Wednesday, April 25, 2012

From Where I'm Standing...

  This is the part where I confess that, barring the slow, slogging, revision and refinement pass, very little has been accomplished with Othersight this week. As you may remember, we had a shoot last Saturday, so almost all our energies went toward that. The account of that adventure can be found here: post link 

With pictures!

 

One of the creature animations for Othersight was completed, and there are five more to go. Or, rather, just two creatures, with five distinct actions/ animations. The last of the voice work has been (finally!) completed and integrated. Several new sound effects have been acquired and added to the mix... hmm... apparently "very little" isn't what it used to be. I guess we're just busier than ever, so what we accomplish on this one looks small when compared to all the work that has been put into the next one. Thanks for reading, see you on the other side!


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Diversify

 Othersight news is as follows: We are still in search of the best deal possible for our tech upgrade (needed to complete CGI). It currently sits somewhere around the reasonable yet pricy $2K mark. As some of you may know, a house being put on the market makes many important things disappear, including lists of, oh, say... voice recordings and sound effects needed. Yeah. Fortunately I don't trust either the lists or my memory. While doing a review scan through the project, I found that we'd neglected to record a very minor voice role. It just so happens to be one that will keep Akerra from looking like she's talking to herself. That track has now been recorded and will be synced today.

 In related news, we have started another blog for our production company. This one will cover everything we're working on, not just the Othersight related work.
It can be found here:
http://brightswordproductions.blogspot.com/

 Posts there will be forthcoming as we shoot and edit the teaser project. Which, by the way, (in a bit of a crossover post,) will begin this Saturday.

Until then!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Patchwork

 This week can be summed up in the above phrase. Sound files were dug up or created to fill gaps in the ambient sound. My proudest achievement was the creation of the long-delayed Bein Sidh phase sound effect. The combination of a catapult firing, a tea kettle whistling, and a low level electrical arc make this rather unique sound. (There are some interesting things you can do with those three. Try it.) Anyway, another two voice recordings have been finished and applied. I didn't stop to think about how many characters I have that you never see when shooting, but I'm acutely aware of it now. :-)
Today we had a meeting regarding the business side of the endeavor. Tonight we hope to have yet another shot in the can to round out the project. All in all a profitable week.
 
 In other film news we have been very busy prepping to shoot the teaser for our new mystery project. Stay tuned!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Two Steps Forward...

 Voice recordings: check. It went quite well actually. Well, barring the hour we spent trying to get a simple three word line right... :-P Phase effect sound: umm... still working on that. It's apparently a bit harder than I thought. I've further refined some of the effects mentioned last week, including refining the physics of a cliff-side exploding outward. Still not perfect, but much closer. That took the better part of two days, mostly due to extremely technical and boring complications. We've also discovered that our processing power will have to be upgraded so that we don't crash the system with texture renders. Not something you want to find out on the tail end of your budget. That said, we soldier on, knowing that we'll find a creative way to overcome this difficulty. As a veteran director once said, "You have two options: creativity or the money hose." Lacking the latter, we will invariably find the former.