Month: June 2014

My Top Ten entry ‘Census’

Posted on by Bob Vine

The Making of “Census”

By

Bob Vine

For my upcoming top ten entry entitled ‘Census’, I thought it may be useful to share my experiences in making what is only my third short film!

 

To come up with an idea for a script is hard, especially something original, but my wife Joan and I usually sit down and discuss topics in the news which people will have views on or emotions about and then try to pull those into a story. By using material such as this we have found it gets people talking about the film and thankfully not looking too closely at it’s quality !! Saying that, I do try to always improve on the last film; making sure I learn from my mistakes (there have been many!) and try something new.

 

Computer Generated external shot
Computer Generated external shot

My latest effort called ‘Census’ was written around the time both my father and father-in-law passed away almost simultaneously; both big influences on our lives and both very much into genealogy. What with the TV series showing famous people learning all about their family trees etc it has quite a following. In the news at the time was ‘Curiosity’ the latest space craft to land on Mars – a bit controversial with the amount of money it cost but a land mark in space exploration none-the-less. So Joan came up with the idea of putting the two together and I got writing. ‘Census – history is not what it seems’ was born!

 

When it was finished I remembered comments from my last film and reduced it down considerably – in an effort to make it roughly 5 minutes at the most. My last film was over 15 minutes long which just doesn’t get accepted at many film festivals. I also wanted to try to create a complete CGI (computer generated image) of a set; which also meant green screen work which was another area I wanted to improve on. The locations in this film allowed me to have ago at two CGI locations – an aircraft hanger (Biggin Hill refused me access to any of theirs) and of course Mars (!)

 

First draft of computer generated hanger interior
First draft of computer generated hanger interior

 

After some really harsh lessons learnt about lighting and focus I decided to not only buy a new camera and join the HD revolution (which has already passed and now is 4K!) but also some really special film lenses which, according to the sales person, I don’t actually own; I am just holding onto them for the next person! I spent a few hours at one of the ‘normal’ locations testing out lighting and using my new camera so hopefully all would be okay on the day. This also allowed me to plan the shoot better; and make detailed comments on my storyboards so I knew what lens, what lights etc to use for each shot.

 

I gathered my crew (friends that have been long suffering of my hobby!) and asked some actors from my last film to join me to make this thing.

 

Cast and crew from first shoot
Cast and crew from first shoot

 

To make the green screen shoot a bit special for me, the crew and more importantly my two actors, I splashed out and hired a small green screen studio for the day in Camberwell. It was an important scene and I didn’t want to take any chances with it. However, I learned another very harsh lesson when I came to keying out the green! In my excitement about the day; being conscious of focus etc I didn’t make sure (using my camera’s waveform monitor) that the background green colour was lit 2 stops brighter than my actors. The result of which was perfectly exposed shots (for once !!) that no matter what keying software I used (Keylight, Primatte etc) I could not get those all important clean edges – just a lot of horrible noisy/jaggerdy edges instead ! I am my own worst enemy !

 

Checking storyboards in the green screen studio - shame I didn't check the waveform monitor!
Checking storyboards in the green screen studio – shame I didn’t check the waveform monitor!

 

My extremely talented 'green screen' actors!
My extremely talented ‘green screen’ actors!

 

It actually looked like the end for the film as I could not afford to re shoot it. But after a lot of internet trawling for solutions and finding some hidden pieces of software within Apple’s Shake program (don’t ask!) I managed to key the green screen footage using a combination of Keylight mattes, Primatte mattes, rotoscoped tracked mattes using Mocha Pro and a lot of manual frame by frame animated mattes. What should have taken weeks actually took months ! Still, I have learned another lesson and I actually want to try it again for my next film to see if I can get it right.

 

My Apple Shake 'node tree' workflow which keyed out just one clip
My Apple Shake ‘node tree’ workflow which keyed out just one clip

 

So the film is now ready to be shown. It’s been filmed in HD, at 16:9 but I have then added a film aspect ratio crop of 2.235:1 just to give it a bit more of a cinematic feel. This may be a bad move as on our 4:3 projection screen it’s going to appear very small !! Looks good online though….

 

Hope this has been helpful and I look forward to hearing and learning from your comments

 

Bob

OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday June 24th 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

ovfmarchives

Once again we devote an evening to the wonders that lay tucked away in the club archive.

Hopefully you’ve all had a look through the current archive lists (in the members’ only section) and sent your request to Andy “Elementary My Dear” Watson and picked the films made by OVFM members past and present that you wish to see again.

I personally have nominated our North vs South entry from last year “Power Corrupts” since it has never been shown to the club before. Since most of us all sweated away a few stone during its making last summer I think we should see the fruits of our labours, don’t you (even if it didn’t win)? 😉

Andy won’t be with us on Tuesday as he’l be watching the World Cup instead but he has agreed to compile a programme for us based on our requests so if you haven’t done so already please, have a quick trawl through the archive lists and send Andy your choice to him ASAP! *

OVFM archive evenings are always a rich source of interest from both a technical and historical point of view, so I hope you will forgo watching a bunch of overpaid, illiterate, thuggish prima donnas kicking a bit of leather about to join us for what promises to be an entertaining evening!

**EDIT**

As you can see from Andy’s reply below the deadline has now expired for making requests so if you missed out, please don’t contact Andy but do keep it in mind for our next archive session! Thanks!

OVFM Club Meeting Tuesday June 10th 2014

Posted on by Lee Relph

nvs14

 

One of the many annual traditions for OVFM is the North vs South competition where film clubs from this side of the river do (friendly) battle with film clubs from the other side. While the organising of the event in the north is handled by Altrincham Movie Makers, OVFM are responsible for the south end, mostly through the hard work of Mike Coad thus we are somewhat duty bound to have an entry every year.

Over the past two years it has befallen to David “Offshore Account” Laker to provide and oversee the OVFM entries with his films “Disastermind” and “Power Corrupts”. This year David understandably wants to step back and let someone else have a go – which brings us to this week’s club meeting.

OVFM hasn’t won the competition in a good few years now – the last time was with a film called “Attack Of The Killer Tripod” by a then 17 year old Reg “Bomber” Lancaster – so we really need to up our game for this year.

The theme is “If” which covers a multitude of possibilities. The announcement of this was made to the club after the conclusion of the 2013 final so there has been plenty of time to think of something. The purpose therefore of this meeting is to see what ideas you may have, be there a germination of a concept, a story outline, a treatment or even a full script. You may even have a film completed or in production (either as a group effort or individually; they can be entered on behalf of the club – see rule 2 via the link below) in which case bring it along and we’ll have a look at it.

Of course if no-one has any ideas or prepared scripts we can also brainstorm to see if we can’t come up with an idea or two to get the ball rolling. Then if you wish you can either set about making it in individual groups or by enlisting the help of the club as a whole (or however many are willing to help).

All the relevant information including the rules can be found HERE but I can tell you now that the entry deadline is Friday 31st October with the final to be held on Sunday December 7th !

So get your thinking caps on and we’ll see you on Tuesday with your ideas so we can make sure OVFM has their hands raised in victory at the end of North vs South 2014!

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