Monday, June 25, 2007

Here's another update. This month has quickly gone by and much work has been done. Two weeks ago I finished my work on the soundtrack, although I'm still hoping for someone to compose an original score. I'm pleased with this progression and I've finally started to work on the final cut. I'm tweaking, fixing and altering alot of shots, just to get it right. No additional compositing is needed for this process so it advances rapidly. I'm almost done for the first two parts and I'm about to begin on part3. Once all parts are cut together I'll make final adjustments, this is just a matter of weeks.

Meanwhile, Donkey has been very busy with the compositing. He's done an amazing job so far and what he has done the last few weeks just blows my mind. He has composited very complex shots with many different layers in a very short time. I think he's finally getting to a point where he is able to produce high quality images within a limited time frame. By working on this project he has gained alot of experience and the last couple of years finally pay off. Each day I'm very excited to see what he has done next. There's always something that amazes me. The images are so full of details, it's hard to see it all.

For illustrating the complex process of compositing frames with different layers I'll show you a small production clip Donkey has specially made. So you can see for yourself the amount of work that goes in each and every single shot. Btw, this is a final shot that will be included in the movie. I hope you guys like it.



Also, the status has been changed, not much, but we're slowly getting there. But at the pace we're working now things are looking good. The moral has never been so high because we're finally seeing the result of our hard work, all bits and pieces falling together and slowly completing the puzzle of this complex project.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW! Awesome! Thats realy awesome guys! Keep it up!

Anonymous said...

Amazing... Groundbreaking... Historic...

Waiting for this film is so hard :]

Anonymous said...

Very nice. Cant wait.

Driehoek said...

Looks nice. Can't wait for the Blue-ray of this one.
I promissed Little Donkey that I would hire an entire cinémacomplex for him to launch the film if he could finnish the film somewhere last week. I just guess the offer wasn't enough for him, because he didn't try hard enough!

Good luck guys...

stlava said...

Amazing! You guys put so much time into every single shot! GJ. I know I mentioned it before but divx menus would be very cool for release.

Anonymous said...

Nice!!!!

Anonymous said...

Great work guys, been eagerly waiting for your release.
Sounds so exciting that you yourselves feel you are getting closer and closer.
Happy Holidays from Sweden

Anonymous said...

@ King Driehoek: a normal cinema will probably not do for donkey :p You'll have to come up with something better, Imax or something :p

Really looking forward to the movie, Strupie and Donkey are doing a terrific job. Also can't wait to see my acting ;)

Anonymous said...

I cant wait for the movie to come out...

Anonymous said...

pure <3

Tommy said...

Do you manually edit every frame by hand?

Anonymous said...

I can't wait donkey!!!

Anonymous said...

You guys are awsome!!!

Keep up the pace

;]

stlava said...

@tommy: No that would take way to long to do. Given that lets say they record at 30fps and a shot might take 20 seconds that starts to add up fairly quickly.

What they probably do is apply filters to each clip as seen in the video and things such as the smoke that are dynamic have keyframes which allows the effect to change as time progresses. I mean the smoke can be done by hand but I don't think thats the case here.

Driehoek said...

@ didi: I heard they are making a special version for a 4D experience in themeparcs. You know, the kind of thing with the shaking seats, and the gogles that make tanks come out of the screen and run you over. So I guess you can say fuck IMAX, 4D here they come!!

Little_Donkey said...

Well first of all, thank you for your comments :)
Well Tommy, many shots i had to manually edit frame by frame, because the keying didnt work wel. So mostly i had to make masks and animate every single frame manually.
If it was so easy to just apply a filter, then the movie would be finished.
Like in the shot above, the masking of the blackhawks is partially done by keying, but had still problems so had to make masks and animate every frame.
I know its time consuming, i know its crazy, but that who i am :p

Anonymous said...

Donkey is MAD!!!!1!!!

Anonymous said...

Please ! Make recovery in case of viruses or whatever. It will be apocalypse if the film were erased. Keep it up and good luck.
A french fan

Little_Donkey said...

Don't worry, we already made several backups, and are backing up our data every week.

StRuPiE said...

yes, we have several backups and on different locations but let's hope we won't need it.

Anonymous said...

I hope that, too.

If somebody erase this Film, I'll be the first one who forget his good childhood^^

cashin said...

This leaves me speechless everytime I come by to check up on the progress. I'm positive this video will set a very high bar for future Machinema. Definitely blows RvB out of the fucking park.

Anonymous said...

You guys made me love mahinima and video editing when The Fallen One come out, now that Sands of Fire is so close, All I can dream his to acheive something like this in my life ! Its nice to see some passion out your words, be sure that... DAMN WE CANT WAIT !!! KEEP UP GUYS THIS WILL BE HISTORIC !!!!!!!!!!! BOOYAAAAAAAAAAH TO LITTLE DONKEY AND STURPIE !

Cheers, Google Bot

Anonymous said...

Wow good job! Like everyone else, i can't wait until this comes out, keep up the good work!

Anonymous said...

Jut wondering, if that shot of the heli is final why is it so f'ed up on the right hand side. Seems like there are two masks or something splitting the iamge in two but the top one doesn't fill the space properly. :?

StRuPiE said...

@anonymous

You're right about the two layers, somehow one layer moved a bit to the left. It's no big deal because if you look carefully at the final shot, the layers are in place.

Anonymous said...

update update!

Anonymous said...

i think they deserved a vacation, stranglers :p

Anonymous said...

I cant wait. It is taking a while though guys :(. I have been waiting since the christmas trailer came out.

Anonymous said...

Well you can wait... I cant, im waiting since the first mention of "a new movie" after the fallen one xD !
Btw, hope you guys will be proud of your movie, and I hope it will give you some professionals jobs =)

Driehoek said...

@ anonymous:
I really hope this film will get these guys professional jobs, especialy little_donkey! If he doesn't I'll be stuck with him even longer at work and I don't think I can handle it anymore.