FEATURE: Epitaph: Bread and Salt Feature film

Thanks. I plan to start shooting in the next few weeks. Got a rehearsal tomorrow. I just need an older Middle Eastern guy to finish the casting.

-Nate
 
Nate, the BTS vids are looking pretty good (the fight rehearsals). You're on point. I've got a martial arts background too (a little Japanese Ju-Jitsu and Tae Kwon Do). What'd you train in?
 
Chinese Ninja Boxing. It's a martial art I created based on old Chinese Kung Fu films and Japanese Ninja films from the eighties. (Actually I think those Sho Kusugi films were American). But now it encompasses any art style I think looks good on camera. Each major character has a style Fist of God (Sarah), uses Krav, Satsu uses a close combat style that incorporates Filipino Kali, Krav and Wing Chung. (Yes I did just watch Ip Man 2). Adam uses Ballistic Bushido, a style I created for my defunct "Silvergun Samurai" film (which I had Julia Ling attached too before she got big on Chuck) and reminiscent of the gun Katas from Equilibrium and my character uses generic martial arts crossed between Norris, Van Damme and Segal with a little Escrima stick and whip action. I should mention...it's not a fighting art. Only for movies. LOL.

-Nate
 
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Not yet. I've been reading my script. I'm surprised at how much I retained and my read was decent, but some of my emoting sucked I know, basically it's one line I know how I want it said but can't seem to say it that way. You may see it in the new BTS. Not to mention I went to the parents over labor day (Blender isn't on the computer there).

I do want Fist of God to have silver throwing knives. I want to see if I can construct that with Blender and pop it into After Effects. The Blender set up is so foreign to me so I'd have to watch some tutorials or something. I saw the basic thing about how to move things around in 3D space, but that's about where I stopped. I'm familiar with the AE/Adobe set ups.

-Nate
 
The big secret to Blender is the "F#" keys. Each one of those will change the window on the bottom. Over time you'll learn that F5 is materials, F6 is textures, F9 is properties, and F10 is project settings (the other F keys are less common). So learn your F keys and learn the keyboard shortcuts (they do make sense--G is Grab, R is Rotate, S is Scale, E is Extrude....) Once you get those down, you'll find the rest is easy.
 
So far what I've learned is moving the box around in 3D space is pretty fun. Something tells me there more to it than that. LOL.

-Nate
 
haha! you're off to a good start! Try this. Move the box to the right. Press "I" and select "LocRot" (location rotation). This inserts a keyframe at that frame. Arrow key up twice. This puts you at frame 21. Move the cube to the left, press "I" and "LocRot" again. Use the left and right arrows to more forward or back one frame. The cube should now move on it's own. Congratulations, your first animation
 
Epitaph: 2nd Rehearsal
Second rehearsal for the film. Walldkiria, Leena, Vahan and myself (you can see who all the people are on the first page of this thread. We went through a lot more but this is one of the more dramatic scenes. It's done more for blocking but you can get a decent idea about what's going on between the couple here. It's not made clear here, because I didn't do any effects for this run though, but when she speaks in Spanish it translates to English in Victor's hearing. (One of his powers). If she couldn't understand English he would be able to speak back to her in English and she'd understand it as Spanish.

-Nate

​

This is a bit of the blocking for the second scene. I just wanted to get an idea of where the characters will stand and how the characters should move in the environment since we're in the location.

​

The actress doesn't really like Susan's character and questions why she is the way she is? I give her a breakdown of the narcissistic cheater that is Susan.

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Yep! Everyone stats off by moving the cube. It was my first too. You mentioned throwing knifes-It's possible. Heres a short I did in 2006. My last short actually before I shot "Wulf" the following summer. Pardon the low quality, I didn't know how to compress for the web at the time. The shot with my knife gag starts at 4:45. It was modeled and animated in Blender, composited in Sony Vegas Pro 5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sM_gyCEXCNg

We had the actor bring his hand back and drop his knife behind him right before he threw his had forward. In Blender, rather than make the knife travel the distance (we didn't take measurements or anything), I used "LocRotSize" to keyframe the size of the knife. To the camera, it appeared to get closer, but it actually never changed distance.
 
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I can do the animation in AE but the actual modeling looked really good. I mean you only see it for a second (which is the point obviously) but it looked great. I'm on a mad hunt for the mesh tools.

-Nate
 
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Yours will probably look much better, since you already have a background in AE and such. You should do a knife test for us =D
 
LOL, I'm more likely to shoot wide and throw the knife at the camera and simply slow it down in FCP. LOL. But I'll see how the modeling goes.

-Nate
 
You can try Animation Master it's a 3D program but it costs money ($300). They sell it locally at Fry's here. You can buy inline though. Blender is more powerful, but the user interface is difficult to understand. Animation Master is super easy once you get a few tricks under your belt and you can animate anything with it from knives to people. The downside of AM is that the renderer is slow, don't try to do any major effects like cloth, springs (earrings, etc) or particle effects. Do mainly static moving objects and use real textures to paint onto the object. If you do that you can have something that looks pretty good, especially for a brief second. AM is robust but it has it's drawbacks (crashing a lot for one), but I'm thinking of new action projects and I'm still leaning towards AM, VS trying to learn a program that is more keyboard based and a little less user friendly.
 
Nathyn said:
Chinese Ninja Boxing. It's a martial art I created based on old Chinese Kung Fu films and Japanese Ninja films from the eighties. (Actually I think those Sho Kusugi films were American). But now it encompasses any art style I think looks good on camera. Each major character has a style Fist of God (Sarah), uses Krav, Satsu uses a close combat style that incorporates Filipino Kali, Krav and Wing Chung. (Yes I did just watch Ip Man 2). Adam uses Ballistic Bushido, a style I created for my defunct "Silvergun Samurai" film (which I had Julia Ling attached too before she got big on Chuck) and reminiscent of the gun Katas from Equilibrium and my character uses generic martial arts crossed between Norris, Van Damme and Segal with a little Escrima stick and whip action. I should mention...it's not a fighting art. Only for movies. LOL.

-Nate
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That's great!! Unbelievable. You can definitely tell by your stance and movements that you've got the training. I'm sure the fights are going to look great.

At work, so will check out your other BTS when I get home.
 
Marlon Ladd said:
That's great!! Unbelievable. You can definitely tell by your stance and movements that you've got the training. I'm sure the fights are going to look great.
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Thanks, I'm glad you're digging it.

Marlon Ladd said:
At work, so will check out your other BTS when I get home.
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By the time you see this there will be more BTS Scenes up, but they'll be back on the other page with the stuff from last night when they're done.

jls4 said:
You can try Animation Master it's a 3D program but it costs money ($300). They sell it locally at Fry's here. You can buy inline though. Blender is more powerful, but the user interface is difficult to understand. Animation Master is super easy once you get a few tricks under your belt and you can animate anything with it from knives to people. The downside of AM is that the renderer is slow, don't try to do any major effects like cloth, springs (earrings, etc) or particle effects. Do mainly static moving objects and use real textures to paint onto the object. If you do that you can have something that looks pretty good, especially for a brief second. AM is robust but it has it's drawbacks (crashing a lot for one), but I'm thinking of new action projects and I'm still leaning towards AM, VS trying to learn a program that is more keyboard based and a little less user friendly.
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OMG! I remember Animation Master from back in the day. The company used to sale it at comic book conventions at least Wizard World here in Chicago. It was actually a pretty big deal. I've seen some demos of it. One issue I'm having in Blender is finding everything.

-Nate
 
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Nathyn said:
OMG! I remember Animation Master from back in the day. The company used to sale it at comic book conventions at least Wizard World here in Chicago. It was actually a pretty big deal. I've seen some demos of it. One issue I'm having in Blender is finding everything.

-Nate
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Yeah, that's why I like AM. It's sooooooo easy. But just save your files alot and render out into a Tiff Sequence. Use a Green Screen background OR lapha channel and composite in AE. Knife Throws, Bullets, Arrows, even small particles like a sheet of metal or bricks can easily be done and should look pretty realistic. I'm seriously thinking of using it for some floating robots or floating cars in a project. As long as the animation is mainly floating or moving and you stay away from something that is a "focus point" in the scene, it should work well. I love the website too hash.com LOL
 
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