Post 44: Long time no Post, but working on Designing the "Neighborhood" Set

    I can't believe it has been so long since I posted on this project. Vacation in France, other projects, and I have probably not been doing so much work on this one to have a lot to post. I have still spent a great deal of time working on a new test set,for the "Neighborhood". But it is extremely time consuming, and I have for months been collecting Architectural Parts, Facades, Street Parts. 
    I photographed Doorways, Church Interiors and Architectural Details all over Sicily in April. I scour the Internet for images. The problem is that there are very few images out there that are shot straight on and perspective corrected. There are usually cars, wires, all kinds of undesirable junk in front of buildings, so images have to be cleaned up, parts cloned, perspective corrected. Fortunately, due to the increases in connection speed and in definition of digital cameras, and of the prevalence of HD monitors, it is getting much easier to get high resolution images.
   However, bird's eye views of streets and roofs are still extremely difficult to come by, to the point I am considering getting a drone to shoot some. I even bought a small one to practice. It ended up at Randy's, and we hope to get a bigger one, once he masters it...Great progress has been made in the stability of drones, and some now have programable GPS capabilities, and the ability to hover a defined area automatically.
   There is still a long way to go to build a few blocks of the"Neighborhood, but the early tests show it is just a matter of patience, research, and work, work, work putting the puzzle together in 3D in After Effects.
   I have been working on a block, and here is what it looks like so far:

  Depending on the position and movement of the camera, some elements can remain flat 2D images and still look realistic. So the plan is to build the basic "Neighborhood" buildings in 3D, and add needed details, functionality and backgrounds later depending on the shot. 
  For example, if a scene requires a character to walk into a building, the door would be made functional, and the interior space designed for that particular room.
   
  

POST 43: EMAIL EXCHANGE

Very good, Mr. Randal Crow!

   Looks like progress, no?  I have a couple of "thoughts."  I'm sure nobody is surprised.

   But first, I have a new homework assignment for next week and that is to investigate what genre the film is going to be.  Is it a comedy?  A thriller?  A drama?  A comedy can be dramatic and a drama can have humor but either way it's necessary to conform to a path or we'll end up wandering in circles.  The genre tells us which direction to march, and probably which ending is correct.

   I don't think anybody appointed me to be teacher so apologies if I'm stepping out of bounds.  You'll have to let me know when I become too obnoxious.

   I was going to link to some articles online about genre but was unable to find anything that wasn't completely, utterly, totally fucking wrong and misleading.  It's shocking, really.  I'll keep looking.  

    The best definitions of genres I've seen are in Robert McKee's book.  Sorry, my copy is in LA.  Online you can find a description of comedy that informs us that a comedy is intended to make the audience laugh.  Gee, thanks, how very helpful.

   So, for next week, let's talk about genre.  We're not going to get anywhere without knowing what genre we're in.

   Randy, what's below is a good start.  I'll let it simmer while I think about it.  

    In the meantime, a different conundrum.  Is this a world that has no batteries?  A fantasy world can be anything but I wonder if this makes sense.  I don't know why I question it in a place that has metal dirigibles with windmill power.  And no steam power?  Why not?  There is water isn't there?  Could it be that there is still some gas and oil but it's so expensive only the super rich can afford it?  Or, maybe that's too intellectual.  Is this a cartoon world where if a windmill stops, the lights go out?  These are questions.  I don't have answers.   Maybe none of this has to be described.  In Jules Verne's story the Nautilus somehow had enough energy to navigate under water.  I suppose the audience ignores the obvious question: How do it do dat?  In our world, though, we're sort of questioning how everything works.  This is either a great story idea or a recipe for disaster.  I guess I'm wrestling with the internal logic of the SteamPunk world.  

   More later...

Preuit

Hey,

   On genre I am not speaking for JJ, but I think we both have the same sensibility and "Jeunet" inspired thoughts about this being a dark comedy fantasy. Or comedy thriller fantasy if such a thing.  I am aware that writing comedy is very difficult, so for fledgling writers it may be a bit ambitious. We may need assistance from our teacher.

   I have thought about the logic of a world without batteries, and whether it should be explained or not. In a short we would not really have time to go into so much detail, so the audience would have to assume there is just no batteries. And since we are establishing a very fantastical world with our animation style, airships, and pendulums, I don't think the audience will worry about it. We are treading in a hybrid environment however, part cartoon, part live action, so the audience may not buy in. It is an experiment and it will be art. We can lose the whole bit about lights dimming without wind if it creates a question and some disbelief for the audience.

    We have talked about the possibility of our world having a little oil and gas available, but only for the filthy rich. It is still an option if it helps the story.

    Perhaps our Magnate does have some oil to power his airship, and it is a steam engine. But the public can't really make steam because it requires too much windmill power to boil the water, and ALL fossil fuels are gone including coal. For a short film I am not sure if we have to explain to the audience that other alternatives like burning wood or dung are equally unavailable. 

    Or, perhaps we do still have steam power in this world, but then our theme of wind mill vs pendulum power becomes dilute.

   Please weigh in.

Randy

 Hi Guys,

    I will second that. I see “Steampunk Short" more as an Art Film than an Action Film anyway, and Caro/Jeunetare definitely a team I look up to, look wise, humor wise and "weirdness wise". So if it needs to have a genre name, call it a "Dark Comedy Fantasy”. I am not worried about writing comedy. Most of Jeunet’s comedic moments are not in dialogs, they are visual puns, crazy situations, facial expressions, practical jokes, crazy contraptions, etc…

   I am not worried a bit about batteries. It’s an old technology that we have barely improved on in 100 years. When Jules Vernes wrote his novels, he thought electricity was the future of locomotion, and equipped his submarines and flying vessels with batteries that could hold huge reserves of electricity. That part didn’t come true, and 120 years later, batteries are still really pitiful storage… It’s a non issue.

   I like the windmills idea and the lights dimming. We could have a wind storm with the lights brightening up, and dimming as the winds change, dark clouds, lightning... The windmills could also provide direct mechanical power for certain tools, the electricity being needed mostly for lighting. I see a set up with a shaft going across the room with large pulleys and belts that drive drills, lathes, etc… My cousin’s wood working shop was set up that way in the 50’s when I was a kid.

    Our world is NOT a post apocalyptic world, that seems too “cliché”. I like to raise real world issues relevant to our future and the way we are squandering it. No major catastrophe has happened, we have simply stayed the course we are on right now, and the world has run out of oil, gas, coal, and wood. Underground water is polluted because of all the fracking, rivers are polluted because regulations have beed abolished, clean water is scarce. The great dams have fallen in disrepair, with the rest of our infrastructure(we are already well on the way there). Housing has decayed, as well as the water and sewer systems. The electric grid has broken down. Global warming has created havoc with agriculture and farming(we are on the way to that too). Pesticides have killed pollinating bees(that is happening right now). Home grown Islamic terrorist have blown up major infrastructure. China is the world leader, and their shoes and clothes are Made in the USA. 

   People have home built wind mills on top of their residences for power, they have water towers to wash, and collect rain water rom their roofs to drink.

   Of course, the Magnate and his cronies live the good life in their penthouses tapping the remaining strategic oil reserves for power and locomotion.

   I like the idea of burning dung for cooking. That’s what they still do in many parts of the world… We could have the dung merchant come by the church every morning peddling his shit (pun intended).

   JJ

POST 42: BRAINSTORMING OVER LUNCH

    We decided to have a weekly lunch with Randy and Preuit to brainstorm and talk about thing in general and our project in particular. Yesterday's meeting pretty much trashed everything I had written to start over with new ideas. 
  Randy luckily put them down on "paper", so at least we have a good record of what we talked about and where we are, that we can potentially trash at our next lunch date:

Pendulumania

SUMMARY WORKING TREATMENT- 

Created by:  Jean-Jacques Gaudel, Randal Crow, and Preuit Holland

Time and Place

This steampunk world is futuristic, yet stuck in a early industrial revolution era on many levels and, without a way to make steam anymore. It is a dingy place in which fossil fuels have been exhausted, the air is too dirty to allow for solar energy, and the prime source of power is wind generated - from privately owned windmills scattered everywhere. They are on rooftops, in parking lots, in backyards, and pretty much anywhere there is space to plant a pole.

The city lights glow brightly, twinkling when the wind is blowing, but grow dimmer and brown with fading winds. On quiet, still nights, the city is reduced to near darkness, the only glimmers of light gathering from flickering candlesticks, and the eerie glow of  decrepit fish oil lanterns.

Characters: 

INVENTOR - Protagonist

(Male - 60 years old)

Having a brilliant creative mind, and being a "mad scientist type", he is capable of combining physics, engineering, chemistry, and specialized disciplines like clockmaking, into building unique problem solving devices.  He lives and works in an old de-consecrated church, amongst a vast collection of mysterious curiosities and mechanical wonders. 

IGOR 

INVENTOR'S assistant (curmudgeon)

A diminutive deformed creature, he is a devoted servant of his master, the inventor.

MAGNATE - Antagonist

(Male - 45 years old)

A powerful early industrialist, he thrives on making money no matter what the cost is to others, or to the world. He travels the city by air, in a weighty metallic steampunkish dirigible, festooned with operating windmills.

TWINS 

MAGNATE'S assistants (Female - 25 years old)

A pair of lovely but feisty identical twins, they are the untrustworthy agents of the MAGNATE. Although normally dressed in tight black leather, they can also masquerade as very sweet and disarming nuns attired in full habit gear.

Scenario/ problems/ complications

1) Humans have burned all fossil fuels available,  and they are desperate for a cheap, abundant, alternate energy source. Wind power is entirely inadequate to supply even their basic needs.

2) The INVENTOR has created a device that utilizes the Earth's rotation to sustain a pendulum in perpetual motion, thereby producing a small amount of electricity. 

3) The INVENTOR calculates that if millions of these pendulums are built to meet the world's energy needs, the cumulative effect would be to slow the earth's rotation to a standstill, the result being near extinction of all life on Earth. 

4) The INVENTOR'S church is the only building in the City which has plenty of lights and power when there is no wind to activate the windmills. 

5) The MAGNATE hear's of the INVENTOR"S church and is determined to learn why it has power when there is no wind.Through his relentless greed the MAGNATE is driven to acquire this secret device by any means,  and sell it en masse to the world. Pendulum power would replace wind mill power.

The McGuffin

Contained in a small wooden box and tightly packed with interlocking brass gears, wiring harnesses, and a small dynamo, this is the secret one-of a-kind invention that makes perpetual motion power a reality.

Story Options

Under command of the MAGNATE, the TWINS pose as nuns in habits and visit the INVENTOR"S church. Under the pretense that they wish to tour the old church because of its history, they convince IGOR to let them inside just to have a look. As they stroll in, pretending to marvel at broken plaster and decayed frescoes, one of them sits down at the dusty old pipe organ. She plays a few full, bold, menacing  chords that echo loudly throughout the chamber, rousing the INVENTOR away from his work at the far end. 

Story exposition is carried out through an exchange of questions and answers between the TWINS and the INVENTOR, as the very suspicious IGOR looks on. The TWINS at first are very sweet, kind and likable in their questioning of the INVENTOR. The INVENTOR initially is mean, unreceptive, and rude to these very pretty and delightful nuns. As the discussion escalates into an argument about the source of his power, one of the nuns sneaks away and climbs the long circular stairway to the bell tower. 

We see the MAGNATE in his airship docking the dirigible to the church steeple, and lower a gang plank to the bell tower. The TWIN who has climbed the stairway opens the bell tower door, and the MAGNATE enters.

Back in the chamber below, through discussion we find out that the Pendulum is the source of power in the church. We also learn that if millions of pendulums are built they will stop the Earth's rotation and everyone will die. 

The MAGNATE enters the chamber from the stairway with the TWIN close behind, and there is dialogue escalating to a climax/resolution. 

Possible ending: The swinging sensor (pendulum) has a very sharp tip at the bottom, and is capable of slicing a person in half as it swings inches from the floor at its lowest point. The INVENTOR loses his device (or mechanical drawings) to the MAGNATE, and is tied up on the floor below the pendulum, so that at midnight the pendulum begins slicing him into lengthwise filets. However in classic Indian Jones style, he escapes from the murderous pendulum at the last second (IGOR saves him?).

2nd Possible ending: The INVENTOR is tied up in the path of the pendulum, and as the MAGNATE is trying to unhook the secret box from the pendulum, he is electrocuted (along with IGOR who is trying to save his master). In the last frame we see the pendulum point coming right at the INVENTOR as the TWINS look on, but we cut to black before it hits him.

POST 41: WORKING ON A SCRIPT

   I decided we would try and write the script ourselves and got a pretty nice Screen Writing program called MovieDraft. I like the fact each part is color coded and I can use a dark background, but it still prints in a standard script format:

   Just to get things started, and for practice, I wrote a few pages, mostly seeing things up:

POST 40: REBUILDING THE TOWER

    When I first built the church, in order to create the octagonal tower, I used 2 wide textures which I bent  using Ray tracing with 4 sections each . 
   I then visually erased the parts that intersected with the four vaults below the vaults:

     It didn't look quite right, and I theorized the curves should be ellipses. So I decided to rebuild the tower using 8 separates wall sections. I precisely measured the length of the octagon sides at 1600pixels, so I decided to cut the 8 walls out of a 3000 pixels high x 12800 pixels wide continuous yellow ochre texture I made:

    I then proceeded to cut out of each wall ellipses 1500 pixels high(the height of the vaults) and 1600 pixels wide:

  After assembly in 3D in AE, the fit is close, but still not perfect. I will have to fiddle with it.

  The walls are higher, so I raised the dome to match.

  I also created more dramatic lighting: a mixture of Ambient light, and five hanging Chandeliers/Points of Lights down the nave and in the transept. I have not yet turned shadows on, but it looks pretty good:

   

POST 39: MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS

    It has been a while since my last post. I have not progressed very much as far as developing the sets further in detail, but I have given a lot of thoughts to how we are going to shoot the movie, and to the difficulties my computer has rendering these huge sets I started creating. I have also decided to tackle the scrip writing myself.
  Randy introduced me a few weeks ago to his friend Preuit Holland, who normally works in California, but is from Birmingham, and has been in town to take care of personal business.  A graduate of the American Film Institute, he is an accomplished Film Maker, Director, Photographer, Artist, Designer and "closet CG generalist". Just check out his web site to know more.
   He also happens to be a great friendly guy who doesn't mind sharing his knowledge, and a thinker who has spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how things work in his business. His advice has covered many topic, and I have enjoyed his conversation and his emails very much. He has caused me to rethink my process, but has not succeeded yet in making me abandon my beloved/hated After Effects to learn a "Real 3D Program" like Lightwave 3D, which he uses himself. I have downloaded it, an I have played with it, and I don't understand it any better than the other I have tried. My brain cannot wrap around the concepts, and I don't think I want to spend the time required to learn it. Who knows if I will still be interested in CG in a couple of years. I might decide to pick up a paintbrush again, or build a car, or start making jewelry… 
    So the idea at this point is to develop all the sets in a loose way, just enough to have fairly realistic 3D spaces we can use to make a storyboard and plan shots. I will be developing the script at the same time. When we know precisely where we are going and what sets or parts of sets we actually need, I will build these parts in 3D with more detail. While the closer parts of the set need to be full 3D, the more distant out of focus areas can be represented by a flat or curved background image(like the cityscape seen through the portholes of the spaceship).
      That way, we will render only what we need instead of the whole set.

POST 38: BUILDING 3D ARCHITECTURAL DETAILS

    Now that I have a basic layout, I need to start thinking about replacing the pictures of Architural Details by full 3D constructions. I will start with the portal, using this image as a departure point:

   I cut it up in simplified sections(base portal, columns, column bases, cornices), and made up those parts that couldn't be seen(column sides, horizontal planes, portal sides, etc...). I made properly shaped textures to bend with Ray Tracing into cylindrical parts for the moldings:

I built the basic Portal first, then started the more complicated task of building the 3D base for the columns:

     First, I made the series of moldings and made it a Precomp in AE:

   Then I rotated it 90 degrees left and right and fitted the three together, added the rectangular base and the flat horizontal surfaces to get this 3DPrecomp:

 Finally, I placed it in the Portal Precomp, duplicated it, and fit it at the foot of each column:

   It looks pretty good, now I have to build the cornice. I think I will remove the middle cornice that makes the image a bit too busy.

   What I am wondering is, since I am going to reuse a lot of the Precomps a number of times, is there a way to make them "instances", so After Effects only has to render them once? I will use this Portal as Altars  at the ends of the Transept and as upper part of the Main Altar. Many other Architectural details will be repeated throughout the "church"(cornices, pediments, niches, frames, columns, etc...), so it could save a considerable amount of processing power, and speed up rendering, which even with my fast machine, is painfully slow in this huge 10,000 x 8000 x 8000 pixels 3D space.