Double click the image above to play the 2 second clip.
In the opening sequence of the “Combat” music video for my upcoming record “Bits”, a bomb is dropped from a model of a B-24, falls through the clouds and hits a bunker.
I spent some time today working out how to pull this shot off. I’m using multiple layers of fractal noise to generate the cloud effects and key-framing the opacity of the layers as the camera falls through them.
It’s not perfect … but it’s getting close to what I want. I still need to composite the bomb into the shot as well. I’m thinking of throwing in some bomb bay doors as well. I’ve got some ideas on those…
Posted on July 16, 2008 by arman. Categories: movies.
July 16, 2008
In an effort to get our new Consolidated B-24 bomber off the ground, our engineers and flight crew were rushed through the preliminary flight check and given the green light for take off at 19:00.
The craft achieved an altitude of about 150 cm before she started to show signs of instability. The crew encountered a strong headwind that was created by dual hair drying mechanisms. One was a model Revlon and the other appeared to be a Conair. The triple string re-enforced design was not enough to hold steady in the face of the high airspeed.
It should be noted that Captain Bohn observed prop three performing intermittently; even at low altitudes.
It is recommended that Consolidated retrofit the B-24 with a hard lined stabilization system possibly made of a balsa wood rod painted black. This should provide improved stability and can be removed by our intelligence officers at a later date.
I finished a rough cut of the end of the “Combat” video today. It may sound like this project is coming together at a snails pace, but working with 10 megapixel images in 720p HD is a really slow process unless you have The Cray or something.
People think you can edit movies in real time on normal computers. Standard camcorder DV is fine in most non-linear editors. After Effects is my movie making application of choice. I usually do a quick cut in Premiere and then go straight into AE.
The problem is, you can’t watch your footage in real time. You have to render everything. It can take up to 30 seconds to render a single frame. When I want to see how a shot looks in time with the music, it can take minutes to generate a pass of a chorus or verse.
The bottom line is that it forces me to get it right and do the detail work. It doesn’t pay to be sloppy. Heck, I have to see every frame get spit out in slowmo on my screen so I have ample time to scrutinize everything.
Posted on July 14, 2008 by arman. Categories: movies.
I’ve been going over the end sequence of the “Combat” video and cleaning up the footage. When I shot it with Liz, Dave and Steve at the Columbia Gorge Model Railroad Club, back in late May, I had one day to shoot half of the animation sequences and all the live action footage for the end of the video. Jonah, my DP for the bunker sequence wasn’t there so I had to DP, direct, act and help Liz and Dave figure out how to run a camera they had never used before.
They did great and I got the shots I needed.
Needless to say, the footage turned out better than could be expected but needed a little kick. I’ve been doing a bit of color and level work and “drawing in” animated masks for additional depth of field. I enjoy this tedious work in a demented way. It’s nice to see progress on a miniscule scale.
When we lit the wide shot, we only had my puny pair of Briteks to work with. Wide open, they barely filled the space. Not too pretty.
The HV-20 has a sensor the size of a gumdrop which doesn’t lend itself to low light or awesome depth of field.
I have to overcome both of these limitations in post … but that’s half the fun, right???!!!
I like the result so far. The changes may look slightly obvious or heavy-handed in the stills but they work when the footage gets rolling at 24fps in super-stutter-vision!
It is hot. I am melting. My studio room is 88 degrees right now.
I did manage to get some more work done on the lyrics for “Brain Games” after going for a swim at the pool with a million little kids and getting cooked alive.
I plan to get back to work on the “Combat” video tomorrow and I’ll be posting some more stills and possibly some clips from the movie this week.
I may also be getting some help from my colleague Gideon Klindt for a couple effects shots in the film. Maybe. I’m going to try and get the shot with some models first, before I resort to 3D.
Yikes … which reminds me … I still need to shoot the bomber sequence for the beginning of the film.
I had a better day today. I wrote some more lyrics for the song “Brain Games” and even recorded the intro vocals. They sound good enough to me so I’ll keep them for the record.
I scrapped together a little mixy-mix for the ol’ blog so here you go:
We’re testing a way
We’re testing the same way
We’ll give it a name
We’ll give it the same name
Just seconds away
Just seconds the same way
Our method explains
Our method estranges
In other news, I blew the dust off of the “Combat” video and started hacking away at the footage again. Gotta keep that one alive.
Did I ever tell you about the time I made these zombie puppets with my friends and planned this epic zombie video?
Tonight, Liz and I rode our old bikes down to see an art opening of a good friend - Avalon Kalin.
He is the son of my mother’s best friend from high-school and we have known each other for pretty much our entire lives. He is film maker, musician, artist and alchemist of grandiose ideas.
His video piece involved finding people on the street and having them read some poetry by Hafez. That crazy kook…
I snapped a couple clips while I was down at the opening of some party animals.
Double click the image below to play:
I did manage to finish the lyrics and record some scratch vocals for the song “Warlords” today. Then I was overcome with a little bit of hopelessness about finishing this darn thing. Someimes it can be really fun and rewarding. Other times it can be hard to keep going.
On to “Brain Games” tomorrow. Then I’ll finish off some sectional lyric work in a bunch of different songs and then start tracking the final vocals.
