September 6th, 2009
Well, something has changed and I don’t know what it is. The site template is out of wack and the pagination (being able to choose older pages) at the bottom of the site has completely disappeared.
To be honest, I am getting quite sick of Wordpress. Yes it might be free, but it seems to have numerous bugs for even the most basic things you need to do. I still can’t get the visual editor to do proper breaks between paragraphs without resorting to HTML hacks or doing in-depth edits of css stylesheets. This should be able to be done in the control panel, not by coding.
In any event, I am too frustrated with it at the moment to battle trying to get a simple post up.
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September 6th, 2009
Match moving. That darkest of visual FX arts. Well, apart from rigging and those boffins that code in Python, but I digress.
To my mind, one of the best ways to increase the production value of your project is to take advantage of the power of match moving for set extensions, integration of FX elements and insertion of your 3D CG. It seems to me that the first primary “go to” for newcomers is greenscreen. Students can’t wait to get the green bedsheets up or spraypaint some plywood and get some bad actors, or classmates at a pinch and shoot some truly horrible footage.
Why not use greenscreen? I am not saying don’t use it, but it’s not the be all and end all, and when you are at the low-budget end of things, frankly they can cause more issues than they solve. Apart from people thinking that greenscreen is some magic panacea that can solve anything, you have to light them well. Even then, you are probably shooting with a low-end handy-cam which is going to give you rubbish results. Keying badly lit DV shot greenscreen is a guaranteed way for you to want to stab a pencil into your ear.
So why would you consider matchmoving. Well, as with a lot of visual effects, less is often more. As you probably know, creating photo-real environments is a tall ask, even for high-end studios let alone individuals. Matchmoving or tracking to the rescue! Why not consider shooting some cool locations for your short and then extending the backgrounds to give more depth/sci-fi buildings etc? Being further away you can get away with less detail and more atmospherics. Check out The Purchase Brothers fantastic “Escape from City 17″, a Half-Life 2 fan film. I recall reading that the budget for this short was around $600 and that was mainly for costumes and props. Checking out their website shows their other projects are equally impressive with regards to matchmoving.
Staying with the Half-Life 2 them, “What’s in the Box” was an amazing short shot live-action through a European city with some excellent match-moving of effects and heads up displays.
So where can you get software to practice? As it happens, you can still get a copy of Icarus, the pre-cursor to PFTrack on the net. Colin Levy has a donwload link on his website and has kind made several video tutorials to get you started.
Films to check out: District 9 (love the mother ship shots), Cloverfield
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August 27th, 2009
Well guys, it looks as though I won’t be able to keep up the twice weekly update schedule. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, work is really starting to kick in and I only have a couple of nights of the week to myself for downtime. When I started this blog, lo those many months ago, I had a lot more free time as I was “between projects” (ie, unemployed) so obviously I had time up my sleeve to do more posts. At this point the Sunday updates are still ago as I have a bit of time to spend on getting materials together.
So stay tuned and if you have any suggestions for topics, hit me with an email and I will look at getting some info on it!
Cheers, big ears.
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August 23rd, 2009
Obviously what I am about to write has spoilers of some sort, but if you have seen the trailer then you know what you are getting into!
On Friday I was lucky enough to scope tickets for one of the invite-only Avatar 15 minute screenings in full 3D. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see it at the IMAX theatre, but hey! Beggers can’t be choosers.
Oooh, blue aliens!
Let me preface this by saying I knew pretty much nothing about the movie before going in . . . on purpose. I just wanted to watch it and see what happens. Hence me not knowing who the characters are, what they are supposed to be doing etc.
Firstly, the 15 minute preview only covered sequences from the first half of the movie. I will try and remember as much as I can as I was obviously concentrating on the visuals. Also, the majority of the footage shown was CGI.
Read the rest of this entry »
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