Messing With Sound!

Today I was working on sound and thought I’d add some to the Power Dog Jump Test footage I filmed over the weekend (see blog entry below).

First thing, I needed to add the sound of the wind as Power Dog jumped through the air. As you can see, this gives the scene more of a movie feel.

Then I thought that it needed some music as well, just to give it that much needed “Can You Read My Mind” push over the edge. Here’s what adding that does to the clip.

All in all, it was a pretty fun day messing around with the movie. Adding sound was never going to be a challenge, but it gave me something else to focus on, even if it was for only a day.

Tomorrow I’m back to working on the visuals. I may even try my hand at some super speed and some explosions. We’ll see. :)

Power Dog Test Footage!

Alright! I did another test this weekend. I used a different backdrop and did some different things with lighting. I also used a tripod (something that was missing in the last test video). All in all, this effort was better. That said, there are still things that need improvement.

First off, the blue background was not completely flat. I used a blue tarp I bought specifically for this project and didn’t iron it out when I opened the package, leaving the creases from the folds left from the packaging. I will iron the tarp before my next test to see if that gets rid of the folds.

I also need to do more work on the lighting. The lighting is still too harsh and I will need to make bounce cards to help diffuse the glare.

I also used a flat surface for Gibson to sit on and this makes him look way to stiff to actually look like he’s jumping/flying. I am planning on building a surface with a hump in the middle that will give him more of an arch underneath and help make him look less stiff.

I’m also going to have to break down and buy some blue chroma key paint. This, along with ironing out the tarp, will make the surfaces less reflective which I now believe will be the only way to get an even, blue surface for the background.

Stay tuned for more test footage!

First Blue Screen Test Is A Learning Experience!

Alright! Here it is! The first blue screen test footage for the movie. As you can see, it wasn’t a complete disaster. It’s far from perfect, but it’s a fair start. I knew this was going to be difficult and this first test only cemented that fact.

What worked? Well, I was able to cut out the blue from the live action footage and merge it with the background image.

What didn’t work? To put it plainly, it's not that good.

Why? Lighting, lighting, lighting! The first rule to getting good results with Chroma Key is to have good lighting. I clearly did not have good lighting. You have to get a good, even blue in the background for Chroma Key to work. If you don’t, you get splotchy, uneven removal of the blue. That is exactly what happened here. In order to correct this problem I altered the color levels to make the blue stand out. This also brought out the blue in everything else. I countered this by tweaking the brightness, contrast and saturation. What was left was a color tone to T-Boom that didn't come close to matching the background. He is also slightly transparent at times.

So, what I learned from this is that without good video to start off with then there is no point in trying the Chroma Key process. That said, I’m going to spend the next week working with different types of blue backgrounds to see what works the best. Then I need to figure out how to light it evenly. Once I get those two things done I will hopefully have a better video.

Backdrops, Backdrops, Backdrops!

Well, it’s been a crazy week. The rewrites of the script are minor at best; clarifying descriptions, polishing dialogue, adding a scene to help the flow, things like that. I’ll soon sit down to do a complete read through and that will give me an idea of the running time of the film.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on backdrops for the film. I’ve also decided that I’m not going to do mono-colored backdrops. The one’s I’ve put together look so rich and nice that I don’t want to alter them.

I hope to do some blue screen test footage this weekend. I’m hoping it looks good because that will be one less thing to worry about. Now that the script is nearly complete I’ve turned my attention to how I’m going to film it. The chroma key is just one aspect of the filming. Once I’m convinced I’ve found what I’m going to do with the blue screen I will move on to the special effects. That will be an entirely different problem that at this moment I have no idea how I'm going to tackle.

Script First Draft is Done!

Well, I finished the first draft of the script! Right now, in it’s current state, the script is 84 pages. I still need to polish it up and maybe do some rewrites so that number could easily change.

This is a pretty big deal for me. Writing the script was a labor of love. Losing our main villain was a huge blow but I love the direction of the new script and T-Boom is a fantastic villain. All the character’s powers will be difficult to film but the power to create fire and blow things up will undoubtedly be my biggest challenge. I hope I can pull it off.

So, it’s off to do rewrites. Then, a read through of the script with the principle players. I’m sure they will all have their own ideas for their characters and those will need to be written in so I have no doubt I will be working on this script for many months to come.

Xam and Power Dog Teaser Trailer

Well, I’ve got 64 pages of the script done and things are moving along fantastic. That said, I needed to take a short break and do something else, something other than the script, so I decided to whip up a quick teaser trailer for the movie. Like the last trailer, this one is done like a slideshow, and it uses a lot of the images from the previous trailer based on the old script, but this one has scenes that will be in the new movie and the music is the Xam and Power Dog theme. Enjoy!

Now it's back to the script! I hope to have something new to report in the next couple of days!

Script Update

Well, it’s been one heck of a week. I’ve already turned out 41 pages of the script and I’m only halfway through. If the second half is as many pages as the first then that will put it over 80 pages, which is right on track with a feature length film. That’s far longer than I originally intended the movie to be but I’m not going to let that slow me down. I plan to tell the story no matter how long it makes the movie.

Not much else to add at the moment. Still, I want to post something new so here is a pic that never even made the first slide show trailer. I don’t have any plans to use this scene in the new movie, but I’m sure there will be something like it, so here it is.

(Fun Fact: That isn’t even Max playing Xam. That is a stand-in cat, his stunt double if you will. That is, however, Gibson playing Power Dog).

What Will the Movie Look Like?

Well, it’s been over a week since my last posting. I’ve been working on the script and it is coming along nicely. Not as fast as I would like, but what can I say? I do this on the side and this doesn’t pay the bills.

As I was writing the script, I started picturing the movie in my head. The look was always something I was kicking around. The big reason is that Xam and Power Dog live in SoHo, NY, and I don’t live anywhere near there. That being the case, I new I was going to have to use a blue screen for my backgrounds.

Since I’m using a blue screen, I don’t want to try to make this thing look realistic. Like I’ve said before, I’m not ILM and I don’t have a big budget. I could spend months to years trying to make a realistic background. Still, I don’t want this movie looking like Sin City or The Spirit. That look has been overdone. So, what was I going to do?

I decided to use real images of SoHo and make them monochromatic, then really grain them up. This gives a kind of comic book feel without looking exactly like a comic book. The picture above is an example of what I am thinking. I don’t have any plan to use this particular image in the movie, but I think it gives you a pretty good idea of what I’m trying to do.

The background is blue, to indicate night. Day scenes will be orange or sometimes red. The foreground images will be filmed and added to the background with little to no manipulation, making Xam, Power Dog and the trash can pop off the screen. All together, I think it will be a pretty cool look.

The more I work on this project the more I realize that there is a very good chance I am working toward the impossible, but that is the point of this blog. It’s a way of keeping me on track and feeling the need to post updates is keeping me moving closer and closer to filming. My hope is to have the script finished by the end of the month. I’ll let you know how that works out!

Xam and Power Dog Theme!

Well, after several days of trying to shoehorn a particular style of music into Xam and Power Dog I decided that I needed to scrap everything and start over.

In doing that, I was able to look at the movie and let it tell me what the music should be. Xam and Power Dog are quirky. The movie doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s not big budget and it’s not being edited by ILM.

What the movie will be is silly, with an old world feel in a modern world setting. It’s a movie with a television mentality. That’s not John Williams. It would be Danny Elfman, if Xam and Power Dog were anything like Batman but they’re not. They’re more like Shazam, with a lot of Agent 86 thrown in.

So, something modern, with an old world feel, that would hearken back to the days of Get Smart and Mission Impossible…

Here’s what I came up with.

Is There Anybody Out There?

Well, it’s been a very busy couple of days, but you wouldn’t know it when viewing the progress from the outside. So, what’s been going on you ask?

I’ve been working very hard on writing, and not just on the script! One thing that all good movies need is a theme song that makes you want to jump out of your seat after hearing the first few bars of music. You know what I’m talking about. That feeling you got when you first heard John Williams music as Superman’s shield came flying past the screen. Or the first time you heard John Williams horns blare into the theater moments after reading, “a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…”. Or the first time you heard John Williams music when Indy jumped that pit after throwing Alfred Molino the idle!

Beginning to see a pattern? I don’t think I’m going to be able to get John Williams on such short notice, or ever, for that matter. Heck, I’d settle for Danny Elfman. His Batman score was so fantastic I used it in my little slide show Xam and Power Dog trailer (posted May 19th).

But, you get the idea. Great movies have great, big, original soundtracks. I’m nowhere near the caliber of the award winning artists mentioned above. I don’t have access to the London Symphony. What I have is a little music making software that can get me as close to the London Symphony as I will ever get.

One thing I’ve noticed, however, is that writing a piece of symphony music is hard! How the heck was Mozart writing these things before he even kissed a girl? Well, perhaps he was writing these things because he wasn’t out kissing girls. I guess that’s not the point. Writing these things is hard! And it’s going to take me some time. I’ve even stopped working on the script in order to write the two minute piece of music. It’s my hope that the finished piece will inspire me even more to bang out the new script. I’m crossing my fingers.

Oh, one more thing happened this week. I got the new T-Boom shirt I ordered (yes, the one in the Meet T-Boom posting on May 21st is photoshoped). It looks fantastic and I can’t wait to start filming. Here is a pic of the shirt, along with two other shirts I ordered several months ago. Comic book geeks. What can I say?