tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88386409815085225882024-02-06T22:04:45.427-08:00The Reversion MovieThe Official Blog Site of the 11 minute Short FilmThe Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-27618747388207558512019-07-02T16:38:00.001-07:002019-07-02T16:38:26.725-07:00Stay in touch with the Director and the Team at<div>
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<a href="http://fb.me/CarloNgMMM" target="_blank">Our Facebook Page</a></div>
The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-3140466582955267732016-10-27T01:30:00.000-07:002016-10-27T01:32:37.424-07:00WE ARE MOVING!Hi guys!
It's been a while... But things are moving and so are we.
You will find future updates from me and my other collaborative projects on <a href="https://www.artstation.com/artist/CGIPadawan">My ArtStation Page</a>.
... I'll also be updating WIP images on ArtStation as I find the medium is friendly towards progressive posting of content and, most of all, keeping in touch with you, our audience.
So FOLLOW me on ArtStation, get yourself strapped in.. Cause we're about to go for a ride. :)
The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-25598184746565046832013-09-11T21:33:00.001-07:002013-09-24T20:21:16.550-07:00REVERSION at MET Museum Art and Technology Exhibit<div style="text-align: justify;">
REVERSION has been selected as one of only six animated short films that will be aired during the Art and Technology Exhibit from the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.</div>
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The Art and Technology Exhibit schedule is set at the dates and venues below:</div>
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SM Mall of Asia - September 26, 2013 to October 2, 2013</div>
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SM Aura - October 8, 2013 to October 13, 2013</div>
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REVERSION is a sci-fi animated short film directed by Giancarlo Ng and is the first animated film production by The Magic Movie Machine.</div>
The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-52290701540364202892013-04-12T02:16:00.001-07:002013-04-12T02:18:41.817-07:00REVERSION Featured on HERO TV<div style="text-align: justify;">
More than 700,000 cable TV subscribers living in the Philippines will be able to see an extensive feature about REVERSION beginning this month!</div>
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The feature, which includes an interview with the director of the short film, airs on HERO anime channel starting Monday, April 15, 2013 as part of its "iAnimate" interstitial segment between regular programs.</div>
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The interview can also be seen online via HERO's website www.myheronation.com beginning the following week.</div>
The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-71297959648076017272012-12-06T15:50:00.000-08:002012-12-06T15:52:46.294-08:00REVERSION Covered in Philippine Daily Inquirer<div style="text-align: justify;">
REVERSION's appearance at the Animahenasyon 2012 Festival did not go unnoticed by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which ran a short feature on the Festival, and even featured a screenshot from REVERSION.</div>
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On a personal note, I find it quite odd that this particular screen capture, and another one in the Security Room, both with Eve's helmet off, seem to be the most popular with journos.</div>
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The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-29055487797948539312012-11-30T17:41:00.002-08:002012-11-30T22:16:05.210-08:00REVERSION wins Best Technical Quality at ANIMAHENASYON 2012<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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REVERSION was given the award for Best in Technical Quality at the just concluded ANIMAHENASYON 2012 Animation Festival.</div>
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We are very thankful to the Animation Council of the Philippines for recognizing the hardwork and artistry that our team put into this short film and for including us in this special event which was graced by notable persons from the global stage.</div>
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The award caps off a remarkable year for The Magic Movie Machine and its team of first-time animators. While we set the bar for ourselves as high as we could given our lack of experience, the recognition of our efforts remains to be unprecedented and we are humbled by the attention various groups have given to our team and REVERSION.</div>
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Most of all, we are very thankful to the viewers around the world who watched our short film, gave praise or criticism, and we are very happy for those who may be inspired by this project to create their own short pieces of animated entertainment.</div>
The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-43864443640778090262012-11-05T15:29:00.001-08:002012-11-05T15:30:25.249-08:00Animahenasyon 2012 List of Entries<div style="text-align: justify;">
Animahenasyon 2012, which will be held from November 26 to 29 at the DLS-CSB SDA Campus in the Philippines has released the list of entries for its Animated Film Festival.</div>
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To decide the winner for a special "Audience Choice Award", Animahenasyon 2012 is choosing to run a viewer poll using a special 4-digit local Philippines SMS text number.</div>
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A few weeks ago, REVERSION won Best Design at the 2012 Suzanne Awards, becoming the first Filipino-directed animated film to win an award outside the Philippines.</div>
The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-39946872891991876202012-10-16T16:52:00.000-07:002012-11-30T22:18:07.416-08:00REVERSION Wins 2012 Suzanne Award for Best Designed Short Film<br />
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REVERSION was given the Suzanne Award at the 2012 Suzanne Awards for Best Designed Short.<br />
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We thank the Blender Foundation for giving us this award. In particular we thank Ton Roosendaal, whose Blender total production software made the film possible. <br />
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It gives me great pride in announcing that REVERSION has been recognized by the Animation Council of the Philippines for airing as a Category I Finalist at the Animahenasyon 2012 Animation Festival.</div>
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Animahenasyon 2012 runs from November 26 - 29 and will be held at the DLS-CSB SDA Campus.</div>
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Details at the link:</div>
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http://www.animahenasyon.com/2012</div>
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<br />The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-9627204512140935952012-08-06T15:10:00.002-07:002012-08-06T15:38:45.184-07:00One Day Early....<div style="text-align: justify;">
Due to an issue brought about by record levels of rainfall in the Philippines, I am making the decision to launch REVERSION many hours ahead of its planned launching time.</div>
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Around two other team members can launch the film actually even if something were to happen to me. But I wanted to be able to do it regardless of what happens where I live.</div>
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Throughout this experience my team has not been short of supporting me and finally patting me on the back when it was all finished.</div>
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Today I want to pay tribute to them. My team. My guys. Today we realize a small dream.</div>
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May we achieve many more in the future.</div>
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And also to you, our viewers, audiences, fans, even the inevitable haters. You are the reason people make motion pictures. Long may you continue to watch them. Long may you talk about them and long may you inspire others to make them.</div>
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Giancarlo C. Ng</div>
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Director</div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-35695199722919041692012-08-06T05:36:00.003-07:002012-08-06T05:45:19.222-07:00REVERSION Feature: The Render Guide<div style="text-align: justify;">
For our last VFX document we will be taking a look at a set of Blender features and scene-building methodologies which I think a lot of people take forgranted. Or if you are like we were before 2010, too intimidated to really look into.</div>
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This is the document covering the topic of scene layering and the use of Blender's render layer management system to manage render times separately per element through the use of built-in masks. There was a time we considered emulating how some early CG films were done with separate specular, diffuse, and shadow passes. But as testing progressed, it didn't seem to make sense on this current production to do that. However, what did make a lot of sense strategically was to render in layers that allowed us to make changes very late in the process without affecting parts of scenes that didn't need changing.</div>
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This meant that re-renders and detail-fixes were highly managed. But this approach was also important in ensuring each layer (and by that logic, each effect) could be rendered in its own time, manipulated, enhanced and associated nodes and calculations could be done before all layers were merged per shot for best results.</div>
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This Layered Images approach, while it sounds simple enough, is actually integral to many of the Visual Effects on-screen in REVERSION. Early on, there is a pretty convincing "mirror reflection" effect that was attained by using layers cleverly inverted and placed within other surfaces, preventing us from having to use time consuming Ray Mirror calculations.</div>
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Here is the final VFX Document:<a href="http://reversion.cosmunity.com/Render%20Guide.pdf" target="_blank"> "The Render Guide"</a></div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-35005611425928914492012-08-03T17:15:00.002-07:002012-08-03T17:21:35.367-07:00REVERSION Feature: Principles of Set Lighting<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today, we will be releasing the second VFX document "Principles of Set Lighting".<br />
For me, though, the alternate title could very well be: "Principles of Scene Coloring". </div>
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For REVERSION, we wanted the images to appear "serious" but we knew we didn't want them to be photo-real. This is partially by choice, but also partially due to the fact that we knew our limited resources wouldn't allow us to attain full photo-realism.</div>
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To that end, we took our inspiration more from how light and shadow is treated in traditional animation where they are literally "just colors" and how Stage plays use colored lamps to create atmosphere in spite of the limitations of sets on a stage. We took note of these and then leveraged two strengths of using CG animation: 1) limitless scale for detail 2) limitless color control.</div>
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We called this approach: "Starting with the Art instead of Reality".</div>
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The document will show you research and implementation to do this type of lighting. I do not think every film can use this technique. But it was definitely a good technique for REVERSION. It also reduced our reliance on time-consuming features like Ray-Tracing.</div>
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What is not mentioned I think in this document is that we also relied on a lot of "Color Scripts". Painted images that help baseline the look of each scene. This allows the Art to have precedence over Reality.</div>
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Here is the second VFX document: <a href="http://reversion.cosmunity.com/Principles%20of%20Set%20Lighting.pdf" target="_blank">"Principles of Set Lighting"</a></div>
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As promised, here is the first of three documents authored by Mitchell Sahl, one of REVERSION's Visual Effects Technical Directors. The document is entitled "Anatomy of an Explosion" and details some of the research we did in bringing to life this staple of the action VFX picture - the fiery explosion.</div>
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In this document, Mitch talks in detail about our research method, and in the formulation of the effect which follows within the document, you will see the approach our team took to realizing the research in "animated form" (as opposed to super-real form which is not possible given our resources).</div>
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The document also shows the "Re-Purposing of basic Blender Features" that allowed us to create this effect. This philosophy became our standard in formulating VFX Solutions throughout the picture.</div>
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Here it is: <a href="http://reversion.cosmunity.com/Anatomy%20of%20an%20Explosion.pdf" target="_blank">"Anatomy of An Explosion"</a></div>
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<br /></div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-76684863121949475972012-07-31T17:07:00.001-07:002012-07-31T17:07:15.837-07:00The Beginning Draws Near...<div style="text-align: justify;">
As I write this, 3 GB of HD Video with Stereo Audio are now being prepared for their final installation into the streaming service of our choice.</div>
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In less than a week, we will be ready to share REVERSION with all of you.</div>
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(More after the page break)</div>
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It is hard to describe what it is like to complete a project at this scale. When you watch your first cartoon, maybe at age 5 or 7, you think about what it would be like to make one. Sometimes the drive to make one stays with you. Sometimes it gets buried, as you go through other interests, school, and your career. It lies dormant. But it never disappears. Then it comes back. And sometimes, you get to act on that question.</div>
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In 2010 when we started REVERSION we had no concept of whether we would make it to the end, or what kind of changes we would need to undergo to do something at this level without even an inkling of the resources available at Art or Animation Schools.</div>
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We were hobbyists, "fans", untrained, and it was possible we dabbled into this a bit too early in terms of our skill level.</div>
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Two and a half years, and 16,045 OpenEXR frames later. It is finished. </div>
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Making this film changed us in many ways. First of all, it changed us as people. Not because we think we are better than others, but it changed us in that we, from our average ages being less than 20 years old, learned what it was like to set deadlines and a plan for ourselves and finish it.</div>
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It changed us as artists. REVERSION demanded in reality a level of output higher than any of us individually could produce at the time we convened together. Sometimes we look back and we still wonder how we pulled off all of it.</div>
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Two and a half years, 16,045 High Definition images. It suddenly feels like only yesterday everything was just pencil drawings. Today, we are preparing for its delivery.</div>
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I have said before that we always regretted never having prepared to make an orderly document or book regarding the production of this film. In the last few weeks, we have tried explaining to friends, peers, and others about our Parallel processes, and our Cell-based system.</div>
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While we do not fancy ourselves as being masters - We believe we will be Learners throughout our lives - we sincerely believe others can learn from what we experienced also.</div>
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Thus, in the next few days leading up to REVERSION's official opening we will be making public the three Visual Effects documents that were authored by our Visual Effects Technical Director when Pre-Production concluded for REVERSION.</div>
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This will form the next stage of our sharing.</div>
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The first document will be shared within the next 24 - 48 hours.</div>
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I am grateful for your presence here, and I am thankful for the patience, support, and excitement shown by the community-at-large for this project.</div>
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Sit back and I hope you enjoy the show.</div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-68303463157798856102012-07-10T17:11:00.000-07:002012-07-10T17:17:58.285-07:00REVERSION Is In The News Again<div style="text-align: justify;">
Hello everyone,</div>
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The milestones keep coming for REVERSION.</div>
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We're back in Blender News again. But this time we talk a bit more about the de-centralized Production System that was used for making the film.</div>
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You can read the Blender News feature <a href="http://blendernews.org/xe/Feature_Articles/1627" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY:</div>
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OK, so the magazine article wasn't exactly in depth. But that is down to the time and space available to talk about it. Of course it is not easy to talk about a Production Method researched over 4 to 5 years in just a few paragraphs.</div>
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In brief, Cell Production System has more in common with factory paradigms like "Toyota Production System" than say the usual studio or art driven process. You can thank my day job at an Ethanol plant for this orientation I have towards film production.</div>
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There is a "sort-of strict" adherence to "time budgets" for certain things and the value of certain processes is measured in terms of time. I say sort of because we did have an Approval Process for pushing a deadline back for a certain item. More often than not the "Art" arguments won over and we pushed quite a few things back in favor of improvement. BUT! This too is part of the famed "Toyota Way" ("Forego the immediate benefit in favor of greater benefit later").</div>
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In our experience, the Cost of Time was sort of like an expanding cone. While Editing and Final Mastering technologically aren't the most Time-expensive of processes, in reality these usually have the largest Time Budget because they are the point of no return. There is a saying that it's when you are editing that the film is actually being made so this, along with the Final Rendering, command the most Time Budget and everything else (Writing aside) is to support the Production Process so that you can have a timely and healthy status as you get to these last two phases.</div>
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Final Rendering, in particular, must always be considered at triple the time it takes to actually produce a render because Re-Renders are guaranteed. They WILL occur. So be prepared for it in terms of time. </div>
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Now for the part where the Cell system earns its name. In order to gain the maximum speed and time possible, a film must be made with small groups called Cells which are like self-contained production squads. X number of animators plus Y VFX assistants producing Z minutes of finished footage. 3D Modeling, Texturing, and Painting may be separate units. The concept is to launch as many sequences as possible that look consistent and end manufacture at almost the same time so that you can slot them into a Video Editor, check them out, and send them back to re-process if needed.</div>
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It's not the first render of a shot that counts. It's the last.</div>
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Right here of course are a number of drawbacks/considerations for this method:</div>
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1) The Director has to be able to cope with seeing a lot of footage at the same time and knowing exactly what he wants in each one so that there is no wasted feedback. More than any other type of Production System. The Cell system WILL fail with a disorganized Director because the amount of footage launched at identical times can be very large.</div>
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2) VFX and other Technical Documentation is as important as the Director himself. For most of the time, Cell teams will work with only Documentation and the Director's feedback with VFX Technical Directors helping out where needed.</div>
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3) VFX Technical Directors must also be trained to review footage from different points of the film and be able to give feedback that retains consistency.</div>
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4) Overall render quality ("Look and Feel") may be compromised to allow Cells to function without a render farm. This is the system's current weakness. You cannot expect to produce super-quality footage with this method unless all individual PC's gain incredible power.</div>
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Pre-Production is used to manage expectations, test solutions, and to handle these concerns and drawbacks. Again, the first consideration is to test the "Look and Feel" of the picture. The concept is to reduce Rendering load and time while trying to attain maximum Artistic Effect befitting the Story. The amount of time devoted to Pre-Production depends on the scale of the Story. The Pixar adage: "Do not be afraid to Fail" counts here. But only here. For the amount of months spent in Pre-Production it is OK to have bad renders, glitchy armature rigs, VFX that don't look quite right. But the concept is that when it is over you must have confidence and proven VISUAL demonstration that the film will actually work. You must have precise knowledge of how long each phase will take, which parts are going to be hard. And of course, how many Cells will be needed to finish the production.</div>
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I cannot stress enough that much of Cell Production is focused on the Director. You decide what rules can be broken. You decide what deadlines can be pushed back. You decide if the team will deliberately cut a corner to make a date. It's all you. Everybody else will be developing specific technique. The proof of their capability will be readily visible on-screen. But the rest of the accountability is the Director's.</div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-24872484563438518322012-06-28T05:43:00.000-07:002012-08-02T17:17:03.890-07:00REVERSION: Production Focus Interview @ BlenderNews<div style="text-align: justify;">
Recently completed an interview for BlenderNews regarding our film REVERSION.
You can read about the interview here:
<a href="http://blendernews.org/xe/1453">PRODUCTION FOCUS: REVERSION</a></div>
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The editors must have felt my original answer detailing the team members was too long. At any rate, you can finally read all about the principal team members in detail here.</div>
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<pre style="font-family: inherit;">N.B.: To all the fans and the faithful who have been checking in regularly... </pre>
<pre style="font-family: inherit;">You won't have to wait long now.</pre>
<pre style="font-family: inherit;">Start counting down those days, my friends....</pre>
<pre style="font-family: inherit;"> </pre>
<pre style="font-family: inherit;">(Magic Movie Machine Team Roster profiles after the Page Break) </pre>
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<b>THE MAGIC MOVIE MACHINE</b><br />
Principal Team Members<br />
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<pre style="font-family: inherit;"><u><b>Under Artwork, Visual Effects and Animation:</b></u> <b> </b></pre>
<pre style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Sidney Carlos Moraes, Jr. </b>- Sid is from Brazil and he's actually quite
experienced. In many ways he was our mentor throughout this project
but surprisingly he joined in much later - after Pre-Production had
started. Sid had worked on the Blender Institute project "Yo! Frankie".
I wasn't aware of his experience at the time and what we were really
looking for was a person who could do Rigging and Animation to a level
required for the 1 minute Pre-Production test reel. The Rigging and
Animation wasn't really working and I saw his reel and thinking he was
"another student", I emailed him and pitched to him REVERSION. I
still thought he was a student after he joined because he joined
rather quickly and was very eager to volunteer. It only dawned upon
me later that he was actually quite experienced. But because he was
also doing TV ads in Brazil he couldn't actually do more for REVERSION
except give advice on the File structure, the project management
structure, and most importantly, to give us some real working
information on how Blender's Linked Group system worked. Our group
had previously assumed the technology was not functioning properly but
Sid advised us on this and it became the key technology behind
REVERSION. Sid also did a lot of the Creature Rigging and upgraded
our Ethercorp Soldier rig to include control shapes and IK features.
Sid was very assertive about bringing the project up to speed by using
online storage media and by making sure the rigs were as close to
standard as he could get them within his spare time. In the end, Sid
didn't get to do a lot of the animation which I think he would have
been superb at. But he was very instrumental in really upgrading the
production from the inside and enabling the less-experienced members
of this team to reach a respectable result.
<b>Mitchell Sahl</b> - Our story with Mitch is not unlike those stories you
hear about how people got into the Visual Effects field. Mitch is an
Architecture student in Australia. In his spare time he was playing
around with Blender and, oddly enough, he was doing explosions and
other visual effects of the destructive kind using mostly World War II
planes and vehicles that he modeled himself. Around February or March
2010, me and a colleague were looking at the script for what became
REVERSION and we were set to begin Pre-Production. Remember, we knew
nothing about how this project was even going to be possible at the
"student level". The script called for some gunfire and explosions.
And that is when I started looking at various forums.
Then I spotted a video Mitch was sharing featuring a fighter
plane doing a strafing run on a destroyer or some other craft. It had
an explosion in it which I felt was a good fit for what we wanted in
REVERSION. So I pitched REVERSION to Mitch and the concept was that
instead of doing spare time blowing up stuff at random, he could blow
up stuff while following the script and storyboard. Mitch is one of
those students that really shifted into high gear as REVERSION
progressed. Originally we thought that Mitch would do the explosions
and pyrotechnics and we'd assemble other people to do other aspects.
But it soon became apparent Mitch had a real flair for a lot of the
things that constitute a VFX strategy for animated films. He was
sensitive to lighting, colors, shadows. Many of these things he
wasn't able to test or discover without working on REVERSION.
Importantly, Mitch is also very organized and very good at managing
his own time. When I see parts of the film, I can see the areas where
Mitch's ambition for the images exceeded my own risk-controlled view.
It is not that I wasn't ambitious, but I had already worked out which
shots were going to be risky. But as the project developed, and Mitch
grew into the role of VFX Technical Director for the film, he became
more and more daring in how to attack the riskier shots. In time, I
too became confident in his assessment of shots that previously seemed
risky. And in that way, Mitch's role in this film is very important.
<b>William Oglesby</b> - Will is the very first collaborator on REVERSION and
he had worked with me before on a previous animated short. When
REVERSION started, among the members of the group who were students,
Will was I believe, the only one who wanted to really pursue the field
of CG animation as a profession. A lot of REVERSION was about young
people getting onboard where we would try to fit them into a role.
Will fit naturally in the role of hard surface modeler, Compositor and
VFX co-Technical Director. But Will's single most regular
contribution was something akin to his VFX role in that he was
constantly pushing REVERSION to be as close as possible to the standard of
professionally made CG animation. The best thing about Will was that
he wasn't satisfied with just sitting there and harping about it. He
would fire up Blender and demonstrate what he felt was a good
direction. So while he spent the last 2 years basically deriding
everything in REVERSION that didn't look good, he also did his share
in exploring directions to make it better. This combined with some
very good hard-surface modeling and detailing in the sets and props
makes it clear that Will has his mark on this picture. Will also
completed the modeling of the creature for REVERSION when Ravi
couldn't complete the character's model.
<b>Stefano Marcias</b> - Stefano was the last team member to join us and his
role was focused on VFX, Lighting, and Rendering. He came in at a
critical time when Mitch and Will had both become loaded with family
and University responsibilities. Stefano essentially had to come
onboard relying mostly on documentation that Mitch had written based
on the lessons learned from REVERSION's Pre-Production and VFX work.
Stefano's true strength was in doing still renders. He had never
worked on an animated project prior to REVERSION, but within a week or
so, he had a very good grasp of how we were lighting the sets and
actors and pretty soon Stefano was already up to speed. This
crucially meant that important sequences that Mitch and Will couldn't
help with completing and rendering were now on-the-move in the hands
of someone else. All three basically working from a set of solutions
directed into producing images of the same consistency. Stefano works
as a programmer most of the time, and he eventually helped in
providing us with an FTP facility that was important in storing and
transmitting the HD images for the film. When Mitch and Will
eventually came back later they found that Stefano had actually
completed, to a very good standard, a significant part of the film's
lighting and VFX work. The August 8, 2012 date would not have been
possible without Stefano's arrival.
<b>Brian Truhlar</b> - I think the best description for Brian Truhlar is that
he is almost a "Guest Artist". Truhlar built an incredible set that I
cannot describe here because it is actually in a part of the film we
are not yet revealing. People should check out his Cinderella Castle
over at Vimeo. He's that good.
<b>Anton Victor Espelita</b> - Anton is the person who, in combination with
some of his own rigging and the rigging done by Sid, finally hit the
mark we were looking for with the motion of the actors for REVERSION.
Anton is from the Philippines and together, he and I constitute the
only Filipino team members on REVERSION. Anton's method of animation
primarily involves video footage and thumbnails. But Anton's true
gift is the incredible speed at which he can key-frame animation.
Frequently his motion output requires only minor fixes if any fixes
are needed at all. You can see more of Anton's work on Machinima.com
where he does some short animation "just for kicks".
REVERSION is the first time Anton had to animate motion of a
complexity higher than the run-and-gun material that he was accustomed
to and REVERSION is the longest film he has worked on to date.
<b>Ravi Sampath</b> - Ravi is a talented artist from Sri-Lanka. When
REVERSION started Ravi was still in school, but by the time REVERSION
was in the middle of production, Ravi found himself joining the
workforce in Sri Lanka. This cut short his active participation in
the film, but his contribution to the movie is something memorable -
He created the "face" of the creature featured in REVERSION. Ravi was
adamant about making sure the creature had the proper topology and to
that end the resulting topology in the face and head area is very
intricate. It also provided a very strong launchpad for Will and
others who helped complete the final creature actor.
<b>Wes Talbott</b> - Wes was studying art in Colombus, Ohio when he joined
REVERSION as the main Concept Artist and Texture Painter. Wes quickly
became very busy with actual commissions as REVERSION progressed, but
fortunately that didn't stop him from producing some very nice texture
maps, particularly for the creature.
While I provided the initial concept artwork for
the characters, Wes was the one who made them more solid and added his
own input to the armored suit and to the creature's scale patterns and
colors. His parting shot on this film is
the promotional artwork and poster that really represents his strong
sense of the image.
<b>Ben Hansen</b> - Ben is a friend of Mitch's who was brought in to help out
with some of the animation and other tasks. Ben fulfilled his role
quietly. His involvement gradually decreased when he became more
involved in his life as a firefighter.
<u><b>Music, Audio, and Other Talent:</b></u>
<b>Jeffrey Alan Pitts</b> - Jeff is actually a very experienced Sound Designer
who has worked on programs for Spike TV, LEGO promos, and the
web series "RCVR" over at Machinima.com. I first met Jeff when he
answered a posting I left behind in a forum looking for a Composer.
Jeff had become interested in REVERSION due to its unusual and
action-oriented nature and agreed to volunteer. Jeff combines a very
professional outlook on the project with an additional perspective in
that Jeff truly believes in helping to tell the story around the
images through the use of sound. Jeff is also extremely efficient and
clever with the use of his tools.
<b>Daniela Hummel</b> - Jeff's girlfriend. She is part of Jeff's Sound Design team.
She is also a fine actress while away from REVERSION. Jeff should
not have been so lucky to have an actress girlfriend. But he is.
<b>Dan Eckert</b> - A young German Composer, we spotted Dan Eckert on
YouTube replacing the musical scores on short scenes in blockbuster
films probably because he thought it was good fun. We felt it would
be more fun for him to do musical scores for us to expand his
learning. He agreed and the rest is history.
</pre>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-23118692705831158432012-04-14T07:59:00.000-07:002012-04-14T18:15:21.587-07:00REVERSION: OFFICIAL TRAILER<div style="text-align: center;">
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<iframe width="500" height="284" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ny-gV8kSnLg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY:</div>
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Mark your calendars people. August 8, 2012.</div>
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The trailer shows your first glimpse finally of how everything is coming together in motion.</div>
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This is also your first taste of the work by sound engineer Jeffrey Alan Pitts ("Battle For Terra", Machinima.com's "RCVR") and his fantastic team of foley and audio talents.</div>
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Jeff's arrival on this project is a strange sort of affair. REVERSION marks a sort of departure for Jeff from his usual types of assignments. In fact, this is the first trailer he is cutting for audio. At the same time, this trailer is sort of a follow-on to his work in animation from "LEGO Atlantis", "LEGO Hero Factory", and "Battle for Terra".</div>
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Jeff expressed a personal interest in the project from the get-go and his knowledge and experience were very helpful. To wit, this is the guy who taught me quite a bit about video codecs and video formats. An irony that should come from the Audio team informing the Director. But stranger things have happened.</div>
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You can see more of Jeff's profile here: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2914717/</div>
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The music for the trailer was composed by Dan Eckert who is a young and very talented songwriter and musician from Germany. He is currently working on the final film score (which will be somewhat different to the one in the trailer).</div>
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Dan's work with Jeff here represents the first time he has had to collaborate with a Sound Engineer and what is interesting about their process was how they (and us on the visual side) worked from each other's inspirations and results to complete this trailer. The trailer was re-cut at least three times.</div>
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The audio work is particularly interesting in that the music was delivered in stems to allow Jeff to assemble the entire soundscape by actually controlling the power of each instrument and sound within the music along with the soud design and foley work he was doing.</div>
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Admittedly there was not a lot of time available in Jeff's busy schedule to refine the trailer's audio to a level higher than what is here. But we feel what is in here, visually and audibly, properly represents the film.</div>
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The animation is primarily the work of Anton Victor Espelita, a young talent from Baguio City in the Philippines, myself, and with adjustments made at times by VFX Technical Director Mitch and VFX artist Stefano Marcias. The method of animation used for REVERSION is similar to one used at Blue Sky. The main poses are based on live action video footage, which are then used as basis for thumbnails which take into account the true shape of the actors. This is particularly important since one of them is non-human but Anton had to act out that role as well on video as closely as feasible. The thumbnails are used for the animation and tweaks are done until we achieve good Volume and Motion.</div>
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It must be noted that using Blender's Linked Group technology, the animators (usually myself and Anton), were able to do key framing using low-res versions of the actors so previewing was very easy. </div>
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Final tweaks are usually needed though when the hi-res assets take over due to the fact the volume of the models are not exactly the same. That and usually for VFX considerations, some animation changes occur in the hands of Mitch and Stefano.</div>
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The result, both in the trailer and the final 11-minute film is a fully integrated and collaborative output.</div>
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<br /></div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-4558754722224267022012-04-04T22:11:00.000-07:002012-04-04T22:11:00.099-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRwVkY468Qp4UHC2VGaDxrpl_5zHkWqosGNd7gZo7poTrFOH1EE-eO9ZORHKvMPwmEFQghLcl094wpDT3-P831fb5kSoQPBsrcBdGNBmSIC5gvEE93I_-uadEhm9ALo76cD9H28wkm7zcd/s1600/LobbyOverhead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRwVkY468Qp4UHC2VGaDxrpl_5zHkWqosGNd7gZo7poTrFOH1EE-eO9ZORHKvMPwmEFQghLcl094wpDT3-P831fb5kSoQPBsrcBdGNBmSIC5gvEE93I_-uadEhm9ALo76cD9H28wkm7zcd/s320/LobbyOverhead.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(Click on Thumbnails for Full-Size Images)</div>
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Are you ready for the trailer premiere? So are we. Just ten days to go before our trailer hits the web.<br /> </div>
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In the meantime, we have two new stills from the new 11-minute short film. The first image shows our Unknown Soldier accessing a panel at what is clearly the lobby that we revealed in our earliest updates.<br /> </div>
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The second image is taken from another part of REVERSION and shows a portion of the interior of the Security Room. This is a place where "sonar video records" (SVR's) are retained, as well as conventional real-time video surveillance. <br /><br />In the film, sonar recordings of all angles of an event (where you can look around an event from a single recording) play a key role in the film.</div>
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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY:</div>
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The first still is taken from overhead to create a sense of scale and it allows us to appreciate the height that was built into the Lobby Set and the massive DNA-sculpture that adorns it. This leads me to discuss something that is often taken forgranted in amateur animation productions. And this is to create a "height scale".</div>
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For REVERSION, if memory serves me right, our height scale was 2 Blender Units is 1 Meter.</div>
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Taking this into consideration REVERSION ended up with two sets that were very massive. I believe one of the sets exceeded a height of 100 feet in terms of height scaling. Taking note of the height is not just about making sure your actors haven't turned into giants. Taking this into account early on can help with ensuring the consistency of Texture Spaces and it allows for the intelligent planning of detail in all phases.</div>
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Is something really too small to take notice? Pull out the height scale and check.</div>
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In contrast, the Security Room in the second still image is actually rather cramped. Furthermore, there is an interesting story behind this room and section of the film. Originally, the script had called for all the sonar recordings to be in an auditorium or viewing room, but given some story events before, during, and after this planned segment, creating a large auditorium with an actor wading into it would have slowed things way down.</div>
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There were other problems associated with horizoning, and whether any sonar videos that appeared would properly display at eye level. Later, the entire physical design of the Auditorium had fallen into question, because in mapping out the facility it seemed the scale required for an Auditorium outstripped the rest of the facility and no longer seemed practical.</div>
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If your "map" has too many large rooms, and if you are making a film where characters "travel" then it simply means putting in too many large rooms slows things way down.</div>
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I believe it was Wes Talbott, our concept artist, who finally conceived of a smaller Security Room where it would still be logical to keep all the surveillance of events at the Congo facility. After showing me a design of the room and a short note about how it might logically work out, we enthusiastically put it in. It is important to note that by going through a very healthy discussion about what would work and what would not, we had avoided the massive wastage that would have resulted from creating the Auditorium. </div>
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The final result is that REVERSION's sets all take into consideration to a certain extent the amount of space and logically the amount of ground that can be covered whenever possible. Although there is some time-lapsing in the picture, we hope to present an overall logical flow of travel throughout the facility.</div>
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Still, everything plays second compared to Story and Storyboard. The Lobby and Security Room , for example, allow us to logically place cameras in high and low angles without much alteration to camera settings.</div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-77070451048774208842012-03-28T21:59:00.001-07:002012-03-28T22:00:34.131-07:00Some Stills From the Short Film<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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With the 30-second trailer for REVERSION set to hit the web middle of April 2012, we will begin showing some stills from the final 11-minute film.</div>
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The stills above are taken from two separate points in time while the Soldier is exploring the now-abandoned Ethercorp facility. The danger lurks somewhere in the corridors, maybe even behind the walls...</div>
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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY:</div>
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So now we can finally see how a lot of the things we've been talking about have combined to create the images we are seeing.</div>
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I am sure a lot of you out there have noted that there is a distinct "rawness" in the designs and the final look. This is true to our intention. REVERSION deliberately pays homage to the raw and rough-around-the-edges look of Sci-Fi films from the 1980's and the late 70's.</div>
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This is partially because I grew up in the 80's. But also because structurally, we wanted a mode of visual strategy where we could "point" the audience to certain things and call attention to certain things and ignore other things. We didn't want a picture where everything was dialled up to 11. So there was a conscious effort to ground everything, not necessarily in realism or grit, but to ground it in a way where everything respected a "Limit of Visual Expression" that was sort of a barrier for limited FX in the 1980's.</div>
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Our preoccupation with replicating some of these limitations went as far as trying to replicate the look of old films on Betamax through Color Nodes. We were going to intentionally make muddier images in order to get that effect.</div>
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However, after we had seen some early tests of this effect, we decided it was probably better to slightly modernize it by allowing more colors into the picture and making sure the volumes and shapes were clear and more detailed in High-Definition. This decision is particularly evident in the second render. Although our replication of "The Betamax Look" was actually pretty successful, it made the picture look dated and bland.<br />
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We realized we didn't want to use a direction that hampered our range of visual expression. Having a dreary look was great for some films like James Cameron's "ALIENS" which really used the visual limitations of the time to its advantage. You sat there working out what you really saw and what you only "feel" you are seeing.<br />
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We wanted the same effect, but eventually we wanted the same effect without having to replicate the limitations of old film and tape. This is when we started looking at color hues used in Japanese animated films from the 1980's as a sort of adjustment of our intended look.<br />
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The final look therefore is something we'd like to think is unique to REVERSION, although it tips a hat to a few older works before the advances in FX that came out in the decades that followed the 1980's.<br />
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<br />The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-33566021766004310582012-03-24T20:01:00.001-07:002012-03-25T20:53:08.245-07:00"Toys for the Big Boys...."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-oV-0loDH_5-7nhS87mB2k1tey8bSAoa3LXjj-Q21MK5wDX4Djin6kXXdDwPYlGqwF7msAb1nVAmOFpI7AaoVSK5KLJPZwmEoxPWhtYLbYM9-4r3YSxu6aLhV3mWvkYHtjRJFSs6upYx/s1600/gun.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE-oV-0loDH_5-7nhS87mB2k1tey8bSAoa3LXjj-Q21MK5wDX4Djin6kXXdDwPYlGqwF7msAb1nVAmOFpI7AaoVSK5KLJPZwmEoxPWhtYLbYM9-4r3YSxu6aLhV3mWvkYHtjRJFSs6upYx/s320/gun.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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For every large weapon load out, there is always a sidearm. This is a fictional Cal 0.45 chambered hammerless pistol. It doesn't look like much, but it draws quickly and is handy in a pinch.</div>
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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY:</div>
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Sidearms and pistols are an interesting element in prop design or in the movies themselves. I've observed that for many characters, pistols can be a descriptor for the character or an extension of the character's expression. This is notable in films like Robocop where original plans to use a Desert Eagle Mk XIX were changed because the Eagle didn't have a profile large enough for the bulky armor. In other films characters sometimes carry a firearm that helps to add to them in other ways, or helps to reinforce certain details. The twin gold-plated 1911's from "Face Off" come to mind.</div>
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Of course, no true audience will be able to pause a film all the time and notice immediately the differences, but the amount of detail that goes into what is the most personal of firearms is still notable.</div>
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The mention of Robocop's Auto-9 fictional pistol is interesting in the case of REVERSION because, following how we were desigining the armor and the other weapons, we were obviously going to go down a similar route because we wanted a pistol that was really a cross up of many pistols. However, in keeping with scenes in the story involving this weapon, we didn't want a pistol that looked like another primary weapon. In animation and games, sometimes I feel some designers just go off to try and make the coolest weapon possible regardless of its role so sometimes we see pistols that are almost as large as some of the other weapons. For REVERSION, we wanted a clear size variety in the weapons. The story calls for the pistol to be a sidearm, so a sidearm cannot look like another primary weapon.</div>
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We also didn't want a pistol that looked more advanced or too different from the other weapons.<br />
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Therefore, we opted, in the same bent as our Sniper Rifle, we started with most of the features from the ever-reliable Beretta M9. Then we looked at things we liked in the various Glock pistols and the USP 0.40. This pistol is modeled by William Oglesby, who I believe had to show some restraint. To wit, the original version of this pistol was in fact going to be the size of a Desert Eagle Mk XIX. But discipline meant we ended up with a smaller weapon.<br />
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Lastly, the FX team had quite a field day doing the pistol's final finishing. We looked at all the different types of Pistol finishing colors like INOX, Blued-finish, and Bruniton colors. Pistols are interesting in this area, because the laminations do have some effect on how light bounces off them.<br />
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P.S.: We're only a few days now from the trailer. It's looking really good.<br />
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Ciao for now.</div>
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</div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-8769567173117822712012-03-18T17:31:00.000-07:002012-03-19T01:46:31.159-07:00"Breaking Out the Big Guns..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMI2g4AVnoUaynewSR0spLnvSvDpia0Lkcq7l8Com4FkkN-S_eHofzL9-XLaseK-xk5JT4SORJVvDgojFvOGcZOSIgTXjvfH9b9MmfwrSFtXa8JFTdtbBop4O1bWac7WZ0S7Nn8q5zV7Bj/s1600/snipperifle2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMI2g4AVnoUaynewSR0spLnvSvDpia0Lkcq7l8Com4FkkN-S_eHofzL9-XLaseK-xk5JT4SORJVvDgojFvOGcZOSIgTXjvfH9b9MmfwrSFtXa8JFTdtbBop4O1bWac7WZ0S7Nn8q5zV7Bj/s320/snipperifle2.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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When doing business in a volatile region, backing up your claims requires more than just money. We continue where we left off with the last update, with an image of one of our more intricately built props from the film. This Sniper Rifle has been heavily modified to suit both an outdoor and indoor functionality.</div>
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The rifle's magazine is loaded horizontally instead of vertically to provide the least encumbrance in moving the rifle quickly. The ejector slot is on the rifle's right side. A rectangular bar over the scope protects it from damage while also allowing good clearance if the shooter wishes to hide under foliage while decreasing the chances of an obscured view from camouflage falling on top of the rifle.</div>
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The crates feature Ethercorp's icon-style "Octagon-E" logo, a prominent symbol in REVERSION.</div>
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The prop is lit differently from how it appears in the film to allow more of its details to be visible.</div>
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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY:</div>
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This rifle, much like the Congo-Sec Armored Suit featured earlier, follows the "near-future/next-step" artistic direction of REVERSION. In line with this this fictional rifle harkens back to the tradition of sci-films from the 80's where weapons were frequently combinations of more than one conventional weapon.</div>
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The rifle's original main body is based on a Steyr HS .50 with elements and accessories from a Barrett M82 and part of the barrel and weighted under-carriage from a Walther WA-2000 rifle. Smaller mods were inspired from the SVD Dragunov rifle.</div>
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The ejector lever was extended to balance the rifle visually and make it appear even more interesting.</div>
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At the time the weapon was modeled, it wasn't clear yet how much "little actions" would occur in the script other than the overall main action. We weren't sure yet whether there would be a lot of re-loading or maybe we'd want the weapon to jam to make things a little more tense, for example. So to cover bases, the weapon was modeled with many moving parts and basically this made the weapon an actor of its own with an armature.</div>
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To that end, the weapon had an armature which allowed movement for the trigger, the ejector, and the magazines were a separate object that could be detached along with individual rounds and cartridges.</div>
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Credit goes to Anton mostly for the modeling of this weapon, our VFX team led by Mitch took care of most of the materials along with reviews and tweaks from other team members.</div>
<br />The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-27076119088733628962012-03-14T07:27:00.001-07:002012-03-14T07:33:27.868-07:00"Beneath The Heel of a Steel Boot..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For today's update we have an image of a character turntable. The story of REVERSION depicts the ordeal of an incident's last survivor in an Ethercorp facility in the African Congo. This turntable shows in great detail this key character of the film. The design was used to help depict in some ways an off-putting side to Ethercorp's operation in the Congo in that it employed a militarized form of security in a region where regulation is known to be very fast and loose.</div>
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This suit embodies some of the underlying philosophy we have regarding how to design characters for a certain type of story.</div>
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The first consideration we had regarding this, was that we wanted a slightly contemporary, near-future look to everything in REVERSION. I am sure many of you noted in the earlier updates how the sets seemed futuristic but also didn't seem too far away from today in terms of years.</div>
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The armor follows a similar bent, so early on we knew, for example, we wouldn't be using the kinds of design directions seen in costumes for Halo or Crysis. To wit, we wanted something that looked like it could be assembled by a prop master in a garage.</div>
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In very early drafts of the story the character was originally some kind of mercenary, but later it seemed better for the story that Ethercorp hadn't hired a one-off military character, but perhaps had always relied on a militarized security force in the Congo all along. This "corporate military shock trooper" subtheme is something left into the current format of REVERSION but cannot be expounded further in the 11 minute format. But because we wanted to at least service this aspect of the story, the character carries the official Ethercorp branding, particularly on the back of the helmet.</div>
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Throughout the short, the character employs some information aids and instruments. This led to slightly assymetric design for the mounting of these instruments, particularly in the left arm gauntlet armor. In addition, the plate where the helmet optics are mounted is rotatable.</div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-61306317554393828682012-03-12T07:41:00.002-07:002012-03-12T07:42:35.039-07:00From The Magic Movie Machine Mailbox!<div style="text-align: justify;">
Today, we're going to answer some questions that were sent to us by some of you readers out there. You can reach us through many channels if you know us already. But even if you don't, you can email us at <b>askm3team@gmail.com</b> .</div>
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Our first letter comes from Juan Martin, a 3D artist and animator from Argentina, who writes:</div>
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<a name='more'></a>"Hi Giancarlo, thanks for letting us ask about the process of making the film entitled REVERSION.<br />
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I did read your post in the blog (dated thursday 8) about the process
of the short film, it was very interesting and i´m very curious about
the details of the thinking process behind the colour schemes chosen.<br />
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a conceptual question:<br />
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Why you picked a colour palette for a certain secuence and how they relate to eachother through the whole movie?<br />
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a technical question:<br />
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How you came up with the restricted and balanced colour palettes...how
many different hues you (the team) allow yourself in a given palette?<br />
if you can post a colout palette explaining things that would be great.<br />
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about composition:<br />
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I´ll appreciate any thing you can comment related to tonal composition
and chosen points of view of the camera to serve better to the story.<br />
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That´s it, of course no obligation to answer part of any of this!<br />
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Keep up the good work!<br />
Excuse my english.<br />
J."<br />
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Juan, thanks for the message! And it's so great that you sent this message in before we could even open our official email address!</div>
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Well to your first question, colors are a lot more important to a film I believe than most artists (2D or 3D) immediately think about prior to being formally trained. Usually, at an early stage, artists are more preoccupied by volume or shape, and in animation it's easy to get hooked up on motion. But if sound is 50% of what the total film experience is, and the pictures are the other 50%, then it is quite easy to see that colors (including the use of black and white entirely) makes up 50% of the picture itself. Ultimately, if you look at a finished render, and look particularly closely at an area, and just look at it, you will find that what you are seeing are "spots of color". And that is basically everything that appears in the film. It's all colors. Colors do have a variety of uses. I am not formally trained in film-making, but it's easy to spot examples of how colors are used even in similar genres. Say in the Lord of the Rings films vs The Chronicles of Narnia films. Although both are fantasy films, they tend to use different colors in their images to create different moods.</div>
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For REVERSION, the moods were important, not really entirely in a dramatic sense (admittedly there's not a lot of drama to be found here). But, it was more about demonstrating atmosphere. REVERSION was designed with a number of environments in mind, and each one required its own color direction to set the theme or feeling. The most prevalent one is a sense of mysteriousness by using swathes of "cold colors", contrasted with a warm color highlight, a special tone of red that is a common color in all our main episodes. There are then various pitches of colors, to denote mystery added with danger, mystery with secrecy, and finally, mystery with a "sense of finality" in a key sequence.</div>
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But what we realized early on was that just demanding a feeling and color range wasn't enough. The colors had to always blend well or else they would cause issues. Some colors are too far apart from each other that they cannot be combined, and forcing them causes "popping" of the image, or other unintended effects.</div>
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So how did we make this color scheme you ask? Well, our chief painter pointed us in the direction of a site called Color Scheme Designer (http://colorschemedesigner.com/). Apparently, scientifically, colors that work well together are equidistant from a certain color. In this case it was the unique shade of red that we wanted to use as a core highlight whenever it came into frame. We used this as a main Seed Color, and derived a number of "color grids" that we knew worked well because they were really equidistant from each other and had the same relationships to the "Seed Color". I think in reality, since we did not really study this formally, we might have oversimplified the approach to Color Scripting. But we found this approach to be effective. It has a correlation to our philosophy on lighting and shadows, but that is already another topic.</div>
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You are very observant to point out that Composition is another important step. The other important thing to note is that this particular aspect of the film is down to an artist's taste. It is similar to asking how a comic book artist chooses his poses. You will find a number of staple "rules". These include the 180 degree Stageline rule where it says you have to pretend a certain orientation of the actors is being done on a stage and you can only therefore position the camera in a 180 degree arc so that the camera can never fall "behind the stage" relative to the view of an audience. The other classic is the Left Side versus Right Side of the frame orientation. There are ways around these rules though, and I believe composition, and the art of deciding what's in frame and what isn't is really where the "art" of telling the story without writing pages of text comes from and why film and animation are so special. Again, every director has his "thing". Such as how Steven Spielberg loves to make characters look at something that is really out of frame, or how James Cameron ends the film Terminator 2 with a voice over talking while the frame shows just the open highway. Composition is important on two levels, if you ask me. The first is that this is where you show how well you can tell a story without writing a book. The second is that this is the primary means (after color) where you communicate with your audience. Is the view skewed? Is the angle low? is it high? Which actor is dominant? Which one is less dominant? Are they chasing each other? Where are they going? If they are in combat, who is where, and who is doing what? But remember that rules are made to be broken. For example, the Bourne films intentionally disorient viewers and cut very rapidly (around one cut every 1 - 1.5 seconds for action sequences). This can be incredibly disorienting, but it is not a mistake and I'd like to think that Paul Greengrass followed his own "rules" when filming Bourne action sequences, because somehow viewers are able to "catch up" later with where Bourne is and what has happened. </div>
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It's a thin line though between being very creative, and just being generally poor. In my experience Shot Composition was something highly, but constructively, contested throughout REVERSION because in the mind's eye the action unfolding in a script can occur many ways and looks slightly different to each artist. Again, I am not formally trained in this art, but with the variety of examples I found from Jason Bourne, to James Bond, to the Sound of Music, and on through to Casablanca, I doubt whether any school of film will try to tie you down to a particular set of rules.</div>
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The first judge has to be yourself. And if the angles chosen make sense with your team upon seeing the Storyboards or animatic then "that is the one that goes into the movie".</div>
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There is one more weapon in the arsenal which is something we borrow from the big studios called "closed door preview audience". But that is something for another time as well as these usually can tell you more than just feedback on Compositions.</div>
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Hope we answered your question, Juan and thanks again for the email! :)</div>
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<br /></div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-75612420262959543712012-03-10T06:00:00.000-08:002012-03-10T06:06:58.678-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NNgCRIG-cltegHGpZUvP5qE5q6SWsKWfJzm2qJmm4zFDlLkP1aKMUZoINygKzzJHlKpGJ63KzUN0UyKJLWXFiU10ddZW7mPmE3LCQI9Y0JzF3-aRDYGJxtQwXhm_707dgn6F-DyGgCHU/s1600/PosterV_print_complete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7NNgCRIG-cltegHGpZUvP5qE5q6SWsKWfJzm2qJmm4zFDlLkP1aKMUZoINygKzzJHlKpGJ63KzUN0UyKJLWXFiU10ddZW7mPmE3LCQI9Y0JzF3-aRDYGJxtQwXhm_707dgn6F-DyGgCHU/s320/PosterV_print_complete.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVYpczG-SahfREsTZYX0alfY05vHagkHTp419khPpI6aGyQs21hbwMtjcWBtPJUlr9_PxQvTmi01Od97pJjg35By2CS7fIrZIifEKIS_RxCdsunGTooR4XeEazvTZCN4w98wdw_TyaUNQ/s1600/posterH_print_complete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilVYpczG-SahfREsTZYX0alfY05vHagkHTp419khPpI6aGyQs21hbwMtjcWBtPJUlr9_PxQvTmi01Od97pJjg35By2CS7fIrZIifEKIS_RxCdsunGTooR4XeEazvTZCN4w98wdw_TyaUNQ/s320/posterH_print_complete.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(Click on the thumbnails for full-size images)</div>
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Alright, it's time to let the proverbial cat... er... lizard out of the bag. We were planning to release these later on as part of a possible collection with a number of variants. But this particular piece of our kit is probably the worst kept secret of this project.</div>
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So we've decided it's time to let it out officially.</div>
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Yes REVERSION should be available on selected video streaming sites this Summer.<br />
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The images are HD sized for Landscape or Vertical displays. Perfect for tablets and HD monitors. So enjoy these, people. It's all in the spirit of sharing.</div>
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In the meantime, we will continue to talk about how the film came together and we have some interesting content lined up. Have a good weekend, everybody!<br />
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<a name='more'></a>DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY<br />
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The poster is a throwback to the Drew Struzan 80's film posters that were all paintings based on posed human actors, except this time, it's a painting over a posed CG figure and the style has been updated for a modern audience. It helps that the "paintover" was done by the CG character's final designer, Wes Talbott, who is also our texture map painter. </div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8838640981508522588.post-31692483370140512062012-03-08T16:37:00.003-08:002012-03-10T05:05:55.774-08:00"If The Halls Could Speak, What Stories Would They Tell?"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OA0Apbi1H-FbNJjraCdlpKjRvof8fRUQdfZ6A_Sx8AYnpQJrzRkeNDFD4BFhWS0LXYx0eSBsT7WIBpmG05WeRsIi4BnTU6b2mbQj3FN1_XLq8z4MGdOZQqRj3npZWYy9vCOW9-yAjgsd/s1600/CongoBranchLobby.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OA0Apbi1H-FbNJjraCdlpKjRvof8fRUQdfZ6A_Sx8AYnpQJrzRkeNDFD4BFhWS0LXYx0eSBsT7WIBpmG05WeRsIi4BnTU6b2mbQj3FN1_XLq8z4MGdOZQqRj3npZWYy9vCOW9-yAjgsd/s320/CongoBranchLobby.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdplRH3iXByCxpfJEAfMdDH-qnNxN8A44jdtOswmgSemqapIlJYV6pDQs1OvEOJEZgwxLCeMb669PrQW40NNLEvFQXdro25qFFtOIQb-F83_BYgUlctnwKvn-VjZKD2xFe8iDvsFijgi9/s1600/Office8_December.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdplRH3iXByCxpfJEAfMdDH-qnNxN8A44jdtOswmgSemqapIlJYV6pDQs1OvEOJEZgwxLCeMb669PrQW40NNLEvFQXdro25qFFtOIQb-F83_BYgUlctnwKvn-VjZKD2xFe8iDvsFijgi9/s320/Office8_December.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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(Click on the Thumbnails to see Full Size Images)</div>
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Our first update involves two renders of sets used in the film REVERSION. The first one above is the Lobby of Ethercorp's biological research facility in the Congo, and the second image is from the Office set in another part of the facility. At one point in time, prior to the events of the film proper, Ethercorp may have had a sprawling facility where this ruin now stands. Insulated from the outside world, and isolated from peering eyes, what stories would the halls tell if only they could speak? Would they tell of the disaster that befell the place? Or perhaps there is a more intriguing secret to which the walls are now mute witnesses?</div>
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DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY:</div>
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Ok, so what we have here are two sets. Back when we were close to concluding Pre-Production, the time had come for us to start transposing some of the assets that were designed on paper into CG sets, props, and actors. In addition, the time had come for us to test in a more concrete way some of the principal Visual Effects that we had talked about in roundtables and to put to the test the type of choreography and visual style that was depicted in storyboards. This mini-work, called a Milestone Test, was something we borrowed from Jurassic Park and some Pixar film projects.</div>
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Basically the principle of it was: "If we can make one minute of footage that looks good enough for what we want to do. It is not impossible to make the other 10 minutes." These renders are actually from sets used in that Milestone Test and represent the first sets that were constructed for the film.</div>
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From very early on, we knew that with a running time between 7 to 10 minutes we couldn't possibly cover everything that Ethercorp had been prior to the events of the film, but we wanted to hint at something that could be left to the audience imagination and still wouldn't detract from the experience even if no one really noticed it. </div>
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Our Sound Engineer in particular talked about how we could try and tell part of the story with just how the place looked and sounded. This will include, in the final copy, things like maybe the sound of the air-conditioning left switched on. But visually we wanted to couple this strategy with some touches here and there.</div>
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What is interesting about the physical design of these places (and the other places in the film that are not in this post) is that we actually began the design process with pristine versions of the sets. Once we were convinced that it was something you could find in a corporate multi-national pharmaceutical operation in the African Congo (or at least what you would find in a "movie pharma operation"), we basically took a sledgehammer to the place to create the abandoned look.</div>
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We felt this was the natural way for us to make it seem like everything used to be very nice in this place before whatever it is that occurred had happened.</div>
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Another interesting thing I must note is that these set renders represented, at a very robust stage, the maturity of our Color Scheme system. One of my personal weaknesses as a traditional artist is that I never learned how to paint. Early on in the project I was aware of this weakness and I had invited Mike Ulrich, who is an excellent painter, to basically cover that weakness by working in the colors for the Concept Art early and in that way we could work the lamps in based on the color.</div>
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However, Mike suffered a wrist injury before he could even get started and he retired from the project. With that, our Color Scheme was left very late. Wes Talbott joined in many weeks later (almost after Pre-Production). This issue of leaving the Color Scheme very late in Pre-Production was a bitter pill for us, but also a valuable lesson.</div>
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This is because our script demanded a complex and changing Color Scheme. Basically, reviewing the script and looking over the pencil-drawn storyboards, we knew that we needed a different color tone for each "Act" of the film. This is quite different, say for TV ad work, or most game cinematic work where you have one color scheme and you carry it throughout the entire picture.</div>
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At the same time, it couldn't look like there was a different movie going on each time we went from one phase to another. This is where it pays to have color control, strict color control. And the sooner you have that control the better.</div>
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Again, the renders show the results. You have elements that belong in the same universe by design, but feel different from changes in color tone.</div>
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Most importantly, the testing that resulted in these renders revealed to me something a lot of the great directors have always professed to be true: "Directorships are not Dictatorships". When you share a vision. When you share an idea. When you tell a story. It conjures up images in the artists around you. On many days it will result in ideas here and there that are superior to your own. The right thing to do for a director, in my opinion, is to recognize when someone in your team is smarter than you are, or more brilliant on the day, and pass him the ball. The right thing to do for that bright team member, is to give it up for the team and let it emerge on screen.</div>
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There are many many things on these sets, more than I can recall or list out immediately, that are the result of inputs from the Modeler, the VFX Technical Director, or other team members. There are all these little pieces that really did not come from me directly, but came from what others saw in the story I let them into. And these are the things that really make REVERSION what it is. Greater than what I could do alone.</div>
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This "Shared Vision Creation" is something that marks every aspect of REVERSION; down to the unique way the title is written.</div>
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I didn't imagine I'd be saying this much just from the first update of the film. But indeed a picture tells a thousand words.</div>
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More to come next week...</div>The Magic Movie Machinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07478806873878384631noreply@blogger.com2