To promote D-Eb31e on indiegogo we decided to shoot a test trailer and a segment explaining how the costs are going to be spread across the production.

This trailer shoot also gave us a good opportunity to test out our Kit and the workflow we had planned.



Overall it was a good shoot and this is what we created:

To better promote the indiegogo page we decided to shoot a trailer and a promotional video with Lucy explaining the concept of the film and why we need the budget.

The first attempt of lucy's talk was shot in the photography room with a DSLR, however due to some complications with the Audio we decided to reshoot it on the same day we would be shooting the trailer, using the URSA to better show off our production values.

The URSA was a pleasure to work with, however the battery only lasts about 1,5 hours and the card can record 25 minutes, and takes about 40 to unload. It was good that we figured this out on the test day as i believe now Laura has added in the rental of a CFast card in the budget to be more efficient

This was also an opportunity to test out the actual workflow that we will use in the final film. The footage was offloaded on to a hard drive using ShotPutPro, a file transfer software aimed at digital imaging technicians which also verifies that the copy was successful without any errors by comparing both sets of files.




The trailer shoot itself was a really nice opportunity to test out the high speed feature of the URSA, filming up to 120fps for a full hd shot. We managed to get some really nice results and hopefully the trailer will be compelling to watch and instructive for us as a crew.

Here are the dailies:

We learned about proper practices in setting up these professional cameras, but also had the opportunity to test them out and compare them.

Here are some of the comparisons between both cameras:


Based on these tests i am leaning towards the URSA due to it being slightly sharper, and having better color management since we are using Davinci to grade. There are limitations such as card a

Date	Start Time	End Time	Room	Description
18/11/2015	10:00	17:00	G23 Sound Recording Studio	Pro Tools Rehearsal for Sound Recordist
19/11/2015	10:00	17:00	G23 Sound Recording Studio	Rehearsals with Lawrence
26/11/2015	10:00	17:00	G23 Sound Recording Studio	Voice Recording with Lawrence
27/11/2015	10:00	17:00	G23 Sound Recording Studio	Voice Recording with Lawrence
26/01/2016	10:00	20:00	G27 Journalism Greenscreen Studio	Live Action Shoot of Stop Motion Animators
27/01/2016	10:00	20:00	G27 Journalism Greenscreen Studio	Live Action Shoot of Stop Motion Animators
17/02/2016	10:00	17:00	G23 Sound Recording Studio	Foley Sound Recording

we have also booked the following equipement for our live action shoot in g27:

Start Date	End Date	ID	Equipement
25/01/2016 AM	28/01/2016 AM		Blackmagic URSA + Matte box + Lenses
25/01/2016 AM	28/01/2016 AM		3 Fresnels
25/01/2016 AM	28/01/2016 AM		Ronford Heavy Duty Tripod
25/01/2016 AM	28/01/2016 AM		Gels and Diffusion Set

These bookings were confirmed by Rosie Gunn via email.

Lastly we will also be booking lights for the stop motion shoot days.

D-Eb31E

These suggestions were discussed:

• Emphasize the fact that it’s a one set piece
• Names may date it / add elements (maybe unwanted)
• The character’s accent / place of origin will be important, since it is one of the first shots
• There should be a coherence to the piece (like Twin Peaks’s Razorhead)
• It should have a strong emotional core
• The quality of Debbie’s seductive voice is very important
• Look at Euripedes “Bakas” and the routes of tragic writing
• Be aware that pills take time to become active
• An interesting thing to do is instead of opening with the magazine, show it after we’ve met Debbie to surprise the audience
• Get equipement out and test most of the effects

Through the Medium

For our animation project our main focus was coming up with a short, snappy and interesting synopsis that describes all of the elements of our project

"Experimental Animation, applying 3D and Stop Motion, using two Characters, to juxtapose, engaged in whitty banter about the condition of their material and immaterial existence and the physical interface. This will allow us to explore the existential angst of the CGI character living in a mercyless void dominated by a cursor in contrast to the warmth and congeniality of the stop motion character who conveys a special bond with the human counterpart hands on animator. "

Taking the above into consideration, we decided to shorten in for synopsis purposes:

"Experimental Animation, applying 3D and Stop Motion, using two characters to juxtapose the condition of their material and immaterial existence, through witty comedy and banter."

Our other concerns were with the character designs, and how we should re think some of the design elements

Lastly we talked about expanding the script, and coming up with improvisation quese for Lawrence to try out on the recording days.

During our first camera workshop i got the chance to compare both the C300 and the URSA, two high end cameras that we might use for both "Through the Medium" and "D-eb31e". Therefore i shot a few test shots with different settings to see how both cameras look.



Comparing size and form, the C300 has a nice form factor, and can be mounted on various acessories such as the Glidecam or the Motion Control Slider. It has a familiar menu, same as the XF305 and can handle high ISO's. It's also connected to the Samurai Blade, therefore can do 10bit in Avid's DNxHD.



However this also means that a cable needs to be connected to the blade, and the blade needs to be mounted on to the camera. The plus side though is that if we want we could create two sets of files, one internally for backup, and one using the blade as our main source.

Looking at the image, it's a pretty clean image, however there is a bit of artificial sharpening. This can probably be fixed by changing the settings on the camera.

Also using the provided LUT to convert it back to Rec.709 gives a pleasing image, but loses information through the black areas. This can be fixed by color grading before applying the LUT, however the color representation seems a bit too "videoish". (Note: This is just my personal opinion)

The Blackmagic URSA is big and bulky, so it would possibly only work on heavy duty tripods, handheld for short amounts of time or on a heavy duty rig.



However the image quality (when appropriately lit) is phenomenal in my opinion. It has good natural looking sharpness even in ProRez, and using the DaVinci Resolve (free software) it can be outputed to a very pleasing version of Rec.709 with great colors, or also converted to linear light for Visual Effects use, or other film stocks such as Kodak and Fujifilm.

RAW recording, as i discovered whilst trying to get a beautiful shot of Shahid shaking a fanta bottle in slow motion, needs two CFast cards simultaneously, as odd frames are put on one card and even frames on the other. Because we only had one card, and were also trying to do 80 frames per second in raw, only half of the frames were captured, and after one point the camera started dropping frames due to the write speed needed. Also processing times in Davinci for raw are MASSIVE, whereas ProRez on a high end computer or even a Macbook Pro work at realtime.



I'm leaning towards the Blackmagic URSA as the main camera i want to use, however if we need to do specialist shots (Glidecam, Slider, Low Light) we might use the C300, depending on availability.

Here is a compilation of the test shots with and without LUTS:

Even though we had started working on the script after all of the restructuring, it was going slow... very very slow... therefore me and Lauren thought that to write the script we possibly needed a change of environment... and lots of coffee.

Using the breakdown as reference, we examined each section and tried to make the dialogue seem more natural, but we also focused allot on character development, as from our research this was a really important part of our story.



To establish both characters in the first section we shuffled the dialogue around. We also tried to add some of their personality traits within the interviews (eg. CGI Guy checks his hair in a mirror during the interview).

A scene that originally involved a gag with sandwiches and the cursor has now been re-written with a funnier coffee scene, that happens during the interview, and also contains the "triple mocha frappa lacka macha chino latte" reference from one of our first year films.

A conclusion has also been written in, and the script in general has improved pacing.

To continue on writing the script, but also to make sure it was flowing well and make it easy to shuffle in new ideas, i broke the script down in to post it notes, creating segments with individual post it notes, and using colors to represent sections. After brainstorming with Lauren we concluded to this:
And for better reference all the notes were transferred to our google doc:

The main points added were a dialogue sequence about the character's physicalities, and also shuffling the order of shots to create a better flow. We also came up with a possible conclusion, as Lauren pointed out we could have them talk about their similarities and possibly ending up saying the same things.

Therefore in the next few days we will take this structure and turn it in to a script.

Lastly today we both watched a very interesting google talk that Lauren suggested, from Leica and the makers of the Boxtrolls:

In the group production, my role would be that of Visual Effects Supervisor/Artist. This role involves looking at the script, breaking down the visual effects and making sure they get delivered on time, working closely with the rest of the team. I also may be assisting with organizing Post Production. I'll talk more about this in a latter post.

My role in the second project will be to produce it, do the Computer Animation and writing the script.

To organise the production, i'm using Google Docs, and have created a common spreadsheet that everyone has access to, and there we have notepads, a budget sheet, character descriptions and we can add accordingly. Also the script is on a Google Doc. Lastly we're using facebook as a means to update everyone about important information, and also share ideas.

I also helped create some concept art of the two characters to get a conversation going and to help with the design:

As a team, to exaggerate the differentiations between the two mediums, we decided to have both characters have the same gender, age and ethnicity. However the appearance of each character would reflect some of the key features of each animation type. For example the stop motion character would be cute, with lots of organic curves as part of the tradition of stop motion, with a big round jaw inspired from Aardman, and the CGI guy would have smooth, polished features, almost perfect to show the perceived perfection of the medium.

Lastly i've spent allot of time testing and learning modeling, texturing, hair simulation, and doing research and development on the technology side of things to get a pipeline ready for us to use.

I then added textures, and spent a long (loooooooooong...) time on figuring out how to properly simulate the hair. This is where i'm at currently, and am still testing things out...