I’ve been working on a programming book I call LuaCow. It’s aimed for anyone who is entirely new to programming and wants a start. Each chapter has code examples and, thanks to my host nearlyfreespeech, you can enter and run Lua code from the web page! Really cool.

Check it out http://locofilm.co.uk/LuaCow

This post here is very helpful http://www.theblackandblue.com/2011/12/15/camera-assistant-toolkit/

Other things you don’t see in the pictures includes allen/hex keys, tape measure, hammer, g-clamps, stanley knife and hammer.

My current layout for final cut pro 7.

The jogging and the scrolling works well, the further you push the joystick the faster it jogs, you can have the controller next to the keyboard, have your middle finger on the left joystick and thumb on the right.

Before you can set this up you need to download the drivers for OS X here: http://tattiebogle.net/index.php/ProjectRoot/Xbox360Controller/OsxDriver
Then you need a program that can convert buttons on the controller into keystrokes. ControllerMate is some excellent software that allows you to “customize the behavior of your HID devices — keyboards, keypads, mice, trackballs, joysticks, gamepads, throttles, among others”. There’s a slight learning curve but I have created a preset for you to download.

Final Cut Pro Xbox Controller, ControllerMate Preset.

Cameras.

The past few weeks i’ve been doing more cinematography. Naturally this involves cameras. During the course i’ve used and seen many different cameras; JVC, Sony EX3, Arri film (16 and 35mm), Arri Alexa, Sony F3, Canon (5d, 7d, 55od) and the panasonic gh2.
That’s a lot of letters and numbers and it can all get confusing fast. The camera was the invention that sparked filmmaking, but at the end of the day, if it works you can film a good story.

We’ve also been learning a lot about lighting, the other week we we’re recreating paintings from the national gallery using an assortment of lights. It’s a great exercise to make you think very carefully about what the light in the scene is, and like a painter you can cheat and bend the rules of where the light is coming from.

Last week was a week of short films. We had four hours each to shoot a film. Unlike our directing exercises in which we had an hour to shoot, this was about lighting and creating a location, the luxury extra three hours gave us time to really think about the process.

App

In my last post I talked about an iPhone game i’ve been developing. While that’s in a decent state it’s on hold because i’ve been developing a utility application for filmmakers called Shot Lists.

Shots Lists helps you organise your shots and media project by being readily available and editable on your phone.
Keep track and time each slate so you get a quick idea of how fast the shoot is going, add crew and cast to your project and use the iPhone’s location services to easily add locations or find them.

Here’s a quick preview (this video is a week old and quite a bit has been added already!):

I’m going to post updates with development on a different website: www.myalienfish.com
The plan is to have this game out no later than summer ‘11.

Here are a few pictures to get you started.

The fish tank.

Buying fish at the shop.

So how can we bring this look to Celtx?
Well in Celtx your script is actually a html webpage because celtx is built off firefox, the web browser. This means we can override the CSS stylesheet and make it look how we want.
Don’t understand? Don’t worry, i’ve uploaded some files at the bottom of this post you can just drop into the correct folder.

Look at what you can do:

If you do understand then it’s as simple as creating a file called ‘userChrome.css’ inside the folder:

<home>/Library/Application Support/Celtx/Profiles/<somenumber>.default/Chrome/

In the CSS file I recommend you wrap everything in

@media screen{
} 

To center the text, create a body tag with margins left and right to auto.
Also put ‘!important’ after every parameter, for example:

body {
margin-left: auto !important;
}

There’s the following tags:

The .softbreak tag is for page breaks, you can emulate the pagebreaks you see in the PDF version.

I’ve got two versions. One that is designed to emulate the PDF look of the script and another that emulates Ommwriter.

Downloads:
Celtx-pdf
Celtx-ommwriter

Extract to:

<home>/Library/Application Support/Celtx/Profiles/<somenumber>.default/Chrome/

From past experience I knew directing this wasn’t going to be easy. Directing takes a lot of guts, clear communication and plenty of preparation. I had the first two down, but lacked the preparation. The night before, after working out a shot list, I got a call from the project co-ordinator that one of the actors had dropped out. I knew these kind of things happen sooner or later, so you have to ‘go with the flow’. The writers did an amazing job of quickly reacting and adapting the script. However, this meant the scene changed and the location changed. I had a chat with my producer and we agreed we’ll have to just improvise on the day. Now, sometimes I can improvise and when I can i’m great, but sometimes I just don’t have that spark. I didn’t want to take that risk so I woke up at 6:30 am and headed over to Starbucks to waken my mind and work out the scenes.

The shoot.
The very first thing I had planned is to get friendly with the actors. The actor – director relationship is vital. A director needs to maintain trust between the cast and the crew. Both actors, Michelle Yim and Sam Sadler, we’re a treat to work with. We started in the park and the scene required hot chocolate to be spilt over the actress (we used cold coffe btw). The scene went without a hiccup, I chose to shoot the spill at 50fps so the information is captured. I also did a few takes with an empty cup so the editors have something to cut before and after the spill.

The next scene was really fun. The two actors had to lie stoned and talk rubbish. My cameraman/dp, Dan Homer, was a tremendous help and came up with some really tasty shots. The difference between TV and Film:
The writers will probably hate me for this but I didn’t find the dialogue in the stoned scene funny. Usually, in film, the director has the power to change the lines however here I had to ring up the production office. After reasoning for the change I got a prompt ‘no’. On the other hand, this did make me approach the scene at a more lateral angle, I couldn’t change the lines so I had to convince the actors to play the scene with credibility. They had never been stoned and neither had I. You can’t change the lines but you can change the actions, the tone and the timing.

Nearly there.
It was during the last scene I started to feel the pressure. I had four new actors that came over from Story A. I didn’t have time to build up a relationship  so it felt a little awkward trying to direct them. My producer, Yanis, helped keep things in check. We had a healthy push pull relationship. I want the best performance and cinematography while the producer, who is still concerned about both, is making sure we stay on schedule and, at the end of the day, have complete coverage of the script.

Despite the sudden change of script, which happens even on the big budget films, the shoot went smoother than I had anticipated. I did feel the pressure in the last hour of the day but I kept my focus and my cool, at least I think I did

Had those problems not been there I believe future directors and myself could do great things with this series. Go for it!

Today we spilt up into our groups.
The writing team spent the whole day inventing the characters and one line synopsis of each episode.
The production team set up the production office, which looks awesome! I’ll upload pictures tomorrow.
The edit team have set up a bulletproof editing system. The most important thing you need in an edit system is redundancy, so we have three hard-drives, two for backup and one for transfer. There are two edit stations so one can capture footage while another edits.
And there were two shooting teams testing out the equipment and roles looking for any problems we may run into when doing the real thing.

I was producer for shooting team A. It was my job to make sure we get shoot some footage, didn’t matter what, but make sure we understand the process and take note of any problems we come across and understand how we can prevent or act around. For example it started to rain and we didn’t have a rain cover, which means we have to remember next time to check all kit before moving to set. When doing Public interviews the presenter needs to stay near the camera so the interviewee is looking towards the camera, etc…

Our team is immense! We have two writing teams! That means there are going to be two story lines being written simultaneously, there will be two shooting teams filming the two story lines simultaneously and while we shoot episode one the writers will be writing episode two. And the end of the days shoot the team will receive next days script, every role will change to someone else. We have three bibles. A writing bible, a production bible and an edit bible. The writing bible is vital for each writer team to stay within a coherent story world. The production bible is to ensure everyone follows strict guidelines within the production office, and the same goes with the edit bible.

Tomorrow we will be testing all systems further. I will also be hosting a meeting to discuss about marketing and distribution. I hope soon we can get a website up dedicated to the project and come up with how we are going to show these episodes and in what format.

Click for full view

Check em out:

It is getting really exciting here at MetFilm now. Our new module is Small Screen Production. For the next six weeks we are going to make Twenty episodes of Television drama, each five minutes long, every day, for the next six weeks. Wow!

The prospect is certainly daunting and our tutor, Chris Bould, reminds us to ’stay in the mile’ as looking at this project as a whole can be overwhelming. Each of us students will switch roles every episode, so we will all direct, edit, write, light, and produce an episode.

What should be interesting is that we have to include a hybrid of drama and vox pops. What are vox pops? They are those clips of the public voicing their opinion often seen on the news and documentaries.

I’ll be keeping this blog up to date as we go. Today was our first briefing and understanding what this project is about.

Oh, and this isn’t just a school exercise, every episode will be distributed online. =]

Today was the day we pitched.

I don’t think anyone could say they weren’t nervous. Everyone was nervous, I was nervous! But that’s good, because it means your going places you’ve not explored before. It means you are stretching your abilities. Every pitch was interesting to see and every pitch had it’s own pros and cons. One of the judges on the panel has already blogged about his observations and should be valuable information to anyone who may be pitching or even anyone who is going to do a presentation, it applies to all fields of business!

1. Very few pitchers could ‘read’ the panel being pitched to, they could not pick up on when we were confused, bored or disengaged. This seemed to be because they got wrapped up in the detail of their projects. It’s vital to keep an eye on the people to whom you are pitching. It’s a two way conversation, not a one way performance.

2. Keep it short. Almost every pitch was too long, often meandering into needless detail for a pitch – essential to know for the film makers, but not appropriate in a first pitch meeting, unless the discussion required it (discussion, not one way performance).

See the full blog post here

Re-asserting what Jones has said, I think:

1. KISS! Keep It Short and Simple!
2. Don’t worry about performance and showmanship, develop a real rapport with whoever your communicating with. Discuss don’t lecture.
3. Know your stuff! If your not confident about some information, omit it.
4. Listen to the feedback. Your not just pitching for money, your looking for different perspectives. If your panel can’t feel passionate about your project how is your audience?

Noting on my experience: I was ill the week before so I had to join a group who had already shaped out most of the story. It was quite difficult coming into a project at a late stage, you feel a bit lost. As a team, I think our presentation was good because we knew each other strengths and we played to them; my friends knew I was a good speaker so I was given the largest chunk to present, Ross came up with the main body of the story so he had the passion to talk about that. But we had a powerpoint with a fancy intro I did in after effects, and some footage etc. But none of it helped, but rather dampened the pitch because it becomes a distraction.

I really wanted to pitch the idea I was going to do originally had I not been ill the week before. However, I had no time to create a poster or work out the budget and make a stylish fictional advert from the movie, all I had was the story and two minutes to sell it. And that was all I needed, they loved it!

It just about fits on my desk :L

Here’s something i’ve made with it in the past few hours:

61 mesmerizing VFX breakdowns.

Be sure to check out:

Ratatouille Progression Reel

23 Minute Feature on Making of Avatar

Visual Effects of Pan’s Labyrinth

Nuke Breakdowns

Any other I come across not in that list i’ll add to this post. Enjoy.

Of course shooting it beautifully helps, but it’s not just about the eye-candy it is about using the camera to tell and enhance the story visually. Notice there was no dialogue? Most silent films bore me, but with this I didn’t even notice because everything is visual. Even those dreaded ‘transport’ shots of characters walking down corridors and between rooms was made interesting by shooting it from the CCTV screen.

Another point to mention about the script is it’s self awareness of cliché moments, such as; man a surprising man b he can do something man a thought he couldn’t. We see it all the time. But he hold it off giving us some false hopes which creates a pleasant humour.

You can see the making of here.

I’d also advise you to take a look at his other short Momentos.

-

Last week, a student from my course (metfilm) in the year above me asked if I wanted to do the visual effects for a short experimental film, no idea who suggested me. Near the end of the second year, students have the option to make ‘experimental’ films, also known as: shoot whatever you damn well please. Gauri, the director, asked me if I could turn someones head into this swollen, bulbous, clay-like thing. In my head i’m going “nope”, but somehow my mouth says “yep”. Many sleepless nights later I get to a somewhat shaky, but usable, stage. To be honest, I decided it would be best to go with 3D mixed with 2D. BAD. I’ve had pretty much no experience with a 3D/2D workflow. My choice if modelling software had to be Zbrush, basically digital clay. However I hadn’t used Zbrush for a few years and even then I never used it seriously, so tutorials galore! I managed to find a base mesh of a female head and started to wreak havoc on her face (doesn’t sound right..). I built up a mood board of grizzly faces. My immediate reaction was the zombie first person shooter: Left 4 Dead. The zombies in that game have lots of swollen, out of proportion features.

Here’s my result:

It is still a work in progress however. Most of it was done with the Inflate, Move and Clay brush. Not forgetting plenty of Smooth. The sculpting part was probably the easiest, and most fun! However I don’t have any other modelling package for animation or rendering. Compositing the Zbrush into the scene was rather tedious. I had to render out still images of both the model and the alpha, bring them back together in photoshop or after effects and if the actors head changed it’s rotation I had to re-render that specific rotation :[

Ideally i’d use a matchmoving program, such as Boujou, and then import the Zbrush model into Maya and the camera data from Boujou and animate from there. But Maya doesn’t work properly on Snow Leopard 10.6.3!! >:[ wish I hadn’t updated now.

Anyway, here’s some stills of the footage i’ve done so far. It’s more a pre-vis than finalised, especially the hall of mirrors shot. Compositing in a hall of mirrors isn’t fun guys, don’t do it.

Locofilm has changed host. NearlyFreeSpeech offers a unique prices system for web hosts: ‘pay as you go’. Instead of charging you a monthly flat rate it charges you based on bandwidth usage. This means just $2 can go a long way for small sites such as mine. It works on a deposit system where you deposit some money say $5 and it’ll take from that a penny every 10,737,419 bytes, this also means you can’t spend more than you’ve deposited, you can set up automatic warnings when you’re deposit drops below a custom amount.

I’ll be testing it for a couple of months to see how it fares. So far i’m impressed with the speed, they also offer MySQL. The downside however is that they don’t currently support the .co.uk domain so i’m having to forward the domain here.

John Landis signing autographs at Ealing Studios.

Sebastian Foucan, founder of freerunning.

The other day I was lucky enough to meet John Landis, director of films such as The Blues Brothers, Trading Places and the hit music video Thriller.

He was at MetFilm to talk about his latest film Burke and Hare starring Simon Pegg, Andy Serkis and Isla Fisher, which we got to test screen a rough cut. He was also keen to talk about his career and funny stories from his past. He talks with the enthusiasm and passion akin to america. A very interesting guy to listen to.

Another fascinating character is Sebastian Foucan, who you may recognise as the bad guy in Casino Royal’s chase scene. He is known as the founder of freerunning (also known as parkour but there are slight differences). He was talking about his experiences and routines he had to go through with Casino Royale. It was his first role in a movie (not bad to go straight to james bond eh?) and he talks about how exhuasting it was doing twenty to thirty takes per slate of jumping and running. There are a few moments where Sebastian is replaced by a stunt double such as the jump from the higher crane to the lower crane but Sebastian told us how keen he was to try it. Sebastian gives off an electrical vibe, you can see him buzzing with energy. My favourite part was when someone asked him what his workout routine was and he tells us he hates push-ups, running and pretty much any gym exercise because it’s ‘boring’, which I would agree.

Casino Royale

I’ve stuck to a similar color scheme from before and kept the dark, minimalistic layout. The navigation bar up top is bigger and wider than before plus an extra button to a projects page where I intend to keep any personal and work related projects.

I’ve also switched back to wordpress, reluctantly. It still feels a bit heavy, code wise, but I didn’t really want to implement my own category system on the old blog. But no drastic changes.

I’ve made a lil change. On the right you’ll see a projects box. I’ll update it with any finished or progressing projects, mainly small hobby projects such as 2d games or tools, at some point I’ll try and implement a tagging system to the blog so I could link a short film as a project and post updates in any progress.

Not got much to say right now, I’m pretty tired, went to see Alice in Wonderland this afternoon with a healthy bunch of friends. The movie itself was perhaps below Tim Burtons standards and the characters, while wild and wacky, weren’t well developed. I still managed to enjoy it and there was a few laughs in there. Not the best film i’ve seen this year.

I might update later on some uni experiences. If I can be bothered.