Making Movies

Zandy12

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Congratulations on the debut of your series Thorsten! It looks really good and I have enjoyed the production and story behind it. Who knows? This might be your foot in the door. :thumbup:
 

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HakalaFilm is proud to present 'Storm Crag' - the 3rd episode of our series.

Now set in Summer, with 45:30 yet a bit longer than the previous part, set in breathtaking landscapes and done with quite some more experience in camera movements and special effects - our best movie so far!


Enjoy!
 

dbeachy1

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I'm enjoying these episodes! If I read the movie's Web site correctly, the final edition will be available in Spring 2019 on DVD (i.e., 480p resolution), but not Blu-ray (1080p), is that right? Any chance of buying any higher-resolution version than 480p, maybe 720p? Just wanted to ask! There's some very beautiful scenery in the 'Storm Crag' episode, and I'd love to watch it in a resolution that does it justice. :tiphat:
 

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Now there's a question...

The PAL DVD format resolution we're producing in is 720x576 pixels and I believe DVD doesn't do any higher. NTSC is a bit lower, but I don't recall the numbers offhand.

We however record and process in 1080x720 pixels and the master files for the project are at that resolution as mildly compressed mp4, summing up to 9 GB for 'Storm Crag'.

We don't mind publishing that resolution as well, but I don't think we're technically able to produce BlueRay - I'm not sure I have any software to create images, and I'm fairly sure I have no BlueRay writer on any computer.

So dependent on how you want to view it, we could work something out involving e.g. a set of data DVDs or a memory stick with the original mp4 format - these we can do quite easily.

If that's something you can use - please get in touch!

P.S.: 'The Fairy Ring' will be available in spring - 'Storm Crag' is announced for November 2018, which means it's available on DVD essentially now, and I'll update the website today.
 
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dbeachy1

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So dependent on how you want to view it, we could work something out involving e.g. a set of data DVDs or a memory stick with the original mp4 format - these we can do quite easily.

If that's something you can use - please get in touch!

That sounds great, I'd love to purchase 720p versions of these! :thumbup: In case others are interested as well, what are the logistics on that? Do we send you a PM and then work out the payment details? (e.g., PayPal?) Also, since NTSC DVD players can't play PAL discs anyway, I'd rather just purchase the 720p videos and not have PAL DVDs shipped at all. I'd also be happy to download the 720p videos from a temporary download link (or your could upload them privately to my FTP site) if that is easier for you guys.
 

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You're the first one to ask, so we're a bit in uncharted territories...:)

Our constraint is that we're sitting on a rather asymmetric 4G connection (the price of living in such a nice landscape...) - we have a decent download speed, but our upload speed is ~100 kbit/s, which makes uploading GB-sized chunks to anywhere a time-consuming and error-prone affair unfortunately - compared with that, burning a data DVD or two or filling a USB stick and mailing the whole lot is more than somewhat faster.

Though if we're doing it scene by scene, it might be more manageable.

If more than a few people are interested, it'd be easiest to manage a password-protected download via my own site - but I'd have to upgrade the package to allow for the required traffic volume - or we'd have to find a 3rd party provider offering such services - so if it's just you, your FTP server looks more attractive.

Let me talk it through with Katharina (co-manager of HakalaFilm) - the rest basically is down to exchanging message and sorting out the details of how much 'shipping' in this particular case amounts to and how precisely we send the data....

(For completeness, I believe I can build an NTSC DVD image at the simple expense of selecting the option - but I gather if you can get the full-res files, you're not overly interested anyway...)
 

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Thanks for the info, I'd be fine with a cheap USB stick containing the files, too. :)
 

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Okay, after a discussion - we'd first try how much upload speed we can get with your FTP server first (at the same time you can verify that you have the codecs to view the files (though this did work out of the box for me under Win)).

If that works okay, we'd continue file by file (might take a few days) and we'd ask the equivalent price of DVD + shipping (i.e. you can use the normal PayPal button but add a message that this is for the HD files) as it's some extra work for us.

If that does not work okay, we have to see what the cheapest USB stick is we can get here and send that.
 

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Sounds good!! I'll send you a PM with FTP login info after I've sent payment. :)
 

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Let's do the test first - if we end up having to mail the stick, I'm not sure what this comes to.
 

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Merry Christmas from the far (and frozen) North!

weihnachten.jpg
 

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For everyone who finds piloting a spacecraft too demanding after New Year celebrations and just wants to sit down and relax, we have a New Year surprise - a 15 Minute 'Behind the Scenes' feature where we explain and demonstrate what kind of stuff we do before a movie gets online - all told with a sense of humor.


Among other things to see, there's outtakes and bloopers, a demonstration that a bluescreen can in fact be a red wall, the obligatory video clip with a cat, a reason why the original sound recordings on site just won't do, a surprising use of a trampoline - and a few preview scenes of episode 4 (The Fairy Ring).

Enjoy!
 

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Finally I got our new movie-making toy under control - a cam drone. Today was decent flight weather (no snowfall, not too cold such that the battery delivers,...) and while I was slightly overworked on the first two attempts two days ago *cough*, the drone performed flawlessly today and we could record quite a bit of video footage (and I managed to land in one piece on our small impromptu helipad...)

This is our home from above:

aerial_hakala_small.jpg


A selfie of the drone operators (while Katharina is photographing the drone...)

aerial_pilots_small.jpg


And later in the day, a hazy sunset in the west from 75 m above ground.

aerial_sunrise_small.jpg


This is really terrific, this opens up quite a few new and exciting camera positions and movements :lol:

(I have to give it to the autopilot of the drone, it really knows its business - on the last flight we got suddenly gusty winds, my weather station measured 5 kt on the ground, so likely twice that aloft) - initially the drone drifted for a good 30 m, but came back on its own and I managed to get it down safely just a little later - the GPS-assisted position hold mode surely works...)
 

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Lots of work during the last weeks organizing some group scenes with 20+ people - a whole new challenge for logistics, costumes (the local theater helped...), make-up etc. - in addition to a quadcopter-carried hires camera for some aerial footage - all to make Episode 5 'Rime Fever' our most sophisticated movie yet.

A first preview in our freshly made teaser (full movie to appear in Summer):


Enjoy!
 

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We're proud to release the 4th part of our series - The Fairy Ring - an adventure of three village girls going astray into the swamp and encountering fairy magic.

Breathtaking nature scenes, powerful music and plenty of fairy magic :D



Enjoy!
 

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We sure have expanded from the initial cast of a handful of people... For 'Beltaine King', we managed to assemble a cast of 36 people for the village feast. Enjoy our latest teaser:



(needless to say, the logistics of the whole thing, starting from costumes, has been a challenge - which we could not have met without the support of Korpilahden Teatteri, the local theater).

P.S.: A wedding ceremony in the forest might seem very romantic, but Ronja (the actress playing the bride) was quickly cured form the notion - there's mosquitoes aplenty...)
 

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We're happy to present you the 5th part of our Fantasy series - Rime Fever:


Enjoy!
 

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Since I did lots of drone flights for the movies and only a small fraction of the material is actually going to be used for the Clíodhna series, we decided to make a composition from the material - 'Dreams of Autumn'

[ame="https://youtu.be/IDk2RavNv5w]"Dreams of Autumn"[/ame]

So that's how central Finland looks like in fall :) Enjoy!
 

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For those who are following our series - here's 'Beltaine King', part VI of the Cliodhna series, our best and most involved movie so far:



Enjoy!
 

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I've been neglecting the updates a bit (expanded family...) - due to Corona-restrictions we didn't advance too much with Cliodhna (as it is difficult to assemble a larger cast...) but we decided to have a go at a different project - A Sword and his Hero - a series of rather short humorous episodes, telling of an aspiring hero and his companion - a magical sword which... just doesn't shut up.

A Sword finds his Hero


Introduction to Heroism


The Bandit


Love


Enjoy!
 
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