blog What are you working on today? Community Blog

Big or small! On a film shoot? Writing? Whatever!

If you do something for your film, even something small, every day, it WILL get made! Eventually. ;) Let this blog help you.

Don't procrastinate! Even something as small as proofreading or shopping for batteries counts.

So what are YOU working on today? Post below! And if the answer is nothing, think of something!

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Film Production: On Set of 'Pendant'" by vancouverfilmschool is licensed under CC BY 2.0
 
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sfoster said:
well shit now u got me thinking about a cats tail in outer space. did you research that ?
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yeah, I wanted to do this the right way, and eventually I'll have to, but basically when I turn on the physics systems it's a whole can of worms for something like this, It's controlling the mesh simultaneous to the independent physics system and having them interpolate results correctly that's the issue.
 
Nate North said:
yeah, I wanted to do this the right way, and eventually I'll have to, but basically when I turn on the physics systems it's a whole can of worms for something like this, It's controlling the mesh simultaneous to the independent physics system and having them interpolate results correctly that's the issue.
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i was thinking more about the biology of a cat, like idk what the behavior of the tail would be. would it float up higher than usual or do cats hold it in position?
 
sfoster said:
i was thinking more about the biology of a cat, like idk what the behavior of the tail would be. would it float up higher than usual or do cats hold it in position?
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Well, it's a good question. I know that they have decent control and articulation of the tail, because my actual cat sometimes wraps it's tail around my leg. It's like 70% passive, but has to be articulate enough for it's intended purpose, which is adjustable balance.

I don't know if they've actually taken any cats into space, seems like the kind of thing I would have heard about. If I had time to hand animate the cat in every scene, the first thing I would probably do is show some mild panic and a few scenes where it kind of got it's bearings with the zero g and calming down. Something I probably will take the time to do is have the cat push itself off of objects in the scene.
 
Nate North said:
Well, it's a good question. I know that they have decent control and articulation of the tail, because my actual cat sometimes wraps it's tail around my leg. It's like 70% passive, but has to be articulate enough for it's intended purpose, which is adjustable balance.

I don't know if they've actually taken any cats into space, seems like the kind of thing I would have heard about. If I had time to hand animate the cat in every scene, the first thing I would probably do is show some mild panic and a few scenes where it kind of got it's bearings with the zero g and calming down. Something I probably will take the time to do is have the cat push itself off of objects in the scene.
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I just googled this lol

The French were the first to put cats to space, sending two in 1963 as a way to test rockets for survivability. The chats espaces were launched less than a week apart, and it seems improbable that even one of the two, the one named Felicette, survived the trip and was recovered with the rocket splashdown capsule.

CATS IN ZERO GRAVITY - lmao the poor cats.

 
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Fascinating. I feel like this newly discovered information lends tremendous credibility to my efforts. I can probably repackage this whole thing as historical fiction and sell it to retired librarians.

Seriously though, I think I do have to put some kind of easter egg referring to this event in here now. Now I have to google it. lol.
 
I just watched the video, and you know, it's not as far off as I thought.

I used to watch a similarly named film called "The Cat from Outer Space", it was a solid motion picture with high end production values consistent with cutting edge entertainment products of the day, such as "Crazy like a Fox" and "Automan"

 
I'm prepping for the 48 Hour Film Project. This will be the 4th year my team has participated.

The 48 HFP is a global competition where teams have 48 hours to write, shoot, edit and deliver a 4- to 7-minute short film.

We are in need of a VFX artist. Are there any VFX artists here that would like to join us in the competition this year? Work dates: August 6 & 7, 2022.
 
IvonV said:
I'm prepping for the 48 Hour Film Project. This will be the 4th year my team has participated.

The 48 HFP is a global competition where teams have 48 hours to write, shoot, edit and deliver a 4- to 7-minute short film.

We are in need of a VFX artist. Are there any VFX artists here that would like to join us in the competition this year? Work dates: August 6 & 7, 2022.
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What is the exact nature of the viz work you foresee here? I might be willing to help, but it depends a lot on the specifics of what you need delivered. Overnight is a pretty tight window for VFX jobs. Does your DP have any knowledge of working with VFX people? Shooting plates, that kind of thing?
 
Hi Nate. I would be honored if you would consider joining us for the 48.

The exact nature of the work needed is unknown. That's a feature of this competition. The way the competition works is on August 5th we will draw two genres from a hat and then we'll get to choose one genre on which to base our script. Genres here: 48 HFP Genres

Then we will be given a character, prop, and line of dialog that must appear in the finished film. We'll take the next 10-12 hours to write a script, then the next day we'll shoot it, then Sunday we'll complete editing and post. We will start camera dumps and editing as soon as possible during the day.

The way we organize for this competition is to put together a crew and gear in advance. We scout and get commitments for a variety of locations (an office, a park, a home, etc.), so that we have different location(s) to set the script. We get commitments from a bunch of actors and then cast them Friday night as the screenplay/story begins to gel. We rent/buy/build set dressing, costumes and props the day of the shoot when the script is known.

So, again, I have no idea what kind of VFX work we'll need, I only know we've needed it every year we've done this. Last year it was replacing a green screen monitor with footage shot during the day to recreate a Zoom meeting. In a previous year, it was some simple cleanup work to eliminate a flag and part of a c-stand that was in a shot.

We need someone that can do a variety of FX-type work quickly. In fact, the way this thing works, if I know we have a good VFX artist on the team, we will consult them as we write the script to figure what can and can't be done in the time we have and then include certain things in the script based on that (if it makes sense for the story).
 
Looking at these genre options, There are some of these that would be easy, and some that would be basically impossible. I could likely be on hand for any reasonable task. There's really no way for this to take more than a few hours anyway, considering logistics.

Just to note some fast and easy things I can probably do in that time frame

Invisible person/floating objects (if you guys have a green suit and good lighting)
A fast colorist pass in resolve
Fluid super slo mo time stretching/time dilatation segment
maybe a half decent looking cg composite/godzilla in a lake/sky replacement/plane flies overhead etc.
It's not a lot of time, so no earthquakes destroying cities or anything
Something unusual that I might be able to do, that's sort of universal to the categories, is to dub in a large crowd in a shot. I expect that would be the only crowd scene in any film at the festival, if we could pull it off. I'd have to practice a bit on some stock footage, and you guys would have to write in some crowd scenes and shoot a front row of real people in front of a greenscreen on location.

Basically the quality and speed at which I can work depends a lot on the footage I receive. If your guys are nailing their lighting setup, doing tripod shots for all the viz scenes, and shooting clean plates before those takes, we can probably produce a few decent effects.

It sounds like you understand the necessity of communication between the DP and VFX person, which is important.
 
Looks pretty good. Getting a good 35mm film look out of digital is more complicated than people think. When I don't have time to build a manual grade, I use this plugin called filmconvert, which can get a decent film look in a few clicks. I think maybe they changed the name to Nitrate recently and added some features.
 
I hate to be the party pooper when it comes to "film look" but none of them make video look like 35mm film. They can make video look less like video and, if you add enough grain and soften the image, you can hope to make it look like 16mm documentary footage, but I've yet to see anything that makes video look like 35mm. FilmLook use to offer a service to convert video into something that looked like film, maybe they still do but I think I read that they licensed their technology to hardware manufacturers who now build it into certain cameras. Anyway, the debate goes on and on concerning what makes film look like film. I have my own ideas and have developed my own techniques and there are a few more I want to try. One thing is for sure, just about any video looks noticeably better if you make an effort to make it look like film, whether or not it ends up actually looking like film could almost be looked at as a separate issue.
 
Suspire said:
I hate to be the party pooper when it comes to "film look" but none of them make video look like 35mm film. They can make video look less like video and, if you add enough grain and soften the image, you can hope to make it look like 16mm documentary footage, but I've yet to see anything that makes video look like 35mm. FilmLook use to offer a service to convert video into something that looked like film, maybe they still do but I think I read that they licensed their technology to hardware manufacturers who now build it into certain cameras. Anyway, the debate goes on and on concerning what makes film look like film. I have my own ideas and have developed my own techniques and there are a few more I want to try. One thing is for sure, just about any video looks noticeably better if you make an effort to make it look like film, whether or not it ends up actually looking like film could almost be looked at as a separate issue.
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I agree, digital to emulation never quite looks like real chemical film. A few years from now some company will market an AI plugin that actually does it right, the current algorithms will take to that task like a fish to water, and it's just a matter of someone funding the research time to create the models and spend some time troubleshooting it.

Stuff like filmconvert does a pretty good job at least creating a more organic look, but these days I always find myself pushing for clarity and fidelity. Still it will be cool to capture those old looks exactly some day.
 
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