Pandemic Film: Neanderthal

Posted on by Thor

VoluMax Pro 7  has a portrait mode that makes my painted portraits seem three dimensional as the camera moves. The plug in has a stock 3D blue male mesh and pink female mesh. I decided to see if the mesh could convincingly be distorted to make a skull seem three dimensional. Besides the mesh I also blocked in several different depth maps for the hair.

The end result is indeed convincing. I may go back to several shots that were already finished and add this effect to them. I intend to add some animation to several shots as well, so I need to decide where to invest my time.

Pam wants me to animate a wacky waving balloon arm man, and I might do that on a separate layer. There are dozens of visible wacky waving balloon arm men in the shot and there is no way I will animate them all. I added more depth to the shot and a faster camera zoom which distracts from the lack of waving. I am still not sure how I will resolve that shot.

I should finish the final shots of the film today. Once that step is done I will compile a wish list of shots to improve and refine. With over 168 shots that list might be endless. I will certainly want to re-render some of the earlier shots to add the depth effects that I perfected as I learned how to best use the program.

Pandemic Film: New Year

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This is the most fun shot I worked on yesterday. At first I created a depth map that included the skeleton, but when I started animating the confetti, I quickly discovered that it overlapped him in awkward ways. I decided the skeleton had to have his own layer and he was only overlapped by the upper most confetti animation that I added at the end.

The camera pans down and with the parallax, Times Square seems cavernous. Each confetti layer was moved at different rates. The top layer moved the most and less movement occurred moving back in space.  The shot took several hours to composite but it lasts on the screen for less than a second. It was worth it.

In some ways the film is organized chronologically, in that each year with a new refrain a painting is highlighted for that years Time Square celebration. In other ways the film is arranged thematically based on the lyrics of Andy Matchett‘s song, Just Can’t Wait. The song was written in 2017 for the Fringe show Key of E, which was an apocalyptic rock musical. In so many ways the lyrics are prophetic about the way the COVID pandemic unfolded and continues to unfold.

On May 11, 2023 the United States will end its COVID public health emergency. May 11, 2023 will be this film’s birthday. 1,128,404 Americans have died of COVID-19, with about 200 more still dying every week. 250,000 American children have lost a parent. Millions of Americans are suffering from long COVID. Loneliness may not be the worst thing to come from the pandemic.

COVID is airborne, the pandemic is far from over.

Pandemic Film: Demonically Selfish

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This shot shows a selfish Uber passenger knowingly coughing on her driver. The incident was caught on his dashboard camera. The painting is close to how it happened but the visualization of her breath and spatter is missing since I haven’t composited it into the shot yet in After Effects. In most of the shots in the film, breath and spatter are two elements that are animated. The vicious gas expands and the spatter flies through the air as aerosols do. In her case the breath is bright pink. people are selfish and gross.

In some ways social media has helped spread the virus through misinformation and promoting mass gatherings despite the ongoing pandemic. I find it ironic that the CDC just held a superspreader conference to gloat about their victory over the virus. 35 attendees are infected so far. They will get the best possible health care because the CDC doesn’t need it to become more of a public relations train wreck.

Pandemic Film: Living with the Virus

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday I completed 15 shots. I am now feeling confident that at this pace the film will be complete by May 11, 2023. Originally I picked this as the due date since it was the date President Joe Biden would officially declare the pandemic emergency to have ended. Of course the pandemic will still be raging on that date. May 11 also happened to be the date that the Fringe Film Festival needs films to be submitted for the free screening on May 19, 2023 at 6pm in the Orlando Shakes courtyard outside. There are no coincidences, so I submitted the film to Fringe. Now that it is approved I need to finish the final edit pronto.

In this shot I found it odd that the computer neural filters assumed the virus was so bright and thus close to the camera rather than in the mid ground on the couch. I edited the painting and depth map together in After Effects anyway and I decided I liked the effect. I applied a parallax zoom and the virus swelled as the camera moved in. This turned out to be another happy accident that I will keep in the film.

Pandemic Film: Kansas Surge

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This was a fun shot I worked on yesterday in After Effects. Depth worked really well with the foreground headstones and the far fields. I had to paint the COVID twister a bit to get some depth to that. The fun was in animating the flying cow and house. I had the cow large a the start of the shot and then smaller as it twisted away. The house didn’t change size as much and it flew with a slightly different trajectory. The far tractor and flying boards only moved a small amount in the distance.

You might notice that the virus cyclone isn’t completely painted. That is because it was blocked by the house in the original painting. I put a few sloppy brush strokes in that area as filler but for the most part that area remained blocked by the house during the length of the animation.

I started experimenting with bezier curves in animating the foreground cow and house. Up until now I have only been using linear movements. Bezier curves have a habit of getting away from me, creating unexpected movement. Some of that chaos is evident in this shot and I decided to leave the results since it makes it look like a panicked hand held shot.

I just learned I could press the Y key to move the anchor point of an object. I could have used that knowledge in this shot, but I will use that new knowledge in the next shot. I learn what I need as I go and if I can find a work around I will. Anything to get each shot done on time.

Pandemic Film: No Escape Depth

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I kept camera movement in this prison shot prison shot rather limited since the prison bars would warp to allow for some depth of field. In my painting I unfortunately drew the prison bars on the same level as the virus. I could achieve much more depth if I took the time to separate the bars from the virus. That would allow me to move the bars and prisoner completely independent of the cell behind them. I could then do a depth map just for the virus and the room and a separate depth map for the prisoner and bars. Those tow could then be combined in the final comp with a green screen.

However all those steps take time and for a shot that lasts less than a second, I am debating if all the extra work will be noticed. I will be doing a series of shot today that are very complicated which are close ups on peoples faces. I need to invest the time I have in the shot where the effect will be most noticeable.

I am keeping a mental list of the shots I would like to go back and tweak and make better. I will only go back however after all the shots are complete. I have to keep moving forward to hit the May 11, 2023 final film render date. I tried to render the film midway through the process and the render stalled. It is a strange leap of faith to do all this work with the possibility that the digital gods may thwart a final render. Anyway no time to think about that now. Forward.

Pandemic Film: Waning Immunity

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This is the depth map for Waning Immunity, a shot that lasts just about a second in the film.Light objects in the foreground are the bodies of several fallen knights. The dragon is breathing fire at the standing knight whose shield is melting. I am describing this since you cant see the painting and most detail except depth is lost in a depth map.

The camera pivots from the dragon’s open jaws to the melting shield. I have been dialing up the parallax in recent shots and I am amazed at how the musculature in the shoulders rotates with the camera move. The problem is that adding more parallax boosts the render time which leaves me sitting on my hands waiting to see the result. I am trying to find the balance between time invested in renders versus finishing the film on time. I have 12 days before I need to turn in a final edit for a screening at Orlando International Fringe Festival,  3rd Annual Film as Visual Art screening on May 19, 2023 at 6PM at the Shakes outdoor courtyard. The screening is free and this will be the world premiere for this 2.5D animated short.

 

Pandemic Film: Queens Depth

Posted on by Thor

This is the depth map I created for the shot of Queen Elizabeth in the pandemic film. 13 days of production remain. I am now averaging 10 shots a day and I should finish with some extra time to refine some shots. In the above depth map I have not yet added detail to the mid and far depth layers.

Since I had a debilitating Premiere Pro crash in which most of the auto saves were lost, I now back up the file onto an online storage site for safety twice a day. I no longer trust Adobe products to maintain safe back ups on their own. For painting, I have abandoned Photoshop for doing my painting, and it looks like I will have to find another software for the next time I edit a film.

I didn’t bother blurring the harsh line under the queen’s chin, but in the final render with the painting, it really isn’t noticeable. I kind of wish there was a way to generate a depth map for the background and combine that with the portrait mode for the face. I could probably accomplish it with some green screens to comp together several different animated renders. I will try it on a future shot. Since the shot is less than a second long, I can get away with some imperfections as I continue to learn the nuances of creating and using depth maps.

I have managed to have two days where the files were not lost by clearing the cache and saving over the same file repeatedly. I no longer can save iterations of the file with with the date. Every morning I open the program I have some dread that the program might have erased the previous days work.

Pandemic Film: Black Lives Matter

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I am deep into production now, having finished 13 shots yesterday.I had to stop because I was getting blurry eyed and though I might punch a wrong button and experience another Premiere Pro crash. This morning I am starting off with a shot of BLM in Washington D.C. That is the D.C. Mayor  Murial Bowser on the balcony looking down the street at the White House.

I debated weather I needed to actually put a depth map on this shot because this is a fast pan that lasts just a second and 22 frames. I did notice the depth when working on the shot in After Effects, but with the pan added in Premiere Pro that illusion of depth is very subtle. I doubt it will be noticed. All his is part of the learning curve, if time gets tight, I know where corners could be cut, but I always want to go for the best possible solution. Some shots at the end will likely be re-done to improve the production value.

I tried to send musician Andy Matchett the latest edit of the project, but the render froze. The project is huge now and a simple render is another technical hurdle I will need to conquer. I tried just shooting a video of the program and sending that via WeTransfer but that also didn’t go through. We may need to Zoom so I can share the progress.

Pandemic Film: Depth

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Rendering is the most painful aspect of creating a film.I tried to render the fill length of the film twice tonight but both renders froze about one third of the way into the process. Anyway above is a single shot broken into it’s two components. The original painting and a depth map. When these two are combined in After Effects a 2.5 dimensional image results with parallax. Since most of the shots in this film are less than a second long the depth maps are often enough to give some depth and a feeling of motion.

I am doing some hand drawn animation but for instance with this shot I don’t think it will be necessary to animate the tails. I have about 16 days to finish work on the fist edit. I managed to complete 12 shots today and at that pace I should easily finish on time and then I will go back to refine some shots and add animation where it is needed.

I had one full day where production stopped because Premiere Pro was erasing past saved versions of the edit. It made no sense to continue if each days work would disappear into the digital ether. After having cleared the cache, I am now only working on one file and not renaming it each day. Something about saving a “file as” caused the program to glitch out. Online research found that this has been a know problem with Adobe Premiere Pro since 2017 and they still have not resolved the issue. I am limping by with the edit I have rather that get another video editing program since I am too far into the process. All files are being backed up to an online service no so the program can not overwrite them or erase them. I am spending far too much time trying to resolve technical issues that are outside my control.

Oh, for any guys out there, COVID damages your sperm.