“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 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.
Orville Sharkbiter, Xtranormal and Animated Storyboards
April 22, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
A while back, I came across a program called Xtranormal (www.xtranormal.com) that allows you to create animated videos by just typing in dialog. I’ve seen a lot of short videos on YouTube that used the program. This week I decided to try it out.
I converted my short story Book Review: Sharkbiter – The Secret to Success into a script. The story is a satire of some of the get-rich-quick books that people write. I wrote it in the form of a fake book review. For the movie version, I converted it into a mock TV interview. It was relatively easy to rewrite.
I came up with the idea for the character Orville Sharkbiter when I did Line of Taxis (www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/filmlist/line-of-taxis). I used him as a minor character in the movie, but changed his name to Orville Stark-Leiter. He is the proverbial greedy “boss from hell”. I’ve played around with story ideas for him ever since. It only took me 14 years to get the story done.
I did a first version of the script with the on-line version of Xtranormal and I was happy with how it turned out. The desktop version is more powerful, so I want to use that. I ran into trouble with the desktop program however. The support people have been very helpful and I hope to get it to work next week.
The program is free, but you need to pay for assets, such as sets, actors, and voices. You don’t need to pay to create the video, but you can’t save the video to show or post it anywhere until you do. I bought some assets with the money in my PayPal account that I got from my on-line sales.
My long-term goal is to use the program to animated storyboards of my film scripts. I feel that my scripts are a bit too talky and I thought that animated storyboards would help me visualize how the final film will turn out. At the start of the year, one of the goals I set was to try this with my short story The Crying Woman (www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/stories/the-crying-woman/). It would run something like 40 minutes. The Sharkbiter video will run about 10 minutes.
If the Sharkbiter video turns out OK, I’ll do The Crying Woman next.
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.
What Next?
March 18, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
I got some nice comments from people about the award Contingency won at the festival last weekend. It was all very gratifying. Some people suggested I get it into other festivals, but I can’t think of any other festivals where I could submit it. Since the film is focussed on the $100 Festival, other festivals might not see it as appropriate.
I still want to get the film converted to video so more people can see it. Other than that, I am pretty much done with this film and it is time to move on to other projects. I am not sure what to do next.
I had a look at the blog post I did on my 2012 goals. My next top priority should be to finish My Most Difficult Case. It has been quite a while since I did anything on that, so I’m not sure just exactly where I left it. I need to set aside some time to review where I am on this project.
I know I have to finish the sound, but I want to make some minor changes to the images. In a couple of shots, you can see pictures on the wall. It looks like it’s unlikely that I can get releases for them, since I can’t even identify who owns the rights to them. One has a note about the organization that created it, but the organization doesn’t exist anymore. The other has no information about who created it. If I want to distribute the film, I think I’ll need to cover them up somehow. I tried that before, without much success.
I want to redo Some Days . . ., but I think I’ll do it later this year. It needs a lot of patience to do properly.
I published an article I wrote about “Conversational Films” and a blog post about my transportation planning story this week. I’d started them earlier, but dropped them so I could concentrate on Contingency. In my 2012 goals, I said that I wouldn’t do any more articles that were unrelated to my film or story projects. I had come up with several ideas, but I think I better drop those and concentrate on my film and story work.
“Contingency” Wins Award at the $100 Film Festival – 2012 March 11
March 11, 2012 by James Morison · 4 Comments
They screened my film Contingency Saturday night at the $100 Film Festival.
The screening went well. They had a good turn out. They moved the festival this year. The last few years it was at the Plaza theatre, but this year they had it at the Alberta College of Art and Design in the Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre. The festival was there several times in the past. My wife thought it was a better location for the festival.
The last time I went to the festival I only met a couple people I knew. This time I met about a dozen. I did some promotion of the film, but I only know of one person who came because of the promotion I did. He got the date wrong and went to the Friday night screening.
After the films were finished, they announced the awards. I was very pleased when they announced that Contingency had won the Best of Alberta award sponsored by Calgary Economic Development. That impressed my wife. I got a trophy designed by George Duncan
The host, Nowell Berg (who hosted the first $100 Film Festival) asked me to give a little speech. I said that I knew that while many in the audience were film makers, many others had never made a film. I challenged them to make a film for next year’s festival. I would really like to see that happen.
After the screening, several people came over to me to say they liked my film. That makes me feel good. I get a screening fee for the film. That makes me feel good too.
I haven’t decided what to do with the film next. Ordinarily I would look into getting some distribution of the film (Moviola showed My Next Film), but that requires I get releases for everything on the screen, and that would be a nightmare to do. I’ve lost touch with some people and I never did know the names of some other people. I haven’t decided what to do with My Next Film either.
I do feel inspired to make another film for the festival.
“Contingency” Update 2012 March 4
March 4, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
I got the picture and sound done for Contingency this week. I used a CD for the sound. It is very hard to get perfect sync with that arrangement, but I think it should be close enough. The projector I used varied between a little fast to a little slow.
I took the film and CD into the CSIF office Tuesday. The festival will screen it as the first film on the Saturday night (March 10). The screening starts at 7:00 p.m. in the Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre in the Alberta College of Art and Design (1407-14 Ave NW). More information on their website: http://100dollarfilmfestival.org/fest2011/
Melanie Wilmink, who runs the festival, told me she’d like me to record more information about the start of the festival. Back in 2003 (year 11 of the festival), I wrote a short history of the festival for the CSIF’s newsletter. I’ve posted it on my website now http://dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/articles/the-history-of-the-100-film-festival/ Melanie also posted it on the CSIF blog. http://csifblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/28/the-history-of-the-100-film-festival/
Over the next few days I plan to do some promotion of the festival, and my film of course.
“Contingency” Update 2012 February 26
February 26, 2012 by James Morison · Leave a Comment
I made good time on Contingency this week. I had it ready to take into the film festival office Friday, but then I got the extra film I shot delivered Thursday. Most of the new shots looked very good, but a few were disappointing. My sloppiness I’m afraid. I got most of what I wanted, so I was happy. There was only one shot I debated about using.
I felt the new shots were an improvement on what I had.
I tried to refinish the film Friday. I got all the new shots in, but the recut film is longer. It was only about three seconds, but I need to adjust the sound a little to make it fit. I didn’t have time to do that Friday.
I asked for an extension to get the film ready and they said I could bring it in early next week. I don’t think I’ll have a problem with that.
They have started to promote the festival and posted a “review” of my film on-line. csifblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/more-100-film-festival-reviews-by-tim-zak/ It is only one line long, but he is nice to me.
I showed the film to my wife and she said nice things about it.
I’d reshot my film Some Days . . . as well, but I had accidentally jarred the camera when I was shooting and the image was off center. Other than that, it looked very good. I decided that it wasn’t ready to show. Next year for sure!
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