Karl151k -"Robot Trouble"

[Karl151k]

Here is the thread for Robot Touble. For those of you who are having a hard time remembering which movie is which, Robot Trouble is the one with the small robot who comes to life and tries to kill the nerdy scientist and his girlfriend. Note: The video appears to be streched too much because I uploaded a letterboxed file. The actual movie is 16X9, but Jarred's compression added letterbox as well.

Any comments are welcome. I would like to note, that my computer crashed 2 days before the deadline of the SciFest. Those 48 hours leading up to the deadline were spent buying a new Mac (G5 Quad Core), learning Final Cut Pro, and trying to remember how I cut everything. There's an interesting story behind just about every aspect of production to this movie.

If any one has any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks guys, Carleton.

[Karl151k]

Hasnt anyone watched my movie? =(

[mikkowilson]

I have, sorry, I've been up all night watching and writing!

I throughly enjoyed you piece. Very cool!

A lot of cliché in there, but very tastefully done. I KNEW the robot would come back to life at the end (even befor the shot) and it did, and it made the movie for me.

The soundtrack was excelent, fit right in with the theme, and I really like all the little nuances in there. dispoable everything, the RC car, the pencils sticking into the wall (how did you do *that*?), his glasses & his expresions, and of course THE CHEESE. All fantastic little things that really made your film.

Ready for the boo boo? I got a nice look of your crew & camera from the mirror as the guy sat down at the table.

A nice piece, with a simple and effective idea that was both sci-fi and scary, in that perfectly comedic way.

- Mikko

[MojoTrancer]

That one made me laugh out loud. Lot of funny little bits in there. And why is a permanent smile always so menacing... :)

[Karl151k]

I can't believe I never noticed that my reflection was visible in the mirror. Wow! I know that there is a small black square on the left side of that mirror, that's some cinefoil taped to it to eliminate the reflection of the giant ARRI light in the kitchen. Thanks for the comments guys. The toy's actual name is Alphie, he was made by playschool in the late 70's up untill 1993. I always thought he was a little scary, so I decided to use him in this movie. I ended up having to pay almost $60 on ebay for a second Aplhie though, cuz I couldn't destroy my childhood friend (or fiend, as the case may be). So any shots you see of Alphie with his chest open or burned up, that's "Stunt Alphie"... may he rest in peace.

[Blaine]

For me this was cheesy funny, and that's not a bad thing. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/cheesy.gif It looked to me that you took stock of what you had available and did the best job you could with it. You didn't try to be pretentious but instead chose comedy. This left me smiling. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif

[Karl151k]

In regards to how I did the pencils in the wall shot, it was unbelievably simple. It's just a split screen shot. The left half of the screen is live-action of Geoff the Scientist. The right half is a bit of stop-motion. I hot glued all three pencils into the wall, then I filmed them that way. I stopped camera, removed one of them, filmed a frame or two of it, then removed the next pencil, filmed a frame or two, then removed the final pencil and filmed just the bricks. I then reversed that seq. so it looked like it went from a blank wall to pencils sticking in it. It was all done in After Effects, but if it had been a perfectly up-and-down straight line, a simple wipe (keyframed correctly) would have worked as well. Also, never forget the power of sound effects to sell something. That shot is nothing with out SFX.

[DannyDarko]

This has been my favorite movie of the 30 or so I've watched. I was expecting you guys to do a big crane shot at the end. Like a pull back, ala Die Hard. I figured that since you had a crane, it was only natural. Also, did you have a 35mm adapter on the movie? Some of the shots it deffinitley looks like you did, but others look like normal DoP. BTW, I really liked your actors. For such young kids, they were all reallly great.

[Karl151k]

We actualy did not have a crane at all for this movie. The shot that made you think we did have one was probably the overhead push-in on Alphie while he is on the lab table. Since I didn't have a crane, but I knew I needed that shot, I just glued everything to the table, stood it on it's side, and did a push-in dolly on it. To get him to light up on cue, I had to drill a hole in the table and put a 250 watt ARRI behind it. I had my girlfriend on the dimmer switch so she could turn it on right when I stopped.

We used a 35mm adapter (Redrock's M2) for this whole movie with the exception of one shot. The greenscreen stuff in the car. I originaly shot it with the adapter, but the keying was so blocky on the stuff that was out of focus, I decided to reshoot without the adapter and it keyed much cleaner. I think a lot of the movies that used 35mm adapters really wanted to make it clear that they had shallow DoP, so every shot is a very shallow focused one. I think focus pulls are best used sparingly, I tried to limit myself to 3 or 4 really obvious ones. A lot of this movie was shoot with a 28mm lens, so the DoP wasnt predominant. Watch it on a TV, the whole thing looks much better. Assuming this gets put on the DVD, which it may not. Also, I'll be sure to tell the actors you liked them. They are great actors and very natural.

[mikkowilson]

Gluing props to a table and flipping it for a "crane shot"!!

Is there a category for "Really freakign ingenious resourcefullness"?

- Mikko

[DannyDarko]

That's a great idea! I must remember to do that next time I need a crane shot. What about the gunshots. I noticed that you had the gun barrel off frame for most of the shots, did you just use a camera flash for the flash effect? Also, was it raining durring your night shoot? Everything looks wet.

[Karl151k]

The first gunshot was just a muzzleflash image placed over the gun in AE. The other gun flashes were done with an ARRI 250 on a dimmer being flashed at the same time the gun was firing. I would have used a camera flash gun, but there is a chance that the exposure wouldn't have registered on video. (Shutter speeds and such). And the streets are wet because we wet them down. It gives you more light to work with when shooting at night. It was such a hassle. I never want to shoot at night again unless I have twenty 1000 watt HMI's.

[DannyDarko]

What a hassle to wet down the streets every shot. I hope you got it done in 1 night.

[Karl151k]

We were shooting for 4 nights. It was not fun. My original ending had the scientist and his girlfriend driving on the freeway, getting a flat tire by the pencil and pulling into an abandoned strip mall. We got there for the first night of shooting, I plugged 2 lights in (750 watt DPs) and we were running just fine. Then, all of a sudden, the electric marque for one of the abandoned stores turned on and blew the circuit. I knew where the giant fuse box was, but the fuses were unfortunatley a "one-time-use" type and had to be replaced. The problem was, they stopped making them 10 years ago. So I had to give up on that location.

Our next location was going to be a Community College in the area. But that fell thru as well... not a fun story. Cops were called, handcuffs were used. nuff said. (I mannaged to talk my way out of being arrested though)

[DannyDarko]

I was going to make a movie for the contest too, but I chickened out. I used to just read the posts here to learn and stuff. (I only have a wimpy TRV-20). I was always worried about getting in trouble with the police while shooting. I've never actualy been arrested though.

[KevinPeeples]

I was going to make a movie for the contest too, but I chickened out. I used to just read the posts here to learn and stuff. (I only have a wimpy TRV-20). I was always worried about getting in trouble with the police while shooting. I've never actualy been arrested though.
Oh, we should start a thread about having the police get involved in our video shoots. Ive got stories up the wazoo on that one. One video we needed a shot of a car getting in a wreck, so we decided to beat the car with a baseball bat... we had a junk car to beat up, but wow, the police didnt like that one. But thats off topic.

I loved this one. I loved how the robot shot the pencils. It showed his robotic cockiness which was cool. And how he armed himself with the toy car.... priceless. Id watch that in theatres.... a mad toy that rides his pimped out remote control car. Good job man.

[KevinPeeples]

Gluing props to a table and flipping it for a "crane shot"!!

Is there a category for "Really freakign ingenious resourcefullness"?

- Mikko
Yeah, we should totally give you an award for that. Thats just genious right there. Id like to see anyone beat that..... thats goin down in my book... :)

[Kaz]

The stand out part for me was the guy putting on his glasses just so he could take them off in a ready determination.

Very "Airplane"-esque.

[Karl151k]

Thanks for the comments guys. I never know if a particular joke in one of my movies is going to be funny to everybody... or just me. I usualy go by the scale of wether or not I can watch it 100 times and still find it funny. "Airplane-esque" is a supreme compliment Kaz, thank you very much.

[Blaine]

The stand out part for me was the guy putting on his glasses just so he could take them off in a ready determination.

Very "Airplane"-esque.
I agree, Kaz. I laughed out loud when I saw that. http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/images/smilies/grin.gif

[darkfader]

Your film was very humorous. It made me laugh I liked it. But beware of the dialog snyc. At the beginning it seemed like you had some sync issues. I also thought you could have done without the gun. I think people rely on gun play too much and that can pull down the quality of your film.

Darkfader

[Karl151k]

Perhaps I should change the gun to a walkie talkie? ;) I do agree about guns being a crutch in movies, esp. sci fi movies. Our original ending (at the first location that we blew the fuses on) involved knocking him off the car with a rope strecthed out in front of him, then the scientist would beat him with a cricket bat (Which is a nod to Spinal Tap NOT Snatch). But the location we ended up actualy shooting at didn't allow it. So Alphie met his match with a gun. Also, note how it makes absolutley no sense that the guy with the gun (Fernando) shows up to help them. The original scene in the car had them calling him to come help them, but when the first location fell through, we had to reshoot the car scene as well. Fernando is a Deus Ex Machina in the purest sense.

[DannyDarko]

I thought it was weird that the guy just apeared out of nowhere. Your ending was still more coherent that a lot of the other entries. At least the world didn't blow up ;0 .BTW, I thought the push-in on the robot at the end was a great way to finish it. Is there a sequel in the works?

[Karl151k]

No sequel, sorry. I don't think Sci-fi is really my genre. I was excited to test it out though, even if it's not true science fiction. Also, now that Alphie the robot has been in a movie, he's become a huge star. I doubt I could get him to come back for a sequel.

[Norm Sanders]

I really wanted to like this more than I did. It started out with some EXCELLENT camera work as we dolly past all the test tubes/science stuff, etc., and really throughout the film the framing was quite good.

The FX also worked, the best one I think being when the three #2 pencils cut into the brick wall by the guy's face.

As a gag film, this would be near spot on, but it just didn't have a committed feel to me for some reason, so it just seemed hokey in acting, the idea of the tiny little robot being any kind of thread, the idea that the bullet holes wouldn't actually go THROUGH the back of the plastic robot, etc.

[Karl151k]

I agree about the bullets not going through Alphie. It's always bugged me, but shooting out of sequence meant that we had to keep both Alphies looking pristine untill the everything was shot (I am bad about getting pickups. I always end up getting them at the last minute.) So I couldn't add an exit wound on him. As for the acting, I didn't want them to be too serious, even if they were in "danger". Hokey is good, cheesy is better. One thing I want to know, does anyone think the "Used Glasses" bin is at all funny? I put it in, but like I said, I never know what is actualy funny to anybody else.

[Captain KickAss]

Can I just say that I will never ever ever look at an Alphie the same way again. I had one of those things as a kid, and thought it was awesome. But now, I'm a little put off by it. I think my parents still have it in a box somewhere in their basement. Maybe I should warn them.

I totally enjoyed the overthetop prop/gag comedy that this film employed. I love it when films bend genres and try to push things in new and creative ways.

[DannyDarko]

I agree about genre bending. I'm really not sure what to qualify this film as. On one hand, it's hillarious but on the other hand, it's actualy a pretty good little action/sci-fi movie. Alphies of the world unite!

[arielman]

I thought the 2 actors pulled this off , not to funny or serious , just right .
I laughed when she dropped the block of cheese onto his Spagetti ..and it was still there later on .lol
The car chase scene killed me , nice one !!
The ending was too familiar but hey I can live with that.
The audio was a little low near the end .
The little robot ..how much of a threat can he be ?? and we found out .
You did a nice job with this ..and you managed to put a smile on my face .
Ian

[EditPhish]

Alphie! I couldn't remember the darn things name, but I knew many of us had or wanted one ;) -- and a special word out to stunt Alphie, who sacrified his life in the making of this film :D

Sound was ok... The 1st gunshot and subsequent ones didn't quite match (sound wise). Dialogue was a little tough to hear in spots.

Music suited it.

The pencil effect was pretty neat... thanks for sharing your "how-to".

I liked the mad scientist opening to cut to "dinner's ready... I made spaghetti"... LOL. Lots of spots in your film made me laugh and I imagine you meant it to be a bit hokey... it was fun!

Loved the eyeglasses thing! Clever and silly funny!

The cinematography was really good... and yes, there SHOULD be an award for "Really freakign ingenious resourcefullness" with you psuedo-crane dolly shot. Your lighting could have been alittle more interesting in spots (was a bit flat, could have been more contrasty/dynamic).

Overall I enjoyed it!

[conrad_johnson]

Sound effects make this movie - good job. Sound overall was kind of subpar, though. You had some mixing issues.

Overall, it looked pretty good, although lighting seemed to be a problem with the outdoor shots. And the green screened car shots didn't turn out too well.

I loved the shots where the robot tipped up into frame. Very clever.

Good job!

[Z B Brox]

I'm with Kaz. That gag with the glasses had me laughing so hard my girlfriend (wearing headphones) gave me a dirty look.

I was amused by the used glasses bin, yes. And I think it added to the joke above.

I also liked the bit where they get a flat tire.

I also liked the bit where the pencils fly into the wall.

I also like the unreasonably long timer on the bomb.

I also like--

Forget it. I really enjoyed this movie. :)

A few of the gags (the aforementioned tire blow out for one) would've had more impact if the sound had been consistently clear. And not every single joke actually made me laugh, but how often does a comedy bat 1.000? Really enjoyed it.

Oh, as for the guy showing up not making any sense, that kind of amused me. Nice comment on how, without fail, a guy with a gun always shoots the monster at the last minute.

[Karl151k]

Thanks a ton for all the great comments everybody! I agree about the actors audio being too low. This was a problem I was unable to fix in my 48 hour time constraint. My original (before-the-"blue-screen-of-death"-killed-my-computer-forever) cut of the movie was completley mixed with all the actors ADR. In my foolishness, I figured once the audio was captured on the computer I wouldn't need the source tapes again so I recorded over them. So when I re-cut the movie on my new Mac, I didn't have the ADR anymore nor did I have the time to record new ADR. Hence, the bad dialog audio.

The robot tipping into frame was just a matter of necesity. Just one single pixel out of frame is my hand tipping him. I left the shot with my hand in it in the cut for a while, but I decided that seeing a hand took people out of the movie too much. It was over the top, even for this movie.

Note: you never know what you are going to find at thrift stores. I was walking around one a few months ago and I saw this old-timey red LED calculator from the 70's. I had no idea what I would use it for, but I had to have it. So when it came time for me to shoot the countdown timer I decided to use it. I put a closeup diopter on my camera and shot the LED display at 10.00. Recorded a second, stopped it, changed the calculator to 09.59, recoreded a second, ect. This is why the timer reads 09.59 instead of 09:59. Sure it's possible to do the same effect in AE, but I think having a tangible unit to film adds to the movie a lot. All those little imperfections (like the slight aberations on the numbers) really add up.

[iSTy]

This got my goat as soon as the woman started having a go at the man re the fact he has a hobby.

The music was louder than the voices. The fringe covering the eye got my goat too although I did laugh when he put the glasses on to move it.

And the guy jumping out of nowhere to kill the robot. Excellent.

[DannyDarko]

The girl says that the scientist spends 23 and a half hours a day in his laboratory, I think that goes past "hobby" clasification. More like crippling obsession. BTW, that's cool about the calculator. Add another point to the catagory of "Freaking ingenious".

[iSTy]

I think she was exagerating a bit though, don't you?

[Karl151k]

When I wrote it, I meant it to be litterally 23 and a half hours. He sleeps only a half hour a day. (He's a little obsessive about his work.)