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"With over 2,026,435 views of the official film on Dailymotion in the six days since its release, Pixels has really spread far and wide very quickly. We wanted to find out more about the film and had a chance to ask the creator Patrick Jean a few questions. Now working as a 2D and 3D artist at One More Production, where this film was made, Patrick is a 2002 graduate of Supinfocom and has also previously worked at the French VFX powerhouse BUF. Patrick's original storyboards for the film are also below. Take a look!"
David Torno and Michele Yamazaki. Note: David is not really that short, nor is Michele really that tall. It's all an illusion, kids.
David recently worked on this new Disco Biscuits music video, On Time, which I must say is SUPER catchy song and the video is fantastic! All the post was done by the same core team that did the Linkin Park 'New Divide' video last year, and they are brimming with talent. Every video I've ever seen from them is slick!
The video premiered this week on MTV Networks. David said, "The director is Noah Rappaport, a colleague and very good friend of mine. This is his directorial debut. 'On Time' was a post heavy video that involved animating and compositing a CG robot, aka "Roger", into a real world environment as well as having him interact with live action actors." David worked on the C4D Lighting Rigs, 3D Motion Tracking, Virtual Set Creation.
So what else was involved in the creation? The post was done with Cinema 4D and After Effects. Cinema 4D was used to model, texture, light and animate Roger the robot. The smoke effects were also done with C4D. The color correction, environment lighting enhancement, Roger re-lighting effects, spark effects, handheld motion, DOF matching and virtual set creation were done in After Effects.
Credits:
Noah Rappaport: Director, C4D Animator, Post Supervisor
Brandon Parvini: Color Correction, Compositing, Virtual Set Creation
Jeff Lichtfuss: Compositing
David Torno: C4D Lighting Rigs, 3D Motion Tracking, Virtual Set Creation
Toolfarm: Can you tell us a little about WeWereMonkeys? What is your history, your backgrounds?
WeWereMonkeys: Davide Di Saro holds a Master's Degree in Fine Arts and Design from The Dutch Art Institute and has exhibited his art works internationally in China, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy. One of his works was awarded honorable mention by UNESCO in 2003. Davide has worked as a professional photographer in Italy, and as an Interactive Designer at the Banff Centre.
Mihai Wilson has travelled extensively, picking up inspiration from around the world. He worked as an Animator and Designer for Adbusters Magazine from 2002-2004, developing provocative animations that have had worldwide exposure. In 2004, he co-founded Biro Creative. He has created animations and interactive works for organization such as The United Nations Foundation, Greenpeace and The World Wildlife Fund.
WeWereMonkeys began in 2007 when Mihai and Davide created an insane stream of consciousness stop-motion animation for Malajube's Le Crab, which was nominated for the 2007 MTV People's Choice Video Award. They successfully followed this with the production of a second video for Malajube's Ton Plat Favori, which was featured in the 2008 Independent Music Video Festival. In 2009, WWM's video for Land of Talk's It's Okay was featured in Stash 63 and was chosen as one of The 5 Best Videos of 2009 by TIME Magazine.
(WeWereMonkeys Directors Davide Di Saro and Mihai Wilson in their New York studio 2009)
TF: How did you begin this particular project- were you approached by Land of Talk with this idea, or is it something you came up with collectively?
WWM: WeWereMonkeys was asked to write a treatment for Land of Talk through Toronto-based production company, The Field. WWM's Producer, Marcella Moser, came up with the idea of Queen Antiope, and then together we developed and wrote the treatment. The video is about Queen Antiope, the last warrior of the legendary Amazon tribe.
TF: Do you typically storyboard your projects out?
WWM: We definitely storyboard, but we're spontaneous and don't like locked storyboards. While producing "It's Okay" we needed a solid plan and an organized shot list because of limited time each day with the horse and rider.
TF: What camera did you shoot with? Knowing that everything would be in slow motion, were there any special considerations or challenges with each shot?
WWM: To fit with the dark mood of the song we wanted to capture the live footage in slow motion. We shot the entire video with a RED at 100fps 2K 16:9 using Nikon lenses. From the open door of a speeding minivan, we shot the horse and rider galloping along side of an airstrip. Davide flew in an ultra-light to capture the aerial shot. To keep the lighting consistent, we shot the horse and rider at 6am every day. The main challenge was avoiding hazy shots due to seasonal forest fires.
(Director Davide Di Saro filming actress Ines Stone and Desi from an ultra-light with pilot Randy Rauck from Raven Aviation)
TF: What software do you use for the compositing and effects? Any 3rd party plugins used for the particle and hair effects?
TF: How were the background and environmental elements created?
WWM: The background was matte painted in Photoshop, and the anti-gravity debris was animated by hand in After Effects.
TF: It looks like the main character is the only live footage, with most of the background/ textural elements all being shot or created separately. How did this affect how everything was brought together?
WWM: We shot, edited and rotoscoped the live footage first, and then built the environment around the horse and rider.
TF: You seem to have a great deal of variety in style from your demo reel. Is this due to each member of your team having a design niche of sorts, or based on the needs of each project?
WWM: Variety is key to WWM's work. We love experimenting with multiple mediums; it leads us to new ideas and unique visual outcomes. We are very hands-on; from creative direction, set construction, costume design, photography, illustration, rendering and VFX, we do it all.
(Left: Directors Davide Di Saro and Mihai Wilson on location with DP, Dominic Schaefer Right: Mihai Wilson and Davide Di Saro getting actress Ines Stone ready for the shoot)
TF: Any current or on-the-horizon projects you're working on?
Susan Bradley did the titles to Ratatouille (which I adored), Motorcycle Diaries (the movie that made me want to see South America like no other film before it), Dark Water (wow, what a depressing film!), The Matador and others. Her title design style and prowess are well knows. Check out the interview at thunderchunky.co.uk.
I met Brian Dressel at MGFest in January of 2009 at Pixel Brothers Studio. It was sort of an immersive art gallery showing with several artists, a DJ and all sorts of overstimulation. Brian Dressel, whom I met at the exhibit, was showing projected video that a person can interact with. And, it turns out, Brian is from my hometown and is a good friend of a friend (small world, I know!). He's also the man when it comes to interactive video. He and his team at M1 Interactive have taken video to the next level. You may have even seen his innovative work in advertisements on the Vegas strip or played one of his games in a public space or trade show.
Michele: Brian, can you tell us a bit about what you do? You seem to have a lot going on! Are you a programmer as well as a designer?
Brian: I began my career sweeping floors and painting walls of a studio in Grand Rapids, MI. From there, I met enough people to get myself down to Chicago. I honed my skills as a shooter, programmer and motion graphics designer for years, while working as a Motion Control Programmer at Post Effects and Orchard Productions as a Creative Director here in Chicago. Since then, I've been working on my company, M1 Interactive, developing new products and software and expanding my resources, working with people who make me and the company look good. I couldn't do it alone, my team is phenomenal. We developed a product called Respondr, Light Scribble, The Ring Screen and a few smaller software utilities and recently got into game development.
I have 2 companies, Respondr Interactive and M1 Interactive. Respondr Interactive owns Respondr. When I do other weird installations, they are usually under M1.
Can you talk a bit about Respondr? How does this all work? It's so cool. Do customers create their own shows by themselves or do you generally have to help?
Respondr is a reactive video system. We recently built an all-in-one enclosed system that basically can hang from a ceiling and project on a wall or floor. As a customer walks through or even near the projection-it reacts to their movements. Special content will do a variety of actions, depending on what's needed for the installation. This could be anything from immersive video games to informational display content. Respondr does all the motion tracking and shape analysis and runs a playlist that can change content over time, giving a wide variety of uses.
That is so cool. In Las Vegas at NAB 08 they had this type of thing in the monorail stations. Those tables are awesome looking.
We have custom built reactive video tables, from FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) to overhead motion tracking systems. These are not your typical touchscreen systems. We're currently building a very long reactive video bar surface for restaurants, bars and trade shows. Customers can order food/drinks, play games or send messages to each other from one end of the bar to the other.
I think I would very much enjoy playing with that. It would be a great ice breaker. When I met you at MGFest in Chicago, you had an interesting set up at Pixel Brothers. What sort of software do you use? Can you talk a bit about how you put together the elements for a live event and perform?
What you saw at the MGFest was all Respondr, with a variety of ever changing content designed to show off some of the system's capabilities. The basics of Respondr are the Respondr Media Server, tracking camera system and display device. We used a video projector, but it will also work with LCD monitors and LED video walls. Respondr works in most environments and is easily adaptable and simple to set up. I think that install took us about a half hour, including the time to rig the projector in the ceiling.
MGFest 2009, Chicago. L to R: Brian Dressel, Rani Stack, Gregory Dillard, Harry Frank and Michele Yamazaki. (Photo Credit: Gregory Dillard).
Respondr was programmed and built by Peter Nyboer and me. Along with Jay Smith, our partner with Livid Instruments, we have been developing it over the past 5 years, constantly growing it, making it more powerful and easier for the installer to set up. Respondr runs on its own, completely automated.
What type of work do you like best and why?
Anything that I can flex the creative muscles. Creating new products and hacking existing ones for new uses is one of my favorite hobbies. Why not get paid for what you love to do?
Oh, totally. I do! Besides this cool technology, do you also create motion graphics for the usual outlets (tv, film, corporate, etc.)?
I create my own work now, for myself and my own installations. My work is sub-par compared to the awesomeness I see from my designer friends anyway. I find it best now to job that stuff out when it is needed. Plus, I'm learning to let people do their jobs and grow in their positions. I used to try to do everything myself and have total control, but that adds unneeded stress and brings slows down the growth of the whole company. We all work together and share equal workloads.
You mentioned Light Scribble. I've seen this Light Scribble effect before and had no idea it was yours. It's really neat.
Thanks! We have a lot of fun with it. Sometimes we'll go out at night and tag some buildings or bridges downtown. People have no idea where the projection is actually coming from usually, as we hide it in a van. It only takes a laser, and we can literally draw/paint on whatever surface we want. It's awesome!
Where do you see this type of interactive video headed?
I believe that it will become ubiquitous. The physical technology will become smaller and won't be noticeable. Entire rooms will become immersive interactive experiences that can be controlled by speaking and gestures. Some of this technology is already there, look at Project Natal from Microsoft, it is AMAZING. We have developed some of what that can do, but our R&D budget is significantly less than theirs. Sometimes that's a great thing. Actually most of the time it is. With less money and resources, it opens our imaginations to new possibilities and new ways of creating and problem solving that no one else may have ever thought of doing. This can lead to great new discoveries.
Are you working on anything new and exciting you can share?
We are always working new stuff. Some of it's on the drawing board, some of it's in prototype stages. We just got booked to work on the 2010 Winter Olympics. We'll be creating many custom video installations using custom hardware devices and video tracking that has, as far as I know, never been accomplished before. Most of our development is born from the needs of clients looking for new technology for a specific installation or our own needs to push our current technology to the next level-wherever that may be at the time...
Very cool. I wish you the best with the 2010 Olympics and your other projects. Thank so much for taking the time to talk to us at Toolfarm!
I also wanted to mention that we're always looking for Flash designers. Anyone interested can contact me at info@respondr.com.
This is a video interview I put together with Sum who recently put out an incredible album with Belief, The Lone Wolf. I learned a lot during the process - you can get audio feedback in iChat even if both parties have headphones on and the speakers are low. This seems to be a bug with iChat. I now have ScreenFlow and for the next interview I will try that out.
Another problem with iChat is that it records only at a small size, hence the background. It did give me some room to put titles though, so it wasn't a huge problem.
I cut the video with Premiere Pro, finally solving my problem with export (more on that in another post, probably a tutorial on how to uninstall your Adobe CS4 apps!) I ran into another problem with Premiere Pro, and that was that if you export with QuickTime, the audio and video can experience sync problem... and let me tell you, I did! The plan was to export with Animation codec and use Sorenson Squeeze because it does such a great job of outputting a high quality video for iPod. Instead, I ended up reexporting through Adobe Media Encoder with the iPod high-quality settings. This video is meant for the web and iPods and no where else. I didn't intend to have a high quality for television or anything, so these settings were okay.
It's funny how a quick project can turn into such a crazy bug filled weekend. I think the interview turned out pretty well, considering the bad echo/feedback. I was able to minimize it in Adobe Soundbooth. Yeah, you should've heard the original, which could NOT be heard during recording. So annoying. Live and learn, right!
Okay, about The Lone Wolf. It is available at iTunes, The Orchard and all over the web and I highly recommend it. It's one of those albums that gets under your skin and you just want to listen to it over and over. I have many sample clips in the interview. I'm not a big fan of hip hop, but this is so different than mainstream hip hop. Check it out! Support independent artists!
On the side I run a music blog and I was contacted about the band Modernage. The music is fantastic, with sort of a Joy Division feel, but with much more warmth and melody. What really struck me, though, was the cool video. I had recently been complaining about how videos nowadays just seem like a way to market a band and there's a lack of art in a lot of music videos. The music video for the song Creatures uses stop motion with wired up stuffed toys. What is also great about Creatures is that the video was created by a band member. I talk with the multi-talented Garcia Freundt of Modernage, musician and visual effects artist.
TF: You did an amazing stop motion video for your band Modernage for the song Creatures. Do you have a background in photography and video?
GF: I've been working on tv and film for about 12 years. I've never been into photography, just took a couple of classes in college, but I'm thinking of buying a still camera but mainly to work more on stop motion.
TF: Have you done much stop motion work? This looks like a huge undertaking.
GF: This is my second project with stop motion. I've always liked stop motion because it is a unique medium. I fell in love with the textures of the environment and the not-so-perfect movements. My opportunity to explore this medium for the first time was last year, when I was asked to develop some Halloween IDs for a TV cable network. I instantly knew that it would be a great opportunity to create a bizarre world... the short length of the pieces - 10 to 12 seconds - was perfect for a first timer using this technique.
Another reason I like stop motion is the fact that you don't have to work with a lot of people. It's kinda like sculpting and painting, it's very different that normal filmmaking. Roberto Vasconcelos, a great DP I love to work with, worked with me on all the shots with the yellow background, but that's the only person I had to work with.
TF: One shot in the beginning that grabbed me was the change of focus from the rocker to the marble. There's a lot narrow depth of field shifts thought the video, actually. Was that type of effect something you pulled off in camera or in post?
GF: That change of focus was done just with the camera. I was using an HVX200. For the stop motion, I just used the feature in which the camera takes only 2 frames each time you press the record button. In that rack focus I was rolling at 24fpsand with one hand out of the frame I was moving the rocking chair and with the other one I was turning the focus wheel. In general, I've always loved a narrow depth of field and using mainly close-ups to tell stories, and it's easier to get a narrow depth of field when using tight close ups.. so it just works for me.
TF:I'm guessing you took large images and did your pans and zooms in a program like After Effects. Can you talk a bit about your post production process?
GF: Almost all the pans and zooms were done with the camera rolling at 24fps. I tried to stay away from moving the puppets while doing camera moves...maybe for the next project.
TF: What type of plug-ins do you like to use? For the film effect for example, did you use a plugin on that or use some other method to achieve the old film look?
GF: For the film look I just put a vignette (to give it a more fairy tale look) and just added some grain to reduce the sharpness of the video.
MY: Nice particles too!It looks like you shot a portion of it over greenscreen too. You really have a lot of different techniques in a single video!
GF: The only 3 sequences with post effects where done with Motion; the first one is the ball going up and turning into a "planet". The second was the pink puppet going up to the planet (the puppet was on a green screen). The last one was a composite the grey puppet looking at the pink one who is in the planet. The star field is a Motion particle.
TF: I love Motion particles. They're so easy to use and so fast. I'll admit, I've only done stop motion work once and it was in college. It didn't turn out too well. I know stop motion can be tedious work... everything must be so precise. Do you have any methods that you use to time things out?
GF: It really didn't take me a lot of time to do the filming, maybe 20 to 25 hours. The post didn't take me that much either, just working on the three composites I described earlier. With stop motion you don't do much editing, because you don't do any coverage - its very time consuming; you just plan every scene and know in you head how it's going to cut. However, the pre-production part was the longest one but to me the most fun - it took me 5 months, working whenever I had a chance; this involved designing and sewing the puppets and building and painting the set. I guess I didn't want it to end because I love doing stuff with my hands.
TF: So, the dolls... did you put wires inside to get them to pose or did you have another technique?
Yes, I used wires. Now I'm actually learning how to make proper dolls with armatures. The dolls I made were very rudimentary, and I had a lot of problems making them stand right or to have controlled movements...it was a bit of a nightmare, but a learning experience.
TF: How long did it take to make the video? Did you learn any good tricks?
GF: Over a period of seven months, working on it whenever I felt like it. If I had worked on it not taking breaks, maybe 20 days for pre-pro, 6 days for filming and 5 days for post. I started working on it long before the song was recorded. For me, like everything I do, it is just a stepping stone: don't make the same mistakes and build on the good things. I learn by doing.
TF: The opening scene reminds me of something by The Brothers Quay? Do you have any influences in your work? That moving potato is very creepy! The "eyes" look like tentacles.
GF: Yes, among my favorites are the Quay Brothers, Henry Selick and the works of czech animators like Jirí Trnka and Jan Svankmajer. I included the potato cause I always like the "eyes" that grow on them. It gives the potato character...
TF: What do you do in the band?
GF: Keyboards, guitars...and the videos.
TF: When you do a video like this for your band, does everyone have input or do you just do what you envision?
GF: I enjoy doing videos for Modernage mainly because I love the music. I love Mario's lyrics because he has a great sense of storytelling. When I heard the track I felt that it would be good for stop motion. I do most of my creative thinking in bed, right before going to sleep, when my mind is in that weird half-sleep state. I developed the main story line in my head and on the next band rehearsal I showed Mario, the singer, the IDs I had done using this technique, to see his reaction and propose to do a stop motion video for "Creatures", since he was the one who wrote the song. After I showed him the IDs, before I proposed anything, he said: "that's exactly what we should do with Creatures!".. and with that I started working on it.
TF: Have you done other videos as well?
Creatures" is the fourth video I've done for Modernage. I've also done one for a band called "Santos Renuentes" and another one for "Union Cell".
The other 3 Modernage videos are here if you wanna take a look:
7/9/12 video for Modernage's 7/9/12 from the EP Sirhan Sirhan.
Bella - The second video-single off of Modernage's debut EP Receiver.
Four Eleven - The first hit video off of Modernage's 'Receiver' EP.
TF: Thanks so much for the interview. Best of luck with your music and music video careers! I really love your video work. You have a lot of variety in your style and you're so talented in both fields.
Directed by Alexandre Moors and Jessica Brillhart. Here are some excerpts of an interview the directors did for Flavorwire.
Flavorwire: Tell us about the concept behind the video. It has some echoes of Sin City/The Spirit - was that intentional?
Alexandre Moors: Kind of. The label definitely referred to it at the beginning. They liked the black-and-white urban animated style that would fit within the Crystal Method album aesthetic. But, from the beginning, we aimed at taking it somewhere fresh and unique.
Flavorwire: What was the process involved in creating the animated world?
AM: The video came out of the UVPHACTORY studio, and that's kind of what we do there, mixing live-action, 2D animation, and 3D elements - merging all these different components into one world. The trick is to make it seamless. In that way, I particularly appreciate how the live-action (Matisyahu) works within the graphics. He really blends it together and creates this iconic presence.
Jessica Brillhart: Yeah, it was a definitely collaborative effort. Alex and I came up with the groundwork, and then our team of 2D/3D animators and designers took it from there, with us pointing annoyingly at their screens, spewing whatever we thought worked or didn't. I suppose that's an obvious part of the process.
End credit sequence of "The Days" by animator Josef Lee, inspired by early Kung Fu comics. The Days, a a Singapore gangster drama, is being noted as one of the first films from Singapore that uses motion graphics extensively.
Evan Sussman's film short, Escape, is a fantastic voyage into a freedom from the stresses of modern life. It is a contender for a $30,000 prize from The Doorpost Film Project. If you like the film, please vote for it!
Evan, can you give a quick synopsis of your new film short, Escape?
Sure, Escape is the story of a couple that has reached their limit to the violence and hatred in our world. We follow them through several seasons and one big idea that just might get them back their freedom. I worked on that synopsis for awhile with my wife. It's ingrained in my head now.
You're the writer, producer, director on the project. How did the idea come to you?
Like all ideas, I'm not sure where it came from exactly, but I do know it was inspired by my wife. At the time she was my girlfriend (we just got married in September of last year). I think I came home from work late one night and I walked in to find her very upset, and crying about what was on the news. It wasn't one story in particular, but the whole picture: floods here, wars there, killings here... If you sit down and take in a whole news broadcast, it can be extremely depressing.
Oh, I completely agree. Totally depressing. I don't watch the news much anymore either. After 9-11, the newscasts changed. So, do you avoid TV now?
It's funny, I do avoid it, even though it's through television that I make most of my living. Actually, I've talked with a lot of people in the "industry" (sorry, I hate that word) who feel the same way. If I'm watching anything, it's most likely going to be a movie. I've especially fallen in love with documentaries lately. HBO On-Demand is a great place for that, but Netflix is the best invention ever, especially if you have an XBOX.
I love Netflix, too!
The reason I avoid watching television, specifically American news programs, is because they are so sensationalized nowadays. I remember watching Tom Brokaw with my mom while getting ready for dinner when I was growing up. She is still in love with him, by the way, but the reporting wasn't as bad as it is now. Fox, MSNBC, all of them... it's more News-tainment, if that's a word, than anything. Switch over to the BBCA and you'll see the difference between American reporting and reporting in other countries.
The worst part, and most saddening, is that there are terrible things happening all around the world. I think what has the potential to make someone so upset is that, from the outside, it all can seem so silly. In Iraq, in Palestine, in everywhere, the majority of people just want to live their lives. They want to work, try to be successful, have a family and take care of them. The bigger violent issues, they can't help but be wrapped up in, are always controlled by few, but end up effecting so many. It's crazy to me that so much of your life is determined by the lottery of where you are born. We are very fortunate here in America that a lot of the terrible things aren't happening in our backyard. That doesn't mean it takes away from our empathy for the people stuck in it though.
I think that's the main idea of the film. I believe that the majority of people stuck in the middle of bad situations would go somewhere else if they knew they could be happy, keep their family safe, and leave all this fighting and waring to someone else.
Can you talk a bit about the workflow on the film? You mentioned that the backgrounds were created in Flash and composited and animated in AE.
Sure, my first studio job was as a part-time assistant editor at Soup2Nuts animation studio. They're a Flash-animation based studio in Watertown, MA. When I started work there, my background was entirely in live-action and I knew a little bit of After Effects. They didn't use After Effects at all when I started! So I told myself, "I'm going to make myself a position here by introducing AE." I did, with a lot of reluctance from some of the producers at the time, but now After Effects is a part of every production's budget and has become a terrific creative tool for the directors and animators. It was through my 4-5 years of working at Soup, eventually becoming the head of post-production, that I gained the experience of utilizing Flash and After Effects together. Now that Adobe owns them both, there are some amazing things you can accomplish.
When I first started to build the scenes for ESCAPE, I was determined to export all the BGs and elements from Flash as .SWF files, retaining the vector information. Where that does work much of the time, once you start creating complicated 3D scenes with vector art, After Effects gets confused and crashes a lot. It was a very frustrating learning experience. What finally worked was to just export the Flash images as large PNGs with alpha information and then build everything out of those. The vector stability is something that Adobe still needs to work out.
We're all of your elements hand drawn? That must have taken forever!
First of all, I want to say that the amazing backgrounds and props were created by Steven Young. He's an incredible talent not only at design but his own writing and ideas. We met and discussed how I pictured everything, then he went and created these ridiculous backgrounds. When I saw the rocket all put together for the first time I just started laughing, I thought it was so cool looking. His art direction really helped to make ESCAPE look so special.
There are a few reasons I choose to do the backgrounds in Flash. One of them being because of where the film takes you. It would have been impossible for me to pull that off on my shoe-string budget otherwise. And I was able to accomplish camera moves I never would have been able to without a crane or something. Plus, I knew it would look cool and give them film a unique tone. My favorite films are the ones where directors have made strong visual decisions. The look of a film is so important in creating the mood and tone. And that's why we watch movies isn't it? To experience an emotion or be taken somewhere new? I get so frustrated when I see a movie that is shot in a boring way. You have all the choices in the world on how to shoot a scene, make it something interesting.
Another reason why I used drawn backgrounds was to make the locations and age of things unspecific. It's the same reason I choose to go without dialogue and make the clips on TV vague. I was considering using shots of President Bush, Katrina, Al Queda kidnappers with masks on etc... But the moment I looked at footage like that, I decided against it. I didn't want to make a propaganda film. And I think the idea I was trying to convey could be applied to any era.
You make some serious use of 3D layers. I especially love the big pullout at the end. Will you share your technique?
A lot of experimentation. That shot took me about a week or so of playing around. Getting the camera speed right was very time consuming. Also, when the camera goes from the landscape to seeing the moon etc, that's when it switches from 3D to 2D. There are a few times in the film I had to do that - especially in the apartment. Sometimes when Joe would walk in, his feet would go through the floor, so those scenes have the keyed footage of him and his girlfriend in the film in 2D. Just about every other time we see them though, they are in 3D and therefore casting shadows and effected by lights. It helps so much in terms of making them feel a part of the scene.
The use of light, shadows and reflections also gives it an organic feel. Really nice.
Thank you! That has always been a goal of mine in After Effects, especially in terms of using After Effects with animation. A show I worked on a long time ago at Soup2Nuts was the first season of an Adult Swim series called Assy McGee. It was about a hard-boiled cop who was just a butt with legs - very high brow stuff. The style was very much like a comic book - detailed and realistic, but stylized. It was with that show that I felt the freedom to play with lighting, coloring, etc because it matched the theme. I wouldn't have felt the same freedom with a Saturday morning, educational cartoon. You have to match the feel of the show.
I ended up creating one technique, if you want to call it that, which I thought brought a cool feeling to the show. I made sure every location had a different overall color tone. So at night, the outside was blue, during the day a washed out yellow. If they were inside a place with florescent lights, I would tint things slightly greenish, and if inside a more natural setting, I would go with brown. Take an adjustment layer and apply the hue/saturation effect. Set it to "colorize" and go crazy with the color and saturation. Go over the top with what you think would work. Then if you bring the opacity of that layer down to somewhere between 15% to 30%, you get a nice overall color to the scene. It's an easy, quick way to change the mood of a shot. I used a lot of tricks like that which I'd learned in my years as an animation effect-artist. I feel almost embarrassed saying it. It's not like it's some big trick or something, just an easy thing...
A lot of people probably don't know about those type of little tricks though, so it's nice of you to share it. I also love the organic movements of your elements, such as the junk in the trailer and the movement of the gears. How did you get your elements to move so naturally? Expressions?
The junk was expressions, yes. Actually, a lot of little things were expressions, like the tree leaves. The wiggle expression is so huge. I wish I was the kind of person who could program and understand how to write expressions more, but I mostly stick with wiggle, creating simple expressions sliders and loopOutDuration. I think, more than anything, I use that expression. It's so great for setting up a few keyframes and setting it to an endless loop. It's especially great for looping videos, like those from ArtBeats or something. The other expression I used was something I found online. It was for making the car's tires roll with the movement of the car. These people who post their amazing expressions online for the rest of us - they are so incredible. The kind of people you find on your site or Creative Cow. I think so many of us owe so much to them for making our work better, at least I do. So, for any of them reading this, THANK YOU!
Let's talk a bit about plug-ins. Ok.
Your keys look incredible. Did you use Keylight or another plug-in?
Just Keylight. How amazing is that plug-in? The fact that it comes bundled with AE Pro is so great. We shot everything on a Panasonic HVX. The weird aspect ratio adds another element of difficulty.
What sort of particle generator did you use for the smoke and snow?
I don't think too many people will be surprised to know that I used Particular from Trapcode. I think that bundle of effects is really essential for a serious After Effects graphics artist. The way it interacts with the 3D camera is amazing. You can make some truly beautiful stuff with it. Actually, speaking of which, there was a shot I cut from the film where the camera pushes in from the exterior through the window, all the while passing this beautiful falling snow. It was SO hard to let that go, but I had to for the pacing of the film. Making a movie from scratch is a lot of killing your own babies. It can be really tough to let go.
How about the film effect?
That effect I made from scratch, no pun intended. I would be happy to share the project file. There are a bunch of wiggle expressions going on there. One of the inspirations for ESCAPE was the movie "Voyage to the Moon" by George Melies, which was made in 1902. That was the reason for the film effect, as a little homage.
I totally feel the homage to Voyage to the Moon. I was thinking that in the back of my mind.
It also acts as another one of those era-less things. People keep asking me which plug-in I used for that. I guess I did a good job! My advice to anyone starting in this field: always try to make your own "plug-ins" first. You'll save money and learn a lot in the process - not to mention have it to use any time you need it.
Did you learn any good tricks during the production? How long did the whole film take to create?
Oh man, of course. You should always learn something, otherwise you're not pushing yourself. When I was the head of post and receiving resumes from young applicants, I would always get the one that said "after-effects guru" or something. You know what? No, you're not. I promise. I've been working with After Effects for I don't know, 10 years now. I wouldn't claim to be a guru or master. I love it, I can do amazing things with it, but there are so many people out there who know this program inside and out. I'm not sure if one person can really know everything After Effects can do. It's so powerful. Like Photoshop - you know it to the extent that you need to use it. Someone could show you a new use for it that you would have never guessed. It's that kind of a program.
I shot the original greenscreen footage in September of '07 - so over a year? That was with a lot of breaks for paying work. It's hard to find time to do your own thing. But if you love it, you'll make time. It also helps to have someone pushing you, in my case my wife Avril.
The soundtrack is fantastic. Was it custom created for your film?
I'm so glad you asked this question. It was original, it's amazing, and it is all the work of Daniel Koren, an Israeli composer living in New York. We met on an earlier project of mine where he composed a completely different kind of song. I knew that without a doubt he was the guy for this project. But 6.5 minutes is a lot of composing to ask of someone on the cheap, so we decided to barter. I came down to NY and shot a short video for his band at Julliard, in exchange for him creating the beautiful score. His group is called "The Koren Ansamble" and will be hitting the world by storm very soon!
The other music in the piece, "Let's Pretend There's A Moon", is performed by Fats Waller and licensed from Warner Brothers, EMI, and a man named Arthur Hamilton. I knew this song had to be in the film no matter what, but I didn't know where until it was all edited together. Playing over the credit's ended up being a really nice way to end the film. The scratchy recording, the piano - it just fit. And through it I've started a friendship with Arthur, who actually turns out to be the son of two of the song's writers, so it was extra special to me that the idea of the film was inspired by my wife and it was Arthur's parents who wrote the song. It just makes me feel good every time I think about it.
Can you talk a bit about the Doorpost Film Project?
I think the Doorpost Film Project is amazing. Any group that is willing to invest in young directors is okay in my book. This is my first time entering their contest, but so far I'm very impressed with the quality of the site, the integrity of their voting process, and the quality of the work they attract. To get the chance to show what you could do with a real budget would be so incredible. There are some very cool movies in this competition. It's daunting, but I'm just happy to be a part of it.
You look very young in your picture on the Doorpost Film Project page, but you have a really extensive portfolio. What is your secret for staying so young? ;-) Seriously, though, can you give us a quick rundown of some of the work you've done in the past?
Well, thank you! My secret is my goofy boxer, Rufus. He's like living with a little funny old man who makes me laugh everyday. I wish I was able to work him into the movie somehow, but I don't think he would have had fun on set for 10-12 hours.
I have always been told I look young. I'm 28. That picture was taken kind of far away, my wife points out that I'm getting grey hairs everyday.
My first job out of school, aside from driving people around in a wheelchair van, was creating web content for Boston Children's Hospital. I then moved on to Soup2Nuts where I was able to work on some amazing programming. Soup was a great learning experience for me and small enough that I was able to try out a bunch of different things outside of post production. I wrote and created some shorts for PBS's Between the Lions, directed some commercials for Legal Sea Foods (a regional family seafood chain) and created logos and visual styles for shows on PBS and Cartoon Network. It was terrific. Since leaving last summer, I've been out on my own freelancing. I've made commercials for the Discovery Channel at Element Productions, created the look for a new show coming up on Animal Planet and many effects for Discovery channel programming at Powderhouse Productions. I've also been working on a bunch of outside projects, including a promo video for a charitable company out in California called Give Something Back. Freelancing is a tough gig with long hours and a lot of self-promotion looking for that next gig. But right now, I'm loving the freedom of it.
Anything new in the pipeline?
Right now I've got a few things going on, but I'm mostly trying to get a show idea off the ground. It's a nutritional show for children that my friend and business-partner Dave Schlafman co-created. We're very close to an investment, but I doubt I should say anything about it until we know for sure. I'll keep you posted!
Thanks so much and best of luck with the contest. Hopefully we can give you the "Toolfarm Bump".
At MGFest09 Chicago, Michele Yamazaki of Toolfarm sat in on Paul Griswold's case study of the music video for the group N.A.S.A. called Money. The video used the artwork of Shepherd Fairey, who is probably best known for his Obama Hope poster, probably the most recognizeable image of the last presidential campaign. The Money video combines Fairey's posters with 2D and 3D animation. It's so visually striking and the creative use of 3D space with the 2D elements is incredibly synchronized. Paul talks to Michele in depth about the video.
Michele Yamazaki: Hi Paul. How did you get involved with N.A.S.A.'s 'Money' music video and with musicians David Byrne and Chuck D and graphic artist Shepherd Fairey?
Obama Hope poster
Paul Griswold: Syd Garon and I have known each other since film school back in the late 80's / early 90's. He had directed an animated hip-hop film called Wave Twisters a few years ago that I had done some animation work on. Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Speigel) was a huge fan of Wave Twisters and asked Syd to direct all of the N.A.S.A. videos. He ended up directing several of them, while creative directing others. Syd came to me to do some animation on the video "Way Down" and it worked really well. When "Money" came around he told me Shepard Fairey was on board for the artwork and asked if I'd be interested in co-directing with him.
Your co-director, Syd Garon, lives in LA, if I remember correctly. How did you two collaborate so well over so many miles? Can you talk a bit about the software you use to transfer files back and forth?
We use Drop Box for transferring files. Back when I worked on Wave Twisters everything was done by FTP and it was a real pain. Drop Box really makes it easy for us to collaborate over long distances. I use it with a lot of the ad agencies I work with since I don't have to go through the trouble of setting up a password protected FTP site or pay someone to develop a private client section on my web site. Basically it's just a folder on your computer that is "magically" connected to another person running Drop Box. When you put a file in the folder it immediately shows up on the computer of the person you share the Drop Box with. And since each of my clients gets their own folder, none of them can access any files but their own, yet I have access to all of them.
Drop Box sounds really useful. I think I will look into that for myself. Thanks! The video is loosely based on the Bible verse "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil"? How did you work that in with the posters?
Shepard's work is very focused on both the good and evil uses of money, so it was a perfect fit for the video. The hardest part was creating a narrative without injecting too much of our own work. The video was supposed to be a Shepard Fairey video, not a "Syd and Paul make a Shepard Fairey look-a-like" video. We spent a lot of time going through all of his work picking out elements that would convey the overall theme and fit together in a storyline.
Well we had a great song, an enthusiastic music producer who had his own ideas and then Shepard's work to inspire us. It didn't take much for us to go down a road where we were coming up with ideas that would have required us to make totally original Syd & Paul artwork. It would have completely destroyed the concept of bringing Shepard's work to life had we continued down that road.
L to R: Shepard Fairey, Syd Garon, Sam Speigel, Paul Griswold from the Flux Film Festival in LA
Sure. When you spoke at MGFest Chicago about the case study of the Money video, you mentioned that one of the problems that you encountered was that Shepherd Fairey's iconic poster artwork was created vertically and video is, of course, a horizontal format. Can you talk a bit about how you overcame that issue?
That was quite a problem. Most of his designs were in a poster or book format, not the horizontal aspect ratio of HDTV. Since Shepard spends a ton of time composing his work to convey a very specific message, the last thing we wanted to do was destroy his composition. We really worked hard and Syd consulted with Shepard to make sure he didn't feel we did anything to alter the main theme of the artwork.
What were some of the other challenges you encountered while working with artwork that is meant to be posters?
Well, Shepard never designed these pieces of art to be animated, so none of the files were built with animation in mind. Many times we would get an Adobe Illustrator file and could see where the artwork was very much drawn as he was inspired. So there would be a mess of strokes going everywhere. That's fine when you're making a print, but not so great when you want to animate it.
I've encountered the same stray points with client work. I can imagine it would be a thousand times worse with such intricate posters. Can you talk a bit about your technique for bring flat, still artwork to life? You used both 2D and 3D animation.
Syd works in After Effects and he assembled the finished video. I work in Softimage XSI and Eyeon Fusion. We would discuss each piece of artwork and then decide if it needed a 3D move or could be done in 2D. If the shot needed to be 3D, then it meant possibly trying to recreate Shepard's artwork from scratch in a 3D environment. All of the 3D work had to fit the style of the artwork as well, so I had to do quite a few test renders for each piece to make sure the shading and look was correct.
What all does your company Fusion Digital Productions do?
Fusion Digital Productions is a small 3D animation, visual effects and compositing shop. We do everything from 3D product illustrations to effects for feature films. Being in the midwest means we're very cost competitive, but it also means we're not in the Los Angeles mix.
So, you're in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It must be difficult to get high profile work like living and working outside of LA, NY and other large cities.
Absolutely. There's no doubt that living in LA makes a huge difference in day-to-day sales opportunities. However, I also believe talent gets noticed and the web makes all the difference in the world these days. So if you're an artist living in the midwest I don't think you have to worry as much about where you live as you would have a few years ago.
I saw your Tweet that you've got another project in the pipeline with Shepherd Fairey. Is it top secret or can you give us a few details?
Syd Garon is directing it and I'm on board as animation director. It's for the World Wildlife Federation and it's called Earth Hour. We just wrapped up production and it should be airing soon. Shepard worked as creative director for all the artwork for the project and the agency is Leo Burnett. It's very different than the Money video, but still very much is a Shepard Fairey animation.
Sounds very cool. I look forward to seeing it. You do amazing work and I know that people were blown away by the N.A.S.A. video at the CMGF Screening. I know you're really busy, and I want to thank you for your time.
Thank you for the opportunity to do this interview. The project was a blast to work on and I really owe it all to Syd Garon. He's an incredibly talented director and animator as well as a great friend.
Michele Yamazaki from Toolfarm talks with indie filmmaker, Adam Valuckas, about his war film, Panzer Corps. Adam was the auteur on this film: directing, shooting, co-writing the screenplay, producing and handling the post-production. Adam gives some insight about what goes into making a film and shares some lessons learned along the way.
Panzer Corps Trailer
Michele Yamazaki: Hi Adam. What was your inspiration for the film? Why did you make the film?
Adam Valuckas: For me, Panzer Corps grew out of the need to do something creative. I was working for Comcast doing slews of local commercials. I found at the end of the week I couldn't remember what shoots I had gone on and what I edited. It was one big boring blur of uncreative work.
I'm going to sound like I'm eight, but I wanted to do something creative with guns and lots of them! One effects test lead to another then to another and it grew almost out of control. Soon I had a living room full of boxes with uniforms and fake guns, helmets, grenades (fake of course) and other assorted shenanigans. My friends joked that I had to be on a FBI or AFT list; the UPS guy always had a quizzical look on his face.
MY: Oh, haha, I hope not!
AV: My roommate, Matt Conlon (college film bro and later assistant producer/ 1st AD for Panzer Corps), wrangled me in to finish the script. Then Jeff Leaman (another college film bro and later Producer for Panzer Corps), and I set into finishing the script.
MY: It seems like an extensive undertaking.
AV: "Extensive undertaking" are two perfect words to describe the making of Panzer Corps. I keep questioning why I didn't just make a comedy or a drama set in someone's apartment. I was thinking about the script and how to blow stuff up, how to make war set dressings, CGI stuff and the list keep going on. It was painful, but a good pain like working out, finally I was feeling creative and the burden was a pleasant byproduct.
MY: You wrote the screenplay, directed, did the effects, etc.
AV:I co-wrote the screenplay with Jeff Leaman but I did direct, production manage, shoot, edit, do the VFX, post sound, website, marketing, etc... I am so thankful that the cast and crew were there and did amazing things but I wish I could have paid for them to take some time off. A one man show is never as good as a group of talented people. Sorry, i just ranted. :)
MY: How long have you been making films?
AV:This is my first film since college and my first real narrative film oddly. I have been a videographer for ten years directing, shooting and editing commercial, corporate, and web videos. I'm good at a lot of things but not a "God" at anything. But I can do just about anything, you can give me a silver star sticker if you like. Kidding, but I won't stop you.
MY: How did you get the idea for Panzer Corps? Was it based on a true story?
AV: Panzer Corps originally was going to be a fan film based on a Japanese film called Jin Roh. In that film Japan is occupied by the Germans after WWII (fiction) instead of the Americans (nonfiction). But the film really doesn't get into the Whys and Hows but instead shows what happens after the occupation. Long story short Tokyo is guarded by the Panzer Corps, which are some heavily armed guys wielding MG42s (what Muller uses in the first half of the final battle).
Before I had the urge to make a war film, I was getting into armoring as a hobby to escape from the computer. In the midst of banging on metal I decided to make a suit of armor from Jin Roh. Then I decided to make a fan film and after several scripts I realized that a fan film was going to limit the possibilities of where the film could play. It took a long time to go from the idea of a fan film to Panzer Corps which is entirely different.
Some people have asked why I didn't change the name of the film (Panzer Corps) since it was no longer a fan film or about tanks (German tanks are called Panzers), at this point the website was drawing in a decent crowd so it seemed foolish to change the name. Yeah, there are no tanks in the film, sorry to break anyone's heart.
MY: What was your pre-production process?
AV: Pre-production was a blur of activity for myself. I was still gathering props, rewriting the script with my co-writer and the seconds were ticking off faster than I wanted. I was thinking about the film so much that my girlfriend at that time broke up with me (over the phone!) while we were filming. Good riddence! Sorry, that just got personal. *laughing* But I really didn't care I was making a film and no gal or employer was going to stop me! The boy's fantasy stays alive.
MY: Good for you for sticking with it! Did you block everything out while shooting to match your storyboards?
AV: The final battle scene was storyboarded three or four times, then after we setup the dragons teeth and the concertina wire everything had to change. In the end it worked out great, but I felt crushed, all that planning gone to waste. The cast and I went to the final battle location reading the script and blocked off who should be where for what line. I created a diagram of where each person should be for each line of dialogue. There are three guys flanking undercover fire to assault a fortified bunker, here is the first part of that sequence.
Side by side effects comparison
Short story, a few weekends before the shoot I went to scout our location (15 acres of woods) to plan each scene. I was told there was were black bears in the woods but I didn't really think I was going to see one. There I am walking armed only with an orange vest and script when a bear who was about 5 feet from me bolted away from me (oh, thank God) and I have to say, I ran. I ran hard and long before I stopped. It wasn't even like I thought "hey that bear could rip your arms off perhaps you should turn back", no, I found my body running and my head just happened to be attached. Thank you fight or flight instinct.
MY: Unreal! Glad you survived! What was the rest of your filming experience like?
AV: Filming was awesome, the crew were my friends and the cast became new friends. I really enjoyed my actors, two of them were Army Ranger Captains and one was a Marine. I looked to them for realism and how we could bend that into something that looked good on screen. When you watch these guys move you can see their training and combat experience.
Filming was a big camping trip, we stayed up late, slept in the fresh air, woke up bright and early, worked hard all day, it was great!
MY Sounds like a fantastic experience. What did you shoot and edit with? Were there things you liked or disliked about the equipment?
AV: I shot with my trusty XL1s with a manual lens on a Fig Rig. Panzer Corps was actually shot 100% with the Fig Rig, I liked that it wasn't rock steady like a steady cam but smoothed the hand held movements. While I loved the movement of the camera it made the job of tracking the footage for VFX a big deal.
We used a Sennheiser ME66 mic into a mixer then into the camera. The whole thing was about as low tech as it could get. And since everything was shot using available lighting except for the one night time scene, we were able to move from shot to shot with no setup time.
For editing I used an Apple G5 dual 2.0 who is still graceful in her old age, and two G-Drives (the second drive was a backed). Once again, about as low tech as you can get.
Dislikes, for editing, I could have used more ram at least. Also I bought Mocha for Shake (from Toolfarm!) this holiday which would have saved me hundreds of hours of pain. *shaking head*. Hindsight.
MY: Well, I'm glad you have it now!
AV: Dislikes for shooting... It would have been great to shoot on some form of HD, have a budget for a generator and lights, pay my crew, bear repellent, more time, more money, toilets, showers, and a cot.
MY: I thought it was interesting that you mentioned that it was originally in German and dubbed to English, yet my guess is that it was shot in English (or you're the master of lip-sync!) Can you talk about the decision to mention that it was in German originally?
AV: Hahaha, thank you, but it was shot in English. Initially we had this grand idea to emulate 'The Hunt for Red October'. After trimming and trimming the film on paper, on set, then while editing there were only two German lines before the transition into English. That is how the "German and dubbed to English" came about. In retrospect, I should have shot this film from an American's point-of-view OR had money to hire German speaking actors. Again, hindsight.
MY: It is 20:20, they say. We noticed in the beginning that you used a lot of old footage then matched in with the style. Were there any special lighting considerations or anything else in the shoot that you needed to take into account in pre or post production to match that look?
AV: Everything was shot using available light except for the campfire scene because of the lack of power. Once I got everything on the timeline I made a simple "color correcting" pass adjusting my levels to broadcast safe.
Funny enough the opening stock footage came pretty late in the editing process, we knew there was going to be opening footage but we hadn't found it. When my producer and I got back from the National Archives I realized how gray the whites were from the historical footage. Taking a cue from that I dropped the whites giving the film a flatter look.
When I got closer to finishing the film I used a test clip to compare film grains from After Effects and Shake. A small group of us watched a looping DVD silently casting votes for what grain structure we liked the most, and in the end After Effects won which surprised even myself. I thought Shake was going to be the winner but even I picked an AE filter. With a nice layer of grain over the historical footage combined with our footage the two pieces came together nicely.
MY: Can you talk a bit about the visual effects? Did you use plug-ins? Stock footage? Homemade effects?
Let me break this up a bit.
Stock Footage: I used stock footage from Detonation Films and NoControl Cinema, each offer HD libraries - gravity of dirt explosions, fire, bullet hits, blood gushes, smoke, and all sorts of destruction goodness.
Bob from Detonation Films is one heck of a guy, in my mind he made it possible for us little guys to make a film with big time effects. Perhaps lesser known but equally as great is Marco von Moos from NoControl Cinema, his footage is fantastic. And Andrew Kramer, After Effects God of Video Copilot offers Action Movie Essentials. At least once a week I tell a new filmmaker about these guys.
Plug-ins: (in no particular order)
Trapcode Shine: Trapcode's Shine is amazing, I wanted to have light rays in the film, but without power for lighting and fog it just wasn't going to happen. Shine has fooled every film person I have shown the film to, it is absolutely beautiful.
RE:Vision Effects DE:Noise: Unfortunately I shot part of one scene using camera gain (+18 db!) because we were running out of light... I tried the filters in Final Cut but DE:Noise is way better, the difference is staggering, in fact.
MuzzlePlug from FXHome: This plug-in creates muzzle flashes in a 3D environment for After Effects, this combined with muzzle smoke stock footage looks pretty darn slick.
Trapcode Particular: I created the shell casings using Particular. I knew they had to be generated in '3D' so I could angle them correctly. I was doing tests with Apple's Motion adding behaviors like gravity but it didn't want to play nice. My anger drove me to buy this awesome plug-in.
Wondertouch particleillusion 3: While Particular is more sophisticated nothing beats the huge preset libraries and Pro Emitters from particleillusion. I used Eclectic 1 and 2 and the Pyro 1 and Pyro 2 Pro Emitter packs for extra debris.
RE:Vision Effects ReelSmart Motion Blur: I used ReelSmart motion blur inside Shake to add motion blur to my particles. First off I think it looks better and second I could change the amount of motion blur in Shake without having to reexport an After Effects project (versus using an AE blur).
Red Giant Magic Bullet Frames: The 'film' was shot in 60i, knowing that it was going to be converted into 24p. So, it was much better than the XL1s' frame mode!
Red Giant Magic Bullet Instant HD: When I transfer Panzer Corps to digibeta I think I'm going to uprez the footage to HD. I haven't tested this out yet.
Compositing:
I wanted to composite in Shake. The node tree made it a lot easier to envision in what order the effects would be introduced into the shot versus using precomp after precomp. I did a few tests before starting the film but this was my first real try at composting, so if this makes you gag I apologize.
MY: Are you kidding? You can't even tell that you used effects for the majority of the film.
AV: This was my effects pipeline:
Export an uncompressed shot from Final Cut Pro.
Generate the muzzle flashes using MuzzlePlug and shell casings with Particular in After Effects using the shot from Final Cut as reference.
Export the muzzle flash and casings each in their own Quicktime with an alpha channel.
Make a Shake project.
Track the footage using a DAMN pixel tracker (I wish I had mocha then)
Rough composite the Muzzle Flash After Effects with stock footage
Rough composite the shell casings
Add any rotomasks
Start tweaking
Hours later export an uncompressed file, import into FCP
Smoke a cigarette.
Move to the next shot.
Week later hate the shot, spend more hours tweaking.
MY: So how much of the film is actually effects?
AV: There were 123 special effects shots, in nine days I got a 'spine' of the effects done. I ended up fixing every shot over then next few months. I really have to thank my buddy Captain Morgan for helping me with all the VFX, he is a swell guy. Sadly, he was unaccredited in the film.
MY: I hear the Captain is quite good with After Effects. So how did you finish the film?
AV: Remember I'm on an older Apple G5. I exported film from Final Cut as an uncompressed file, that took about 8 hours (the film is 16 minutes). I added Red Giant's Frames in After Effects and film grain, that was 50 hours! And then compressing the first DVD was about 6 hours. I've done this twice now...
MY: As soon as you can afford it, you might want to consider upgrading your hardware. For your own sanity, if nothing else! :-) Did you utilize any green screen or blue screen?
AV: I didn't but I did a test with my roommate on blue screen. Below is my first Shake project :)
Panzer Corps Test 2
MY: What did you learn about filmmaking while making the movie?
AV: Oh wow, Michele. In post-production I was learning Apple's Shake as I went along. I would composite all day and take tutorials at night and apply those lessons to the next day's shots. Post felt like I was wrestling a bear, I was on top holding him in a headlock. He wanted to kill me, *laughing*, I had gotten myself in way too deep but I had to finish. I could go back and fix something in every shot but I gave myself a deadline and I kept to it for the most part. Later I trimmed 2 minutes to help speed up the film.
I'll just list stuff in a nonsensical list: Marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), various compression standards, multiple plug-ins, how to punk youtube kids, preproduction with google aps, air cannons, guns, ebay scammers, motion tracking, keying, music rights, where to buy anything, working 3D space, analytics, headers, film festivals submissions, what your friends will do for you, film auditions, fliers, Amazon S3, social network sites, answering nice emails, answering a-hole emails, how to borrow money from your grandma, how to steal to pay back, sense of humor, really this list would go for a long while.
Needless to say this whole project was a learning experience. I learned as many things to not do as things worth doing.
MY: What do you hope to accomplish with the film?
I am submitting to festivals right now, if you have an "in" let me know! I just want to someone to see it, if Panzer Corps wins an award I might learn how to do a back flip.
I am sending to festivals now and I have to say this is the worst part, the waiting. I think once Panzer Corps makes it's way into a festival everything will be worth it. At this point I have spent so much time, money, and thought into something where I know every flaw. It is the bane of every filmmaker I guess, you can't sit back and see what is good about it, I think you need someone else to see it and to relay that to you.
MY: What would you like the audience to take from it?
AV: You ask a good question, the audience. Mainly to not hate it, second to like it, third, to understand the film is about one person standing up to orders and ideologies, and doing the right thing.
Here is the real hard part, finding your home. I know I haven't made the next Saving Private Ryan but it Panzer Corps isn't crap either... Well, I hope not! So when you're in the running with thousands of other filmmakers all hoping to emerge and be seen sometimes you wish you could skip forward a year to see what happened, did it your film get accepted and where, did it fail? But then I would miss the payoff.
MY: What advice do you have for other aspiring filmmakers?
AV: I will give you a pro and a con:
Pro: The world of filmmaking is the best as it has ever been. Today, you can own a camera, a way to edit and show it to the world for almost nothing! You can make a film that the whole world can see! Five years ago that was impossible, think about that!
Con: Everyone can make a film now. What do you do now? Make more films, make every project better than the last, explore new medias, learn new techniques and software, expand. Filmmaking is like drumming, it is easy to do it badly. So, do it well.
MY: If you don't mind me asking, what was your budget? We have a lot of young filmmakers who would like to create a film like this and have no idea.
AV: No problem, the working budget was somewhere around $3000 and it should be about $5000 after festivals (minus travel). The biggest expenses were the props, food, stock footage and sound effects. Panzer Corps is not a historically correct film, it is a 'what if' film. With that in mind I was able to use props that could conceivably be from that time. Such as their uniforms are not what a WWII German paratrooper would wear, the helmet is right but everything else is fictitious. The missile should about 20 feet longer, their radios are modern, etc., but people only call me out on the obvious like the AK47 assault rifle, then I point out the film is set in 1953.
My advice to young filmmakers is to make a film in modern day but if you're going to do something historical keep the cast to a minimum. If you want to outfit troops in proper gear you would burn through a small budget in a heartbeat.
MY: What are you working on at the moment?
AV: Getting Panzer Corps into a festival, I think I may wait a year to start a new project unless I can quit my job to take on a new one.
Michele, thank you for the interview. I really admire Toolfarm, this has been an honor for me. I have spent many hours on Toolfarm's site and your customer service is top notch!
MY: Thanks for saying so. We strive for great customer service. Thank you for the interview too. It has been very interesting and educational. Best of luck in the film festivals.
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Microfilmmaker Magazine has a review of Panzer Corps that will be published on Feb 1, 2009. Also, be sure to check out the official website for Panzer Corps for lots of behind the scenes photos and even tutorials on how to make the effects from the film.
LOOP is one man's journey into a senseless world of bent time and elastic reality- a world where he finds that the sanity he seeks is the insanity he's lost. Michele Yamazaki of Toolfarm interviews Pericles Lewnes, Director of Loop, about the stylistic techniques used in the film- and the meanings behind them.
Shine in Los Angeles, CA recently animated and produced the title sequence for Kung Fu Panda, DreamWork's blockbuster summer film starring Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie. I spoke with Michael Riley, Creative Director at Shine Studio, about creating the titles...
It's incredibly funny and has a cool 70s style to it. They rotoscoped the faces of The Conchords onto stunt skaters. They talk about the challenges they had with the project and how they used lots of digital tools to make this really impressive video.
Yesterday I spoke with Daniel Land, co-director and vfx artist on the film Dirty Trousers. This is interview #1 in the series we'll be doing on the film, following it down it's post-production path.
Dan talks about the premise of the film and what obstacles they are encountering in post-production. They are using tools from Imagineer and Red Giant Software in post.
Seth Hancock is the Production Manager for the Convention and Visitors Bureau for the city of Indianapolis. He produces an amazing video podcast called 'Doing Indy' and most recently he directed a music video/branding piece for the city with Indiana crooner Jon McLaughlin titled For You From Me.
Seth and Michele Yamazaki from Toolfarm discuss the finer points of green screening and Seth gives some terrific tips on getting the perfect time lapse.
Yesterday I had the great opportunity to chat with Tomer Bahat, a music video director, producer, post-production (he uses After Effects extensively!)... basically, he is the jack-of-all-production trades. Tomer is an extremely talented artist with some very clever tricks up his sleeve. He discusses working on music videos from concepting to the final edit. See several examples of his incredible work, too.
Jerome Olivier, friend and filmmaker is featured on the Director's Notes podcast. Jerome discusses his decision to move to Japan, being a filmmaker, and his film Missing Pages
Pixels by Patick Jean and Q&A interview at motionographer
Shepard's work is very focused on both the good and evil uses of money, so it was a perfect fit for the video. The hardest part was creating a narrative without injecting too much of our own work. The video was supposed to be a Shepard Fairey video, not a "Syd and Paul make a Shepard Fairey look-a-like" video. We spent a lot of time going through all of his work picking out elements that would convey the overall theme and fit together in a storyline.
That was quite a problem. Most of his designs were in a poster or book format, not the horizontal aspect ratio of HDTV. Since Shepard spends a ton of time composing his work to convey a very specific message, the last thing we wanted to do was destroy his composition. We really worked hard and Syd consulted with Shepard to make sure he didn't feel we did anything to alter the main theme of the artwork.
Syd works in After Effects and he assembled the finished video. I work in Softimage XSI and Eyeon Fusion. We would discuss each piece of artwork and then decide if it needed a 3D move or could be done in 2D. If the shot needed to be 3D, then it meant possibly trying to recreate Shepard's artwork from scratch in a 3D environment. All of the 3D work had to fit the style of the artwork as well, so I had to do quite a few test renders for each piece to make sure the shading and look was correct.
AV: "Extensive undertaking" are two perfect words to describe the making of Panzer Corps. I keep questioning why I didn't just make a comedy or a drama set in someone's apartment. I was thinking about the script and how to blow stuff up, how to make war set dressings, CGI stuff and the list keep going on. It was painful, but a good pain like working out, finally I was feeling creative and the burden was a pleasant byproduct.
AV:This is my first film since college and my first real narrative film oddly. I have been a videographer for ten years directing, shooting and editing commercial, corporate, and web videos. I'm good at a lot of things but not a "God" at anything. But I can do just about anything, you can give me a silver star sticker if you like. Kidding, but I won't stop you.
Seth Hancock is the Production Manager for the Convention and Visitors Bureau for the city of Indianapolis. He produces an amazing video podcast called 'Doing Indy' and most recently he directed a music video/branding piece for the city with Indiana crooner Jon McLaughlin titled 
