COVID Dystopia: Freezer Truck Morgue

Posted on by Thor

I figured the Freezer Truck Morgue would be a perfect application for the ZOE Depth I tried on several other shots. Zoe allows to the camera to truck forward. The other depth maps I have used only allow for parallax when the camera trucks side to side. So with this shot the camera trucks forward towards the prisoners who are working in the background.

One worker is tightening a strap around the midsection of the corpse and the other simply places his hand on the corpse, probably in preparation to move it, him, her. Figuring out the verb is the first step towards making the action make sense. What is seen her is the very rough animation just to get a feel for what motion will work over the 26 frames.

The first pass at the animation had far too much motion, so the action felt rushed. I had to throw out keys and simplify the action to slow it down. The feet on the one prisoner are going to be held cells which is why the feet are not drawn.

A major issue with this animation is that the prisoners are in stripped jump suits. Stripes are always a challenge to animate so the final animation will take some time to clean up.

This morning COVID Dystopia was accepted to be screened in another film festival with animated flames and confetti on Film Freeway. The proposed screening date however was in 2020 long before my film had been created. An e-mail to the film festival producer conformed that Film Freeway had simply gone rogue. The acceptance was a glitch in The Matrix.

COVID Dystopia: DeathSantis Office

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This image shows the DeathSantis Office scene from two views. On the left is a view of the scene from above. The purple box shows the full depth of the office. The lighter lines show the planes of the Governor held cell, the hand animation and the microphone held cell.

The office depth was created with the ZOE Depth freeware online. I left the coffin and all the patients in the depth information. Having a patients feet so close to the foreground resulted in a very limited ability to move the camera before things got highly distorted. I ended up doing a very subtle truck in with the camera to focus attention on the Governor.

Having discovered this ZOE Depth tool so late in the process means I will only be using it in a few shots. So far I have applied it to two shots where I was adding animation anyway. The next shot I am considering is a freezer truck morgue where I might animate the prisoners who were in charge of disposing of bodies at the time. The deep freezer truck interior should be a perfect place to apply this depth.

COVID Dystopia: ZOE Depth

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday I started the morning knowing I wanted to add some animation to the Gladiator scene. I separated out each of the gladiators in Procreate and exported each as a PNG file. I then patched the background where gladiators had left holes in the painting.

As I was working I stumbled on a youTube video that showed how to use a free depth generator online. The freeware is called ZOE Depth and is easy to use. I imported the background into the engine and with a click of a button it generated a fully dimensional image that can be rotated. Every pixel is pushed back into space. It is like a 3D diorama with a floor plane an walls. The 3D model is darker than the original art but that can be corrected.

I had to upload the newest version of Adobe After Effects which can work with the 3D model. Once it was imported, I then created a 35mm camera which could be moved through the setting. There are limitations, in that things tend to stretch and distort if you move the camera too much. But for the tight one second shot I wanted to accomplish it was perfect. I tracked the camera down and moved it in slightly towards the action.

The youTube video I watched was just 10 days old and the Adobe After Effects update was brand new. It is exciting to get to play with brand new technology using my traditional art. I continue to dabble in the digital world. The gladiator scene I completed with ZOE Depth turned out amazing. This morning, I listed 5 shots which I will try this new technology on. I am giddy and delighted to continue the experiment. Seeing the ZOE Depth video I shared, I also decided to try and make the foreground Gladiator more dimensional. This isn’t critical but I will give it a try.

COVID Dystopia: Rebound Paint

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This is another example where I post a scene here and decided it needs more work. Seeing this still, made me realize that the darks on each player are different. On the defender the darks are pure black whereas the darks on the player taking the shot are greyed down. I think I will grey down the blacks on the defender to match. The goal isn’t to focus on the players but on the virus.

The scene took a solid day to animate and paint and is should take an hour or so to refine the darks one more time. In the illustration the painting of the players focused on subtle gradients of paint that describe the round forms. For the animation I instead painted the players with bold poster like brush strokes. They jump and fall away so quickly that no one will analyses the way their faces are painted.

I added turbulence to the background clouds to add some motion. Most people will not notice that subtle addition but they will feel it.

I should be ready to render the whole movie again today, but I know that the Adobe render engine is malfunctioning. The last time I tried to render whole scenes would render off screen and drift around in a black void. It is frustrating to keep working, not sure if the results will ever render correctly.

COVID Dystopia: Rebound Animation

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I decided the rebound shot needed animation in Callipeg. As it was, I just dropped the virus into the shot and the player were held cells.Adding a depth map didn’t add much to the shot. It was boring. Do I am adding full motion to the players. The ball end up where it is in the illustration on the last frame. I need to have the ball rotate after it leaves the players hand.

The drawings for the player taking the shot are complete and today I need to add the defender who fails to block the shot. All this happens in 25 frames. I was going to export the final animation with a green screen but I might instead import all the lightning animation frames into this shot.

Painting the players should be fun with the rim light from the lightning flashes. In most of the other shots I reused painted elements to save time, but in this shot everything moves so fast that I can probably repaint every frame.

This is becoming one of my favorite shots in the film. I am glad am digging in and improved on what I had.

COVID Dystopia: Beach Walkers High Resolution

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It took me three days to get the high resolution Minotaur scene to work. I am now on day two of getting the high resolution beach walkers scene finished. The process is pretty straight forward. I keep the low resolution video on a layer in Callipeg and add high resolution changes on layers above that video. If I can live with the resolution of some elements I don’t changer them. In the case of the Minotaurs, I had to change all the line work which got very pixelated.

Callipeg has trouble playing back this hybrid scene with animated layers on top of video. The green screen video flickers off and on when I play back the animation. Thankfully despite the glitch, the Minotaur scene ultimately rendered correctly. I just have to live with the flickering nightmare and hope it renders correctly after several days of work.

In this scene I am revising all the heads and bodies and the limbs seem to be holding up without changes. I have revised the front row of zombies so far and need to finish the second row and background crowd. This is the last major scene that needs revisions. I might go through and add some more smoke effects and there are one or two scenes where I am considering animation but held off. The film just keeps evolving. With animation it is hard to know exactly when the project is finished.

Poster Evolution: Christmas Carol Final

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This is the final version of the poster. The actress for the Ghost of Christmas Past was changed and some new faces were added to the cast dancing in the background. Other than that everything remained the same with the blue glow, lens flairs and general festive spirit.

This poster n part helped inspire the poster for my film with the old wooden floors and spotlight effect. Each poster I do helps inspire the next.

I have experienced A Christmas Carol several times in past years at the Shakes and I am always impressed with the high production values.

One of Orlando’s favorite holiday traditions! The miserly and miserable Ebenezer Scrooge greets each Christmas with a “bah humbug,” until he is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. Witness the classic, heartwarming story of Orlando Shakes’ holiday tradition, in a magical and musical spectacle for the whole family.

A Christmas Carol is a holiday story with an uplifting theme of generosity toward others. It is most appropriate for 3rd graders and up.

Poster Evolution: Christmas Carol 2

Posted on by Thor

Strange that the Photoshop crop tool stopped working this morning. I use that tool every day of the week but now it is no longer an option. Adobe products sure are glitchy.

For the second pass at the Christmas Carol poster, I decided that Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past could dance but they would be ethereal and invisible to the others dancing. Just because you cant be seen doesn’t mean you cant celebrate.

To make them stand out from the crowd I painted them blue with a glowing aura.

The only change that still needed to be added was to replace the Ghost of Christmas past with the actual actress that might play the roll. One aspect of the poster that most probably don’t realize is that the couple behind Scrooge and the ghost as the young Scrooge and his lovely girlfriend.

Christmas Carol is playing at the Shakespeare Center through December 24, 2023.

Poster Evolution: Christmas Carol 1

Posted on by Thor

Last year the Orlando Shakes reused the Christmas Carol poster I had created the year prior. That decision makes perfect sense since people are used to the image and might want to return to see the show again with the whole family. The image for that poster had Scrooge holding up Tiny Tim among a cheering crowd. The positive image resonated.

The decision was made to create a new poster image with the same positive energy. The other scene in the play that is the most vibrant is the dance scene with the Fezziwigs. As I remember the scene, Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past observe the dancing from a distance. I decided that for this poster Scrooge would need to dance. In this image he is dancing with Mrs. Fezziwig. Granted this might not happen in the play, but it was the positive vibe that we were looking for.

As often happens with the posters, the issue becomes and uncertainty of who might be playing the role. Jim Helsinger suspected however that the actress who played Christmas past would be returning to the show. We decided to put her in place of Mrs Fezziwig.

With this first pass of the poster I was the most pleased with the golden treatment I did for the title. Christmas Carol runs through December 24, 2023.

COVID Dystopia: First High Res Minotaur

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday I redrew one Minotaur at high resolution to see if a full clean up animation pass might work for the scene. The idea would have been to redraw every Minotaur frame by frame. It is how the traditional Disney films were done but I decided the clean up drawing looked to stiff.

Instead of redrawing every line I am going to go through and position high resolution bodies over the green screen scene. In the frame above only the foreground Minotaur has a high resolution body in place. My plan for now is to keep positioning high res bodies over the existing footage as the figure moves back in space. My hope is that the Minotaurs that are turning the bend will be high resolution since they were not re positioned.

I will only redraw limbs that are glaringly out of focus. In this first frame the limbs of the foreground Minotaur are not very out of focus. Other Minotarus in the scene do have limbs that are out of focus. I might end up having to redraw all the limbs but for now I will see what I can get away with.

This will clearly be a multiple day job, so I better get started.