FEATURE: Epitaph: Bread and Salt Feature film

Epitaph: Hassan Library Scene Table Read
We did this on the same day we did the others on page 15. This one was complex, it encompassed four actors (one was out of town so we will have to do it again with her on location). We rehearsed it and it went over pretty good. I don't have a ton of lines but we were all reading off the scripts anyway. By the way, there are two more BTS scenes here alone with the first one.

-Nate

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She's one of our best actors. She been the lead in a few films and she's a producer one of them too. She very talented. Although this will all look better in an actual library setting, with costumes and and all that good stuff. Once we really go through it and get it down, I think it will be awesome. The scenes with Susan and Victor have to have a lot of emotion behind them. I worry about those, but these should be pretty good.

-Nate
 
Just sent out our new all in one actor contracts. The new agreements are intent letter, model release and injury release all rolled into one plus includes rates and stipulations. It's a one page no BS contract.

-Nate
 
The script and your actors really seem to be on point. Those two things are critical as we all know, so you're definitely on the right track.
 
Thanks. I'm working on it day and night. I wanted to get those scenes out of the way because I think we'll shoot them first (at least the ones with Walldkiria, Leena and Myself).

-Nate
 
I had to do one more of these. Some folks said they wanted to see more falling particles, some people wanted more than just dust and energy particles, so this is the new dusting effect I came up with. I hope you guys like it. You can see it here too if the Vimeo hasn't loaded yet.

-Nate

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Pixel Polly was the key. I had to watch that lightning blast tutorial on VC to figure it out. I may add some blood but I really don't think it's needed. But Pixel Polly isn't like the other plugins where you can turn it on and off. It's instant so you have to save the frame you want it to start at and export it. I had to turn off all the layers save the Sam layer as a P.shop file then import it back in and place behind the other Sam files (where the transitions were taking place) and this is how it turned out.

The trick is duplicating your greenscreen actor and each layer has it's own transition or effect, so you simply have to time everything to go off right. But to me it always seems like the effect happens too fast, so I take it into FCP and cut at the start of the effect and slow it down anywhere from 10 - 50% so it can be seen better.

-Nate
 
Have you tried using the "CC Scatterize" effect? I feel like that stock plugin would suit the effect you are going for much better than pixel polly. I'd also balance it out with some subtle particle work using Particular (or if you don't have that CC Particle world could work.)

And, by slowing it down in Final Cut...it looks very well...um...slowed down. Why not time remap it in After Effects? That's a much better way to slow things down then to use FCP's built in tools. It would allow you to have more control of the slow motion as well.
 
Yes the Scatterize is on there too. It's on the 3rd layer. It was the driver behind my initial dusting effect, but it never looked quite right. The dust that shoots out when the dusting first happens is the Scatterize. I added particles to send up a little smokey energy. I would've used PixPol in the beginning but I didn't understand why it didn't work like everything else so I left it alone. Then went back to based on comments made about the initial effects.

As for FCP, I just like the way it looks slowed down in FCP. I play it over and over and it just works. Output it at full speed and simply slow down the effect by 10% (this one anyway). It also has a dramatic feel to it. And this last effect has some umph to it thanks to Pixel Polly. People asked for it to have more falling particles and not so clean, both here and on Face Book, so this seems to work well.

-Nate
 
Nathyn said:
Yes the Scatterize is on there too. It's on the 3rd layer. It was the driver behind my initial dusting effect, but it never looked quite right. The dust that shoots out when the dusting first happens is the Scatterize. I added particles to send up a little smokey energy. I would've used PixPol in the beginning but I didn't understand why it didn't work like everything else so I left it alone. Then went back to based on comments made about the initial effects.

As for FCP, I just like the way it looks slowed down in FCP. I play it over and over and it just works. Output it at full speed and simply slow down the effect by 10% (this one anyway). It also has a dramatic feel to it. And this last effect has some umph to it thanks to Pixel Polly. People asked for it to have more falling particles and not so clean, both here and on Face Book, so this seems to work well.

-Nate
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I still don't get why you wouldn't slow it down in after effects...

But, I doubt anything I say will change your mind. You seem pretty set on this method. Best of luck.
 
It's just a workflow issue. It's easier and offers a nice look.

-Nate
 
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Marlon Ladd said:
The script and your actors really seem to be on point. Those two things are critical as we all know, so you're definitely on the right track.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm hoping to really get them to get into the characters not just recite what was on the page. Some of them are real good, others could use a little more work but all in all I like the efforts coming from all sides. I'm going to work with a few of them a little bit more, but a lot of them come from the suburbs so I want to set things up where they don't have to keep coming back and forth.

-Nate
 
I don't know how I missed this one. This is one of our first rehearsals. It got on FB but not here. I cut it together for blocking purposes, but seriously, it's just two people walking down a hall. Might do some medium close ups though.



-Nate
 
Lost another Siren. The first actress' mom felt she was doing too much already (she was 16 but an excellent martial artist). The next was a professional rock climber. She was in shape and had done stunt fighting before. She was great but today she told me she felt iffy about the quality of the project because I was the writer, director and star. Said it was nothing personal, but just a personal preference. Actually she said "Sigh...nothing personal, but just a personal preference." Which I had to chuckle considering she actually spelled out the word sigh like in an old comic book. LOL. Well, back to Craigslist.

-Nate
 
The joys of no budget moviemaking ;)
I had an actress decline ROTB for a similar reason-because I write, direct, run camera, edit and oversee the stunts. But it worked out and got someone even better, so keep plugging!
 
True that. In fact I've already put my Craigslist posting up. By the way check out my sig.

-Nate
 
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