Found this little gem from the Tranquility Base Archive. Kylie Vilcins plays “Adelaide” in the rather weird monologue shot around the same time as Starmaker (in which she can also be heard singing “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts”) Although uncompleted, there is something appealing about the character. She reminds me of an Australian Kristen Schaal.
Author: Anthony Pearson
Softbox lighting
Bought 2x85W softbox lights and stands to use with my green screen from Amazon. There is a slight problem with fluorescent flicker but at the moment I’m putting that down to having a cheapo camera. It’s not too much of a problem at the moment anyhow as you can see in this demo below. The only faff at the moment is having to assemble and then dismantle all the equipment – you do need a lot of space for green screening, particularly because you don’t want shadow hitting the green, nor do you want green reflected onto the subject. Things should get a little easier once I get a camera with a wide angle lens, something my current cheapo camera lacks.
This clip marks my first official visit to Wits End where the film is set. As you can see, service at the pub is not great!
Old clips
Well, I have finally purchased dedicated web-space for this website and have spent most of the week moving files. Like any move you find items that you’d completely forgotten about. Here is one example, a trailer I did from 2006, to the Star Trek theme. Reminds me of the projects that were hot at the time!
My how times have changed, as this next clip will no doubt demonstrate too. It was skit that was part of a genuine campaign back at the 2005 general election (hence the crappy dry speech at the end). The music is original too. They say a week is a long time in politics. 6 years is a veritable lifetime ago!
Greyscale Gorilla & C4 Cafe
A blog worthy of mention, Greyscale Gorilla This one covers all my favourite subjects on Post Production, namely After Effects, Cinema 4d, Photoshop and others. Some great video tutorials (video tutorials are always the best) and a competition called the 5 Second Project which is very entertaining, check out the superb entries, inspiring stuff. All this done by a fella called Nick Campbell (he is the gorilla) from Chicago, USA. Nice one Nick!
As I explore the demo of Cinema 4d even more, I have subscribed to c4dcafe.com – who have some excellent tutorials too. However it took me 3 attempts to get my subscription accepted, (you can’t view anything until you have subscribed which is annoying) and once you’ve completed their rather interrogative questionnaire, they hint heavily for donations. I hope some day they take a leaf out of other sites more accessible walk-in setups and deal with their funding issues by advertising or selling their own products, such as my favourite site Video Copilot or indeed Greyscale Gorilla! Another brownie point for them!
Draft complete
Well, the Twilight script has now completed it’s first draft and is being re-written and tweaked as we speak. Am now exploring the feasibility of various things I would like to achieve in the film and that may take several months. I feel it is vital to tackle however – it will determine not only what I can achieve in the film but may very well determine the whole look and feel of the film.
My plans are to take the computer graphics a step further and make my set from them. It is after all much cheaper than building a set, and you can be more adventurous too as you’re not limited to space and budget. My first efforts in that direction this past fortnight has been drawing the local pub where some of the films scenes take place.
And here is the first draft…no doubt it’ll change a lot down the line.
You can see already that the whole thing isn’t going to look naturalistic, there is inevitably a drawn theme to it. But that’s no bad thing. My thoughts are for doing a similar thing to the characters.
The difficulty will be getting the actors inserted into the set. Will post my tests on this blog later no doubt. Also, graphics like this takes a while to render (so have had to order more RAM – which may take 2 months to arrive, no thanks to Apple) And there is so much more I have to learn about rendering with decent light (Global Illumination, Caustics and Ambient Occlusion to name just a few) Oh, so much to do! I’m in Geek heaven again!
In the meantime, if anyone wants to give me money to buy a good camera (£700-£1,400) or some decent lighting lamps (£300) feel free. Cos I’m skint! (More on my search for those later in this blog too)
Photoshop tutorials
This year I hope to be able to incorporate mattes into my videos, especially with the Twilight project. For this I realise I will need to swot up on Photoshop and what it can do. There are plenty of good sites such as psdtut+ which I’ve mentioned before on this blog. Here is another. Nothing sells a tutorials site to me more than some great examples of what can be achieved and to this end, this site will not disappoint. Time to get practising.
If you’ve got any more great suggestions for good PS tutorial sites, share them here.
New domain
An impulse find led me to purchasing the domain www.actormusician.co.uk
Not really got any use for it at the moment other than I thought it was a bargain for £6. Just got it pointing to the music part of this website for the time being.
My dream URL of course would be www.tranquilitybase.com or tranquilitybase.co.uk – neither of which are in current use by their owners. Am trying to get in touch with aforementioned – fingers crossed they get back and say yes, that would make my decade!
Blink and you’ll miss it
There was a picture of me on the telly tonight. My girlfriend spotted the blink and you’ll miss it moment. It was on BBC2 doc celebrating 25 years of Les Miserable with Matt Lucas. There was a peripheral mention of “Oliver!” and up came this pic!
It was odd as I’d never ever seen this pic before! Even more weird to think this was 27 years ago! Check out the big radio mic on the Artful Dodger! This pic was taken at the Palace Manchester as the show was there before transferring to the Aldwych for a Christmas run in 1983. I remember this day as one of my favourite days ever. I travelled with my father (I was 10) and it was the first time I had ever flown on a plane or stayed in a hotel.
…and the lovely Rita!
Richard Leigh’s production of the live show wot I wrote “The Twilight Ballrooms” had a successful run at Jermyn Street last month and there is more to come in 2011. Michelle Roberts who plays what’s left of the “Roger McGuffin Holiday Dancers” took some great photos. These will be appearing on the Twilight Ballrooms website in due course. Meanwhile I was able to use one of the photos to create this demo poster.
Blowin in the Wind
Had a little learn and play with the Daylight System in 3ds-Max today. Made a little weathervane from scratch to render in it that I imagine would probably sit well aloft the Twilight Ballrooms main tower. Maybe we’ll see this shot again someday in such a context, though hopefully less plain looking (Come on, I quit Art when I was 12 years old. That’s what happens when your homework is pointlessly sticking bits of dry pasta to cardboard!)
And I’m excited about seeing Gareth Edwards movie Monsters soon. Saw an interview with him on the Culture Show the other day. The guy is doing exactly what I want to be doing (if only I had the money). He’s living the dream! And I want his big flat screen TV too. From what I’ve seen he’s really committed to the immense amount of work that is involved whilst coming up with some very imaginative stuff – though I’m pretty sure it’ll look low budget compared to my attempt here at a weathervane. Now they ARE scary!
Red Giant Software
Not only a great selection of post-production software and add-ons, the website also has a great selection of videos and tutorials on how to get the best out of these products. From Grading software with fabulous presets, to lens flares, text effects (including the ubiquitous Matrix generator), vintage effects, state of the art video noise reduction, ray effects, keying software, oh to name just a few!
But Red Giant’s “Pièce de Résistance” is its Trapcode Collection of particle generators, most notably “Particular”. This effect comes in many forms and categories and Red Giant have been wise to subdivide its possibilities into various different versions of software. Also worthy of mention, and one of my personal favourites, was “Psunami” which is a sea generator like no other. Incredibly realistic, you can also have huge control over its environment including camera angles giving you the power to make some amazing effects which would only otherwise be possible shooting from a helicopter. In can take a while to render but its still significantly faster than doing it on 3d modelling software, and the wire mesh preview gives almost realtime rendering which is ideal.
So check out the website, the software, Red Giant TV and give their demos a try. It’s not so much whether you’ll buy something because you will, but more that you find the perfect solution from its vast array of offerings.
End of the World
Took a break from scriptwriting this afternoon and played with a picture I took (with just a camera-phone) last year whilst in the Big Apple. Would usually have just deleted an experiment like this but thought that now I’ve got a blog, I should post it.
Principally Photoshop with a dash of After Effects to animate it.
Movie Poster Font
Give your movie poster a touch of class by using that font Hollywood uses on the base of all of its posters.
Download it free from www.abstractfonts.com
The small credits “Directed By, Written By, Produced By” etc… are all achieved using one lowercase letter shortcuts. There are also extras like DVD and Caption logos and much more. It couldn’t be simpler. Great stuff.
Mailchimp
Get visitors to your site to subscribe to your mailing list.
This is a great and FREE site. Mailchimp is the answer to your mailing list needs. It can help you set up a variety of forms such as mailing lists or questionairres; it’ll help you customise these forms with your own design and provide the code for embedding it in your own site; non-coders can get a link to their own page created especially for their form; it protects you against spam and webbot attacks and allows visitors to your site to subscribe/unsubscribe safely.It will let you plan email campaigns, filters results from your database and…..oh everything! OK, if you’ve a serious amount of subscribers and mailout every week, you’ll probably have to pay a premium to upgrade your service, but the limits for free customers are very generous and if you’re just starting out with mail management, then you can’t go wrong registering with this site. There are even plenty of tutorials and prompt boxes to help you along.
The Illuminati
Did this spoof trailer to take a break from web designing and also to revise what I’ve learnt so far with post-production. And also for a bit of fun! Thanks to everyone who was game for getting involved!
DGJ Remix
Congratulations to Welsh actor David Garland Jones who was booed off the stage at Goldie Lookin Chain’s gig in Newport last Saturday. They chanted “Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?” If they had checked the poster or bought a programme they would have known. He’s David Garland Jones.
Everything on HOLD!
And I mean everything.
Had to dismantle all my equipment to deal with a burst radiator pipe in the wall. Dust and debris everywhere. And during the repair process, the face of Christ appeared in the wall, presumably in time for the Pope’s visit later this month. Shame its been plastered up. If I had charged pilgrims to see it, it could have helped to the cost of its repair.
Luck of the Welsh!
Working very hard on a few things. Have been redesigning Richard Leigh’s False Impressions website and still, yes still, been working on the the new Twilight site. I’m very pleased with how its turned out and can’t wait to show it off, hopefully next month. And have purchased www.actorcv.com
All in all a busy month. Even been to Paris.
And I’ve also written a song for welsh acting legend David Garland Jones. (Video produced by Jon Tregenna)
The Ballrooms
In working on the new Twilight website, the topography of the Twilight had to be devised. Here is an early blueprint of the front structure of the building.
Adobe launches CS5
If you’re wondering why this could be good news then you probably have no reason to be on this website. It’s fantastic news. Actually, it’s better than that.Yes, for nerds like myself we will spend the next few months playing with the various demos which are free to download off Adobe’s site – And if anyone out there would like to sponsor me the £3000 odd to buy it, then get in touch!
But it’s more than just playing around with gimmicks. Adobe, like their jilted lover Apple, have shown a tendency not only to predict the future but to shape it too. What they say, generally goes. And by watching all the free programmes on Adobe TV and privately produced videos on YouTube, you can get a sense of where all this is internet stuff is going; what trends will last and what seems to be dying. Useful stuff to be savvy with.
Sad news.
Christpoher Cazenove passed away last month. I was priviledged to have worked with him, albeit 25 years ago on the American TV miniseries “Kane & Abel”. I featured the clip in last Octobers blog (click here to see) This clip contains a small scene when the Abel family, en route to the church to baptise the new found infant, bump into his character, the Baron. Cazenove shot the close up takes on top of a step ladder rather than a horse and I remember being impressed by this simple trick of filming. Our scenes were filmed at the Château d’Ussé, France
Stop press…
Richard Leigh has persuaded “Malcolm Marvelle – Master of Mystery and the lovely Rita” to return to Jermyn Street Theatre this November 2010. Ticket information will soon be available on their website.
It’s a show not to be missed. But don’t just take my word for it. Click the video here to get a brief glimpse of what others have thought of past shows in the “Twilight Ballrooms Guestbook”
Creative Cow
What this site hasn’t got for the serious movie maker isn’t worth knowing. It certainly has a comprehensive collection of external tutorials covering a wide array of categories, including many Adobe products, specific camera equipment and the main 3d modelling programs. And when you’re on a tea break have an explore of the rest of the site too. The showreels people have submitted are awesome and inspiring, there’s a jobs board, excellent resource and links to some other fab sites.
Visit www.creativecow.net
Free CG software – Blender
Have you ever wanted to create your own CGI graphics but thought it out of your price range and ability? Think again. Ever heard of Blender? What?! It’s been round for years, c’mon! Check out the website. Basically, its open source software which means its free to download and use. And like most open source software (OSS) many people use it. Which means theres quite an established community online who forum and discuss its problems and potential. So if you get stuck on something, chances are there are many before you who have had similar problems too. And those people have often found the solution you require and have posted it on a forum. Good huh! And there are numerous free tutorials, repositories, libraries, textures, links etc…Download it now at www.blender.org
For good YouTube tutorials on Blender basics, I would recommend Super3Boy’s tutorials. Okay, he does sound like a young teenager and throughout his 30 odd tutorials his voice breaks, but the guy is good and tells you what you need to know with some fun, easy to follow examples to get you going.
tutsplus.com
Tutorials for photoshop, webdesign, after effects, vector graphics, cg, audio and much more.
Regularly updated, the tutorials are either on video or on well illustrated instructions. They are also in plain English. So whether you’re an expert or a novice, you’ll pick up some handy tips and tricks on this site.
Visit tutplus.com
Dream House!
In the mid-nineties, central Europe was gripped by the biggest thing in music since Michael Cretu’s “Enigma” stormed the charts in 1990. Swiss-born Robert Miles released “Children” – a style of music that would later become known as Dreamhouse/Trance. It was to be played in clubs and caverns all over Europe for the next 35 years and would later prove popular with fitness instructors, DIY superstores and speeding motorists.
I would now like to present “La Twilight Serenissima” – my own humble tribute to this, often deliberately forgotten, genre of music. This track was originally intended to be a cheesy underscore for a magic trick.
Happy New Year!
Have started learning the basics of 3ds Max and there’s still the new look Blender 2.5 Alpha version to learn. I’m in geek heaven.
Production is currently underway also for another episode of Insomnia due in the Spring. I think its the best one yet and will be the first one in WideScreen.
Widescreen is going to be more common on this website. And HD!
Site of the Year – Video Copilot
Video FX guru Andrew Kramer and his team run this website that sells their own VFX products and After Effects plugins including Action Essentials 2, ProScores, Twitter, Optical Flares, Riot Gear and more. These are very professional looking products at a snip of a price that you’d expect to pay elsewhere. But it is not just these that makes this site my Number 1 choice for any creative artist starting out on their own. It is the 100+ online tutorials by Kramer that are…free to watch! Kramers enthusiasm and passion for the subject is infectious. If the software, the tutorials or his positive personality don’t inspire you then I’m sorry for your loss. And it is your loss! Don’t be a loser. Visit www.videocopilot.net and buy their products! Now!
Blast from the past.
Mr Rock n Remix
This clip shows my recent experiment with a Vocoder. It basically takes an input such a vocal wave and sends it through the modulator of a synthesiser. Then when you play a chord on the synth, the input can be heard mixed with the chord that your playing on the synth. On a monotone level it can produce a robotic sound. Speak live through the mic/modulator input and you can get that robot to say anything.
It works very well with chords too as you’ll see here. I’ve used Lynsey Parkin’s sampled vocals that were used on Mr DeJa Vu which feature in Episode 3 of Insomnia.
If you’ve not yet watched Insomnia – Episode 3 then this is the original