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

A Major Snag for “The Barrier”

I made good progress this week, but “The Barrier” has hit a barrier. I am almost done the initial versions of all the scenes, but the problems with Xtranormal, I am not sure I can finish the movie.

Xtranormal

I used a program called Xtranormal to create the video. Saturday morning I discovered that they would shut down the website and program at the end of July. They say they will be restarting, but don’t when. Some comments I’ve seen posted suggest that it likely won’t restart.

I don’t see any possibility that I can finish “The Barrier” before the deadline. I will try to get it as far along as I can.

I use Xtranormal Desktop, which will still “work” after July 31, but I won’t be able to output the videos. That doesn’t make it very useful. On their FaceBook page, several people suggested that the company could modify the Desktop version so it would work after the shut down date. I added a similar comment. I hope they do that. I’m not too keen to switch programs at this point.

Progress Update

Prior to this foo-fa-ra, I made good progress. I got eight scenes done. They were a bit shorter; one was just 19 seconds long. I added about 9 1/2 minutes and now have just under 81 minutes done. As of today, I have done 51 of the 59 scenes I had planned. Some of those will be fairly easy to do, but the rest are scenes that will be more difficult. I might be done next week, but I can’t count on it.

Seven of the new scenes are from sequence eight of the movie. The movie has nine sequences. That sequence focuses on the presentation of the development proposal to the development committee. There were several challenging scenes. Most of the scenes occur at the same location in continuous time, but I broke it up into four scenes to keep it simple.

The four scenes together run about six minutes. I have eight characters in the scene. That slows the program down quite a lot. I think I got some really good action. That is, action in the sense of movement, since I wanted to evoke ideas through some subtle movements.

I have my fingers cross and hope that I can still pull this project off.

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>

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