The Lightcrafter

Today’s filming went very well, even with a few somewhat troubling setbacks. We still have one fairly solid day of stuff left to do with Trevor, but we shot all the tracking shots of him during the chase scene, which is good. Two bad things — one, the antique, practically irreplacable flashlight prop that is in every scene of the film just died on us. It seems likely that the bulb went out, so hopefully I can find a replacement one soon. It might be a hard thing to find though.

Also, and this may be less serious but is very very perplexing, the forest footage looks really super dark when I view it on my computer, but when I check the clips on my camera’s screen, they’re nice and well-lit. The difference is pretty extreme — background areas with nice tree detail are showing up pitch black on my monitor. I’m pretty confused. I’ll have to check the footage at the MML or something. Maybe it’s some glitch related to that damn H.264 codec my camera records its footage at (I hope and pray for a future firmware update that allows for uncompressed HD), but clearly since the detail is there, I should be able to pull it out.

As long as every day is this productive, I can meet my current goal. But for the love of everything, please no more setbacks!

I really shouldn’t be, but I am. I really hope to finish all (or at least 80%) of the video shots of Trevor as The Trapmaker today, with one last session devoted to light painting. When that’s done, there’s quite a lot of material to get of my character, some of which is pretty complex. If anyone feels that they might have time to do some shooting (and I completely understand that you’re all extremely busy with your projects, so no worries if you cannot), that’d be a tremendous help.

Well, it’s the last full week until my fine cut screening. I’m going first in the class. That’s a bit intimidating, so I really hope that I can finish filming before then. My fine cut will undoubtedly resemble something more along the lines of a rough cut, but hopefully I can put those last few days of week 10 to great use in polishing it up.

I really hope so.

While it’s nice to have things picking up again after a brief productivity slump, I worry that what I can accomplish in the next two weeks will be too little, too late. My greatest concern right now has been editing. If the relatively small portion of “completed” material is any indication, it’s ludicrous to try and finish what I’ve yet to begin. In particular, the dozen-layer compositing on some of the shots is proving to be a nightmare. Without question, I absolutely need at the very least an additional academic quarter to complete this the way I’ve envisioned.

But lately, what with the removing of all sorts of semi-extraneous material, stripping down that vision to its bare minimum for coherency has been all the rage. I do not have an additional quarter to work on this and I’d really like to show something that feels complete. So what to do?

Well, I’ve thought about taking the second half of the sword fight sequence, which encompasses everything between the first sword shattering to the epic battle between the five swords and the light entities… and scrapping it. It’s a sad and very difficult decision to make, particulary since I have spent many, many long hours conceptualizing and filming tons of content for that portion, but until I have the time and resources necessary to edit it all together, there’s no way that it will be finished. Unfortunately, this brings up some other problems. The scene wasn’t completely superfluous as it reintroduced the light entities and better established them as something that was not on any particular side, but it also includes the moment where the protagonist uses the knife given to him by The Trapmaker to sever the ties from the flashlight to the swords (again, heavy heavy compositing is why I think I have to cut this scene), thus defeating The Swordmaster. So by removing this, I also have to go back and change the movie earlier on so that The Trapmaker never gives The Boy his knife… unfortunately I really liked that interaction as it makes The Trapmaker’s transition from grateful soul to malicious beast more intense and powerful. So that would need reshoots now in order to cut something else. I guess what I’m really trying to say is

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!

……

This project has been a really cool experience. But after putting so much emotional investment into it and realizing that even now, at practically the eleventh hour, the amount of work left to do is unmeasurably immense… I am beat. Just plain beat. Still, I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, and film what has been planned for Thursday and all that jazz, but as for what this project will exactly be in the end, I no longer know for sure. Maybe it’ll be the structure I always wanted but just have a bunch of storyboard stills spliced in to fill the missing gaps as it currently is in my animatic. Maybe it will be cut down to a much faster-paced six minutes with all the fat thrown out. Maybe it will end up being a meandering mess, maybe it will be a two-minute trailer for an upcoming “completed version.” All I know for sure is that it’s way, way too late in the game for me to feel comfortable making these kinds of decisions.

Clearly what I set out to do was a little bit more ambitious than it should have been. Oh well. Press on, Sean Parker, just press on. It’ll be whatever it ends up being. Heck, with a few all-nighters, maybe I can edit the impossible. I may be at a bit of a loss, but I certainly ain’t giving up.

Filming in the woods went okay. I definitely wasn’t able to finish as much as I had hoped to get done, but we were able to complete one of the four scenes with The Trapmaker, which is a start. Here are some of the results. Sadly, lighting is all over the map (no color correction has been done yet), but hopefully since it’s all “a dream” I’ll have a little more leeway than I would for a scene taking place in reality. I hope.

This was a two-hour shoot. On Thursday I’ll be filming again, hopefully for about triple the time. My goal is to finish the rest of Trevor’s shots in one session, but it won’t be the end of the world if an additional pick-up day is required.

So, it’s week seven… this was the week I’d originally hoped to be doing only very minor pick-up shoots with heavy amounts of editing, but instead I’m shooting the remaining half of my film. Still, I have hope that I can more or less finish in time, although the compositing of light painting may not look as stunning as I’ve hoped. As for audio, Tommy has graciously offered to assist me for a day of foley work, so I will try to get everything recorded then. Likely, I will have to use royalty-free stock sound effects for a good portion of the movie for the public screening, but I will at some point definitely get everything together for a 100% original soundtrack.

Things have gotten to the point where my mind is so preoccupied with the worries of finishing on time that I am becoming less and less concerned with completing the project according to my original vision. A few bits have mercilessly gotten the axe, but I also have realized that after many tests (which have taken up too much time when I could have been filming), I am no longer going to even attempt to film at night while in the woods. It’s too much of a damn hassle, especially when I’m so short on extra hands. It just isn’t going to work. Instead, I’m going to try and film during the day while it’s overcast and use my bright flashlights to make the actors far brighter than the surroundings so that when I bring down the aperture (or adjust levels in post), it more or less seems somewhat like a dark setting. It’s not exactly what I wanted, but to be honest, what I was striving for in the beginning just isn’t possible anymore. Still, it might not be too much of a problem considering that it’s a dream world, so we’ll see if it ends up working or not in the end.

Of course, this brings up a big potential problem with the light painted scenes, which cannot be done in the day due to brightness issues. There will likely be a pretty noticeable day/night shift between video and light painting as a result, which is unfortunate, but I don’t have a choice. Hopefully spending a good amount of time in post will fix some issues.

Tomorrow should be a pretty big filming day if we don’t get rained out. It’s the first day of The Trapmaker and hopefully the second-to-last as well. But with the amount of other material left to shoot (maybe more cuts are in order…), I’m getting pretty worried. Here’s hoping that The Lightcrafter can wrap up filming before week 9…

Following the rough cut screening, I have for (the most part) intentionally been unproductive. I realized that I was overwhelming myself with the project to the point that I couldn’t make the right decisions on it, so I took a couple days off. That was nice. Coming back to it today, I have been able to be more critical of the film’s structure, and have made a few key cuts in the Trapmaker and Swordmaster scenes that will help things move along quicker. I removed the visually unique but ultimately superficial “spike trap” segment of the chase scene (which I may film later after the class is over, as I like the ideas but filming it with this limited timeframe seems a bit tricky), and several bits of the swordfight, making the build-up to the climax with the light entities battling against the swords come quicker — I think this will work better in the grand scheme of things because it will be less of a “swordfight” and more of a one-sided attack against the helpless protagonist, which is much more tonally appropriate for the film. Sally, thank you for helping me become aware of this. I’m now trying to fit each of those scenes into about two minutes, making the project lean closer to a 10 minute running time, maybe less. Some further reshoots will be necessary, but I’m ready for them.

Progress has finally been made regarding the Trapmaker sequence. Partially due to the slight cutting down it has received, I feel its current lack of presence to be a little less imposing. Trevor Hart’s costume has been assembled. Thanks to a combination of the on-campus costume shop and finding a few things around the house, we were able to put this one together with minimal sewing on Harmony’s part (she made the belt and bandoleer). Below are some pictures from a fitting session earlier this week.

We’ve made some slight changes since (such as reorganizing his knife arrangement and switching the socks for black ones), but I’m pretty happy with his look. In the woods with dramatic lighting, it’ll look great.

I may have solved a portion of the forest shooting issue. I have made what will hopefully be my last major purchase for the project and acquired a large battery-powered spotlight/flashlight. I am very impressed so far with its light output, but I need to try some tests when the battery is fully charged, as I don’t yet know how much time I can rely on it for. Still, it’s a great step in the right direction for being able to shoot in the woods. Earlier tonight I did some shooting with Trevor and Harmony to see how things will work, and it seems promising so far. My first official shooting day for the Trapmaker looks like it will be on Thursday. If anyone would like to help out, that would be awesome — I think I just need a couple extra hands on set for lighting.

I don’t have any good stills from the video tests (strangely, the video playback on my camera picked up a lot more nice background woods detail than my computer screen is showing), but here are some light painting images we did for fun (and to get a bit more experience in outdoor light painting before the heavy-duty stuff rolls around). Remember to click for full-view!

Trim the fat. I tried to avoid this but I failed — parts of the movie just seem to stop dead in their tracks to show off some flashy action sequence. That’s a problem I’ve always had. Even though there’s some really cool material in the Swordmaster scene that took a ton of work to pull off, much of it has to go for the sake of consistency and quality pacing. The Trapmaker scene will face a similar fate if I don’t start breaking it down to its core elements and throwing out the superfluous.

Make it dreamlike — atmosphere needs to be built up more, and most of the footage has a dull clarity to it. It doesn’t feel like it’s in a dream yet. Fortunately it may be possible to salvage the footage I already have rather than reshoot for this.

Start working on audio. There’s so many different ways to handle the sound design on this piece that if I don’t start brainstorming now it will end up a rushed mess. The audio should be minimalist whenever possible so as not to distract from the visuals. Music likely will not be used — definitely not in the traditional sense. “Ambient rhythm” may be used to drive some scenes without drawing attention to itself. Subtlety in sound is an area that I’ve never succeeded in before, but it’s going to be at the forefront of my mind from now on.

The rough cut meeting was very good (thank you, Sally, Ryan, and Tommy). In some ways it brought up some new worries, but it helped me think a bit straighter. I now know that I am looking at completing a somewhat less complicated and ambitious film, but I’m going to make sure that nothing is sacrificed without good reason. The film will most certainly be stronger with these changes in mind.

I like The Lightcrafter. Quite a lot. I think the way things are looking is incredibly satisfying, and I’m extremely proud that I’ve been able to break away from my typical domain of narrative live-action comedy and create a surreal adventure/fantasy with experimental animation techniques. Overall I’m really happy to be working on this.

But I am steadily losing hope that anything that resembles my true vision for the project will be ready for the public to see on June 9th  — much less the fine cut screening that’s in four weeks. As I continue editing, I see new problems crop up with every shot. Things that are misaligned, irreplaceable bad frames, awkward pacing, overexposed imagery and scratches on the lens. From my experience working with this so far, these things are correctable… but the amount of time required is immense. Each and every frame of the film requires at the very least a decent amount of Photoshop editing followed by Final Cut compositing. I don’t see how some of the shots will be taken care of without spending at least two or three full days devoted to them — apiece.

I could probably edit what I currently have shot until long after the class ends, which doesn’t take into account that about half of the movie is still waiting to be shot. And I still don’t have a single second of audio yet. It’s all very, very troubling.

Tomorrow is my rough cut screening. I’ll have something to show, but it hasn’t calmed my nerves. It’s pretty darn rough, which doesn’t help. Hopefully a talk with Sally about the state of the project will help me think things through better.

Ah, reshoots. The project is coming along pretty well, but there have been a few setbacks that may require them. It has occurred to me that some of the video portions don’t/won’t fit all that well in the film. Particularly when they’re bookended by light painting, I worry that the usage of video in some scenes is going to feel inconsistent. Thus, I have decided to refilm a few things, mainly redoing any shots of The Boy during the Light Spirit scene, which I’m actually looking forward to because this way the entire finale of the film will be 100% animated with light painting, which should be fitting — and yes, daunting, but luckily the most complex shots in that portion are already taken care of, so I’m not too worried. In fact, if things go well, I may be able to take care of those reshoots by tomorrow night.

The Swordmaster scene is more troubling, as I’m completely unsure how well it will work given the material we have. I haven’t been able to do much of any editing on that segment yet, so I hope that any changes that will have to be made won’t be too extreme. I really am running short on time here, so I need to focus as much energy as I can on the Trapmaker scene.

The Trapmaker scene shouldn’t be as much of a problem, even though there’s a mix of video and light painting. What I hope will come across in the film is that the jerky light painting style of movement will only occur when the light entities are serving as the primary light source (thus, the finale practically needs to be shot entirely in light painting). With the forest, I’m hoping there will be enough ambient light to see some background detail (well, I should certainly hope so, otherwise, why would I shoot in the forest?) such that I can get away with using video so long as light entities aren’t in too close proximity to the subjects. If it sounds confusing, it probably is — I’m just making some notes to myself at the moment. Hopefully this will all work out fine.

Back to the Trapmaker bit, I plan on doing some video tests in the woods today, and heading to the costume shop to see if they have anything that can augment what we already have for him. My goal is to begin shooting with Trevor Hart (the Trapmaker) this weekend, and only need him for three or four days. I really hope everything works out, because the success of almost everything that remains to be shot is hinging upon how well the forest shoots work.

On a more positive note, I have been doing some minor editing here and there, and worked on the compositing of light painting into a few shots, and I think it’s worked beautifully. I’m very happy about this because my colleages in “Animated Archetypes” expressed some very reasonable concerns about the quality of the edge selection when inserting light graffiti onto a new background. Thankfully, I was able to make a Photoshop macro that has so far done a surprisingly good job of selecting only what I’ve wanted from the light painting I’ve done, and since it’s now an automated process, it has drastically cut down on the amount of grunt work I have to do and allows me focus more on making things pretty. I’ve only gone through a handful of shots, and it is taking quite a bit of time to position everything properly (if I had enough time left to go through AfterEffects in the MML on campus, I totally would, because entering [X, Y] coordinates for each individual part of a frame is… tedious, very very tedious), but it’s looking really cool!

I only have a few days until the rough cut is due. It’s a little worrisome, but it will be very nice to have a straight 3+ weeks to devote to the remaining material afterward. Speaking of which, I better get to assembling that ASAP.

No, I’m nowhere near the end, but the ending itself is more or less finished. During last quarter’s work-in-progress screening I showed the final scene of the film, sans light painting. Well, that aspect has been completed and I’ve spent a good portion of the last few days working it into the video.

First I traced the path my flashlight makes in the video clip onto a piece of paper, which I used to map out a wireframe structure. This took quite a bit of time, as I was working on a somewhat small scale and precise shapes were quite difficult to sculpt. The results are below.

From here I used the wire as a kind of track for a flashlight to follow. I experimented with a few visual styles before settling on something that looks unique for the film but not too far removed from what has been already established.

I took about 100 or more pictures of the track being lit up gradually over time, starting with just the tip of one end and working my way across until the entire thing was illuminated. Sadly, it didn’t align properly with the video so I started over, making a larger wireframe model that was much more precise. This time, I took many more pictures as well, and decided against lighting up the entire thing by the end. Instead, I decided to give the light trail a defined length such that only a small part of the track would be lit at any given time, with a relatively consistent size.

Editing this took far longer than I’d hoped, but I’m pretty happy with the results and hope that the process will go smoother now for future material. Here is the composited section. If you have any critiques or suggestions, they’d be very much appreciated.