the fxphd deans blog

Tonight was the night to record my last After Effects class — Brian Higgins, AE monster and guest lecturer, could only do it on Friday night around 6pm. Sure, I said.

I forgot that Friday = June 29th.

But good friend who shall remain nameless ( but whose initials might include the letters M & S ) had just gotten out of jail (OK, I exaggerate) and said “what are you thinking…..After Effects should wait. You crazy?” (Also, possibly exaaggerate). But I said — no. I am a man of principle. fxphd postgrads deserve better — I absolutely must get the class out before the end of week 10.

So I record the class, deciding to buy my phone online. In fact, you’ll notice at one point during the afx221 class that I get busted for being online trying to buy a phone instead of paying attention to what Brian was saying.

But we wrap at 8 and decide to drop by the flagship Apple store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. No line. Walk up — an Apple employee with a wireless device brings me my phones (yes, 2) and checks me out. Takes 5 minutes. Golden.

I open up the box, hook it up to my MacBook Pro. iTunes starts (I downloaded new version earlier in the day)….taking me to the activation page for the phone. I select existing customer and a (cheaper) data plan. Done. My phone has my old number in about a minute — and my contacts and calendard are already there.

And fxphd.com looks beautiful. It’s why I got it you know….to make sure the site works on the version of Safari on the phone. Its the only reason of course.

I made the right choice.

Karma.

What’s that you say? OK … I’ll get back to editing the class. And this blog back on topic.

So let me start by saying I was wrong - 100% wrong - what I did was wrong - I admit it, I am not proud of it, but I didn’t think I deserve to go to jail. The good news is that they did release me. the bad news is I screwed it for the next guy.

So I said I would blog production for fxphd - so I am - the good and the bad.
But wait, back up - let me start at the beginning.

On Sunday night we were doing the online for Last Caress and we decided that ideally it would be great to get a couple of pickup shots. Pickup shots are the Holly Grail of film making - a do over, a chance at redemption - and as George Lucas will tell you - great fun as you can fix problems in the edit. Ok fair enough. The problem was that the producer was on another job, and while they were very helpful - a bunch of stuff feel to me. Now I had not been planning to shoot this week - or organizing a shoot- even a small one with HD cameras, crew, cast, makeup, catering, smoke machines, second unit fxphd making of crew, etc etc takes time. A lot of time - and I thought I had until Thursday , until I didn’t, and it had to be rushed and done today, Wednesday. Now this is no excuse for breaking the law - and I offer it not as an excuse but more to give you some reference on my state of mind - sleepless, rushed and over worked. Not that any judge would excuse felony trespassing on the basis of having had a long night and no sleep for a few days - but I wanted you guys to know I don’t normally break the law and I know it was wrong…

The thing is - and this is the serious thing - the thing is - well you screw it up for the rest of … well everyone - if you do things that give crews a bad name. Film crews rely on the good will of communities and screwing it up for everyone else was my biggest sin. Seriously that was the thing I felt worse about. Ok I felt bad for the guy who’s fence we jumped to get the one pickup long lens shot - we should not have jumped his fence - even if the country lane / road looked like it was a public lane/ road. Clearly the padlocked fence told me it wasn’t and as the EP of the project I should have just said no - we lose this shot - this isn’t cool to film but I didn’t. I stupidly jumped the fence to get the shot. I accept that was wrong and the second the landlord appeared I offered to stop, get off the road, I said a heartfelt sorry - and apologized. I immediately agreed that this long lane/road was clearly not mine to film in and that I was wrong.

But that did not stop him calling the police - parking our cars in (as I said it was a small lane).

Now we were wrong - I was wrong. No question and as said to the police officers that arrived two hours later… after we’d been standing in this field for 2 hours with me agreeing that I was wrong - and apologizing. But my wife is a lawyer and I doubted I was going to the Big House over this one lapse of judgement- a point the police agreed with - thankfully.

The fact I had immediately stopped, got off the road and said sorry - was good enough for the police. Of course, as I say the thing I felt worst about was screwing it up for everyone else. I doubt this guy would welcome another film crew near his farm (not that he welcomed us much today - but you get my point). So the moral is, when you think about crossing that line - and think to yourself that you will no doubt get away with it. Stop. You may get caught. You shouldn’t do it even if you’re unlikely to be locked up, because we are a community and as such we should not violate other people’s rights (or minor lane ways) and if you do, well you give all crews a bad name and that is a serious thing to do.

So I say sorry to you and I apologize to you for making it harder for the next crew to film. My bad, sorry guys

Mike
(acting alone)

Ken Ralston and Dennis Muren interviewed for fxguidetv

What a weekend! fxphd was at the Visual Effects Society Festival of Visual Effects, helping the VES shoot the event for their archives…and gathering other related material we hope to bring to fxphd members sometime in the future. The panels were great, as usual, and I had the chance to sit down and have interviews with names you might recognize — Doug Trumbull, Dennis Muren, Ken Ralston, Ian Hunter, Matthew Gratzner, and more. Sitting down with icons such as Trumbull, Muren, and Ralston was pretty cool I have to say — I’ve so respected their work over the years and its provided great inspiration. All of them were incredibly approachable and nice….which helped because honestly it was a slight bit nerve wracking meeting people you look up to such as that. Clips from the interviews will be shown on fxguidetv — with fuller versions of the interviews available only to fxphd postgrads.

fxphd postgrad Skip helping out on camera two

It was also ton of work, with about 12 sessions over 3 days — and we couldn’t have done it without the fxphd postgrads who helped us out: Elmar, Tim, Skip, Cecilia, Ido, David and Mike. These were long 14+ hour days with travel — thankfully, the panels were great. Thanks so much…everyone put in such a hard effort over the days and was so professional.

So what were we doing?

The day is split up into 90 or 120 minute sessions, with about an hour break in-between. We’d record the sessions, of course and then during the break, we’d shoot interviews in our interview room that was set up outside the lobby. We could leave the chairs and lights hanging so all we had to do is bring in the two cameras and shoot the interviews. But this didn’t leave much time for error.

We needed to record the sessions for the VES archives, so we used two HVX200 cameras, each with a Focus Enhancements firestore to enable us to record a LOT of material. One was on a wide shot and the other on closeups of the speakers, which will allow us to multicam edit the recordings. It simply would have been too difficult to use P2 cards — as they currently have 8Gig versions which would each only hold 20 minutes. However, we did use the P2 cards to record the interviews, since they were short.

Doug Trumbull on the fxguidetv interview set

The problem is, each firestore drive holds about 4 hours of 24P Quicktime material — so we had to back up between sessions in order to have disk space to record the day. Because it takes about an hour to copy over 100GB on firewire, and I figured the sessions would run over (leaving less than 45 minutes between sessions), this necessitated doing it after each session. So we set up a Macbook Pro and a G4 in the theater, and each had a 750G external firewire drive. So it worked like this:

1. Record Shrek session with 2x HVX200 and firestores
2. During break, transfer Cam1 firestore to HardDrive1 / Cam2 firestore to HardDrive2
3. While this was happening, we used P2 cards to record the interviews on both cameras
4. After interview, return firestore to cameras without deleting material from firestore
5. Begin recording the Pirates session

During the pirates session:

6. Use the G4 PC Slot to transfer P2 material to HardDrive1 — the G4 powerbooks easily read these cards (as long as you have a driver).
7. Copy HardDrive1 material to HardDrive2 — and vice versa. We now have 2 copies of all media on separate drives.
8. After pirates presentation, transfer Cam1 firestore to HardDrive1 / Cam2 firestore to HardDrive2
9. Do interviews with P2 cards
10. Only now — do we delete the material from the Shrek session (since we have 2 copies). And leave the Pirates session
11. Record the next session, backups, etc…..repeat

It was a tight schedule. The sessions would usually run over about 15 to 20 minutes…it takes 5 to 10 minutes to set up…then we’d wait for the interview subject….and then do the interview…and then set up in the auditorium. We acquired over 900 gigs of DVCPROHD Quicktimes over the weekend — just managing that is difficult because with the backup that adds up to almost 2 terabytes of footage.

Again — we so appreciate the effort of the fxphd postgrads. The conference was certainly a great event to attend and take in, but working at it was hard.

So I said I would write about stunts: so let me do that and give everyone a production update.

Stunts:

If you have never done stunt work - the first rule is safety, and on that score - a stunt is not done to entertain the crew, it is too look good on camera. So if it plays through the lens - it is a good stunt.
This means when you off to one side - a stunt can almost look silly- unless your the guy risking their neck.

As safety is the name of the game - if you can think of a way of cutting the shot - or tricking the effect - then you do. There are no points for filming a jump from a moving car - if you can shoot up at the sky and film it from a stationary car and make it “look” like the car was travelling at speed.

If the stunt is to involve real risk - then the way to do it safely is to work it up. This means a complex fight is first blocked in slow motion, then at half speed, then at speed, then in costume at half speed, then in costume at full speed, then in costume in the wet at half speed etc etc … and it never varies - or if it does - you go back and work it up again. All of which can take time - but if your the guy who is risking their neck… you don’t care.

Stunt guys cant get normal insurance, Stunt guys hurt just as much as you or I, stunt guys sadly from time to time are hurt. I have often visited friends the day or so after a stunt and been seriously concerned by the black and blue bruises these gives have, yes they are trained but don’t kid yourself being hit by a car, falling out of a tree or being thrown from a train doesn’t hurt ! Stunts take time and it is time well spent. If you allow for this then OK - it is fine - but don’t rush a stunt sequence.

On lookers can be dangerous to themselves and others, flash photograph - breaking the safety barrier - etc are all stupid and dangerous. Controlling the set and the environment is everything.

Wires are easy to remove, you get no extra points, ratings or box office for doing a stunt safely with safety wires and removing them later. There is no ego these days in stunts. In the late 70s there was a breed of stunt guys trying to out do each other - but with the advent of effects - this has left the industry - there is no point on doing the highest free-fall jump anymore - not with modern visual effects.. and for the record - some of those guys who used to push the limits - are now sadly dead.

Stunt guys do know how to fall to aid in reducing risk, so if your in a sequence - listen to them - trust me it hurts less if you do

Finally - never forget Stunt guys are actors - they actor - they sell an effect or stunt and add human performance.

Now on other production:

The first ep of fxguide tv (after the pilot) has been shot and should be out early this week.
John is in LA filming at VES - more on this very soon !
Mike is in Sydney shooting for bkd and next term setups.

Mike

For those in fxphd who have been doing various things with multiple images and 3D models - especially last term with 3D tracking and photogrammerty,… if you have not seen this video from the ted.com conference it is worth watching - it is an amazing techology showing.

click here