Mistakes I have made...

The filmmaking blog of the Dan Kelly and Artist house, Inc.

beta release

All this here is © Artist house, Inc. 2008
and Artist house ® is a registered trademark of Artist house, Inc.

February 23, 2009, Brooklyn, New York ------------------------------------------ latest news!
Glorious 8 Fold Protocol of Creation

February 07, 2009, Brooklyn, New York 
The Venus T5 and the currrent state of emergency

January 29, 2009, Brooklyn, New York
Launch of Almonds releases blocked energy

December 10, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
Killing babies or the holographic DOG

December 03, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
What's the plan? Guess!

November 28, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
Revised completion estimate and the release of the Book of DOG

November 11, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
Are we there yet? Roto upgrade, tracking, abandoned highway and the Obamas

October 22, 2008 Brooklyn, New York
Password protected update is made available to a few more members of the tribe

October 15, 2008 Brooklyn, New York
Bricks, a cruise ship and the San Juan River in Utah

September 11, 2008 Beulah, Michigan
Maintaining tribal integrity takes time

September 5, 2008 Beulah, Michigan
Climbing into the forest fire after the cowboy wedding in Wyoming

August 24, 2008, Ohare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois
In transit

August 15, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
297 hours on the motion graphic to do list

August 06, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
More fascinating esoterica about rotoscoping, the DV Rebel methodology

July 30, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
Goodbye Final Cut Pro and hello After Effects, tuning new gear for color accuracy

July 21, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
The rotoscoping adventure begins, what is rotoscoping anyway?

July 22, 2008, Brooklyn, New York
Rules for getting the DOG updates

December 10, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

December 3, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

November 28, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

Today is the day of reckoning, where I reckon just how much trouble I am really in. 2008 is coming to an end and Dan Kelly is committed to fully engage all control surfaces until the mission is complete - stopping only for food, sleep and exercise. So where are we, what does the status display reveal? How far are we from total completion?

Short version - we're not there yet. What to do?

Aside from living like a fanatical monk, my primary strategy for finishing has been slowing down time, essentially a collaborative technique. I could expand the collaboration and get some actual help, either by kidnapping alternate versions of myself from adjacent universes or recruiting other artists in this one. Kidnapping myself requires a deeper fluency with quantum physics than I current enjoy, alas. Since I don't know many artists who are as geeky as me, I can't delegate the tricky roto and motion graphics. There is also plenty of straight up illustration and graphic design - signs, grafitti and other visual details - needed to flesh out the DOG universe. I have beaucoup friends who can do that sort of thing in their sleep.

To get artists started I've got to compile a comprehensive inventory of the required visual elements and, with or without qp fluency, open a gate between universes.

... but the apocalypse didn't happen all at once. After the initial disasters and before national governments totally collapsed, supplies were air dropped to survivors in shrink wrapped cardboard boxes - lots and lots of boxes...

That's a sample of backstory and it's essential that collaborating artists have it.

If a visual element is going to work, it has to fit into DOG's universe. Real people have histories and so do objects. Designing visual elements for props requires an artist to travel to the universe that the prop supposedly belongs to, with all the assumptions and circumstances of that universe. They must be an artist in that universe, do the work there. Who is the client, what is the job, what am i having for lunch, how much am i being paid, what's my life like? Artist/actors, how's that for polymathic?

To help the artists make the journey, I have to give them history and context.

Enter the Book of DOG, a Design Reference, (DR for short). The DR describes what's possible in the DOG universe and provides a history of the characters and their environment (backstory). More controversially, the DR could reveal the project's premise (what it's supposed to accomplish) and it's general feel (what categories of experience and emotion are intended to be conveyed).

The premise and feel are controversial in the sense that defining an objective for art might be oxymoronic and intending specific emotions can be crass, but... when controversy comes between an artist and her bliss, she should not retreat. So with awareness of the paradoxes in play, onward.

Here is an example of a artifact or prop - a label for the disaster relief boxes. Melonie, Eiji and I didn't have time to make labels for the boxes before traveling to Canada in 2006, we just crammed boxes into every nook and cranny on the set. "I'll handle it in post!" Thanks to Mocha, I've been able to track the movement of the boxes in this panning shot and map the labels to them. The lower boxes on the right stack show what they looked like 'before'. Most of the other shots with boxes are static, so theoretically this is the toughest track. Notice too there is yet to be a reflection of the topmost box in the shiny wood of the closet door. Details, details.

So far I've asked 9 of my favorite artists to review a list of design challenges and choose whatever interests them. They'll start with conceptual sketches and with a little luck execute their ideas before years end.

Everyone who has contributed significantly to DOG has been paid, I won't ask talented people to work for free. All contributors are compensated - tho it might be deferred and somewhat below their usual rate. I won't pretend that it's not really all about excellent friends helping me wrap this sucker! Plus it's always impressive to have lots of names on the ending credits.

Now, let's have a look at the current completion estimate. My August 15 estimate projected 300 (297) hours of motion graphics or 25 days at 12 hours per day. It's almost November 30th or 105 days since I posted the list and I've accomplished about 30% of the tasks. If 30% took 105 days then the remaining 70% will take an additional 245 days or 8... more... months.

Something about this doesn't make sense to me, but numbers don't lie. We knew the August numbers were highly suspect but to be off by a factor of 4? Certainly there's was a learning curve to climb what with AE and Mocha, but that's not over yet.

What's the plan then Dan? Well, that's for the next update. I'll probably evaluate whether there's help to be had, if there is a faster approach than I've taken so far, what changes are the most important, and how much longer I can manipulate credit cards before I've got to go back to work.

Backatcha in December,

dk

November 11, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

Hey there! Three weeks just flew by, phew.

Since we last communed, I spent a week trying to accelerate my rotoscoping execution with the help of Pete O'Connell. His method is to track the elements and then build splines around the track. In lay terms, rather than trying to create an animated outline around Christina's shoulder at critical points of movement such as change of direction and acceleration/deceleration, O'Connell's method uses AE's point tracker to roughly map the position of her shoulder automatically. Automation both speeds up the process and generates a more consistent result. Sounds great right? The long list of caveats starts with AE's point tracker, it's persnickety with grain or low contrast. Anyway, I spent a week getting up to speed on the method.

Being able to eliminate or replace elements of a scene has certainly facilitated DOG repair. It's also expanded my imagination, what I'm willing to dream about in the future. I can jump and make nets appear, but it's a bit cheeky to do it three times every second. So, in order not to blow my cover, I spend some time actually weaving nets and making sure they are securely fastened to bulletproof anchors. Translation - knowing how to do something often leads to new ideas based on that knowledge. This contrasts with ideas that require completely unprecedented categories of knowledge for their realization. Going ahead with a project not knowing exactly how to do it is called making the net appear. That's the definition of DOG.

Speeding up the roto work is super crucial as there is still plenty left. How much is left, how soon will you be finished Dan Kelly? Can you believe some folks still ask me that question? Not everyone gets to read these updates. Caught off guard in meat space, I find myself resisting the urge to bitch slap the uninitiated. My 8/15 estimate for total, absolute, dang near completion was 11/15, 4 days from now. By next week's update y'all be privy to the RCE or revised completion estimate.

I shifted gears in November and returned to the opening montage, which will include the cruise ship and car models developed by Jonathan. The post production team is pretty skeletal at present, just him and me. As I concentrate on the shots that feature his models he continues to develop and refine his modeling and rendering. During my September visit to Michigan, Patrick, Jonathan and I stood in my driveway and talked about how the reflections on the Honda Odyssey defined it's geometry. The car models might be more convincing if the reflections from the existing environment were amped up, so Jonathan built tree models and moved them much closer to the cars than they actually appear in the scene.

The highway scene has evolved a lot. Originally it was just a empty highway with cloud shadows racing down it. As mentioned in previous posts, a call was made to flesh out the back story, to give it more umph. I imagined 4 lanes of dead cars stretching into the distance - perhaps an automated highway after it's controlling infrastructure crashed or car brains scrambled by the devastating effect of an EMP type weapon. After the cars were added however it read more like a traffic jam than a post apoc enigma. It needed something to show time passage, to illustrate abandonment. Snow! Snow also suggests climate change and unlikely weather. Several birds with one stone.

Here's a rough composition of the highway shot. I tossed the Pasadena sign in as a placeholder for someplace warm. Miami might be better and more recognizable as a warm place. Plus there are lots of pine trees in Florida, so that works.

The highway shot is slightly shaky because I was shooting on top of the Honda with a tripod and my weight on the roof made the sheet metal unstable. I actually like the shake, but it has to be tracked so that the cars and snow have the same movement. It turns out that this is a very difficult shot to track. AE can't handle it at all, and even the uber tracking software Mocha has to be carefully prepped.

I've been pondering how to farm out more of the finishing work. I know lots of artists and there is a variety of supporting imagery that I could use help on - posters, graffiti, logos. I've been thinking about extracting these tasks from the master list and assigning them to available collaborators. Deferred or no pay in most cases but credit certainly, lots and lots of credit!

On November 3 at 9:00 pm I tossed the cats in the van, drove 13 hours to Michigan and added my queer shoulder to the wheel. Because of my valiant dedication to democracy, these people will be moving into the WH. Cute aren't they?

October 22, 2008 Brooklyn, New York

Greetings friends,

It's been 3 months since I started these updates, and I'm ready to expand the audience a bit. For those of you who are connecting to the updates for the first time - welcome! Please read the rules. We are still in the monoblog phase, which means it's about me talking to you. As DOG gets closer to being done we'll be transitioning to a more traditional blog format where everyone can contribute.

Why document this process? It's good for goosing my morale and motivation for starters. This could also become a resource for the rest of the nutcases out there who aspire to make movies.

It's almost a cliche to say that the means of (media) production is becoming more available to the average joe and a bit of a lie as well. You've got to be a first world upper middle class joe to even think about it. The entire world pays a big price for first world toys since ubiquitous computers and digital cams require copper and gold mining, oil for plastics, all that packing styrofoam - the mind boggles.

My strategy for redeeming these inherent digital sins is to use my gear to educate and enlighten first world humans - a tall order even for a supra genius such as myself.

Let's face it, first worlders are pretty darn confused. Just one example is the widespread acceptance of the term "consumer". That's basically a plutocratic euphemism for slave. Ask an actual person what they do for a living and they'll answer in terms of production - fix cars, heal people, cook food, build knowledge, make movies. To take without giving is no fun, who want's that? Only the people on TV. Accepting a consumer identity enables the wholesale translation of the natural world into junk and toxic waste, paraphrasing Alan Watts. Somehow that's got to stop.

Making movies is one way of waking people up. Art can inspire. So can mistakes.

I think mistakes are great. That's why I made so many of them on this project. Without mistakes we'd all just remember that we're GOD (or DOG) and then - game over dude! Back to eternity and total boredom. Mistakes are the grease of the mortal machine. What I am trying to say here is that mistakes are what I've got in spades and they are the basis for most everything I don't suck at. If I can share my mistakes, other artists can have a good laugh and think of better mistakes to make, more ambitious ones.

At some point this update monoblog thing will be available to the general public, a great mistake for everyone to share. It might even be a revenue stream. A marketing scheme. A happening scene. My transcendental meme.

The rotoscoping saga is not over yet! I've been working with Pete O'Connell's Advanced Rotoscoping Techniques for After Effects. Did someone say Pirate Bay? Stand by for late breaking news on this and other stories.

October 15, 2008 Brooklyn, New York

It's been a little over a month since my last update. After returning from Wyoming and setting up at the Artist house on Crystal Lake, I cranked out a solid week of roto work, focusing on - yep - replacing the water in Christina's cabin. For those of you just joining this scintillating series of posts, that's the scene I've been working on for lo these past couple of months. Of course, much of the early effort involved not only doing the work but figuring out how to do it. My After Effects chops are coming along nicely, thank you.

I'd say I'm a little more than 1/4 of the way through this scene, 7 of the 13 shots facing the cabin window are complete and of the 6 remaining only 4 are challenging. I've yet to fully analyze the shots looking into the red hall but only about half of those require serious intervention.

The next week was dedicated to the cruise ship. Here's the background - DOG takes place after a series of apocalyptic events - climate crisis, militarized plagues, earthquakes, atomic war, alien invasions, divine retribution... you name it. I want to communicate all this in the first 90 seconds with a montage of "still life" scenes. It's kinda pretty what with nature reclaiming the land and all - not so many mountains of bleached bones. I cut an earlier version using found footage from crumbling factories, broken train tracks, abandoned highways... Upon testing with various audiences i got the impression that these shots just weren't hitting the mark. The post apocalyptic earth can be bucolic but there needs to be a dash of the sublime, of the epic. It's got to feel like shit happened. And of course, it's got to be fun!

I was somewhat inspired by my friend Kai. Some years back a cruise ship almost ran him over on his solo sail from Cal to Hawaii - coming within 90 yards before the crew finally responded to his radio calls. Not to mention that cruise ships are the epitome of toxic consumer culture. I figured a wrecked one would be appropriate for DOG.

Enter the exciting world of special effects and talented nephews! Jonathan had been working with Blender, an open source 3D modeling application for a couple of years. In April of 2007 I asked him to build a cruise ship for me. The basic model was completed over a year ago but it wasn't until last week I started work on painting the rusty texture map. After spending some time refining the model so the texture could be applied without distortion, we tested the model on various backgrounds including some that I'd shot on North Manitou island - part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore on Lake Michigan.

The original cruise ship circa 04-07, modeled in Blender by Jonathan Kelly

Though the results were encouraging, I lusted for something more juicy. The two shots preceding the cruise ship feature scattered bricks and water prominently, implying new beachfront courtesy of rising oceans. The cruise ship scene has to relate to these brick shots. The spectacular North Manitou beach scenes were not quite on, I thought perhaps because the color palettes were so different or the light. Something.

The cruise ship with partial texture applied, on the Hudson river near Kingston, New York. 09-21-08. This is a really spooky scene in motion, the fog and the draping foliage suggest a swampy bayou. Unfortunately it's not bright enough to match the light on the bricks. Cool though.

Again partial texture only. This is one of the North Manitou backgrounds with the ruined dock of Crescent City in the foreground. This shot is still a contender if the rusty ship could go a little more towards the brick palette. 09-21-08

Here are the bricks that the cruise ship needs to match. This opening shot is lovely with a stream cascading over the bricks which are more saturated and richer in color than can be shown on the web. It also a little ambiguous, sparkling water, bricks, an old tire... what's this all about?

Pulling back a bit - it's a beach made of bricks! kinda odd, right? In motion the waves lap gently, the water sparkles. What comes next has to have some of that brick palette, water, lots of sun... read on.

This week ended with my flying out to Arizona to hit the third phase of my Swim Across America Tour - (1) Lake Michigan and Crystal in Michigan not to mention the Betsie River, (2) Fremont Lake in Pinedale, Wyoming and (3) Utah's San Juan River. I was invited to do the San Juan by my brother and his wife, but I've got to hand it to Jeff Gibbs for making sure I didn't piss away all that jet fuel for nothing. I waffled on whether I should really drag my camera along and maybe drop it in the water, but he got my mind right. Thank DOG, drifting down a river for 5 days with nothing to do but listen to my cranky brother and bossy sister in law, fagk!

Anyway, I digress. I returned from the trip with lots of shots, and 2 or 3 that might actually work for the cruise ship.

Now for some crazy DOG magic! Last night I went to dinner with Kai's brother Dirk. He had just returned from a family outing on a cruise ship and (get ready) the ship that they were on was likely the one that almost offed his brother. Clearly this is a sign.

So now I am back in the Brooklyn digs and will be alternating between the roto and the opening montage just to keep it all fresh. More next week.

Here's a series of random shots on the San Juan. It's shouting bricks!

Finally, here's Jonathan (not my nephew) and Alan of the York clan with my brother Mike (middle) on the mothership. Ok, he wasn't cranky the *whole* time

September 11, 2008 Beulah, Michigan

Speaking of Crowley, today is the seventh anniversary of our camping trip to North Manitou.

So much for that day or two... the last six (!) days were all about friends and family. I seem prone to underestimate the amount of time required to maintain relationships. Despite my ability and even enthusiasm for working in seclusion, the "other" must be acknowledged and serviced. Otherwise who will care if the project rocks or is even ever finished? Who will vote for the trailer on Youtube?
I'm not working alone any more 'cause y'all are included in the process. Sharing with the stakeholders. Without accountability, very few people make changes. The change I seek is to complete this project and have a great time along the way. Thanks again for your help on this.

I'm plugged into the internet as of Monday. Yesterday was the obligatory wasted day that's required before re-committing, so now there's definitely no reason not to crank. It's not quite 10:00 am and I've noodled around with some minor masking details in the door shots.

I've got a 14 day work window before I fly to Flagstaff, AZ. Got to make the most of it. Once I've truly slipped back into the groove I'll launch this update.

3:30 pm. Been reviewing and tweaking previous work for most of the day. Back in the saddle. More soon.

Dan Kelly

September 5, 2008 Beulah, Michigan

It's been about a month since I last touched After Effects. The week following the 8/15 update went into packing and making the Brooklyn apartment fit for sub letters. I then drove 15 hours to northern Michigan, dropped off most of the gear and both of the cats and flew to Wyoming to get Dave and Darcie married. I also got a chance to hike up into a forest fire on the last day, pix follow. Returning to Michigan I spent an afternoon on the Betsie River and stayed up late into the night talking movies with Jonathan. The last four days have been a bit of a blur, what with unpacking, cleaning and setting up the gear. Tonight I am gonna find out how much I've forgotten how to do.

A day or so is usually needed to get back into the groove. Should be cranking again after this weekend.

Less than 24 hours before leaving Wyoming, a mad dash up the mountain to try and catch the edge of a big forest fire. Many smaller fires were burning all around. Snake Lake (top) and panning right to it's watershed (bottom) are at about 7000 ft of elevation. I shot this from about 8000 ft.

On the way to the "big" fire, I find many smaller conflagrations along the way. Here I watched the fire burning downhill, which was kinda of contrary to what one would expect. I suppose it's following the fuel.

Sunday 8/31, about 2:00 am at 9000 ft. I ascend through an area that had already (mostly) burned, but little fires flare up all night - like the one at the left. After sleeping on a rock for a few hours, I prepare to descend. The main fire edge is still too far to reach, I've got to get back down and catch Dave and his boat at 6:30 am so I can make my 11:40 am plane out of Jackson Hole. I've got four hours to descend 3000 vertical feet and bushwack about 5 horizontal miles with 50 lbs of gear... in the dark. Slightly challenging.

August 24, 2008, Ohare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois

The last week was dedicated to subletting the Brooklyn apartment and making the pilgrimage to Michigan. That all went down without a hitch and now I'm on my way to Pinedale Wyoming, for the wedding of Dave and Darcie.

August 15, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

Hello friends,

Mid August and time for an inventory of the motion graphics tasks, though with surprises around every corner there's really no way to compile a comprehensive list. At least I can document what's obvious, estimate the amount of time each task will take and project an ETA for the finished product. Of course I am still climbing the learning curve of After Effects and the myriad of supporting applications, so time estimates are highly dubious.

What the hell, let's give it a go.

So here's a spreadsheet detailing about 95% of what's left to do for motion graphics. On the right is the time in hours. Tasks that don't have an hour estimate are either part of another task or are not a priority. The total is 297 hours.

So 297 hours seems like a lot right? It is! That's 24 twelve hour days - another month of full on focus. 5% of the tasks on this list are completed, that's what I've been writing about the last few updates. So perhaps it won't take so long. There's also the possibility that as I get more experienced, my speed will increase. Again, time estimates are highly dubious.

Just for fun check the column labeled "specialty". Tasks labeled "repair" are the result of where I screwed up on set - continuity, lighting, shooting. The reason I've labeled these is so later I can look at what percentage of this motion graphics work was needed to repair failures on location. How much time did it cost me to make these mistakes? What can I do to minimize these issues next time? It's kinda exciting to think about...

So another month to knock off the motion graphics. Then what's left? According to Stu's order of operations I'll be at step 7 of 10, color correction. As I discussed in an earlier post, my prior color correction work in Final Cut won't translate to After Effects, so I've gotta start from scratch. That means purchasing a color corrector that will move between FCP and AE, Colorista. I can finish DOG with Colorista and use it on future edits too. I could use Apple's Color which I already own but my initial research into this looks like there's another steep learning curve that I just don't have time for. By the way, I popped for the professional FCP to AE translation software, Automatic Duck. Results from the free utilities I was attempting to use were frustrating. Credit cards are feeling the strain, thank god for 0% APR.

The color correction could take a week or two (wild guess). I've got another 4 days of foley and a final sound mix somewhere, so let's say another 2 weeks to wrap the sound.

I'll be on the road in September for two weeks doing weddings and river trips, so that puts me at the end of October for the big finish. Then there's the web site, legal approval, dvd duplication... So maybe snow will fly before these updates are complete. November 15, 2008 is our new (secret) release date. That's only one month short of 2009

For your visual fix, I offer a recent youtube video featuring the illustrious Australian citizen Brad Robinson and myself, along with his nef and neez and the vocal stylings of various other mystery players. This has nothing to do with DOG but it's kinda twisted and fun. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UcQXUQnMeM

Dan Kelly

August 6, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

I'm operating mostly from intuition. I know which controls to futz with and generally I achieve what's needed, but at this point I don't know enough yet to make a comprehensive plan. There's still a mighty learning curve to climb.

Are you tired of reading about rotoscoping yet? This will be the third week of roto work and there are probably several more yet to go - at least. For the red hallway, I've repaired about 6 of the 12 reverse scenes, the shots from the hallway into Christina's cabin with the over-exposed window in the background. In last weeks update, I thought there were only five to fix - oops. Warning - technical descriptions ahead.

To review, there are three critical layers to this scene, each defined by one or more masks. Let's start with the window and water. The problem in the original shot is that the water is overexposed, so it has to be replaced completely. The window is square in shape, partially covered by a venetian blind. I could get away with just a simple rectangle mask for this window, but I've added a horizontal sliver mask where one of the venetian blind slats was slightly askew. The idea is to get away from a strictly square window into a more haphazard and accidental shape. This gives the new window a stronger presence and integrates it into the rest of the shot.

Not only do the outline of the actors change as they move in front of the window, but light from the over-exposed windows spills onto the edges of their outlines. The actor masks have to cut in closer where there is excessive light spill, slicing off the bright edges.

One layer defines the new background (water) and another defines the foreground (clothing). That gives a consistent edge between the actor's clothing and the water. However, the actors shoulder is not completely in front of the window, but is also passing in front of the window frame. Even though there is no problem with the window frame, it also has to also be replaced by a new image. Otherwise the original line of the actor's clothing will change as it moves across the border between the window (new image) and frame (old image with old outline of clothing). The edges of the clothing that I cut away will reappear when shoulder is in front of the original window frame. So our third layer is a new window frame.

Here cut outs between the shoulder mask and the original image show how much the outline of the clothing changes, especially over the over-exposed water.

The camera doesn't move in this shot but the various takes differ slightly in angle and zoom. I grabbed still images of the window frame from later on in each of the 5 takes, when no actors were standing in front of it, (thank god!)

Even when nothing is moving in a moving image, there is usually dancing grain as the pixels or bits of silver quaver between frames. So when compositing a still image like the window frame, I have to add grain that matches the surrounding image.

The layers are stacked from foreground to background in a slightly different order than real life. Since the window layer's mask doesn't change shape, it's placed in front of the window frame layer and enlarged slightly to cover the light spill that is on the edges of the window frame. The window frame is the transition from old image to new image. It's mask shape must change to surround the entire shoulder mask while avoiding other unmasked parts of the actor's body like hair and skin. On top of these two is the shoulder layer. These three layers are built up into a composition, which then becomes the foreground of the original scene.

Think of these layers as an irregular blob with new image in the middle and a bit of original image at the edges. When the blob is stuck on top of the original image, the edges disappear. There's no more blob, either. It's a spaceship landing in a cornfield, a kitten talking on the telephone, a bowl of live crickets and cream. The illusion is accomplished.

Each layer is created like an Eternal's MNC or minimum necessary change (Isaac Asimov, The End of Eternity) - we alter only what we must to achieve the desired result. Building animated masks to isolate background and foreground (rotoscoping) can be incredibly time consuming and tedious work. You don't want to roto more than you have to.

Which brings us to key frames. An airplane high in the sky moving from left to right at a constant speed could be defined by two keyframes. A ball thrown up in the air is a different story. The ball moves up slowing until it stops and then falls down going faster and faster until it hits the ground, all the while moving from left to right. I could still define the left to right movement with 2 keyframes, but the acceleration requires more information.

The movement of a human body is full of acceleration and de-acceleration. Body parts rotate and articulate while moving, changing their outlines. Rotoscoping requires an ability to recognize where the crucial changes are - where a moving hand has begun to de-accelerate or when a swinging arm has reached the top of it's parabola. These are keyframes and once identified a mask can be made to follow the movement pretty nearly. So a lot of what I am doing is actually the opposite of traditional animation in that I am finding inherent keyframes rather than creating them from scratch.

Here's a strip of images illustrating the masks changing over time to follow the movement of the actor and the de-acceleration as his head turns from left to right. Notice the fuzziness of the head in the top frames resulting from motion blur and the corresponding fuzzy edge of the mask. As the head finishes turning and becomes sharper, the mask is also becoming sharper. The head is partially masked because it passes in front of the window in earlier frames and also interacts with the coat mask in these frames. A better masking solution for these frames would have been to mask the jacket up to the skin only. That's the MNC discussed above.

In July I joined fxphd.com which offers advanced production courses. I am way behind on the homework at this point, in fact I haven't even finalized on which courses I want. I am leaning toward red production night and day, miniatures and perhaps a basic sound course.

Nothing like staying home all summer and looking at screens. You couldn't pay me to do this by the way, it's all about the vision! I'm about to miss the WHO farm bus which is going to burning man and points farther west for the next three months. rats. Check out their bus which stopped by the Prospect Heights Community Farm today!

http://www.thewhofarm.org

So where am I? How far away is the finish? I can't really say exactly, but I am going to try and repair the entire red hallway by next week's update, that's about 25 shots in all, a good hunk of the first act and the very start of the second. I might know enough now to really crank. Next week I'll take a shot at presenting an inventory of what's left and project a schedule, though that will probably not be pretty. Keep your fingers crossed.

Until next week,

Dan Kelly

July 30, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

I've started translating DOG from FCP to AE. I've found a free script to do this, which saved me from having to spend $500 bucks on Automatic Duck. Much as I would like to own AD, I'll have plenty of other chances to spend money in the weeks ahead.

I've got act 1 in AE now.

In the last episode, I discussed relighting the red corridor. I've done several tests so I know that there is a look I'll like, that this effect is going to work. Following Stu's order of operations, (see below) I've stepped back to fixing image flaws and adding visual elements like box labels, posters etc. The red corridor requires significant motion graphics intervention, so it's a good place to start.

I've applied my limited knowledge of After Effects to rebuild the reaction shot of c as she opens the door for j. This shot is flawed in that the cabin window behind her did not have CTO applied to match the tungsten lights used in the shot, so there's some blue light bouncing around. Also, though a polarizer was taped to the glass, the waves outside are slightly overexposed. Multiple NDs would have done the trick.

Here's the original shot before repair. The waves outside the window are hard to see, they are about 1 to 2 stops over exposed. Also, the reflection from the window on the cabinet is very blue. That will be adjusted when I color correct.

My approach to this situation may not be ideal, but it seems to work for now.

I've broken the image into 5 layers. The unaltered image is the background. On top of that are three layers pre-composed - the new waves, the window opening with surrounding wood trim and on top of those two is the shoulder of christina that passes in front of the window. Finally on top of everything is the door frame, (which eventually will have some red light falling on it when I get to re-lighting).

Here's the shot after. Notice the brass door latch (lower left) which has a bit of christina's dress showing through. As she moves to the right, we see the waves through it. That's part of the top most door frame layer.

Here's the pre-composition showing the three mid ground layers. Black areas are transparent when placed over other layers. The black lines are masks for rotoscoping the shoulder as it moves across the window. As the shape of the dress and position of the shoulder change over time, these masks must be animated. That's the time consuming part. The blue latch mask shown here is not needed, it's been applied to the doorframe layer discussed above.

The waves I've composited are not the most exciting, and maybe that's ok. There is actually a lot going on in this scene already what with the dead uncle showing up bathed in hellish red light and all. Because I've done all the heavy lifting with the animated masks, I could just as easily slip in one of the subtle apocalypse shots such as the cliche flooded empire state building or wrecked cruise ship. We'll see.

I have 5 of these reaction shots to roto and reconstruct. C's hair is not a trivial issue by the way, that also has to handled if it passes in front of the window. Most likely I'll just trim out the loose strands from the whole scene so no hair ever passes in front of the window. Otherwise I'll have to recreate them from scratch because the original hair that passed in front of the window is totally blown out from the blooming light.

Stu Maschwitz suggests onlining in After Effects and provides the following order of operations...

1) remove DV artifacts (DOG was shot in HD, not DV)
2) Add any visual effects elements (you are here)
3) optimize the shot (technical wizardry involving color and contrast)
4) relight and change object colors (red hall, enhance soft focus with light tricks, etc.)
5) gradients, diffusion and other on-lens effects (may not applicable to DOG)
6) vignetting and other in lens effects (maybe not)
7) perform color correction (a big deal)
8) simulate film stock (maybe)
9) dissolves, fades and transitions, with titles (lots of these)
10) perform specific color corrections, resizing and sharpening for specific output formats (DVD for now, but could try a film out too after all this work).

Currently, we are at step 2 on this sequence. Some of the steps we can skip, that leaves us with about 5 major steps. I've also got to master the sound, so that's 6 (major) steps to finishing.

So why write about this process, why not just dedicate all my energy to doing it?

Got a call from my brother and he likes the blog style, thinks it would be of interest to other filmmakers. I think so too and I wouldn't mind including a "making of" micro-documentary when DOG is finally released. These emails are a start on that. At this stage however I am not quite ready to expose my completion process to the general public. Finishing this project is not exactly a cake walk, so I've only invited my top supporters and allies to tune in. Knowing that my peeps are with me week to week keeps me going.

Doing these posts is an attempt to slow down time. When I can consistently articulate what's happening, I feel more efficient. Not only am I taking stock of my own progress, but I am clarifying what's most important, what has to happen next. After writing my report, the time I spend working is focused and productive. I am then working super fast, which is in effect slowing down time.

With luck, many of us will collaborate on future projects. Sharing these concepts builds our collective knowledge of what's possible.

Stay tuned...

Dan Kelly

July 23, 2008, Brooklyn, New York

It's actually 7/23 today, but I want to make a entry for 7/22, so here it is.

I got up and jumped into re-calibrating the matrox mxo so i could count on the color. as a bonus, I am able to down convert the HD so I can see it on my little JVC ntsc field monitor at the same time. After tweaks and tweaks, the color on these two reference monitors is close-ish, so i feel prepared to move forward with effects and color.

The monitors. On top right is Apple Cinema Display (ACD) and top left is the JVC field monitor, both running off the Matrox MXO. Notice the difference in color between the (hopefully) accurate top monitors and the laptop screen on the bottom. $1000 well spent!

Now cue the DV Rebel book. I can't say enough good things about it, however it's pulled all the wind from my sails.

Here's a bit of background. There's offline editing and online editing. Offline means cutting the picture and sound to the point where it's about right. Mock-ups are used where more complicated motion graphic effects are going to go and there's some initial color correction. Online is finishing - mixing the sound (often with professional ears to help), finalizing all effects, turbo charging the color correction to get the look desired and then rendering out a master finished movie.

I wrapped my offline in the spring or thereabouts, I found a email to Jonathan who's doing some 3D FX work for the project that I locked picture on March 21. I had thought that I had done some of the online work as well. I started going for sound lock, recording foley and generally getting ready for the effects work by giving myself a crash course in After Effects. I was also doing my usual editing and production to pay the bills, imagine that.

Fast forward to yesterday. The DV Rebel book has some sage advice about onlining in AE and not FCP to maintain the fidelity of the original footage (files). I'm trying to figure out if it applies this project, but if so it means a significant retooling effort. I am pretty fluent with FCP as one would expect after 6 years with it. If AE were an airplane and I were attempting a landing, I might not survive. I can fly it sort of but don't expect me to pull any barnstorming just yet. So the prospect of moving the entire project to AE is a little scary, seeing as I am already 45 years old and DOG has taken up the last two. So I've got to think about this more, yes indeed. Specifically my HVX footage was shot direct to disk as Quicktime through FCP and as MXF files to P2 cards. Did FCP ding the image at recording time? Does the codec of my files DVCPRO HD get compressed on rendering in FCP?

If you are still reading this, congrats! I am sorting out the geeky issues here because I have to be clear when I post questions to the 4 or 5 on-line communities who deal with this esoterica. It should be clear by now that making a movie is more than having great ideas. It's work! A frothy soup of diverse disciplines. Persistence. Madness even.

So that was yesterday and a little bit of today. I have framed the questions and now it's time to find the answers. I just want to get back to the rotoscoping I started monday. With luck I'll be there this afternoon.

July 21, 2008 Brooklyn, New York

Ok so this week I'm diving into rotoscoping. That means isolating moving things from the background so that they can be independently manipulated. It's the red hallway effort, that is changing the lights in the hall between cabins to a red submarine type color. Here's why...

1) Red lights were used to indicate night time aboard submarines, to maintain dark adaption and for running on batteries (before nukes). Red light is hard to see from a distance. The halls in the DOG boat are darkish even in daytime so they would need to have lights on 24 hours. The engineer has only energized the emergency circuit to conserve power, which uses red lights.

2) Red is a swell color for our first look at joe, and for gerry's visit from christina. it suggests the red smokey wombs of low birth which hooks into buddhism somewhere as referenced by PKD. it suggest blood and crisis. it's sexy!

3) Red helps the speedup of c's knocking at g's door.

There are about 18 scenes that include the hall, 8 that need heavy frame by frame roto work, 6 that need a simple doorframe mask and 4 that need an animated mask to cover the grid of a screen door.

here's c meeting j at the door. Notice the colored lines, those are masks defining which part of the image is transparent. As the characters move, the masks have to move too, sometimes frame by frame (24 frames for each second of video).

As I was laying out roto splines in After Effects sunday, I started thinking about color correction and how to get my 3 way color correctors from FCP into AE. I have completely color corrected the entire movie in FCP, but the motion graphic work requires that I bring clips into AE and handle the color correction there. Yesterday I cranked on research and discovered a couple of things. FCP 3 way color correctors can't be translated to AE. So I am going to have to redo some color correction (perhaps all of it - yikes!) There's a well reviewed corrector that works in AE and FCP, called Colorista from Red Giant ($200). Apple's color is also an option, but the learning curve is not one I am willing to deal with at the moment. One thing also seems apparent, before I go to any farther with color correction, I had better get an accurate monitor solution. Last spring I was thinking about Matrox's MXO which allows an Apple Cinema Display to display HD accurately ($900). I already own two ACDs, and the new Panasonic monitor that I like is around $5k, a budget breaker in these low income times. The Matrox has great reviews, so that's what I picked up yesterday at BH. I also stopped off at Barnes and Noble and picked up a copy of Stu Maschwitz's hilarious DV Rebel Guide. I burst out laughing a couple times reading Stu's book while waiting for the author of Shock Doctrine Neomi Kline to speak, but by 7:30 I realized that I had the date wrong and she had already been there a week prior.

Anyway a good day of discovery all in all. Stu's book rocks but his movie "Last Birthday Card" which is included on a DVD with the book is awful - except for the amazing homebrew special effects. No matter, his ideas are sharp and techniques super useful, he even has another option for my color correction dilemma.

I fired up the Matrox box this morning and it seems to be working. Not a moment to soon... If I set this sucker up correctly, then my earlier color treatments are way dark. So it's all good! Betterer and betterer.

fuzzy shot of the new gear. The mxo is the box on the table with the blue light.

Introduction to the updates July 22, 2008

Many of you know I've been working on a short movie for the past couple of years - DOG or Daughter of God. Many of you are part of this project.

Director's friend: "So, how's the movie?"

Director: "It's great, shut up!"

This question is basically a horror show for someone who hasn't camped in over a year. It creates an immediate impulse to return to the dark cave of my studio and light the cold fire of flat screens once more, to summon and commune with the characters that populate the only reality that matters.

Over the past 3 months I've been setting and missing deadlines for finishing. It's not only doing the work required but discovering what that work might be. Along with the daily stack of creative decisions, I've got to identify, acquire and implement resources like gear, software, techniques and workflow. Simultaneously I've got to maintain a positive attitude and avoid distractions like friends and family.

" It's great, shut up!" is no longer satisfying to me, it lacks a certain detail and depth.

I'm into documenting the birth of DOG to share the discovery and to enhance my focus. This process is fascinating and highly weird to me. If you have no idea what the heck I'm talking about but are curious, this is for you!

Every week or so I'll be posting fireside chats. To get and stay on this list you have to follow the rules. 1) I am really, really busy so don't reply with chatty emails or call me. We can catch-up later. 2) Don't offer helpful suggestions or opinions unless you know what the heck you are talking about. I don't care about your brother-in-law's sister who dated George Lucas.

This is a hard boiled narrative, straight up. You must confirm your subscription by replying.

Ok, it's your move.

Much love,