it.

It might also leave me out of the loop.

Option 2: Independent Recording

A second option I thought about earlier was to arrange for the actors to record their parts on their own. This would make it easier for me, and give me the flexibility to use actors from out of town. The downside is that the actors will not have the same experience and direct feed back.

A short time ago I read some where that when Douglas Rains recorded the voice of HAL for 2001, the recording session was in Toronto. I had expected that Kubrick would have attended the session, but if it was in Canada, he would not. While I can't be sure if this is a true story, it does make me wonder if I need to attend the recording sessions for "The Barrier". I am no Kubrick though.

Supporting Actors

Another issue that would come up for either of these options, is do I have the actors work on their own, or do I try to have them record scenes as a group? When I did the voice recording for "Who Shot the President", I wasn't able to get both actors together at the same time, so I recorded them separately. I had the first recording available when I did the second, which made it a little easier for the second person.

On the other hand, I know that some actors prefer to have the other actor there to help them. I suppose the best approach is let the various circumstances dictate the approach. If it is easy for the actors to meet, and prefer that, then that is what I should try to do.

Script Revisions and Notations

I want to work on the script some more. There are a few places where I want to make changes. So far, nothing too major. If I try to make too many changes it could delay completion of the project for a long time. I would prefer to get it done sooner and then move on to new projects.

Since I wouldn't be able to work with the actors directly, I would want to add notations to the script to indicate to the actor what I had in mind for the character. That could be a lot of work. For that matter, I don't really have a script anyway. I did the writing inside of Xtranormal. I did, at one point, export the dialogue into text files and reformat them into a script, but that wasn't from the most recent version of the movie. I did set up a converting program, but it didn't work the last time I used it.

Money

There is a final problem: money. With the uncertainty with my wife's health, I worry about how much I can afford to spend.

I know some actors would be open to working for the credit. However, I really would prefer to pay them, even if it is only a token payment. I would need to work out how much I would need to spend.

At any rate, I do have a lot to think about.

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