Wire-Fu short

[tumblemonster]

This is a short we did for a small internet fight choreography contest. It was shot over 8 hours in november, and wire removal and editing were completed the end of december. I haven't done any sound effects or other special effects, and may not. Anyway, I thought it came out very well, for the time we had. It was shot on consumer cameras, and edited in FCP. Wire removal was done in Shake.

Hope you like it!

27mb Quicktime Sor3 compression: http://www.tumblemonster.com/temps/tfn/TFNTMP.mov

-tm

[maverickprods]

Nice job on the concept and of course the shooting.......wait for it ,here it comes, BUT, you might want to have a stunt coordinator next time. Most martial artists really think that they know how to fight for the camera, but unless they have been trained to do so, usually come off as, at best, ok.
Most of the strikes near the head area are too high, and don't look like they would actually strike an area of the body. You might also want to think about creating more jeopardy for each of the actors, more near misses, ducking and so forth. Very little effort is shown by either combatant to make you believe that they are trying to hurt each other, especially when they clash and grab each other.
The other comment, and this is after being a stunt coordinator and 2nd unit director for over 20 years, is that a bit of coverage hand held is always good, or doing the whole fight hand held works too. It lends energy to the fight.
You might also want to re- think your "pick points" or the wardrobe on your actress next time.
Overall however, your effort is admirable.

[tumblemonster]

Thank you for the insightful comments. I am a gymnastics teacher, so all the of the martial arts I know are from movies. We could have used an experienced fight choreographer, but as it is, we shot on no budget and very little time. Some things to work on for the next one!

Thanks

-tm

[TC]

Very nice. I would just like to echo what maverick said. There were a few moments that were stellar, and then they were surrounded by less than stellar moments. A very good start, and extrememely impressive for the time you had.

Can't wait to see another.

PS: The music matched the mood well.

[BLUESPIDER]

Tumblemonster,

That was great, but I did notice a few flaws on the wire removal parts. I could actually see the lines. Anyhow, great job. I myself was a former gymnist. Wasn't any good, but good enough to impress the ladies.. ;)

[ozone1979]

what was your wire removal technique/application?

[tumblemonster]

I am cleaning up the wire removal for the final release. I used Shake for the wire removal, using various techniques. For locked shots, I used or constructed clean background plates from the shot, and then used quickpaint reveal brush. I also did some hand painting. The main shot where the wires still show is in the part where the two fighters are flying around each other. I was testing a wire removal plugin called Furnace from The Foundry on that shot. It worked pretty well, but I ran out of time to clean it up before the entry was due. I will probably purchase the Furnace plugin suite for a future project, and whatever I do next will be shot on my brand spankin new XL-2!

Thank you for all your comments.

-tm

[dvpixl]

wow. cool.

[ozone1979]

i wonder how furnace compares to mokey

[tumblemonster]

I planning on doing a full evaluation of Furnace in the next month to evaluate our purchasing it. I'll add Mokey to the test list and try it out.

-tm

[MatthewC]

Where do you go to film wire work? How is it commonly done on a set?

I figure if I want to do an outdoor action area, as a poor man I'm probably not going to be able to do wirework.

Anyone have any cheap solutions?

[tumblemonster]

I filmed my wire work in the gymnastic school where I work. My rigging is all portable, so I could conceivably rig anywhere. Outdoors presents some difficult problems. I'm in preproduction on a short right now that requires some wire flying in a forest setting. I haven't worked out exactly how to go about it yet. Most big productions hire giant cranes to suspend actors. This may be the only safe way. As far as cost, well, it costs what it costs. Cheap solutions generally equal unsafe solutions. For an introduction to wire flying, I wrote an article a few years ago you can check out:

http://www.jushhome.com/nick/Tutorial/WireFlying.asp

-tm

[dvpixl]

how are those wires erased? is it tedious work?

[kai]

Good job... only thing i'd recommend is perhaps some masks to cut out their shirts that poke up on their backs from the wires... looks kinda like a hump on some shots ;) Nice short!

[tumblemonster]

Thanks kai! You'd be surprised how much of that I did! Didn't get to it all, sadly.

DvPixi - Posted an explanation above. It can be very tedious, and very time consuming. You get in a groove though, and it goes pretty fast. On a good night with an average shot I got though 120 frames in a 4-5 hour period.

-tm