new looks

So I've been thinking of possible variations for the roto look in the film. Nothing that will break away from the stencil inspired look that helped get this film started though. And any changes made at this point need to add some sort of additional amount of depth in order to be worth doing. I'm not going to make any major changes just to "spice" it up. I finally came across something recently that I like and it also serves a purpose by separating the skate footage.

I made a long sequence from still frames of marble surfaces that I had given the black and white treatment to. I then used the black layer from the roto to act as a silhouette matt for the marble layer. I also adjusted the timing so that the marble images change at the same frame rate as the roto.

The following clip was the shot I as working on when I began using this look.

I think it looks good and will be a nice way of differentiating between footage shot at Pulaski and footage from other areas of the city.

I also re-rendered a shot I completed a while ago of Sam Weitzen down at Pulaski. I posted the shot when I finished it as 236x. I think the marble worked out well.

Before:

After:

I'm going to look into other surfaces to use as textures for the skate footage that's shot in other areas of the city. Things like street lines and asphalt, brick, concrete, etc.

research... ha

no_money

I finished the skating part of this shot a while ago. I'd love to go back and clean it up but I've got too many other shots still to do. That's the problem with animating like this. You never get to the look that you're truly happy with until most of the film is practically finished.

The second part of this shot was a beast to do because of the varying frame rates and motion tracking. I had to really finesse it to make it all look like it was running at 12 fps and at the same time because it's actually at 29.97. But I like the shot. I still need to make some minor adjustments to when the outlines of people start tracking to the wall but it's almost there.

This is definitely the finished look for the interviewee though. I've only done 2 other sections of interview so I might go back and redo those to look more like this section.

technical difficulties

I don't trust Adobe Premiere at all. Never have. Never will. Today I loaded up my project and all of my footage (interview, skate and city) was unlinked. Basically that means the software thinks it's gone. I was able to manually relink the footage but it took a long time and was kind of a pain in the ass cause I had to go across all my hard drives and find the footage. Usually when footage gets unlinked you can find just one clip and Premiere will find the rest on it's own. Not this time. I had to do each one individually.

I also use a combination of Quicktime and AVI files. Now when I load up Premiere it tells me that it can not load some of the AVI files because the original clips no longer fit the same format, i.e. they no longer have sound. Which is bullshit because if you open the clips they play with sound in the Media Player.

This also meant the majority of my previews were gone so I had to re-render the entire film.

Life may now continue but I still don't trust Adobe Premiere.

stuff

I went to the Red Cat the other night to see the best of the Platform show. It was pretty good. There was an amazing motion graphics film by Josh Raskin called I Met the Walrus. I highly recommend it. But this piece was outside in the lobby.




Since I don't drive anymore I've had a chance to survey my surroundings a little more closely. It's amazing how much stuff is all over the place in my neighborhood. I just never noticed it when I was driving.

paul_can_1

So I finished another shot. I tried something new for this shot and I hope it wasn't a big waste of time. I've had a couple people suggest that I add some variation to the roto style. I've been ignoring those suggestions up until now because I chose the style that I have been using for a very specific reason (I'll write more about that reason later). I had to try it though because it's better to know something isn't going to work then to wonder what if. But as of right now I doubt I'm going to use this version of the shot.

map_zoom_star

In certain areas of the film I felt that it was better to create some sort of visual representation of what was being spoken about. In this shot I pan and zoom around the city as Paul talks about certain landmarks and their relationship to each other. The shot ends at Freedom Plaza to show just how close it is to everything else downtown.

1shot_timed_ae

This is the first shot of skating in the film. I did adjust the timing of the shot a little. Right now it looks somewhat jarring because it happens almost immediately. But I keep saying there is going to be an intro of sorts that brings the viewer into the city. An intro should give me enough time to establish looks and reveal some subtle visual trickery that I intend to do throughout the film. So by the time we get to this shot it should be old news.

The first line of dialogue also appears over top of this shot on the right side. I'm not completely happy with the roto job though. It was the first attempt at rotoing the interview footage so the style is pretty rough.

wall rides

I have two wall rides rotoed. The second one in the film leaves a stencil on the wall because it coincides with a crucial point in the interview where Paul is talking about skaters adapting to the city. I haven't decided if the first wall ride is going to leave a stencil though. I'd rather he leave black wheel marks on the wall and white marks on the metal. But that's a tracking battle beyond just tacking a frame up there.

236x

I'm pretty happy with how this shot turned out. I did some sound design tests on this shot as well. If I go that route I'll definitely need to look into getting some help.

hand rail

I finished this shot a while ago but I forgot to post it.

Pinker Tones

A nice roto video

heading back

I thought I was going to be able to stay in D.C. until August 26th. Unfortunately it turns out I have to return to Los Angeles August 1st. Initially I was pretty worried about being in D.C. for so long and whether or not I would be able to get enough done. But I've actually gotten quite a bit finished since I've been here (which I think is a testament to my newly found work ethic for personal projects). I definitely would have kept pace while visiting home.

I have 2 weekends to get all my footage before I roll out.

License Music Now still has not given me a quote for aquiring rights to the music I intend to use. Seems like bad business to just ignore work requests but I have to keep trying them. I definitey think they will save me money in the end.

I've looked into a number of grants that have rolling entry dates. There seems to be a couple out there that I may have a chance at. It would be great to get one for the film itself and any expenses that I accumulate outside the reaches of my USC production budget. But I would also like to get a finishing grant. Finishing grants will help a film maker with a number of things like promotional post cards, festival fees, distribution, etc. I could burn through thousands of dollars just finishing this film. Especially since I plan on doing specialized post cards. More on that later.

I really wish I could stay here longer. It really is great to be back and I'm already looking forward to Christmas break.

flatbar

I'm pretty happy about finishing this shot. It came out really well. It links 3 finished shots together and for the first time I can see how things are going to work. Whenever I watch the rough cut of the film, the finished shots seem really out of place. That kind of worried me. But I kept telling myself that once I got a number of finished shots strung together it would work differently. And I was right. When you get used to the style you can tell what's going on much more easily.


I'd like to add red to the flat bar in this shot. It would look like the board leaves red streaks on the bar as he slides it. But I'm going to try a couple things involving red in the shot before this one so I'll have to see how that works first. I don't know that I want 2 shots back to back with large chunks of red.

ledge

Another shot finished, maybe. This is another shot that I'd like to come back to if I have time. When the guy gets the board back up to his feet after the kick flip there's a really nice snapping motion that gets lost in the rotoscoping and frame rate adjustment. I'd like to see what I can do to bring that snap back because that was a big part of the reason why I liked this shot. I'd also like to make some more adjustments to the background treatment. But we'll see. I like it the way it is but it would be nice to put some more time on it.

more footage

While I'm back I need to re-shoot a couple shots and get a number of shots I was not able to get the first time around.

Re-shoot
- monuments (with skaters)
- marble ledges at Freedom Plaza
- Freedom Plaza surfaces (with steady cam rig)
- dolly shot of streets (wider, try different lenses)
- pan from Capital building to Freedom Plaza surface
- street signs

Shoot
- DC flag
- Freedom Plaza engraving on the southwest corner
- Empty Freedom Plaza
- U St skate park
- subway
- Adams Morgan (low priority)
- Pitcrew store

I'm hoping this will cover it because this will be my last time I'll be in D.C. until Thanksgiving (if I come home for Thanksgiving). I plan to be finished with this film by the end of 2007 so I don't know if shooting again over Thanksgiving would even be practical. I might be able to do one or two shots that late but I definitely don't want to unless I absolutely have to.

construction

Finished another shot today. It is the first one I've finished since I've been back in D.C. I've been trying out different locations and I think I finally found a spot where I can get some work done.





I also just found out on Thursday that I won't be able to stay in D.C. till August 26th like I had originally planned. Unfortunately I have to be back in SoCal by August 2nd because my attorney sucks. I had been worried about being in D.C. for too long but now I'm worried I won't be here long enough. Pretty pissed about having to fly back on my 30th birthday too.

and i'm out

I leave tomorrow to head back to D.C. for the rest of the summer. I'm excited to go home but I'm also really stressed about having to be gone for so long. I'm sure my productivity will drop drastically since I don't have a solid workspace at my parents house. But the important thing about this trip is that I'll be doing multiple shoots to get the remaining footage I need for the film. I'm going to bring James Harpold on board to get a number of shots and I'm really pumped to use my steady-cam rig I picked up with my production budget. I just hope that airline security doesn't think I'm trying to pack pipe bombs in my luggage.

The best part about this trip is that I get to meet my niece for the first time.

LA stencils

I've been looking for stencil art in Los Angeles for a while now but I haven't seen much. I've seen some of the most incredible grafs since I've lived in LA but not many stencils. D.C. is about the same except for the quantity. In LA you have much more commissioned work. I like it. I think it adds some much needed flavor to the concrete jungle. USC is still a place in dire need of flavor.

The other night I was drinking at Short Stop and came across this on the sidewalk right out front. I'm glad to know somebody is throwing stuff down cause we all know I would never do such a thing.... um, yeah.

nose grab

I finally finished the shot called nose grab. It's a pretty sweet shot. The guy takes a 9 stair rail but flips his board by the nose with his hand before he hits the rail. I didn't even notice it the first time I watched the shot because it's so dark and the quality of the rip is so bad. But I realized most other people probably wouldn't notice it either. Especially if they only watched the film once. So I decided to make the hand grab one of the elements highlighted with red.


The skating was good but the shot was much more difficult then I had expected. I started the shot because it was short and it was dark. I needed to see how a dark shot was going to turn out. It ended up being a serious pain. I had to redo it 3 times and I'm still not completely satisfied with it. But I have to keep moving because I spent almost 3 days on the shot and it was only 24 frames. I got through the shot paul man in 3 days and that was 131 frames.

tests

I compiled this video for a presentation that I gave to the animation dept at USC. It shows a number of tests that I had been working on since the fall of 2006. The video is broken up into 5 sections - rotoscope tests, background tests, interview tests, examples of footage from the first shoot and a test assembly showing my first attempt at bridging the city and skating footage.

paul_man

131 frames, 3 days. It hurt.

3rd try, shot 4

This is the first shot I did in final form which is the third overall shot that I've done. It shows up relatively early in the film. I've started working in small areas of red as well. I don't intend for there to be red in all the shots. In fact very few shots will have red. In this shot it is only there for aesthetic reasons. I'll admit, I just liked it. But there are shots that use red to highlight background elements that were washed out by the treatment I've given the live action .

This particular shot took me about a day and a half if I remember correctly. It was during this shot that I started adding variations to the line work. The roto style still isn't perfected in this shot but it's definitely much closer.

first 2

These are the first two shots that I worked on back during my pre-vis studies sometime in early spring of 2007. There has been minor changes of the technique, BG treatment and frame timing since. Luckily I was able to go back and make those changes so I can still use these shots in the finished film.

You can see in these two frames that the roto style is slightly different from what I'm doing now. The white sections are more like shapes and there isn't much variation from that. My current shots are a mix of shapes and vaious types of line work. Some are derived directly from the footage while some are more tag-like and don't necessarily follow any aspect of the original footage. I use the tag-like line work as a form of shading so that I don't always have large chunks of white areas. I really like where the overall look is going because it seems more randomized. I'm still polishing the roto style but I know what I'm looking for. It's just a matter of doing it a couple 1000 more times.

skate art

When I began doing research for my film I wanted to look at the root of skateboard art. The best source for this was a book of skateboard deck art called Disposable by Sean Cliver. It has everything and it's really amazing to see just how far deck art has progressed.

When I was a kid I was obsessed with skateboard art. I'd collect all the ghetto stickers. I used to beg my mom for any new Powell Peralta boards when they came out. I think I was finally lucky enough to own a McGill and a Lance Mountain sometime in my youth. My favorites were the Ray "Bones" Rodriguez boards. Even as a kid I was really attracted to the high contrast images with the sparse use of color. It's a simple visual tool that I still use today in a lot of my artwork. In Pepperland I'm adding small amounts of red to certain shots. Sometimes for purely aesthetic reasons but in some cases it's simply used to bring the audiences attention to something in particular.

Looking at the history of skate art also helped me with my decision to use punk rather than hip hop in my film. Punk, metal, hardcore and hip hop all have strong roots within skating. But in D.C. its always been more about the hip hop. I'm just a slightly reformed punk making a film so I'm sticking with what I know. Plus I did some tests with various types of music and for pacing purposes punk works much better. It moves a viewer through a 9 minute flick quickly. I was pretty happy when I came across these Misfits boards because I'm working on getting the rights to Where Eagles Dare for a section of the film. I'm also hoping to get rights to 2 Fugazi songs. I'd really like to get some homegrown music in the film. I know Ian McKay is still really involved with the local music scene so I'm hoping the subject matter of Pepperland will help get the rights to the Fugazi songs.

Cliver, Sean. Disposable. Ontario: Concrete Wave Editions, 2004. 14-197.

interviews

I wanted to get interviews from 3 different generations of skaters in the Washington D.C. area for the film. So far I have interviews with Paul McElroy from what I refer to as the middle generation and Rob Spousta from the new generation. I was also hoping to get Chris Hall and Shawn Sheffy from the original crew and Sam Wientzen from the new school click. But when I started editing together the interviews I realized the film was getting too long. In order to have multiple interviews I needed time to establish each individual as a character and give the viewer a reason to listen to them.

So I had to make a judgement call and it changed my film quite a bit. I decided to drop Rob's interview even though he gave me a really great one. I couldn't add more interviews and it didn't seem to make sense to only have 2. So now the story of the film is told by a single interviewee, Paul McElroy.

Paul began skating in D.C. in the early 90s and was a incredible resource when I first began planning this film. I really lucked out when I got an interview with him. It was over Christmas break of 2006. I was supposed to head back to the west coast the day before classes started but Paul and I were finally able to link up and do a sit down. The only problem was that I had to reschedule my flight back and I ended up missing a couple classes. But it turned out to be the right decision because he was able to provide me with a great interview and all the information I needed to make this film.

Paul McElroy

Rob Spousta

when

I'm trying to figure out when I'm going back east to finish shooting. It's nerve racking to say the least because I need to be working on my film and have some sort of paying job throughout the summer. I know when I get back to D.C. my productivity will drop dramatically and I'm really on a roll right now. I originally made my flight for July 6th but a paying gig just popped up in LA and jobs aren't looking so good in D.C. I'll probably change my flight. At least I'll be able to get another shot finished before I head back east.

uncalled for

When I work on my film at home I always have music and the tv on. I happened to catch this out of the corner of my eye. Very disturbing. The particular "news" cast that was on when I first saw it was Inside Edition. It really pissed me off to hear that the majority of the feedback they had received after first airing the story was in favor of the police officer. Just goes to show you what kind of demographic tunes into Inside Edition. It's pretty disappointing that so many people think skating is that bad.

where I'm at

In the Spring of '07 I hoped to have my film fully edited and ready to begin the rotoscoping process by the beginning of the '07 Fall semester. I'm very have to post that I'm ahead of schedule. Right now I have a full rough cut of my film and have identified exactly which shots need to be reshot or replaced. I'll be heading home for the first time this year very soon and will be able to address those shots when I get there. I already have my music in place and am starting the process of getting the rights to the songs. My interview is edited and in place as well. I've also already started rotoscoping shots and as of right now I have 3 fully completed shots.

I'm very pleased with the progress I made in June. It was a productive month to say the least. Not only did I get myself ahead of schedule on my film but I was able to redesign my personal website, make a new resume, create a demo reel of all my most recent work, design DVD labels, covers and business cards.

film title?

I figure most people would assume this film is called Pepperland because of the black and white texturing that I've chosen to give it. But that's not the case. A good portion of why I'm making this film is because I'm homesick. I love D.C. and I miss it more than you can imagine. I truly feel that it is one of the greatest places on the planet. After I moved to Los Angeles I began to refer to D.C. as Nevernever Land. But I realized recently that Nevernever Land was not a very accurate nick name for it. Things have changed quite a bit since I moved. Places changed. People changed. I've changed.

When I was a kid my father and I used to watch the Yellow Submarine together on a regular basis and it's become a film that holds a lot of sentimental value for me. When I began to think about it D.C. was more like a Pepperland than a Nevernever Land. At least that's the way I see it. It's where all the good stuff goes down. It's where all the people that I get along with really well hang out and life just seems easier there. You can even call the cops the blue meanies of the situation because they came in and screwed everything up for a while. But it didn't last. It's back to being the great place that I remember.

So when I was thinking of a title for my film, Pepperland just seemed like the right choice.

the first

Well, due to popular demand I am officially entering the world of blogging. I'm sure in the near future this blog space will be saturated with information related to my thesis film at USC, Pepperland.