Closing in on Version 0.4 of "The Barrier"

Work on "The Barrier" this week went faster than I expected, but I'm still not done version 0.4 yet. It shouldn't take very long to get it done. I'll watch it, and if there is nothing I want to change, I will post it to YouTube.

Re-Editing "The Barrier"

The way I have structured my editing is to have three levels of Premiere Pro project files. The first level is for individual scenes. The second level is for sequences, which I build up from individual scenes. Finally, in the third level, I build up the final movie from the sequences.

I finished my revisions to the individual scenes. In most cases the changes were quite minor, so this part took less time than I had expected. What took the most time was how I redid the sections I sped up. Originally I had just used the speed adjustment in Premiere Pro. I was disappointed with the results, since it merged individual frames into one. Instead, I cut out individual frames to achieve the same effect. I think it looks better this way.

For some scenes I had done edits in my sequence files rather than in individual scenes. I decided to redo these as separate scene files so that there was a minimum of editing in the sequence files.

I redid the office back ground sound file. I increased the length from 3 minutes to 6 minutes. I spread out the various sounds so they didn't overlap as much. I added in more people talking in the background. I also adjusted the volume of some of the sounds so they were not as dramatically louder than the other sounds I had.

Finally I redid the sequence project files. I replaced the old scenes with the revised scenes and redid all of the office background noises. While I did that, I found several more problems with individual scenes, so I went back and redid those before adding them to the sequence. I finished 7 of the 9 scenes. The last couple and the full movie shouldn't take long.

More Computer Problems

On a down note: I started to have trouble with the new computer. It crashed Monday and gave some vague error message that suggested there was a hardware problem. However, when I read up on it on-line they said it could be a software problem too. Not very clear.

Later in the week, the new computer started to have the same issue as the old one - the monitor wouldn't display anything. The first couple times, it started to work after a minute or so, but Saturday I had to shut down and reboot before it would work. Again, I have no idea what the problem is, or how to fix it.

I have a suspicion that the problem has to do with the heavy use I make of the graphics card for my video editing. The original crash happened while I was doing some video editing.

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

"The Barrier" Version 0.3 Done

I finished version 0.3 of "The Barrier" this week. It came in at 85 minutes, just a little shorter than version 0.2. I trimmed a few scenes and added more sound effects. After I review this version and create version 0.4, I think I'll be ready to post the movie on YouTube to get some audience feedback.

The bulk of the work I did this week was on the sound track. Primarily that was back ground noise to add more ambiance to the movie.

I had done a 3 minute audio clip of "office noise" that I used in the office scenes. I redid that clip this week. I had used voice clips from the movie and they were too recognizable. For the revised version I used some voice clips from "Line of Taxis", and clips of my brother and niece. I think the volume on the new version was higher than the previous version, so I may need to adjust that.

I tightened up the edit of several scenes. Fairly minor cuts by and large. I wanted to eliminate dry spots and also make characters interrupt each other.

I will watch this version, probably several times, to see if I can catch any more problems that I can fix. I can't make any major changes to the movie without starting over from scratch, so that limits what I can do at this point.

I'll hope to create one more version (version 0.4) which I can then post on YouTube. I plan to ask people to watch it and tell me what they think of it. I don't plan to do any further work on the movie until next year, to allow time for more people to watch and comment on my movie.

If you know of anyone you think might like to watch a movie about transportation planners, please ask them to get in touch with me, so I can ask them to review my movie. Thanks.

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

"The Barrier" Makes Noise

I made some good progress on "The Barrier" this week. Mostly I added sound effects to the sound track. I've added ambient sound to about half the movie now. I added some specific sounds, such as foot steps. That isn't easy to do, but fortunately most of sets look like they have carpet, so I can get away with out the footsteps most of the time.

In scenes where people talk on the phone, I processed the dialogue to sound like it came over the phone. I did a little research on-line to find out how to do that. It wasn't as complicated as I thought.

I tightened up some of the scenes. Usually it was just cutting out some pauses in the dialogue. I did some dialogue overlap in a couple places to make it seem that characters were interrupting each other.

In one place a character says "that looks impressive" while she watches a simulation of a microsimulation model on a computer scene. Unfortunately, the animation I produced wasn't very impressive, so I cut out that line.

Some of dialogue is a little hard to understand. There isn't much I can do about that because it has to do with the artificial voices, which I no longer have access to. One thought I had was to add captions to the movie. That will be a lot of work though.

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

"The Barrier" - On to Version 0.3

Last Sunday after I posted to my blog, my wife and I watched "The Barrier". She said she liked it, but thought it was a little slow in places. She said that the main character reminded her of me. Most of the characters are based on me.

I took that as the sign to go ahead, so I began to work on the next version 0.3. The first step was to make a list of changes I want to make. There were still some video issues I wanted to fix, but the bulk of the changes involve sound effects.

I fixed a small video glitch that I missed earlier. I only noticed one while we watched. some video problems I'd noticed. I also spotted a scene where I forgot to composite in some computer screens. I got that done.

I did a couple of experiments to speed up the pace of the movie a bit.

In the first experiment, I sped up some shots of people walking. I can only do that in shots where no one talks, which means there are only a few places I can do it. I found that I could speed it up a bit without it looking comical.

In the second experiment, I trimmed some of the pauses between speakers. I did this in a scene where one character repeatedly interrupts another. I overlapped the dialogue there. I thought that turned out OK, but I will have another look at it before I do it elsewhere.

The main thing I want to do in version 0.3 is add sound effects. To start, I created a back ground ambiance sound file to use in the office scenes. I have phones ringing, people talking, Xerox machines, doors opening and closing, and I added in a couple of coughs. I did the coughs myself. When I recorded them, Myreil got worried about me and asked if I was OK.

I plan to post the full length video to YouTube. Normally you have a 15 minute limit, but I thought they had raised mine. I checked that and I don't have a limit to the length of my videos.

There are some other problems I'd like to fix, but I can't make them unless I redo the whole movie in another system. Mostly they are problems with the technical details of the work the transportation planners do. Transportation planners would pick up on them, but others wouldn't. They are really a Mcguffin, so I'm not too concerned about it now

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

"The Barrier" Version 0.2 Done

I got version 0.2 of "The Barrier" done this week. This version runs 87 minutes. That was about a minute longer that the previous  version. I cleaned up some more video glitches and added some sound effects.

The full version of the movie took a long time to out put, and I had to leave it overnight. The final run time was something like 18 hours.

After it had run I did an investigation to see if there was a way to speed it up. It turned out that the default power settings were for a laptop on batteries. The computer would go to sleep after about 20 minutes. When it was sleeping, the program ran very slowly or maybe not at all. I changed the settings, so it won't do that anymore. I haven't retried the same output, but I think the problem is solved. It does seem to let the programs run faster.

My plan was not to do anything about the sound track for this version. However, there were a couple of places where it is hard to understand what was going on, so I did those. I did a few other sound effects at the same time.

I found and fixed some more video glitches. When I watch the movie again, I won't be too surprised if I find a few more. I found one scene where I hadn't put in the computer scenes. I must have missed that when I went through the scenes earlier.

The next stage is to show the movie to my wife. We sat down to watch it the other day, but she hadn't realized that it ran an hour and a half. She thought it was like most of movies and was only 3 or 4 minutes long. She said she'd have time to watch Sunday. If she likes it I'll move on to the next version.

I've noticed some problems with the movie that I can't fix unless I redo it from scratch on a replacement for Xtranormal. I had planned to post the movie as a work in progress, but it looks like I won't be able to develop it as far as I would have liked. That said, I do think I should have a watchable movie.

I want to do a blog where I talk about what I'd like to change with the version I post.

I believe that this will be the first movie ever made where transportation planning is an important part of the story, and not just an interesting detail of one character.

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

"The Barrier" Version 0.2 Almost Done

Work on "The Barrier" went fairly smoothly this week.

I finished adding the computer screens to the scenes that needed them. That took much of the time. I had to go back and create some more screen images.

There were a bunch of other scenes where I fixed some video glitches. I'm not sure what caused them, because not all of the scenes had them and a few had more than one. In all but one case, there was just a single frame that was messed up. In the other case there were two frames. That made it easier to fix. I just copied the frame after and overlay it to cover up the frame with the glitch.

I started to compile the scenes into sequences. When I have all the sequences done, I'll compile them into the full movie. I have the first four sequences done and have five more to do. I did the fifth one too, but forgot to do something, so will need to redo it.

I had planned to just do the images for this version of the movie (version 0.2), but decided to do a few of the sound effects I had planned to do. Mostly phones ringing. I'll leave the bulk of the sound work to the next version (version 0.3).

I should have this version of the movie done this week. I plan to show it to my wife when I'm done. If she likes it, I'll start on the next version.

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