Making Movies

[Notebook]

If I can throw in my ten-bob's worth.

I did work for a UK broadcaster, always in the technical areas. Thames Television mostly did sit-coms and light entertainment for the ITV network. the work flow for programs was, studio recording, edit-suite, then sound dubbing. Quite a production line.

I was never interested in editing, tried it and realised I was useless. Couldn't see where the outgoing should end, and the incoming should start.

However, a good friend of mine was a tape-editor, and we used to talk about work in general. He did say most of the work involved getting the audio "natural" and making the sound dubbin easier.
At that time, all editing was linear. They started at the start and worked through till the end. We only recorded in duplex(two identical studio masters), an ISO (isolated camera with a dedicated record machine) was rare.

So they worked with what came out the studio on the day. The advantage they had was
the programme was done before it went into the studio. Actors were word perfect, camera/sound knew where they were going on the studio floor. Similar for all the other craft trades.
A typical 30' sit-com would be done in one long day in the edit-suite, a short day in the sound-dubbing suite.
Its all changed now of course.

It sounds to me that you are generating a lot of material, and hoping it comes together in the editting?

Edit: forgot to mention, there was only one Director and what he/she wanted got done. The editor didn't have a veto(except unemployment).

N.

 

[Thorsten]

It sounds to me that you are generating a lot of material, and hoping it comes together in the editting?

Hope comes in mostly working with animals or kids (which can't be expected to adhere to a script or repeat a performance). Otherwise, after some initial bad experiences, we do require actors to be reasonably word-perfect (mainly for sound syncronization during post-processing) and we have a plan of what camera perspectives and movements we want to have beforehand.

So we don't randomly generate lots of material, we're trying to create lots of good material to enable us to select the best. :lol:

Here is a short writeup of what we do with some set photos.

forgot to mention, there was only one Director and what he/she wanted got done. The editor didn't have a veto(except unemployment).

Yeah, that might make family life complicated if we'd do it...

 

[Notebook]

I wouldn't expect you to follow a forty year old system, we got away with that because sit-coms and light entertainment were formulaic and repetitive. They had to be to make the studios anywhere near viable.
After Thames lost their ITV franchise, they tried to go as a production centre. Lasted quite a while, but they still had to sell off some of the site and eventually got bought by Pinewood/Shepperton group. Even they couldn't make it work and the site was sold for developement.

Looking at your writeup, you couldn't have chosen a more complex scenario. You've managed to get everything in but the kitchen-sink!

Most complex set I saw was a build of Checkov's dacha for a production of Checkov in Yalta. Filled all of Studio One to the fire-lines, quite amazing how much foliage they got in.

Sorry I can't help with editing, as I said, its a skill I never got! Trouble is you can tell when something dosen't work, its fixing it thats hard.

Have you got a finish time for this, or just going till its done?

N.

 

[Thorsten]

Have you got a finish time for this, or just going till its done?

If we last that long, we'll do 12 episodes. But I suppose that requires that it picks up momentum - we need the pull to get a larger cast from the locals for a village feast for instance.

Let's see - right now it's fun, though occasionally drifting into a chore. We'll probably stop when the latter happens too often.

 

[4throck]

Point being, I see different concepts of story-telling at work here, but one isn't necessarily better or worse than the other.

:thumbup: Agreed, it all depends on your preference.
And you can't please everyone!

For example, I prefer this image because it shows the background of the cabin better. Lot's of detail on the wood and hanging herb:

Your final version looks too dark, and you can't see the herb or the wood:

Perhaps you can keep the tint and bring overall brightness down a bit, without crushing the shadows?
My suggestion:

Again, different people, different opinions, nothing wrong there!
Just do what is FUN to you.

 

[Notebook]

Excellent, hopefully it will get a life of its own. Beware it doesn't turn into a monster...!

I didn't know anything about artistic folk, my background was always tech based. Though I did play the trombone in the school band, and like most folk enjoyed music and movies..

I always thought "actors" were people who couldn't be bothered to get a proper job(arrogance of youth). That changed when I saw them working. Some productions were 'Rehearse/Record', usually one hour drama. The studio got one machine and you started at the beginning, recorded a scene, played it back to check, and so on til done. The tape format then had no confidence-playback video heads, the only check you could make was record currents and a back of the tape audio head.
So I spent some days with a studio, recording and playing back. Watching actors it slowly dawned on me that they could transition from "normal" people to the charachter they were playg. Obvious I suppose, but watching it happen was something I hadn't thought about. One minute they were wandering around the studio, talking and behaving normally, then when the clock started and the studio settled down, into character. I couldn't do that.

N.

 

[Thorsten]

Your final version looks too dark, and you can't see the herb or the wood:

Ah... (that seems to be a classic when doing rendering...) May I ask what kind of monitor you're using?

The problem with any low light scene (real movie or rendered) is that how it comes out depends heavily on the equipment and on the surroundings (I know more about this issue than I really care, because I've had a professional check my light-light rendering outcome for me with calibrated equipment because we could not settle an argument with users otherwise...). I myself can see the herb quite fine, and since the scene is supposed to represent the interior of a near-windowless hut in winter only lit by a fire and candles, it should not be too bright.

But we're adjusting brightness for DVD viewing, not YouTube, so the equipment on which we have tested is a projector, a plasma-TV screen and my rather bright gaming laptop display.

Which likely means that on a less fancy laptop or in power-saving mode, it will come out too dark. Moreover, against the bright Orbiter forum background, it will appear much darker than it would in fullscreen mode. And whether you view it during daytime or at night with lights dimmed in the room also makes a difference.

So it's... complicated (and impossible to get right for everyone, you need to make assumptions about light level and eye adaption state).

 

[Thorsten]

Teaser for your third episode is out - enjoy (if you have headphones or decent speakers, plug them in - the sound is much more impressive than with laptop speakers...)

(I know, the second episode isn't even out yet, but we've moved to post-production with it and I'm currently heavily into sound-editing - it's still scheduled to appear late summer). As always, if you like what you see please spread the word, it's hard for independent movie-makers to get noticed.

 

[Thorsten]

So far the mother of all special effects - a ~15 second sequence in which Cliodhna's astral body falls tumbling through otherworldly clouds.

Took us three days of trying out and me an unholy amount of time to arrive at a viable workflow, which in the end involves four consecutive rendering passes.

 

[4throck]

May I ask what kind of monitor you're using?


So it's... complicated (and impossible to get right for everyone, you need to make assumptions about light level and eye adaption state).

Indeed. I have many issues with modern film transfers, with pink highlights and bluish shadows....
I'm using a HP 22'' monitor. As far as I can tell it's spot on sRGB regarding gamma. My large TV is a 37'' Samsung and it also gives a reasonable sRGB match when connected to a PC.

But it's as you say, there are many variables. As long as it looks good on your end... then it's OK I guess.



Regarding the Teaser, it looks interesting and dynamic.

If I may nitpick on background the mountains effect (0:07), you should adjust contrast and sharpness.
Make the mountains less contrasted, more bluish and slightly more blurred than the foreground.
It will blend much better!

 

[Thorsten]

Make the mountains less contrasted, more bluish and slightly more blurred than the foreground.
It will blend much better!

Thanks - you're quite right.

 

[Thorsten]

Cast and crew (except yours truly behind the camera) for the summer scenes of 'Cliodhna 2 - Truth from Beyond' after shooting a somewhat tricky scene involving coordinated efforts of 2 adults, 3 kids and one horse.

Three month of training finally paid off a bit later - the scene where the panicked pack animal runs alone through the forest worked perfectly on the first take.

 

[Notebook]

Spot the out of character, character!
Looks like you are enjoying it

N.

 

[4throck]

Second that!

 

[Thorsten]

Looks like you are enjoying it

Yeah, we did... In my (admittedly short) career in movie-making, I've seen nothing like today. Before getting to it, we talked 'well, it'd be nice if the horse would shy here - how can we get this' - tossing ideas and strategies to cut the desired result in the end. The first take, the horse shies right on cue on the exact moment it'd be ideal.

So we go 'let's shoot the next scene, we can't possibly do this any better' - and it just keeps coming like this. An animal and three kids in a scene - zero outtakes - it's just miraculous.

So we're having a party now... the material we got looks terrififc :lol:

Spot the out of character, character!

The grossly out of character one is our horse trainer, the other slightly out of character one in the orange dress (who also looks suspiciously like our main character) is our director.

 

[Thorsten]

There we were, driving to a set I had scouted out a while ago - a beautiful patch of really old forest with a decent road to enable the camera operator to move backwards at decent speed...

Then, actually arriving there, it looked like this:

Can't have been older than a few days... and judging from the diameter of the logs, this really was a very old patch...

Things you don't really anticipate.

 

[Thorsten]

Post-processing for the second episode is done, DVD cover artwork is done, all that remains is DVD menu structure and subtitle translations. Thus... we have a release date!

 

[Thorsten]

And - here it is.

Full house on the premiere showing with the local press interviewing us.

About five times the cast of the first episode, more experience in cutting and post-processing, some 38 minutes in length - a better movie altogether.

Enjoy!

[ame="https://youtu.be/U3MbD0gV-7g"]Cliodhna 2 "Truth from Beyond" [/ame]

 

[Thorsten]

The advantage of having time, but no serious budget - we can wait till there's real fog and the light is like we need it. This morning in the swamp - terrific footage for the 4th part of the series.

 

[Thorsten]

The preview for the fourth episode 'The Fairy Ring' is now online - we were fortunate enough to work with actors from the local theater for the 'fairy enchantment' scenes, which really makes things come alive.

We plan to publish this next spring, we just have to record the material now, but post-processing will wait till 'Storm Crag' is out.

Enjoy!