FEEDING TIME - The Official Thread - a feature movie...

[Duke M.]

I've finally started on my full length feature sci-fi /action film. Any time is hard time at Elk Mountain maximum security prison, but especially when its FEEDING TIME.

I’m just audacious enough to think I can make a feature film with full CGI and compelling stories on a used car budget.

I actually looked at using an EX1, which does shoot in better resolution than the cameras that I am using, but... sometimes it looks more plastic, or video-ish to me and I'm not experienced with it. In the end I decided to shoot this movie on the HV20 and A1 with the wonderful presets.

Here's my blog if you'd like to follow developments.
http://www.greensignmedia.blogspot.com/

 

[Duke M.]

Meteorite strikes earth...

Meteorite strikes earth...

I'm trying to get the special FX shots out of the way as much as possible. In the opening scenes I needed (what Norad thinks is a meteorite but is really a vehicle) to streak to earth and turn fiery hot as it hits the atmosphere.

I pieced together Nasa satellite pictures of the earth and moon, mapped them on 3D objects so the shadowed earth can move and the clouds move while the meteorite streaks towards the earth.

[You have to log in to see the pictures.]

This is much lower resolution, but you get the idea. Also, there are black bars above and below because I'm doing this in a cinemascope widescreen aspect ratio.

 

[Duke M.]

Elk Mountain prison...

Elk Mountain prison...

When it gets to earth the friction with the air causes it to explode with an electro magnetic pulse that blows out all electronics and communications on the west coast, including Norad. Norad last sees it over Wyoming. (I'm still creating the 'war room' in Norad.)

It explodes over the Elk Mountain Prison in Wyoming. I needed to model a prison then composite it with our mountains up by the local Target store and added in the meteorite streak.

 

[Duke M.]

Derek Partridge signs on for "Feeding Time"...

Derek Partridge signs on for "Feeding Time"...

Award winning actor Derek Partridge has expressed his enthusiasm for my project and agreed to put his talents to use in this movie.

Derek has been in the business for over 40 years. He was in one of the original Star Trek episodes, Murder She Wrote, Remington Steele and more. He had his own TV show in Rhodesia for many years, and has starred in several movies such as Savage Harvest.

Most recently Derek is now finishing "Seal Island", which Warner Brothers is picking up as its answer to "March of the Penguins." Seal Island has been entered in the Sundance Film Festival. (Derek's IMDB info is woefully out of date.)

He also just finished narrating "Leslie Howard - A Remarkable Life" and "The Mystery of Flight 777", which will play at the Atlanta Film Festival later this year. (Leslie Howard is perhaps best remembered for his role as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind (1939), who tragcially died on Flight 777 on the way to the UK.)

Derek and I last worked together in 2001 on one of my productions in which we won a Telly Award.

 

[El Director]

Nice work with the effects! It's great to see another director that handles the post work himself! Keep it up!

 

[Giganova]

Looking great!

Just one word of advice: I think you should get a professional astronomer/scientist as an advisor to make sure that the "asteroid" and space FX are all ok. For example, the moon is WAY too big and close to Earth. Mistakes like these might undermine your effort.

Best of luck and keep us posted!

 

[Duke M.]

Just one word of advice: I think you should get a professional astronomer/scientist as an advisor to make sure that the "asteroid" and space FX are all ok. For example, the moon is WAY too big and close to Earth. Mistakes like these might undermine your effort.

Believe it or not I did think of that. In comparison the moon should be about the size of Texas. I took dramatic license because all the nice little craters and things disappeared at the greater distance.

I have to remember the old saying "You have to be willing to kill your babies to make it better." Fortunately because it's 3D I can do it over again in a matter of minutes.

 

[Duke M.]

Norad....

Norad....

I've been modeling Norad as a background for a couple of quick scenes at the beginning. I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with it. Please have a look at this and tell me what you think.

A member told me he had visited Norad and it's very dimly lit. I did that other than the one lamp in the foreground, but I lost a lot of details. All the little screens on the consoles were animated and you can't see any of that now.

I also applied a gaussian blur to simulate a DOF blur. I think that works pretty well, but I lose more details that way. The big maps are visible, but just barely.

On the plus sign I have all the big maps and displays animated. The 'meteorite' strike is tracked. The numbers and words on the displays change as it's being tracked.

The other good thing is that being 3D if the actors move, when green screened, I can track their moves in the 3D model and the background will move appropriately.

Am I being too picky about losing detail that I worked so hard to create, when in reality it's a quick background to two military guys tracking the 'meteorite'?

 

[Duke M.]

The concencous seems to be to brighten the screens and make the consoles more realistic.

 

[Duke M.]

I was asked if I will be using 35mm adapters: I have two, a Brevis and a DIY version, but as much as possible I'm going to try to control the DOF with zoom.

With the A1 thats a matter of using a wide aperture and zooming from 3/4 of the way to full zoom. That narrows the DOF to a couple of feet.

With the HV20 I'll use a tele 2x lens and use the zoom the same way. This should leave the DOF about the same as the A1.

 

[El Director]

A trick I use in Blender to simulate DoF is to switch to a top view, add a circle, and make the circle a parent to the camera so that the circle becomes a camera path. Then, I adjust the speed so that the camera completes one rotation every frame. I can then fix the camera on whatever I want to be in focus. Render with motion blur, and you have pretty good DoF.

 

[Duke M.]

DOF blur...

DOF blur...

Thanks for the tip. I'm trying something right now, and if that doesn't work I'll try the motion blur.

What I'm doing now is breaking the Norad set down into distance layers. That wasn't too hard because the consoles and the screens are in lines.

I'm rendering each line separately with different levels of blur and a green background. I'll greenscreen them together.

Doing it this way I can insert actual video of people doing things (on their own greenscreen) in various locations in the room.

 

[Duke M.]

Norad revisited...

Norad revisited...

I've been working on the Norad virtual set. I think I'm pretty close
to where I need to be. Its done in layers with different levels of
gausian blur. At the same time I brightened up the maps and added
a few things. This will allow me to insert video of real actors that
be behind or between different objects in the scene even if the
camera follows them around. The focus should be on the actors
rather than the set.

 

[Duke M.]

IMPACT! Look at this one.

IMPACT! Look at this one.

I'm really liking the way this scene is coming out. The 'meteorite' (aka spacecraft)
hits the atmosphere and streaks through the sky.

It breaks up over the prison. After it explodes it crash lands in the prison exercise
yard.

I have a nice explosion for when it hits the ground, digs a trench, and some nice
atmospherics (aka dust swirls) around it with that tick, tick click of hot metal cooling off.

Of course this is only 720p, the original is 1080p with lots more details.

 

[Duke M.]

New and improved...

New and improved...

Some people thought the bricks came off as household bricks and the dirt needed improvement, so I've
added a new and improved version of the ship/portal after it's been scorched as a flaming fireball through
the sky and dug a trench in the dirt.

 

[tbroadwater]

One question...what program are you building the 3D models in? for the Norad console scene besides improving the models that represent the consoles look at using a more realistic lighting setup or plugin...In scene such as this more time will be spent on lighting it in the end than building it!

Good luck I am excited about your project
If you ever have any specific questions hit me up.....I currently work as a Lead Artist and Design for the game industry (my last titles were Fallout 3 and Oblivion)

 

[Duke M.]

I'm using OpenFX. I hadn't used this program in about 8 years so I've had to get back up to speed. I've used 3DMax and Lightwave in the past but I don't have them anymore.

I think the prison yard has come right along, once I changed some things, but Norad still has its limitations. However, it may be okay in the long run, but I won't know until I do a few more steps.

The Norad set is designed in three layers. I'm going to composite live actors between each layer, with a little more gausian blur on each layer as it gets farther way.

After a quick shot of the entire room in Norad I'll zoom in on the two characters, and put a lot more blur on the background as in DOF.

With all that blur it may not be necessary to do more as long as the people are moving and the screens change as different data gets entered. I've been holding off playing with it until I get the clips of the actors. I hadn't found Air Force uniforms until yesterday, so now I can think about it.

If you have any suggestions on lighting I'll listen to anything. I was thinking that instead of ray tracing I'd do a few other lighting tricks. :thumbup:

 

[Duke M.]

Here's a big update to that scene. I'm not totally sold on the movements yet. Tell me if you think I'm wrong.

Assuming that this portal/ship is 15-20' square, its not going to be light even if its made of titanium. At the same time its dropping from space and even though it hits at an angle the speed plus weight creates enough momentum to gouge through the earth. My thought was that when it gets to the end, its a little dug in, and the top wants to keep going, so it tips a bit.

Now if you've ever tipped anything big and heavy like a car, when it falls back it doesn't tip back and stop, it jiggles a little bit. (Maybe a couple times, but less with each oscillation.) Especially if it's on an uneven surface.

For the same reasons the rock, which isn't a pebble it's a good sized rock.

Compared to the ship that's got to be 6-8" or so high. Plus it isn't round. It flips and lands on a flat side with a thud it just slides a little bit but doesn't move too much.

So on my rethink, i'm not sure I was wrong in the first place. Or should I play to the stereotype of our expectations from movies, which is what I did on the prison walls. (After I did it I was glad I did it.)

Anyone else care to weigh in? (keeping in mind that the scene before this one is going to be the ship plowing through the dirt)
[Edit: go down for the most recent version.]

 

[Duke M.]

Crashed ship...

Crashed ship...

I threw a little dirt around the edges of the walls, reduced the specularity of the ship, took some chips out of the top edges of the wall, and recentered the ship.

Then, I was finally able to get some realistic camera shaking as the ship rocks back with heavy thud.

 

[Duke M.]

This is the opening scene in the movie even though it is only a few seconds long.

An object screams in from deep space and strikes the atmosphere, where it starts to glow.

It then cuts to Norad where they detect the object.