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

How I Added Computer Screens to “The Barrier”

I didn’t do much work on news scenes for “The Barrier” this week. Instead, I diverted most of my efforts to adding computer screen images to the film. In several scenes, the characters talk about what is on their computer screen, so I needed to add those images in.

How I Created the Computer Screen Images

I was tempted to get some actual screen capture images from a transportation modelling program. That might not go over too well with the software vendors, so I decided to create my own images.

I began with a look at some screen images I found on-line. I looked at emme/4, Visum and Cube. Way back when I used emme/2, I thought the screen had a very distinct appearance. From what I could tell from the images I looked at, all the screens look pretty similar now.

I used Microsoft PowerPoint to create the screens. I had a little fun with that. I called the soft ware ‘Blackbox” by a company called “Voodoo”. That was an inside joke. I had menu options like “Look_busy” and “Lets_go_eat” and had icons like a piece of pie and a donut with sprinkles (another inside joke). In the final film, all of these will be too small for anyone to read, but I wanted to have those little details anyway.

I used several different versions of a data entry pop-up box to create a short animation that I used in one shot. It was one of those things that people wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) notice if it’s there, but they will notice if it isn’t.

How I Put the Computer Screen Image into the Movie Image

Xtranormal does allow you to overlay images and videos in selected areas of some sets, and I did use that approach in a couple cases. Other shots were not so easy.

In one scene, the computer screen I wanted to use was not one that allowed an image or video to be inset. I did the overlays in Premiere Pro instead.

For most of the shots, I was able to do a direct overlay of a still onto the computer screen, because there was nothing blocking the view of the screen. When the image was a direct on view, it was a simple scale and move to get the effect I wanted. That wasn’t always possible.

When the screen was at an angle, it took a little fiddling with keying options to get the perspective right. I found the corner pin tool worked well there.

There were a couple of shots where a character blocked part of the screen. I tried the color key option, but it turned out that the screen color was too similar to other parts of the image. I found a way around that when I realized that the computer screen image only covered a small area of the movie image.

I started with the movie image as a video track, and then overlaid the computer screen image on top of the movie image as I’d done before. In the resulting image, the character’s head covered the computer screen image. Over top of that, I put another copy of the movie image, with the color key for the computer screen. In the final image, the computer screen image does appear properly with the character’s head in front of it. In the rest of the image, where the image was also transparent, the base track of the movie image showed through.

For all of these I had a static image, but I had one shot where the computer screen image changed. Xtranormal does allow this, but I didn’t realize that at first. In any event, it didn’t allow the detail level of control I wanted. Again, I used Premiere Pro to overlay the computer screen video over the movie image, just as I’d done with the still images.

New Scenes

I worked on four new scenes this week, but only finished two of them. One is only about 7 seconds long while the other was 1:41. The total run time is still under 30 minutes. I hope that I will get more productive next week.

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