The joys and pains of new media

We all make mistakes. I certainly have made one. I thought I checked out the internet aspect of this project careful prior to production, both for music rights and acting. I knew my music rights would have to be paid for by the year. Those I have secured, as planned. The Actors rights are another thing.

I was an actress myself. I want to protect all infringement of rights. I didn't even post images of my actors on my blog or site until I called the SAG office to make sure I could prior to the internet rights being secured, At that time it didn't seem like a major hassle to get the internet rights for a 4 minute student film. Now I will most likely not be able to show this film anywhere on the internet. Hard lesson to learn. Tough one. I am still waiting calls from the California SAG office, just to get information, but I feel sorry for my actors most of all. the only way I could pay them was having a good product being seen. Many miracles are needed now. Only God... Only God because the greed of this world is crazy!!!

Two meetings and the results

I met with Michael Hosenfeld and Andy Milkas, about my project. Both about different elements. Michael about the Matte painting and Andy about the Bible tracking and the roto-scoping .

Michael helped me see that the red, one color sky I had was being reflected in my water and thus making my piece flat. I need a more multicolor sky. He also showed me how to use reference photos for distance color reference, and some other uses of z-depth. It was a great meeting and I have changed and simplified my project.

Andy showed me that I don't have to use 3D tracking for the transition scence and how to do it. He also gave me general instruction on the composition.

In general both meetings brought me to simplify this production.

November 10th Deadline and the lesson of simplicity.

Well, I had a "full run" of my video for the 10th. But I've had this for a while. All I added was the crowd element. It looked horrible. I was completely displeased with everything. I was rushing so much to just get something that nothing was very good.

What I learned was what I've known from the beginning, less is more. After listening to my sound track for weeks I have finally been able to hear where I can cut it to shorten the piece. Less is more and a simpler cut or a safety cut is a smart idea. I have to pass. I shared this at class. Now I have to do it.

The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty -Proverb 21:5

There is no Easy Button!!!

But I keep trying to press it and keep ending up more and more depleted. I was trying to shorten my rendering by only making two really large Matte Paintings. Problem is I was trying to make an image that was like 22,000 pixels wide and I was wondering why my computer was taking so long to render. You just can't do it. Not on my iCore7 with 16GB ram. I found this out when I gave up on it after it was still rendering after two and a half days and decided to go to a render farm. The Render Farm said to test your images and make sure one frame will render on a machine with 8GB of ram and 500 GB storage. I was like what limitations for a render farm when I realized, wait a minute, if render farms have these limitations to their computers I better check if I can render out one frame. I was rendering straight to disk. Well needless to say I tried to render one frame and the program crashed.

Lessons learned:

1) One Super gigantic Matte Painting that I can use for close ups and wide shots etc. is not possible via computers right now. My brother later told me I was trying to render out an image bigger than IMAX. Well I know movie images are 4k, 2k in the theatre for distribution, but what is the common image size used for most matte paintings? I haven't been able to find this out. The size I have rendered is 8000 x 3000 (Cinemascope) so I can pan within it. Now I will paint on it in photoshop then bring it into Maya to bring it to life.

2)Stop trying to press the easy button- Just do the work!!

Compositing the Bible images

Well creating the tracking and the Bible image was a major task.

1) Accurate tracking is necessary. I had to track in Mocha and the tracking had to be dead on. This meant adjusting the Adjust track and using perspective etc.

2) Make sure the mattes were feathered for a smooth transition

3) Export the tracking and corner pin data to After effects, then composite the images

4) Create moving light images to match the lighting in the scene

5) Blend using multiply- the page image over the BG paper plate

6) Composite this into the Matted out book area

It still need tweeking but the results look pretty good.

From this:

To This:

(I can't post the video yet I still need SAG approval)

Bible Image and Bookmark Image

Here is the Bible image. I was going to ask someone else to do it, but after I played around with an idea of what I wanted, I used it as a sample image in my matte and decided to use it. I decided to created a stylistic image of "Jesus and the Feeding of the 5000" using my greens screen footage:

The image will change to a more water color stylized image before the Galilee transition:

The Bookmark is simple:

Seek the Advice of Many Counselors...

Today I got the chance to ask Gavin's advice about my project. The 3D tracking really is so big, I really was right that it effects the scaling and basically all the elements of the 2D and 3D world. He also gave me some great advice about the crowd replcation and doing it in layers. To have more control over lighting of the elements over distance.

I'm going to work real hard and try and meet up with him with my work again.

Midterm Review

Well I got through Midterm Review. Interesting comments. I was encouraged by the comments on my presentation in general, by long ago at Montclair State University- as a Broadcasting major, thanks to God letting me learn from the wonderful Dr. Howard Travis I learned that "Presentation is Key". I think we were the only under graduate students who sometimes came to school in business suits.

Otherwise, the overall comment was I need to refine my edit. Most of my cuts are too long. Also everything is way out of scale. I need advice on how to do this. And I need to have the crowd replication test done.

As I look at what I threw together I see it looks horrid. God help me.

3D Tracking and ALL it's significance

Wow!! I had no idea how important 3D tracking was to the intergration of 2d into 2D. Now that may sound strange but if your 3D tracking and scaling is off your whole scene is off. I have never been formally taught a 3D tracker. So I had to stop working and spend lie a week just learning the software. I chose Syntheyes as I had an old version of it. I upgraded it and learned that. I would have more time to work at home, than in the lab. Good choice. Lets just say there have been many sleepless nights.

Some of my tracks, the tracking points looked liked slopping bananas, etc. I knew I got it right when the tracking points looked like the image I was tracking in 3D. the ground points were on the ground. Table on the table. light on the light.

I took two weeks to get this done and I still have scale problems. Man is 3d tracking important.

New Visual Image Possibility

Here's a new image for the sky posibility:

It's time to start making a decision.

Color Management and Digital Cinema Production

Well, the learning never ends,  according to my time line I should be... working on my 3D landscape today.  Well, I was a good wife and help my husband on a shoot, then went to a family function and when I came home said ok, let me spend two hours and work.  But something was bothering me.  I did the exporting fo my image sequence to a tiff sequence, but I got a strange message that the sequence I was exporting wasn't 16 bit and wouldn't gain anything from a 16bit export.   So I decided to research a little harder into color management and my workflow and I see that I have to research this a little bit more to get a truly dynamic color range with my footage.  

I just started googling my codec, and tiff sequence, then 8 bit to 16 bit then a nightmare of information on color management came up.  As important as light is to an image, Color is to story.  Arg!!!

Great source of info: Prolost Stu maschwitz

http://prolost.com/

White Paper on After Effect Color Management:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/aftereffects/articles/color_management_workflow.html

Ok, I know what I'll do.  I'll use proxy tiff that are 8 bit for tracking and rotoscope as I have to stay on time, then replace with the 16, 24 or 32 bit image.

I have to research fast

Push the Color Contrast

Well I had to change my schedule around so I am working on my Matte Paintings and Skys. Here are ideas for really pushing the color to opposit ends on the spectrum:

Talk about nice shot!!!

The only challenge with this is what it looks like from the front view. It's all Overcast lighting so I will have to really fake create a new look. Perhaps I'll add blue to the top of the sky, then continue the blue going back into the front view??? I need more sky references from different angles.

Storywise, it would make sense if there still is a sense of blues behind my main character, sense that's where he's coming from. Perhaps, I'll have the cloud cover subtley change, so we see his change also.

Post Production Workflow- Oh man, soo much to do!!!

Here is the Work flow I am following for Post. I realize I have so much to do, I shall barely have a moment to breathe. But pray I shall!!!

Here is the Timeline I have set up for myself until the Midterm Defense Panel:

And now to WORK!!! WORK!!! WORK!!!

Stills of Compostions

Here are a couple of stills from my compostion. I decided to go with a look like Thomas Cole emphasizing the sky. I also like the look of the Stanage Peak from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. So that's what I am going for. Here are two images of the look. think the sky has too much cyan and he's too high up, but I want it to be a grand vista type of shot.

It's a Wrap!! God Willing - Much thanks to God and the Great Cast and Crew

Well the On-Camera Production has ended - God willing, unless I need to do pick ups. I am so grateful for God's blessing of such a the great cast and crew, which them none of this would have been possible.

Production 09-05-09 Street Scenes, Cafe

Day two of Production. Here are images of the Street Scenes and Cafe Images. Long day, just made the 12 hour max for SAG hours. Thank God!!:

Production 09-03-09

Well, Yesterday was the shooting of the greens screen scenes. Oh the amount of work. But so many wonderful, great people helped out. It was wonderful. Here are some of the images from the day.

Cafe Blocking

Yesterday we had rehearsals and I was able to work out the Cafe Blocking. This is just the beginning and I still have to work out the camera on paper for the cinematographer. I also blocked the hillside in Galilee. I have to put that in later.

This is the first half of the blocking which causes Brad and the Successful Business Women to inter act.

Yellow - Waitress

Blue- Brad

Red- Successful Business Woman

Grey - Young Man

Corporate Executives:

Rae- Teal

George- Green

Barbara- Pink

White: Extras

This is the second half of the Cafe Blocking which causes Brad to see the Young man and eventually the Business Executives.

Agustin in Test Glasses Shots and Costuming

Here are images of Agustin trying out glasses for the role of Brad:

These frames are more circular which as his wise wife pointed out soften his face which is angular. As his character travels from the angular world to a more circular flowing world this could work to emphasis his not fitting in. They also look older an a little dated. Which could work.

These frames certainly emphasis the positive aspects of his facial structure. And would make him more a part of the angular world of the cool metropolitan cafe.

As with all frames the challenge will be for my DP who will not like me for the reflections. And I might not like me for the challenges it will bring in regards to the chroma keying on the hillside. But If I could pull it off, the hillside reflections could be very realistic.

Here is Agustin in the Suit he might wear:

Cast Rehearsals and Costuming

There has been so much going on I can't possible blog every detail. Over the last week, God has given me the strength to cast and costume all the background actors who are playing dual roles in the script. Agustin was key in casting, as was the Christian Actors organization. Not all the actors head-shots are here. But here's most of the images of the cast and in horrible rough workings of their Biblical Costumes for the Hillside. If I didn't have to keep a Blog for this I would not do this - No Filmmaker would.

The Successful Business Woman / Water Woman:

Veronica Reyes

The Young Man / Lyre Player:

J. Alex Brinson

The Corporate Executives:

Ray Hernandez

George Joseph Boseman

Barbara Puff

The Waitress / Hillside Rich Woman:

Lorraine Montero

The Homeless Man / Jesus:

Lee Zunis