Good times...bad times...

I have some great news but I can't share it with anyone on line until Monday...

Also, today it started raining around 7:00 pm and it is still coming down. I'm psyched. I got more done on the movie because as everyone who knows me knows, rain inspires me. We have had a lot of rain and thunder and lightning...

On a sad note, no one on the crew has heard from Danielle...I am truly getting worried.

We have an actress set to dub her lines, but I am more concerned about the fact that a friend is missing than I am about the movie.

Liegh Denton


has agreed to step in and dub the lines. She is really talented and I have had her work as a choreographer in the past, but her vocal intonations are really close to Danielles...so it should work...

It helps being 6 ft 7 in and 285

85%

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Commentary...

I had given a copy of Darkness Aftermath to me friend Bob to watch and today we both sat down and viewed it. Bob has a widescreen TV and KILLER sound system. It was great hearing all of the sound effects that I had mixed in. I also realized after we were done watching it (there was no real dialog mixed in) that I had sort of given him a directors commentary of the whole thing. It sort of re-energized me and I'm ready to get crackin' on it again.

Ted (before he left for a warmer clime) was working on this...

...scene of Lilly (Tarina) before she explodes...this is a low res image.

In the meantime...

When I'm not editing, I'm watching the third season of Battlestar Galactica and listening to the commentary tracks. I'm also revisiting Marvel's attempt at the original series. Tho it was made in 1979, they touched on some really deep issues and the comics were much heavier than the TV series. In fact Marvel's vision was a lot closer to the current BG. I'm really enjoying the series and glad that I have all of them...not all are shown in this image...the final issue is about Jolly, one of my favorite original BG guys. I was bummed that he did not make it into the series. However, when Kara (Starbuck) was reading a list of names of fallen pilots, she included Jolly...that made me happy...that made me sad...

SUSHI

Well, as some of you know, the movie has been plagued with all sorts of problems as of late. Yesterday all of the stress of the problems hit me and I was really bummed. But today went better and I'm excited again about moving forward on the movie...and this is what helped get me over my funk.

1. An unexpected bit of rain (that always makes me happy)

2. An unexpected plethora of SUSHI! There is a buffet that my family and I got to and they have a sushi bar off to the side. Most buffets have a little bit of sushi here and there, but this one had at least twenty different bite sized bits o' scrumptious joy! Plus I had some great baked crab meat, some spicy squid and a chicken and rice mix stuffed in grape leaves.

Now, back to editing!

Just when you thought it couldn't get worse...

Today was horrible. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, went well today. But I was trying to maintain a positive attitude when Ted called and told me that someone had stolen his lap top from his house in broad daylight!

...an idea!

I have decided to dump everything from my borrowed laptop onto a computer at IPFW where I can have a little bit more memory to mess with...I am sure that everything will go fine...












except for the fact that IPFW is home of many gremlins. We'll see what we can do...

Working...fixing...

Ted leaves for Arizona on Tuesday so we spent the whole afternoon working on the movie trying to get it to a point where we no longer need to be sitting in the same room to complete it. We got a lot done.

Just saw IRON MAN...

IT ROCKED! No complaints.

Just saw the trailer for The Spirit

yuck!

Gonna' see IRON MAN tonight to cheer myself up.

More setbacks...

I'm too frustrated to even post about how messed up the movie is right now due to technical errors that are beyond my control...

You might have noticed the new banner...

We shot a lot of footage that revealed what happened (in the dialog) with "switch and the Garum" and Gwen...but the footage, for the most part, was eaten by the Canon XLPOS! So I decided not to put Megan through another 2 and a half hours of make up for a reshoot and we went ahead and shot her narrative as if it actually happened. The above banner shows Switchella and the 'after-attacked' Switch. I am extremely happy with the way it all worked out.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG!

Last night I did the final cut of the movie. I put in blank forest scenes where Ron will add the GARUM and where Ted will add the DRIFTERS. And then...I restarted my computer to play back what I had done. However, instead of a free flowing movie, I saw that the footage needed to all be re-rendered.

The line of edited 'stuff' should look like this...


All of my dissolves and fades and dips should have been rendered, as should have my color corrections. However, when I opened my file, all of the transitions and color corrections were not rendered. They had the red stripe of death about them...which meant that they had to be re-rendered...the computer complained that it would be a three hour task...however, every time I tried this, it kept locking up.

Finally (around 3:00am) I gave up and today dumped everything onto Ted's computer. He will fix it and life will be good again...I hope.

Coolness...

Its sorta cool seeing who is visiting the blog with the flag counter (so...post a comment already). All right. Here is the update.

Last night I went to the woods where we shot the movie so that Ron would have some 'plates' to put the Garum on. I shot some footage and walked through the scenes so that he could place the creature behind and in front of trees.

And then something odd happened...

I recalled the moment that I scouted that location. No actors, no crew, just me in the woods checking it out and envisioning how the movie would look. There is a log that stretches across a wide path that became Gwen's (Danielle's) resting place. I looked at the log with a bit of sadness. The shoot is over and we won't be back to this place again...

Then I got to thinking about the sword...in the movie, Gwen loses her sword (the one that the Old Caretaker has entrusted to her)...as I watch the footage of Gwen (Dani) trying to find the weapon after the Garum has knocked it from her grip, I felt a certain sadness that I did not expect to feel.

The movie is winding down.

I return the Cursed Canon XL1 to IPFW tomorrow and know that I will not use it again on this project.

All that is left is the SPFX. I will not shoot another frame of footage on this movie again.

I am happy.

I am sad.

Finished editing Lilly and Switchella

Screen grabs.

Rain...but no rain.

At 8:15 am the sky was filled with dark clouds and the rain was falling gently. By the time we were set up and ready to shoot at 9:30, the sky was clear and no rain was to be seen until tonight as I post this and it is raining again...

So here is the day's shoot. (all photos taken by my two sons Zack and Max)

Greg Minick stepped in to work the camera. We went to high school together(learned video production from the same guy - Chuck) but never really made the connection after attending the same church for over a year. It was a funny moment when we realized that we graduated at the same time...odd. He did great work today.


This is Lilly's hand gun. We never shot it last year and today we got the close up we needed.


It was extremely cold, despite the sun and cloudless sky and I had provided a thermos full of hot water for the actresses to use to keep wet since the rain did not co-operate. Here you can see steam rising from Megan (Switch before the mutilation) as she douses herself with the hot water.



Tarina spent most of the time in a tree, tho we let her down toward the end.




Then at 1:30 I shot the scenes of Luke (Clarr) that disappeared mysteriously, and I can now say that shooting of our actors is done. I am going to the Hunter location tomorrow to get the background plate shots for Ron's Garum effects and the green screened Drifters. Then thats it. We add sound and dialog and it's finished. For the first time I can actually see the movie coming to an end. By Sunday night, I'll have a completed rough cut. The only thing missing will be the added effects. I'm psyched.

Saturday we shall have RAIN!

I'm RE-shooting some of the footage that got lost - swallowed by an evil black hole! It's supposed to rain on Saturday which is fantastic, since the rain rack was accidentally destroyed. I'll have some images to post tomorrow.

On a side note, it's sorta cool seeing who is dropping by the blog. Hey Canada and the rest of you all, leave a note and say hi. We'll send ya a DVD when it's all done.

And one last note. The hats are done. I am now taking orders. $12.00 is a real bargain.



Michael...your's will be put in the mail this week along with a copy of Sally's graphic novel and Sean's soundtrack. I was going to send it off last week, but then my sister told me that the hats were due to come in any day...

Flag counter added

Just added the flag counter to the right...should be interesting to see where visitors are from...I also added a day counter to the release (yeah, right) of the DVD. But for some reason it isn't counting down...any ideas?

Danielle is missing...

As we ease into our final stretch of the movie, we have been plagued with all sorts of misfortune...the most tragic is the sudden vanishing act that our lead has pulled. Danielle is missing and no one seems to know where she is. Yes we would like her to finish her dialog for the final mix, but more importantly, Ted and I and the rest of the gang are getting concerned since no one seems to know where she is...

This is so wrong...

28

editing...

...and editing and editing and editing. Will it never end? (I'm actually loving it) The movie is really tightening up. I chopped at least eight minutes of 'stuff' this week to move the story along faster. There were extended scenes of training and Gwen learning to use a new weapon and Gwen traveling through the woods, but it was starting to feel like I was trying to make AN EPIC when it didn't need that. Now, if all of the people who had promised to act in the movie had actually shown up and participated, it would have had a much bigger feel to it, but the movie has evolved into a more intimate sort of story instead of the huge monster I had actually storyboarded and scripted.

The missing scenes...well, some of them...

I found some of the missing footage and figured out why they got lost. No names will be mentioned to protect the guilty...

We shot the wide angle shots of Debbie and Danielle on the log and then shot close ups. I found the Debbie close ups and added them into the mix...


Danea (Debbie) and Kasel (Matt) plot Gwen's demise...


Tho some claimed we never shot this scene...it was refreshing to find it. It is the final scene between Gwen and Danea...


Lilly confronts Gwen...good to have this...


This scene is where a blue firefly lands on Lilly's hand and then is killed due to the presence of the the DRIFTERS...



In this scene, Lilly tries to assure Gwen that she won't have to fight Danea...

Green Screen

We did some green screen work with Ron and the guys from ITT. He's assembled a group of talented and excited dudes and dudettes who are willing to meet on Saturday mornings for extra-non-school related activities.

Here a couple of the guys are rigging lights to get an even glow on the green screen.


Tim. The light meter guy. He's been doing a lot with the green screen lately.



Tucker (standing) aids with the light board. He works at the college TV station and has been a great help.



Some of the ITT Dudes.


Working on my tan.



The camera looks bigger when normal sized people stand next to it...


Ron Lewis. International Guitar Hero champion...



...and Demon Wrangler.


When we realized that we weren't going to be able to do our Drifter Demon in CG, I went old school and built a model of Sculpy and about 20 sticks of Hot Glue for texture. It's lit from inside (as you can see) and heavy. The shoot went aces and Ted, who was there tho not pictured, has done some great stuff combining Michael Clark's cloud fly-over with the Green Screened Demon.

...and yet the movie isn't even done yet.

There is a rumor of sorts at IPFW that some of the guys in the film club are making a spoof of our movie called "Darkness After Math Class". Hmmm. btw...I am aware that this is a really crap photoshop job...just messin' around...