COVID Film: The Blitz

Posted on by Thor

This scene was reworked to add some subtle animation to the couple leaning in to kiss. I had to separate the couple from the rest of the painting and then the pair were separated from each other. The animation simply involved adding a gap between the face mask canisters and then having then touch by the end of the scene. Since only the head and shoulders leaned back, I didn’t need to redraw the arms.

I tried rendering the whole movie yesterday to post the updates to FilmFreeway. However the editing program, Premeire Pro reported memory issues and a warning that I should proceed with caution. Forty seven of the shots in the film rendered incorrectly. Large black bands appeared and the scenes were cropped incorrectly.

Rather than proceed in a panic, I decided to put the movie aside and wait to see if Pam could come up with a solution when she got back home. The last time something like this happened Premiere Pro erased all past saved versions of the project. I had saved a version offline on OneDrive so I might only loose a few days work if everything blew up.

Pam saved the latest version to the One Drive and deleted the program memory cache. She managed to recover from most of the damage with just one scene needing to be re-uploaded. At the end of the night I tried to render the movie one more time but it failed, freezing about one third of the way into the render. The scene it froze at is a recent addition being the Maya sacrifice scene. However there is nothing about the scene that should cause the program to freeze.

I suspect these problems are being caused by an automatic update to the software. Anytime Adobe updates the program they seem to make it worse rather than better. I plan to attempt another render of the movie after writing this. If it once again fails, I will hope Pam can dig in and find a work around. Here is to hoping the software can do what it was designed to do.

COVID Film: More New Titles

Posted on by Thor

I spent much of the weekend redesigning the poster with a new title. I redesigned everything with COVID Conscious as the title. Conscious to me meant aware, so it made sense. In the designs I made the word Conscious partially transparent as if it were fading away. I planned to literally have Conscious fade away in the trailer.

As I was doing those designs I then considered Conscience, which is more about a moral awareness. I also thought Con-Science could have the meaning of science denial. I was at an inroads and tossed between the two options. I asked Pam her opinion and she offered other options like COVID Collateral, as in Collateral Damage. I thought collateral could however also be interpreted from a financial standpoint.

Since it is October we spent the evening flipping through horror movies on our streaming service. As Pam scrolled. I considered each horror title with COVID inserted. It was a fun game to rename every horror film with COVID themed titles.

As I went to bed, I was still blurting our COVID titles and with each absurd option Pam would simply say NOPE. As I woke up the next morning it hit me. The end credits of the film end with a definition of Apocalypse which is based on an early Greek meaning of the word. The definition is… “A revelation, a disclosure of truth in an age of falsehood and misconception.”  Of course!

When working at Disney Feature Animation I remember there was a time when they considered renaming the film Brother Bear.It turned out there was a TV show that also had the title Brother Bear. The Disney lawyers managed to the the rights to the title despite the fact that the TV Show had been around for years.

If I do an online search of COVID there are thousands of new articles that pop up from the past 4 years. But in the future if I search COVID Apocalypse, I will find my film and articles related to it. Thankfully I will not get tied in with the COVID feature film that is being released in December 2023. I beat them to the punch with the title but I’m not hiring lawyers to defend the film title of COVID.  Such a title will be lost in a sea of information and misinformation.

If folks search for COVID Film they might get information about my film and the feature film. If the feature film is a success, then it might not hurt my film’s exposure.

COVID: Lion’s Den

Posted on by Thor

Yesterday as another day of animating lions. I noticed that the human skull on the floor is a bit lost in the quick shot, so I animated the male lion stepping on it. If there was time I would have him bat it about like a kitten with a toy.

I just need to add more paint to the second lioness to tie her into the look of the scene. I do this by first painting shadows and then highlights. The challenge is to try and do this consistently from cell to cell so that the paint doesn’t crawl too much.

Getting the lioness to walk away from the camera was quite a challenge and I am happy that I pulled it off. Other lions in the background will move subtly but I plan to animate then using pins in After Effects. The nurse will also lean forward ever so subtly again using pins to key frame the existing painting.

Yesterday I got a congratulatory note form filmFreeway with animating balloons ext to let me know COVID was a Finalist with the FilmQuest Film Festival in Utah. The note had buttons to share the news on Facebook and Twitter. I punched both buttons in my excitement. After some research on being a finalist, I found out that the film was not accepted to be screened. It was just one of the top 75 films that was cut at the last minute. There is still a possibility that the festival might screen the film online. This makes sense since those who would appreciate the film are likely COVID cautious and thus would not attend a crowded indoor festival.

My list of rejections so far include, Global Peace Film Festival, Film Quest and Saint Louis International Film Festival. My record now is 2 screenings and 3 rejections. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have created a film that no one wants to screen, since everyone wants to forget and move on. Most are vaxed and relaxed. However vaccines do not stop infections or long COVID symptoms. The main point of my film is that the pandemic is not over, and no one wants to hear that. Every rejection hurts, but every time I get bad news I apply to another festival until I find judges brave enough to screen COVID.

COVID: Theater Animation

Posted on by Thor

This shot already has a sweet zoom and pan in with parallax that shows the directionality of the theater.I felt the need for some motion in the playbill to draw the eye over to the cleaning ladies in the hazmat suits. The scene is just a second long and to draw the eye I simply added the animation of a page being flipped in the playbill. Thankfully the playbill is in such a position so that it is conceivable that a hidden hand is flipping the page.

This is the final shot in the trailer, so mow I need to re-edit the trailer to include all the animated shots. I uploaded the film to filmFreeway with the animation added to this point. I have submitted to about 8 film festivals so far and have been accepted to two. Notification dates for most festivals are still months away, so I continue to layer animation into the film over time.

COVID Trailer

Posted on by Thor

I made a quick 26 second trailer for the COVID short. I was inspired to create this version after watching the trailer for Dr. Strangelove. I am now starting to submit the short to film festivals. I decided to take the short off of youTube since I was told it reduces the chances of having the film accepted in festivals. I think the short can be seen on FilmFreeway which is the site used to submit to festivals. If the Film Freeway link doesn’t lead to the film, I am hoping someone will let me know. I can see it since it is my home page but I never tried to get to the page from another computer.

Anyway, all this festival business is new to me so I am learning as I go. Film maker and storyteller, Jon Busdecker has offered to do a more advanced trailer and we are just getting started on that version which might be 30 to 60 seconds long. Jon asked me to research trailers I liked, and that research lead me to creating this short trailer as a place holder with my film festival submissions.

Voice over might be added.  Phantasmagoria founder and actor and director John DiDonna has offered to do the voice over work. He commands the stage with his Phantasmagoria troupe, and I sketched several performances where he performed as the quintessential Scrooge. I have no doubt his voice would be perfect for the COVID trailer.  Voice over might be used on the full trailer.

My 4 minute COVID film itself is almost shorter than most feature film trailers. It is hard to decide how short a short should be for a short.