Update

Just an update on the progress of Pepperland.

We are very close to being finished. Currently, 3 extremely talented sound designers from the USC Sound dept. have been busting their asses on the sound design. We are looking to do our final mix by the end of October. A huge thanks to Bethany Sparks, Gentry Smith and Amber Beard.

Also, I can't even begin were to explain where the breakdown occurred in tracking down the rights to use the Misfits song, Where Eagles Dare. Fortunately, one of the strongest composers I have ever met stepped in and said he would compose an original score that would far exceed anything the Misfits could produce. Thanks Igor Nemirovsky!

Title/credits design

The film is almost complete at this point and I have been working on the credits and title designs while sound design gets underway. This is a section from the credits.

This section of credits includes the skaters that are featured in the film: Paul McElroy, Tyler Tufty, Brian Tucci, Sam Wientzen, Bobby Worrest, Alex Henson, Greg Harris, Ronald Flores, Billy Roper and Dave Coyne.

Also, this section includes the Cinematographers that shot the skating footage: Mark Nicoles, Chris Brown and Andrew Kline. The B-roll Cinematographers: Ryan Lovelace, Robert Lovelace and James Harpold.

I am very happy with the look of the title/credits design but the painting effect takes a while to reveal information. I have sped up the animation for each slate but the credits will still run about a full minute when finished. This has been a hard pill to swallow seeing as the film itself is only about 7 minutes long. My concern is that the credits will feel long. But I believe I have come up with a solution to this problem so I'm not too concerned about it at this point.

sam_can

As of right now, I estimate the rotoscoped sections of Pepperland to consist of over 3000 individually painted images. When the film was in it's early stages I was still experimenting with the look so the rotoscope process took considerably more time. As I began streamlining my workflow, I was able to complete a much greater volume of work in each sitting. But after about a year I began slowing down again due to the physical toll my body was taking from rotoscoping so many hours each and every day.

In January of 08 I decided to enlist some help in order to stay on schedule. I decided to recruit from the University of Southern California's Roski School of Fine Arts. Aside from staying on schedule, I was also interested in seeing what someone else would come up with if given a thorough explanation of how the process works, a limited amount of coaching and access to a wide variety of visual references.

ripo

Meggs

haha

The following shot was completely by an excellent artist named Clover. This is the second shot she has completed for the film and is currently working on a third. I wish I had found her sooner. You may find a link to her personal site in the sidebar section of this blog entitled, Links.

Pepperland trailer

I think I might just go with this section of the film for the trailer for Pepperland. It would be nice to cut a really nice one but there are other areas of the film that need my attention.

2shot_sam

I finished this shot some time ago but I don't believe I ever added it to the blog. I wasn't sure which frame to load up from this shot since I did a number of interesting things with the rotoscoping.


You can see that I played with the shapes within the rotoscoping to accentuate the momentum of the skater. Also, towards the end, I decided to throw the Washington DC flag on the underside of his board in red. Subtle, but that's what I wanted.

down time

Since I am waiting for a new computer to arrive I decided to do some painting. Tracking down music rights just wasn't filling the time.

paul_og12

This was the last shot I worked on before the old machine gave up on me. It shows the overlap transitions that I mentioned in the post directly below. I began to work this type of transitioning in at other points of the film as well. But until the new machine arrives I am restricted to tracking down music rights.

This shot took approximately 2 months to complete and consists of over 450 hand drawn images.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.