“Sharkbiter” Update 2012 May 13
May 13, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
After a week or so on other projects, I got back to work on the Sharkbiter video I did with Xtranormal.
When I left off, I had created several versions of the video from different angles. This week I reviewed them in detail. I printed a copy of the script and made notes as I watched.
The first thing I looked for was pronunciation problems. A common problem with artificial voices is that they have trouble with some words. I tried to fix those with changes to the spelling. I wasn’t very successful with that. Other times I rewrote the line to avoid the problem word. Strangely enough, I found that while one voice would have trouble with a word, the other one wouldn’t. In a few cases, I could shift the phrase from one character to the other.
My next goal was to revise the script. I found that it really helped to watch the video. It made it much easier to spot problems with the dialogue. So much so, that I think I’d like to use the program with all my script writing. I’m not sure exactly why it helps. In the past, I’ve found text to voice software was useful when proofreading.
Sometimes I find it difficult to rewrite a script, but this time it was much easier. Often I’m reluctant to make changes. After I watched the video, I think it was easier to decide that the dialogue needed to change.
A third goal was to revise the expressions and gestures. Xtranormal allows you to make the character to express some emotion and make some gestures. There are only six facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise), which does limit you. There are almost 80 gestures, which gives me a little more flexibility.
The facial expressions allow you to change the intensity of the emotion. I found that most of the time I set the intensity too high and needed to dial them back. The gestures don’t allow you to change the intensity, although sometimes I was able to substitute a less intense gesture.
I also found I needed to change the timing of gestures and expressions. This is a bit of a trial and error process. I expect that after more experience I should be able to get it right the first time.
In the previous version, I had one camera angle for the whole video. This time I put in over the shoulder shots and close ups. I had planned to do several versions with different angles, then edit them in Premiere Pro, but I learned a few tricks over the course of the week and decided to go with what I could do in Xtranormal.
I rewrote the script, and then revised the Xtranormal input. Finally, I output a new video. I experimented with different output formats. When I tried before, I couldn’t import the AVI file into Premiere Pro. I still had that problem. I was able to work with the AVI file with Encore, Windows Media Player and Windows Movie Maker. I found that I could import the WMV files from Xtranormal into Premiere Pro. I used Premiere Pro to add the titles.
Next week I’ll review the new video and make more changes. I’m not sure how many versions I want to make before I decide to go with what I have.
The “Real” Third Man
May 6, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
I watched a documentary on YouTube called Shadowing the Third Man about the movie The Third Man. The person who posted the version I watched took it down. However, I found another version http://youtu.be/q6zLJrfoKyQ
I became a fan of the film many years ago. I enjoyed learning some of the stories behind the film.
I particularly liked some of the technical aspects of the film. The lights they used inspired many shots. They were very large and threw impressive shadows on the walls. Since Orson Welles wasn’t always available, they used a lot of shots of shadows on the walls to give the impression he was there.
One interesting tidbit was the origin of the name Harry Lime. Lime is a shade of the colour green, which is likely a reference to the author of the story, Graham Greene. The first name, Harry, refers to Greene’s good friend Harold “Harry” Philby, better known as Kim Philby the Russian double agent. Ironically, a dozen years later, when Philby defected to Russia, people called him the “third man” in the Cambridge spy ring.
I was also surprised to learn that many of the small parts in the film, such as the caretaker, were famous Austrian actors.
When I read the script years ago, I was surprised to see that originally they said Holly Martens was a Canadian. That would imply that Harry Lime was also a Canadian. I’m glad they changed that in the film.
The impression I got from the documentary was how so many elements of the film came about by chance and luck. I’m a little skeptical about that. I suspect they exaggerated a little there.
The Orville Sharkbiter Interview Video – Progress Report 2012 April 29
April 29, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
With the help of the Xtranormal support team, I got the Xtranormal Desktop program to work. Apparently, when I first installed it, the text to voice software didn’t install properly. After I reinstalled it properly, everything was hunky dory.
I completed an initial version of The Orville Sharkbiter Interview video done. As I mentioned I developed the script from my short story Book Review: Sharkbiter – The Secret to Success http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/book-review-sharkbiter-the-secret-to-success/ . I still have some work to do on it.
There are some weird pronunciations for some of the words. They suggest you misspell the word to make it come out right. . I fixed problem with the word “ganged” by spelling it as “gang’d”. Several attempts with other words have been less successful. I notice that when one voice has a problem with a word, the other voice doesn’t.
In a previous job, the person in the next cubicle was responsible for an automatic radio system that used a text to speech program similar to what Xtranormal uses. She would fiddle with the spelling for hours to get the pronunciation right. After a while, she got to know the tricks that made it easier.
The software allows you to change camera angles throughout the video, but I had some difficulty with that. I think I know how to do it now. Nevertheless, I decided to stick to one camera angle through the whole thing until I was happy with the voices and acting. I’ll add in other angles later. One option I like is to output several versions of video taken from different angles, then use Premiere Pro to edit it the same way I’d do any other video.
It isn’t as if the animations are great actors, although, for the most part, they are better than I am. The program does allow you to specify some facial expressions and some gestures. I did some of those and I think it does improve the video, so I want to add some more. Many of the gestures are really over the top, which limits me a bit.
If all goes well, I should have the video wrapped up and posted next week. I have other commitments Monday and Tuesday, so it’ll be Wednesday until I can work on it again.
Amazon Studios, “Orville Sharkbiter” and “Bright Freedom”
April 8, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
It was a little bit of everything this last week. At least I made a little progress here and there.
Amazon Studios
Back in 2010, I submitted my script The Doorman’s Sacrifice to Amazon Studios. It didn’t get much interest or feedback. I lost interest in the whole thing. This week I got a note that they’d changed their rules. Initially you had to agree that you gave them an option on the script that lasted for a year and a half. If they wanted to, they could extend the option, but they would pay you for that.
The rule change was to reduce the initial year and a half option to 45 days. They also now allow you to delete the script after the option expires. I decided to delete my script. While they had an option on the script, I couldn’t really do anything else with it. Now I can. Not sure what. I can’t have all my projects on the front burner.
Bright Freedom
I only worked on Bright Freedom for a couple days this week. I still kept it to about one hour each day, so it was a tad over 2 hours I wrote. That got me about 1,800 words. That brings me close to 4,800. Altogether, I think I am almost a fifth of the way through.
I am not too happy with my writing though. It seems like I use the same phrases over and over. It will need a fair bit of rewriting to fix that. I need to talk to some people to see if the basics of the plot are realistic. I suppose I should clean it up as much as I can before I have other people read it. On the other hand, if the plot makes no sense, then that effort would be wasted.
Orville Sharkbiter
I’ve been trying out some Google AdWords to promote my Orville Sharkbiter story. I got some free ad credits a while ago and thought I’d experiment a bit. I did a fair bit of analysis of the statistics AdWords produces. I don’t seem to have much difficulty getting people to click the ad, but if the campaign is to work, I need them to share the page. That hasn’t happened. Yet.
I read a book a short time ago called Made to Stick about how to create viral messages. I used some of the ideas to develop some Ads, but I’m afraid to use them. Some people might find them misleading, and get angry with me. It is not just a mater of attracting people, but it has to be the right kind of people.
Committed to Write (Bright Freedom)
April 1, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
I have a bunch of writing projects strewn about undone, so last week I set a goal that I would devote an hour per day writing. I managed to keep it until Thursday. I hope to do better this week.
I wanted to rewrite the Bright Freedom script I wrote into a novel, but hadn’t decided when I would do that. I started on it this week. I got about 2,800 words done. I think it will end up at about 28,000 words, which would make it a novella rather than a novel.
There are some problems with the story and it will need some rewrites. I find that my rewrite still sounds like script directions and not description. In a script you don’t normally describe what people look like, or dress, or behave. You leave that for the actors to develop. In a novella, you can use those descriptions to make the characters more real. It can also be used to create mood. In what I’ve done so far, I haven’t done much of that.
I still need to do some background research on the story. Are the characters believable? I don’t want them to be stereotypes, and, most assuredly, I don’t want them to be offensive stereotypes. I need to find people who have had similar life experiences and get their feedback. I thought that it would be easier if I had a story they could read.
The main character is a woman from a foreign country. I’ve never been a woman. I have visited other countries, but never emigrated to one. While I try to put myself in that mindset, it would be foolhardy of me to assume that I’ve got it right.
At my one hour a day pace, it would take me six weeks to finish the initial rewrite. I expect that I will hit the wall at some points where what I have in the script just isn’t what I want. Part of me wants to just do a straight conversion, while another part wants to rewrite as I go along.
We’ll see how it goes next week.
“My Most Difficult Case” Update – 2012 March 25
March 25, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
After a long (too long) delay I am back to work on My Most Difficult Case. I hadn’t done any work on it since last October. I wasn’t even sure what I had to do. I was glad to find that I made some notes back then. The major piece of work left to do is the sound track. Thanks to some good advice from Patrick Aull, I solved the problem I had with noise on the sound from the set.
I didn’t work on the sound this week though. Instead, I tried to modify a couple of brief shots in the film. They are the shots where the killer stalks and kills his victim. These two shots were very difficult to get. I had to shoot them three times before I got something I could use.
The problem with them is that you can see some of the pictures on the wall in the background. If I want to sell the film to a commercial network, I need to get releases for the picture. I tried to find out who owned the rights to the pictures, but got nowhere. I don’t see any way I can hope to get releases for them.
I could likely cut the shots out and not affect the film much. However, after all that trouble I went through to get the shots, I find it hard to just toss them.
I tried several times before to use a garbage key to create a composite to cover up the pictures. I did that successfully with another shot in the film. I didn’t have the same success with these shots. I tried a difference matte this time. From what I read, it should have worked, but it didn’t. I think it was partly because I had a monochrome image and it needed some color to identify the differences. Also, since it was a transfer from film, the grain meant that each pixel would change slightly from frame to frame.
I went back to a garbage key. I reviewed all my takes and found ones where the actors didn’t block out the pictures. This resulted in slightly shorter shots. I am not quite done yet. In the middle of one of the shots, the camera shifts a little and you can see where I covered up the pictures. I think I can fix that without too much trouble.
I was disappointed that the alternative takes were not as dramatic as the originals. I have something I can use now, but I still want to experiment some more and see if I can get a better result. The sound track is the priority now.
