Return to Blogging

My wife was in the hospital from mid December until a week ago. I dropped all of my other activities to help her. Now that she is home, I think I can get back to my creative projects.

Wife's Health

When my wife went into the hospital last December, my top priority was to help take care of her. I dropped all work on this blog, my films and my writing projects. While she is home now and things are stable, we still have a way to go before she is healthy again.

While she was in the hospital, I visited her every day. I took her home cooked food; the hospital food was not to her taste. I know I am fortunate to be able to drop every thing else and just focus on her. Many other people don't have that luxury.

Now that my wife is home and more capable of taking care of herself, I feel I can start to work on my creative projects again.

Normally at the start of the year, I write a blog post about my plans. It is well past new years, but it is time for me to do that again.

Blog

I want to get back to my blog with a post every week. Until last December I had only missed a few times since the beginning of 2010. I hope to keep to that schedule again.

My Most Difficult Case

http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/my-most-difficult-case

This project has been on my to-do list since the early 1990s, and I finished it last year. It is nice to be done with it. I do need to try to promote it. I have it posted on a pay per view site. I think that is the way to go with my films. This is an experiment to gain some understanding of the process.

Website Theme

In December I started to work on a new theme for my website. The old one was not mobile friendly and a bit clunky. It was a version of the Core theme that I had fiddled around with. I set up a test site using Bitnami. I did some preliminary work, but didn't get far with it.

A few weeks ago I discovered that someone was injecting a spam link into my main page. I didn't have time to fix it, so I tried a different theme: Candour. It took care of the mobile friendliness and the injection problem. It doesn't look exactly the way I would like, but I don't see a need to do anything with it for a while.

Summer is Too Short (and the Rabbits Ate All the Seeds)

This is a short movie I worked on last year. Everything is shot, but it will take a lot of post production to get it ready. It will be finicky work.

Felix

I had started a rewrite of this story, but have left it for a long time. I had planned to do that anyway. It is time to get back to work on it.

The Barrier

http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/the-barrier/

I have a version of this movie done (version 0.6), but I want to do some more work on it. There are some changes I'd like to make to some of the dialogue, but the big change is to replace the "robot" voices with actors. Xtranormal can do that, but the status of the program is still up in the air, so I'm reluctant to start.

I don't think a movie about transportation planning will find a large audience, so I don't want to spend too much money on it.

Pete's Plan

I'd written this short short story a couple of years ago and submitted it to a few Science Fiction magazines. I had rejections from all of them. I had planned to submit to some others, but got side tracked onto other projects. The main comment I got was that it read like a treatment for a story rather than a story. While I like what I did do, I think I should try a rewrite in first person. I'm inclined to post it on my website rather than try to submit it to magazines again.

Bright Freedom

I'd done this as a movie script, but then decided to redo it as a novelette. I got a 17,600 word draft done and started to make revisions to it, but put it on hold. I'd like to get back to it and get it into shape to have some other people read it.

Another Story

When I reviewed where I left off on my projects I came across a post: http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/another-story/. I talked about a new story idea, but didn't say anything about the story itself. I could not remember anything about it. I managed to find the material I wrote up. It is a short detective story.

A New Transportation Planning Story

About a year ago I did some work on the outline for another transportation planning story. I'd forgotten about this one too. I had a look at the outline this week and developed it a bit further. It still needs work, but I think it has potential. For a story like this, I think I should spend much more time on the outline than I do on the story itself.

Ancient Astronauts

When I first heard of this idea I was convinced it was true. Later, as I learnt more about it, it all seemed to evaporate in smoke. There was nothing there.

I still find the idea intriguing, but there seems to be very little serious study of the idea, even though it is plausible that aliens visited Earth in the distant past. The field has been taken over by people who recycle old claims that have been debunked.

I would like to do something with the concept. Initially I want to write an article that takes a serious look at the idea. Then maybe I can develop a story.

My Priorities

My wife, of course, is my top priority.

I find it hard to pick one of these projects to work on first. As a start I think I will do some work on Summer is Too Short and then work on Felix. Then we'll see where that goes.

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

My New Website Theme: As The Goals Change

I made some progress on the new WordPress theme for my website this week. I ran into a few snags, but got past some of them. I've changed my mind several times about what my goal was.

Changing Goals

While I over came many of the snags I ran into, I gave up on the search for solutions to the others. This caused me to rethink my goals several times.

At the start of the week I had planned to create a entirely new theme that incorporated a new look and support for mobile devices. As the week progressed, I saw that this was a difficult goal to meet.

I wanted to make the theme more flexible and dynamic. I decided that rather than trying to make everything flexible, I should just hard code the template files. It is a bit clunky to do it that way, but at least it works. I only really need to have a more flexible theme if other people want to use it, and I don't plan to do that.

I think I need to identify a series of versions that I want to do, so that I can start using what I've done. My new plan is:

• (release 1.80) Create a new theme that replicates the look of my current theme. In this theme I would keep the code simple and avoid any fancy dynamic features. In this theme I will include an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) plug-in which isn't compatible with my existing SEO data.
• (release 1.90) Upgrade the new theme to be mobile device friendly.
• (release 2.00) Change the look of the theme.
• (release 2.01) Convert the old SEO data to work with the new SEO plug-in.
• (release 2.02) Upgrade the theme to make use of dynamic features.

Final Thought

Although I felt I make progress this week, and learned a few tricks, I'm not sure I can remember what I picked up if I want to go back and make more changes later.

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

Plans for Website Update

I have started to worked on changes to my website. I had a couple of goals. First to make the website more mobile friendly. Second to update the look of the website. I've made some progress.

I've had a website for my movies since 1999, and I haven't updated the look of my web page since 2009. Originally I used HTML for my site, then switched to PHP in 2009. I finally switched to WordPress in 2010.

In WordPress I tried a couple of themes (Kubrick and Core) before I decided to create my own theme. I tried to build one from scratch, but then decided to modify the Core theme. I didn't know about child themes at the time, so I just modified the original Core files. I added several special page types. I ended up with was a very rigid theme that is difficult to modify.

Over the last year or so I've read that more and more people access the internet through tablets and smart phones. Because the screen sizes are smaller, websites designed for a desk top don't look very nice on portable devices. My current theme is very hard to modify for different screen sizes.

Last week I installed a local server so I can experiment with different themes on my computer without making changes to my on-line website. I got it from a company called Bitnami (https://bitnami.com/stack/wordpress). It was quite easy to set up and work with I'm not sure how I can use it to test how the website will look on different devices though.

So far I have focussed on the technical aspects of a new theme design. I haven't given much thought as to what I want the theme to look like. I'll stick with my Dynamic Lethargy Films logo, but I'm not sure how I want the page laid out, or what color scheme to use.

My initial attempt was to create a child theme. I thought that would be easier to do, but after a little experimentation I decided to create a theme from scratch. I found a web page (http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress_create_theme.htm) that provided the code for a very basic theme. I used that as a starting point.

I've managed to create a theme that can handle my current page set up. It still needs a lot of work. Several times the theme wouldn't work when I make some changes to the templates. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I was able to go back to earlier versions that did work.

I plan to work in small steps toward a theme I'm happy with. I'm not in a big rush to get it done.

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

"Felix" and The Exploration of Mars

I want to develop more back ground for my science fiction story "Felix". This isn't a serious proposal for Martian exploration, although I do think it is plausible.

I've found "Felix" a real struggle to write. Partly because it is a longer story than what I've done before. However, more recently I have started to wonder about how plausible the story is. As a fantasy/science fiction story, I don't believe that is essential, but if I diverge too far from realism, readers would lose interest.

Current Proposals

The proposals I've seen for travel to Mars seem to propose some variation of the Apollo Moon project, but on a larger scale. The main difference I see is proposals to send a cargo lander ahead with the supplies the astronauts will need. Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct mission has the first lander create the fuel for the return trip with resources on Mars. I think this idea makes sense, but I think that approach can be expanded.

A New Proposal

I think that robots could be used to create an industrial base on Mars to support the astronauts while they are on Mars and provide the resources for their return to Earth. I haven't come across this idea anywhere, but I'm sure that someone must have thought of it before.

I do not think the technology to send humans to Mars exists now or can be developed any time soon. However, I do believe that robotic technology is or soon will be capable of the tasks I foresee for them.

Using a robotic approach, the creation of a Martian base can begin in the next few years, if the project gets the money it needs. I see the project unfold as a series of robotic missions of different types, culminating with a human mission to Mars.

Scout Robots

The objective of the Scout Robots is to identify and evaluate locations for the base. I envision that several of these robots, maybe six, would be sent to different potential sites around Mars. They will conduct a survey of the area around the landing sites to see what resources and opportunities are available at each site.

What they would look for are:

·         A landing area for subsequent landings, such as a large flat plain,

·         A location for the base, such as a cave or tunnels,

·         Raw materials needed by the base, such as water and construction materials.

These scout robots would will need a high level of autonomy so they can do their work in a timely manner without detailed instructions from the Earth based controllers. Autonomy would allow them to explore caves which could be used for the base. The surveys could take several years to complete.

Once their missions are completed, and if the scout robots are still operational, they could be repurposed for further exploration.

Pathfinder Robot

Once a site for the base is selected, a single pathfinder robot would be sent to the base location. The objective of the pathfinder robot would be to act as a control tower to assist with subsequent landings.

The pathfinder robot would need the appropriate communication equipment, such as a landing beacon. It might not need to be mobile, although this could be valuable if the accuracy of the landing is too uncertain. It would be set up at a location where it can easily communicate with subsequent landers.

Prospector Robots

The objective of the prospector robots would be to do a more detailed exploration of the vicinity of the base to identify the various resources available. Each resource would be evaluated as to its potential as a source for the base.

They would look at the proximity of the source, the ease of transport, the quality of the materials, ease of extraction and other factors. Each robot would be sent in search of a specific resource, although each would have the capability of searches for other resources if one or more other prospector robots are damaged or destroyed.

One option would be to provide the prospector robots with the ability to mine and extract the raw materials.

Construction Robots

The objective of the construction robots would be to build the base and make it operational.

The first stage of construction would be to create an industrial plant, with equipment like 3D printers, that would any equipment needed for creation of the Mars Base. This could include additional robots. This would allow a substantial cost savings over building the robots on Earth and then sending them to Mars. Building robots on Mars would allow new designs to be sent to Mars electronically. It would also allow for the repair and upgrading of the robots already there. Once this capability has progressed far enough, the base will not need to rely on shipments from earth to continue to operate.

The second stage would be to create the extraction and fabrication facilities that will be used to build the base. This would include the structures and other machines that are needed.

The third stage would be to create the facilities for astronauts. These will include living quarters, farms to produce food and oxygen, and research laboratories. The farms would likely be some form of air tight green house. As the farms are established, the food would be sent back to Earth for testing to ensure it is safe to eat. The base would also start to produce the fuel that humans would need for a return trip to Earth.

Human Occupation

Once the Mars base has been fully established and operational, a human crew can then be sent from Earth. When they arrive, they will find a liveable base already available. They will need to bring fewer supplies, since the industrial base set up by the robots would provide most of their needs.

Challenges

The first major challenge for this project would be creation of the technology need for the various robots. Since this would be primarily a software system, the robots could be sent and start their work before they are fully autonomous.

For the most part, the robots would be about the same size as some of the robots that have already been sent. Therefore, the technology to get them to the surface of Mars already exists.

The technology to build the base is only in its early stages. This project could be added impetus to develop these technologies. These technologies will be needed later in the project, which allows more time for them to mature.

Finally, the technology to transport humans to Mars needs to be developed. This may be the greatest challenge.

The Story of "Felix"

Where does Felix, the robot in my story, fit into this? I see it as one of the scout robots. It has been repurposed after the selection of the base and has gone on to explore unknown areas of the planet.

How do I explain why other robots were not sent to search for Felix? I think the best explanation was that Felix has been sent to a site that was not chosen for the base. None of the other robots were close enough to make a search feasible. The human's transport is the first vehicle on Mars capable of the trip. An alternative is to have one of the other scout robots search, but it breaks down. The humans find it on their search.

Who are the astronauts in my story? I see the Mars base as a research facility with the researchers rotated periodically. This is similar to how the base at the South Pole operates. I had seen the two human characters in my story as researchers who plan to return to Earth rather than permanent colonists. One of them would have to have plans to return to Earth, but the other could see themselves as a permanent colonist. That could affect how he reacts to the revelation.

Does this plan seem reasonable to you?

My goal is to develop a plausible story about Mars exploration, so I need to know if the plan I've laid out would seem reasonable to most readers.

While I think this approach is reasonable, I know that there is a lot that I don't know about the possibilities and opportunities of the technologies needed. If you can suggest changes or other places to check, I would appreciate it.

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

"My Most Difficult Case" Now Available on Video on Demand

Well, it looks like my long journey with "My Most Difficult Case" is now over. I hope. I posted it with dailymotion.com's Open VOD service. In this post I look back at the long struggle to make this film, why I chose Video on Demand, the final touches to the film and promotion.

Release of "My Most Difficult Case"

"My Most Difficult Case" is now posted at:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2a70qu_my-most-difficult-case_shortfilms

The cost is $0.59 per view. There is a 30 second free preview.

Description: A judge faces a difficult choice with his latest case. He hardly listens to the lawyers as they try to influence his decision.

A Long Struggle

It has been a long struggle to finish "My Most Difficult Case". The first draft of the script is dated march 1991, and I based it on a story board I'd done before that. It wasn't until 2002 that I began to make the film. I had a version done on film in time for the 2004 $100 Film Festival. I was never happy with that version and planned to re-cut it before I tried to distribute it.

I had the original film scanned to digital video before I edited the movie, so I planned to use that. That dragged for a long time and it wasn't until 2010 that I finally got started. Vildo Sturam did a new edit of the video for me, then I started to make some of my own changes. I got stalled again when the person I hired to do the sound didn't follow through. Patrick Aull showed me how to do the sound myself and I made some progress after that.

The affair with the sound person left me with a bad feeling about the project, so I found it hard to work on it. It was only a few weeks ago that I decided to put this project behind me.

Why Video on Demand

I had hoped to distribute the film through Ouat media. They had done the distribution of "My Next Film", which I was quite happy with. When I talked to them in 2009, they said that it might be hard to market because it would be seen as an "old" movie. It doesn't look any newer 5 years later. That led me to consider other options for distribution, such as Video on Demand.

I get a share of the advertising on my YouTube videos, but the return is quite small. You need to have large numbers of views to get any substantial revenue. The kinds of movies I do are unlikely to generate that kind of volume.

I felt that it would be better to look at Video on Demand for my movies. I looked into Distrify and identified some other VoD services. Several years ago, I posted some of my films on DailyMotion, but hadn't followed up on it for a long time. A few weeks ago, they added a Video on Demand feature to their site, so I thought I'd try it out.

Since people have to pay, I expect that I would have much fewer views. But I believe I would get more revenue from those fewer views.

We shall see.

Final Touches

There is an old saying that no work of art is ever finished, merely abandoned. While I suspect that there is more I could do on the film, but decided to stop after a few changes I made this week.

I wasn't happy with the actor's voices. They all seemed too insubstantial. I played around with several audio adjustments to try to improve them. In the end I found a combination of compression, equalization and reverb gave me a sound I felt better about. I did a slightly different reverb for the judge because his voice is supposed to be his thoughts.

I did a small change to the video in one shot. In the shot of the jail cell at the end I could see the actor's face clearly before I wanted it recognized. A couple slight adjustments to the brightness and contrast gave me what I wanted. I had thought that higher contrast would give me what I wanted, but it turned out that I needed to use a lower contrast.

I added a few sound effects to the sound track. I felt that it needed more, but I couldn't see anywhere that I could justify additions.

Promotion

I will try to do some promotion of the film, although I have trouble imagining how to reach people who will like it. I am open to suggestions if you have them.

The Future

Now I can leave this film behind and move on to new projects.

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

Making Noises With "My Most Difficult Case"

I experimented with the sound for "My Most Difficult Case" this week. I was unsure just what to do with the sound and needed to get a better idea of my options.

There are two issues I want to address with the sound.

The first is that I find the voices sound weak to me. I think that may have been a result of the noise reduction I did. I tried a few things to process the sound to see if I could give the voices more body.

The other is the lack of environmental sound. There is no real background sound and there are several places where I think sound effects are needed. An example is when the prosecutor picks up some books and there is no sound. I left this until later.

I use Audacity for my audio work. I'm not sure how it compares to other audio programs, but the price (free) is right. It seems to have all the capabilities that I need.

Compression

My first test was to try out sound compression. Compression reduces the volume of the peaks while leaving the rest of the sound the same. I found this allows me to turn up the volume of the voices, which makes them sound stronger. I tried several different settings, but I couldn't tell the difference, so I just used the default settings.

The compression did increase the background noise, which hadn't been apparent before. The additional noise wasn't acceptable, so I reran the noise reduction and brought it under control, without a noticeable change in the voice quality.

Reverb

I've always though of reverb as something different from echo, but that didn't seem to be the case. I tried some different settings, but didn't learn much from that.

Then I found that the reverb effect had some presets for different types of rooms, such as big room, small room, bright room and dark room. I found that the big room and bright room settings made the voices sound weaker. That was the opposite of what I wanted. The small, dark room setting seemed to give more body to the voices.

Next Steps

To my ear, the combination of the effects I tested does bring me closer to the quality of sound I want. However, the effect isn't as strong as I'd like it to be. I want to see if there is anything else I can try. My copy of Audacity has something like 140 effects, and my copy of Premiere Pro (CS4) has about 80 audio effects. Apparently you can get more if you want them. I'm familiar with maybe a half dozen or so, but I have no idea what most of the rest do.

I'll need to do some more research. I could use some advice.

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

A New Start For "My Most Difficult Case"

I got back to work on "My Most Difficult Case" this week. My goal was to get all the files organized, but I also started to make some changes to the movie.

Initially I tried to clean up the computer files and get rid of duplicates. That proved to be difficult, so I just sorted files into those I thought I would need to finish the project and those I didn't think I would need.

The video editing program links to all the input files, and so I had to re-link all the files. That was picky work.

I thought I had it all done, when I noticed a problem with one shot. I had done a overlay to cover up some pictures on the wall because I didn't have the rights to them. It turned out that I had a missing file. I went to the back up drives on the assumption that I had accidentally deleted the file when I got rid of duplicates. I spent a half day searching for the files, and couldn't find them. They weren't on the back up disk either, so I must have accidentally deleted them long ago. Finally I decided to recreate the files. It only took a fraction of the time I spent in my search.

I re-cut part of the movie. Years ago I had a professional video editor re-cut the movie and it turned out much better, so I kept most of his changes. One change I had left in was where he put  the murder scene. It had been at the front of the movie and he moved it to the end to be a flashback.

He recognized the actor from the way he walked and felt that would give away the end of the movie. I wanted to move it back to the start, but hadn't tried it until now. I felt that the vast majority of people who see the movie won't know the actor, so they wouldn't recognize him. I'll have another look at it before I decide to keep it or not.

I need to think through what to do next. There are a few tidy up edits that I think are optional. The main issue though, is the sound. I'm not very sure just what I want to do with the sound. As it stands, it is fairly bare boned. I'd also like to do something to build up the voices too. They sound tinny to me.

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