FEATURE: Rise of the Beast-the new feature from STARS Pictures

My 40 hour render should be finished today! =D
Also, we passed 10,000 views on this thread today, and they're all DVXusers. Thank you all for your interest and support!
 
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Also meant to add:
We'll be filming this weekend, shooting the opening action scene (the one we did back in February) and the mountain scene at the end of the picture which has the cliffhanger ending. I'll also be doing my cameo, so wish me luck on my acting skills ;)
 
Was up late last night working on developing the look for the movie. I used one of the fight scenes as my sample. The one I really liked is similar to the first "Leap", in that it's desaturated. This time around I desaturated the blues and greens, leaving the reds alone. I also added some grain using a tutorial I found on cinema5D.com-best grain I've ever seen! Basically someone snapped a 35mm shot of a grey card and uploaded the image. Used a soft light overlay for the blending mode and animated it with the wiggler. It looks so much better than using built in noise/grain effects, plus renders much faster! I'll try to get some before and afters up in a bit
 
Before and After grabs showing a possible look
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And a grab from the last movie as a comparison:
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Glad you guys like it. And yes, Blender rules!
Headed out to go shoot my scene with my dog. As always, I'll post some pics later
 
I might look into Blender. What's the learning curve like. AE pretty easy once you know what everything does and can figure out the basics. The advance stuff is what I may get into. Right now I'm relearning AE and Garage Band (I'm doing some of the composing) so this might be a good time to learn Blender.

And remember, don't throw the dog off the roof. LOL.

-Nate
 
Blender is unique. It was developed as an in house product (much like many Hollywood NLE's that run on linux-AVID is not the industry standard like people think) so it's keyboard shortcuts are different. If you can find and follow some tutorials, you should pick it up pretty quick, especially if you don't have previous experience, that way you don't have to relearn anything. Inanimate objects are easy and fast to model once you learn the shortcuts. Particle, fluid, and cloth sims are fast and easy to set up, but make require some time tweaking the settings. Characters and living creatures are in the super advanced category, but they can be done, and be done well. Look up "Big Buck Bunny"- It's a movie completed entirely with FOSS (Free and Open Source Software), and uses Blender to model/animate everything. Kind of cartoony, but it shows what can be done. Also check out the gallery here: http://www.blender.org/features-gallery/

As for ROTB, we made it out to location today, and two of the actors were running pretty late. One finally showed up, but the other didn't. She's a pretty good friend of mine, so I didn't know if something had happened or not to her. While waiting, the guys and I did some parkour in the parking lot over cars, trees and picnic tables. I also cut pinky finger down to the bone while using my pocket knife to dig up dirt to spread on my costume. It didn't bleed much, but I saw the bone and it was throbbing pretty bad. I applied ointment and a band-aid and called it good. We finally decided to try again for next weekend so we ended up calling it off. Back at my place, I was bummed that I haven't shot anything in three weeks (yesterday fell through as well, again, actor issues) so Alex and I decided to get some inserts and pickups. I had him get up on my parking structure and do a couple 9 foot gap jumps, 12 feet high. No pads or wires. It's all real PK, just like the last flick! I love that my actors can do their own stunts!

So that made my day, getting to actually shoot something, and something cool at that. We also decided to do some digital glass for a car window smash. We'll be using Blender (big surprise) and following a tutorial I came across some time ago. We haven't shot the real footage for that scene yet, but we did shoot a test for it today.
 
A frame grab from the jump stunt we did. Split the video into 8 layers for better grading control. Sky replacement (might add some stars too). Still needs some work, but you get the idea.
And yes, he really is doing the jump. No pads, CGI, or wirework.

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When I really start thinking about it, I realize that I have literally used every trick and secret I know in this picture. From simple in camera effects, to extensive CGI, from using editing to solve problems, to using sound to solve problems, I'm proud to say that "Leap: Rise of the Beast" is a complete demo reel of my abilities and I can't wait to show everyone the final flick.
 
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I was watching Resident Evil 2 today and realized that the first shot in Leap 2 is a mirror image of the the last shot in RE 2! Theirs has an earth zoom out and a satellite drifts by. Mine has a satellite drifting by followed by an earth zoom in. I had no idea until now, and no, I'm not changing it. =D
 
LOL. Nice crane BTW, how'd you pull that off.
Click to expand...
Like this ;)
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Could be one or none of the following:
A. I'm a traceur. Crane climbing is like pk 101
B. A friend of a friend gave it to us for free
C. We rented it

I'm honestly not comfortable saying which just yet
 
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Yeah - Indie style - I think I know which one you did to get the crane to, but I'm pleading the 5th. LOL Anyhoo, nice shot - keep pushing forward.
 
He actually ended up doing the jump about six times. We shot it wide like you see in the night shot, and also from down low with him sailing over the camera (a parkour movie classic). We also used the same two shots for a smaller jump in the last movie, so I wanted to have a throwback to it. The above shot during the day isn't a jump, it's just tossing the backpack to his crew below. The idea is that they've hidden supplies all around the city in places only they can get to. After their home is stormed by a CDF team, they have nothing, so they pick up one of their packs before breaking into an abandoned car (which leads to a car chase)
 
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