DWARFED FILMS

After Effects The Foundry Camera Tracker Motion Tracking VideoCoPilot Footage into Scene Test

2012-01-19T18:04:00.005Z

A quick before and after comparsion of inserting some stock footage (in this case flames from the Action Essentials 2 DVD from VideoCoPilot.net) into a shot recorded on a Canon T2i using The Foundry's 3D Camera Tracker in Adobe After Effects.

This is not the most ground-beaking or exciting video test I've ever made but I wanted to focus on making visual effects blend into a scene without intrusion. I wanted the FX to be subtle.
This is the type of shot most people wouldn't even notice and consdier that someone added effects to....its not a burning building or an attack by a giant monster! But it's stuff like this - the little tweaks and changes to a scene - that make me feel that anything is possible. A basic crappy shot taken in a kitchen can be altered to suit wathever needs i see fit. This time it's just a couple of flames dancing about on a hob...but the next time it could be literally anything!

HOW IT WAS DONE:
I tracked the scene using the Camera Tracker and then created a Null from on of the created 3D trackers.
I then created a plane, made it a 3D object and parented it to the Null. I adjusted the plane to be positioned correctly in the scen in 3D space.
I added a light which I set up to effect the lighting of the plane. I added a wiggle expression to make a flickering light effect on the plane.
Next I added some fire elements from the Action Essentials 2 DVD, made them 3D objects and parented them to the same Null in 3D space. I set the fire elements to always face the camera.
After this I added adjustements with curves and various blending modes to make the fire seem like a typical gas hob.

The flames cause a flickering light effect on the scene.....which may not be particularly obvious from the clip but it is a subtle effect that makes the stock element 'sit' in the scene better.

Stuff used: Adobe After Effects CS5, Action Essentials 2, Canon T2i, The Foundry Camera Tracker.

Test of Video CoPilot Action Essentials City Explosion

2012-01-13T11:16:00.002Z

A brief test using the footage and tutorial from the VideoCoPilot Action Essentials 2 DVD which I got the other day.
Some great stock footage included but it takes a combination of multiple elements and various blending modes to make it fit correctly into a live action scene and seem convincingly real.

Visual FX: the tools to make quality effects are available to all nowadays

2011-12-12T19:04:00.011Z

That's one hell of a long heading!
But it gets across the point: high tech visual effects are easily doable nowadays on home computers.

Think back just twenty years and picture how far we've come since then in terms of the technological tools at our disposal such as compsoiting software, chroma-keying and motion tracking. It truly is remarkable.

I've been playing around with Mocha (the free 2D motion tracker that comes with Adobe After Effects CS4+) and I sometimes just shake my head at how cool it is.
I can shoot some handheld wobly-cam footage, pop it into Mocha, let it calculate (extremely quickly BTW) the coordinates, import the saved data to After Effects and within a minute or so insert a almost perfectly tracked image or piece of text into my shot.
It is simply mind-blowing.

But the thing that amazes me the most is not how cool the newest software is...it's why more independent productions don't use it!

Fantastical locations, earth-shattering explosions, and all other forms of visual FX trickery that Hollywood lockbusters rely on are right on our doorstep but I've struggled to think of many productions that make use of them....besides Garth Edwards' Monsters...which wasn't exactly a low budget production despite the press spin (this was not a $15,000 movie - far from $500,000 even - but many of the efects such as motion-tracked location and object insertion ARE DOABLE on a tiny budget of far less than $15,000).

It takes less than half an hour to insert a fairly realistic shot of an explosion into a film if you give it a go yet it seems many simply don't...give it a go, that is. Spend a few days polishing and refining it and you can have a great-looking effect that defies your budgetry constraints.

A few years back when I was making The Darkside I needed some cutaways to some graffiti on walls. Problem was I had no graffiti and no walls! This was some basic, no frills FX work that had no bells and whistles or needed to stand out in any way, but it was necessary to the film and was achieved with the most basic of software: Microsoft Paint!
I stitched together some wall images in MS Paint (using a broken mouse - I had no graphics tablet at the time even) and painted in graffiti on top. I then composited the images togther in a basic editing package (Magic Movie Edit - the original one) and added some movement so tha it didn't stick out as being simply a still image in amongst the rest of the movie.
This is a very simple example but it goes to show how visual FX is mostly used: to further a story. Sure, when most people think Visual FX they think of the big stuff like explosions and the likes but it is the bread and butter little things like object removal/insertion and matte paintings that seamlessly integrate with live-shot footage that it is mostly used for.

I'm not saying every movie needs visual effects but if the tools are there and you want to really add some production value to your film then why not go for it?

The inspriational lessons in using Adobe After Effects provided by Andrew Kramer over on VideoCoPilot.net are the sort of things taht make you wanna just get out there and make some amazing films and let your imagination run wild.
It really isn't that hard to blow buildings up (visual FX wise, I mean!) or show a sweeping helicopter camera move over an alien landscape these days - you just load up After Effects and Terregen and off you go. Maybe stick in a bit of Blender for adding 3D model buildings or crafts to your shot and you're rearing to go!

I highly recommend the free VideoCoPilot.net tutorials (there's 120+ so far) to inspire and get your creative juices flowing.

Dont just get stuck in the rut that is the typical indie movie of a few actors talking in one or two dull locations.
Expand your vision! Because nowadays your vision is not limited by the tools at your disposal or budget or even time, as with the advances in home computer processors rendering is really quick.

Creating the ‘Cinematic Look’ Process

2011-10-23T17:28:00.013Z

Making something look cinematic requires more than simply shooting footage with a film camera, but it actually doesn’t require a huge amount of effort or money.

In fact, the cinematic look can be recreated relatively easily once you are aware of what something ‘cinematic’ actually is (See my previous posting “Inspirational Cinematic Photography” for more)!

The key elements to a ‘cinematic’ image are as follows:

Shoot 24p using the 180° Shutter Rule
Shot Framing
Lighting
Depth of Field
Grading

Let’s look at each one a little closer.

1: Shoot 24p using 180° Shutter Rule: What the hell does this mean? Well, you should shoot at the speed that cinema films are shot at, which is 24 frames per second (actually 23.976 frames per second). ‘24p’ means 24 frames per second progressively. You should use this frame rate as opposed to ‘24i’, which means 24 frames per second interlaced. Interlacing means that the picture contains two fields, which doesn’t look nice and is synonymous with the ‘DV look’ (not nice). The simple point is that you should aim to shoot at 24p because that is what looks most cinematic.

The 180° Shutter rule is an even more complicated thing to explain and you can find lots useful resources on the web explaining it with diagrams and stuff. They describe how you should use a shutter speed of twice your frames per second.

For mere mortals like you and me (you are mortal, aren’t you?) this really means that when shooting footage at 24p you should set your shutter speed to 1/48 of a second – or as close as, which is normally 1/50 of a second on DSLR’s.

When shooting slow motion footage at 60 frames per second (FPS) on your DSLR you should use a shutter speed of 1/120^th of a second.

If you have a camera that shoots at, say, 100 fps then you would shoot at 1/200^th of a second. Just double your FPS speed to get your shutter speed.

So, shoot at 24fps and use a shutter speed of 1/48 of a second (or 1/50^th is that is the closest setting you can get on your camera). It’s best to stick to this rule and not think too much about it. It works and that’s what matters.

2: Shot Framing: The single most important aspect of a cinematic image is how the shot is framed. If you want to make something that looks more like something you’d watch in a cinema you need to make sure that what appears in your frame doesn’t look like your granny’s holiday snaps from last year.

Try not to put your main point of interest in the centre of the frame. Use the rule of thirds and try to have your main point of interest located where any of the vertical and horizontal lines converge.

Only put your main point of interest dead centre by stylistic choice or for impact.

When composing your shot, make sure that the viewer’s eyes are not distracted by unimportant details. Aim for a clean frame where nothing gets in the way of the viewer understanding what’s going on in the shot, for instance if a background is too busy blur it out with a shallow depth of field (see ‘4: Depth of Field’ for more).

Vary your angles. Don’t shoot everything from the same viewpoint (unless this is a stylistic choice for impact). If you are filming a dog or a kid, get the camera down at their level. If you are filming a vast expanse of land, get the camera up high to get a vantage point.

(See my previous posting on “Where to Put the Camera” for a discussion on camera placement)

3: Lighting: A cinematic image looks lush and moody. To create this lush and moody look does not require a huge lighting set-up. Actually less is more. Filming a character lit by a single practical lamp while leaving the rest of the room in shadow instantly adds production value. Good lighting is less lighting. Shadows are your friends. Use lighting to direct attention to your main point of interest.

Use backlighting to create silhouettes.

Expose correctly. Leave some information in the shadows, avoid blown out highlights like the plague. And remember, the image you get in camera just needs to have an adequate range of exposure; you can do all sorts of tricks in grading to make your blacks really black or add tints and filters and make countless other adjustments.

4: Depth of Field: The depth of field defines the area of focus in your image. Being able to control what is or isn’t in focus has a huge impact on cinematic style and emotional connection to the subject matter/character.

A wide depth of field means that the vast majority of your image will be in focus. This is useful when trying to show a wide vista (a landscape or cityscape, for example) where you need to ensure that everything is in focus. F-stops of f.8 or more makes the camera lens’ iris smaller and ensures more of the image is in focus.

A shallow depth of field means that only a very selective area will be in focus while the rest of the image will be blurry. This is used to separate the foreground from the background for instance and is an essential tool when filming people during dialogue sequences so as to make sure that the viewer is focused on the actors and not distracted by something in the background. An F-stop of 5.6 or less allows this look.

The background takes on a blurry pattern that is called ‘Bokeh’. Different lens produce different types of Bokeh effects; some create more circular blobby patterns of light, while other’s make more hexagonal-style blobs.

Using a shallow depth of field is something craved for by independent low budget filmmakers for years in order to simulate the ‘cinematic look’. Before affordable digital SLR camera’s the shallow depth of field look was out of reach unless you were willing to splash out on a much more expensive camera.

But even if you only have access to a regular video camera you can still ‘cheat’ this shallow depth of field (or ‘blurry background’) look by zooming in as much as possible while positioning your camera further away from your subject. This makes the background more soft and is a way to get a less impressive, but still effective, shallow look.

5: Grading: No matter how well you light and expose your footage in production, when it comes time to assemble it all in the edit you will notice that, colour-wise, it wont look very impressive.

But don’t fret: this is where grading your images comes along to make everything look just like you imagined it should! Grading is basically adjusting the hue, saturation and contrast of your footage so that first it matches and then secondly it allows you to create a ‘look’ that defines your cinematic style.

A great way to practice grading is by opening a still picture in any basic image editor (IrfanView, for instance) and going to the menus and selecting ‘Image’, then scrolling down to ‘Enhance Colors’. This will give you options for adjusting brightness; the colour balance of the Red, Green and Blue channels separately; Contrast, Gamma Correction; and Saturation. A few subtle tweaks of the RGB values and the Contrast will have a massive impact on your image.

Increasing contrast, then increasing the Red and reducing the Blue values makes the image appear ‘warmer’.

Increasing the contrast, then reducing the Red value and increasing the Blue makes it ‘cooler.

Try it!

This is basically what you’d be doing in After Effects (or whatever editing/colour correction software you are using) in order to make your images come alive.

Stu Maschwitz’s book The DV Rebel’s Guide has a step-by-step process guide to colour correction that lays out in simple English how to go about turning an average looking shot into something truly cinematic.

Basically you need to firstly ensure that all your clips match. This means giving a general colour correction to your footage so that all the shots seem to be part of the same whole – and this is why it’s important to ensure when you are shooting footage that you get a good, clean exposure and not set out to complete a look in camera. The computer is where you should be fiddling with the look.

After making sure that all your clips match up well, you then move on to the creative stage: giving the footage ‘the look’. When you think of a Tony Scott movie you immediately think of over saturation and high contrast – this is his ‘look’. That’s just one example, go find yours.

When all these five elements are put together you are well on the way to getting the true cinematic look.

Of course none of this matters a bit if you have a crap script, awful sound and poor acting, but people judge things on first glance visually and ensuring that your film can compete in cinematic quality terms with the other films out there will prevent it looking amateurish and cheap.

These five points will instantly add production value to your work and without a huge deal of effort or stress. Ignoring them would be a futile waste considering how they require relatively little effort.

- Shane

(Images taken from Google.com/images. All images copyright of respective owners)

Writing Films - How Descriptive should a Movie Script be?

2011-10-13T17:56:00.030Z

Just how descriptive should a script be?

Well, it all depends on whether you are writing a script that you intend to make yourself or whether it is going to be made by somebody else.

I'm going to focus on talking about writing a script that you are making yourself.
I should warn you that this is another one of my long postings ;)

Ok. First things first: you should write in your own voice and manner. Don't go all flowery with the language just for the sake of it. If you are a straight-talking type person you should write in that way.

Remember, you are not writing a novel, you are simply trying to lay out the blueprint/set the tone for a movie.
You need to get the feeling of the story across and include references to any characters, locations, props you need...but no more.

The script is the blueprint.
It is not the be all and end all. It is an in-between stage to get your ideas from inside your head and present them in a clear and concise manner.

Let's take an example.
Say you have thought up a scene where a man walks into a bar and sits at a table.
It is a basic scene, but can be staged in countless ways.

You need to ask yourself the following questions:
- What is the purpose of the scene? How does it further the story?
- What is the character's motivation? Why is he here?
- Where are we? What does the location look like? What time of day does it take place?
- How can I get across the mood/feeling in a way that reflects the idea's in my head?
- How can I communicate this idea in a way that makes sense to the viewer?

The last point is the most important: the need to respect the audience and ensure that your idea's are conveyed in a way that they will accept and enjoy.

Let's move on to the process of getting it all down on paper.

One writer may keep it extremely basic and write:
1: "The man enters the bar. He walks across the floor and takes a seat at the far end. He orders a drink from the barmaid."

Another may write:
2: "It's late in the night, near closing time. A man in a tattered shirt and baseball cap pushes through the door, pausing briefly as a neon Budweiser sign hums and flickers behind him. He moves forward, head held low, through the almost empty place. Reaching the far end of the bar he draws back a wooden stool and sits down awkwardly. Raising a finger he orders a beer from a barmaid wiping down the counter top".

A third writer may put it like this:
3: "A wide interior establishing shot of a bar at night. Cut to a mid shot of man in cap pushing through the door. Pull-in as he pauses briefly in the doorway. We pull-in real tight for an extreme close up, revealing just his eyes and an out of focus Budweiser sign behind him. We cut to an overhead wide shot as he moves forward, head held low, through the almost empty place. Cut to a low-angle shot as the camera dollies behind him as he reaches the far end of the bar. Cut to a medium close up behind the bar as he draws back a wooden stool and sits down. Raising a finger he orders a beer. Cut to an over the shoulder shot of the man (with him filling most of the frame) as we see a barmaid wiping down the counter top".

Which one to use?
- The first one gets across the general idea but it lacks any emotion. It is flat. Boring. Dull.
- The second is descriptive and creates a mood that the first lacks.
- The third is descriptive and features camera placement ideas.

Despite number 3 having the inclusion of descriptions of camera moves and set-ups, I still believe number 2 is the best overall.

Having lots of intricate camera moves worked out in advance is fine when you know exactly the location you are going to be shooting in like the back of your hand. But you can get easily bogged down in simply recreating shots based on a plan rather than using your intuition and gut feeling which often leads to far superior outcomes.

I used to always over-write my scripts; every single camera movement described in precise detail.

But do you know what? It took the fun out of actually shooting stuff!

As far as I was concerned, the film was virtually already made on the page and the act of actually filming it was a tedious chore.

A script needs to include enough information to get across the feelings required yet still leave wiggle room when shooting.

You should be inspired by the script to go out and shoot.

Including certain essential camera moves/placements in ok, but you shouldn’t kill the story flow by breaking it up all the time with technical jargon that doesn’t enhance the story-telling.

Besides, you can use storyboards for this purpose if needed. And it’s far easier to have a quick glance at a picture than it is to make sense of a bunch of words trying to describe the angle and height of the placement of a camera!

A much more important element to include in a script is sound.

I’ve written before on the blog about the importance of sound in film, and it’s something that should be thought about at the script writing stage.

“An icy wind whistles through the alleyway, scattering a clanking tin can along the street” and “a throbbing beat resounds in Dave’s head, lub-dub-lub-dub, before he collapses to the ground with a mighty oomph” are just a couple of examples of how sounds play a vital role in bringing a script to life.

The name of a song/band/act a character is listening to in your story should be included instead of simply typing “John listened to a song”.

That tells us nothing! The line “John listened to Beethoven/Metallica/Tellytubbies” gives us an insight into the fascinating character of ‘John’!

Even if you don’t have the rights to use a particular song/artist you should still include it in the script. Who knows, you might get lucky and get permission to use that Beatles song you really wanted (Paul McCartney could be in a good mood that day). But even if you don’t, you can always use piece of royalty-free music that has a similar sound and will work just as well, if not better. Plus, because film is an audio/visual medium it should be planned to make use of the effectiveness of sound during the pre-production phase and not just concentrate on pictures.

An editor will always use a temporary soundtrack when piecing together a movie so as to find the correct rhythm of cuts; a scriptwriter should never ignore the power of music and sound either.

Including music references throughout your script will immediately add more life and character to your story.

This includes the use of sound effects where needed.

Let’s say your lead character is firing a gun during a getaway sequence: writing “John fired the handgun” is boring. But “John fired the handgun. Krackkkk!” lets the audience better visualise the feel of the weapon’s power.

Now lets get to wordiness. (yes I know I am one to talk!)

The average script breaks down as one page = one minute of screen time.

So a 90-minute movie would be roughly 90 pages long (when written in the standard Hollywood format).

You’re probably thinking that if you start adding all these descriptions of sounds and stuff like that you’ll end up with an un-doable 1000-page script!

This is where script editing comes into play.

Be selective in the amount of words you need to get your story across (says the man who has been busily typing all this!). You don’t need to describe every single detail of the rivets in the side of the ship in your Titanic-themed story. But if your story is about how some badly inserted rivets contributed to the sinking of the ship then you should be all means go all out and describe them in detail.

The whole thing is dependent on context: what you write is significant insofar as it moves the story forward and contributes to the tale.

A good script is like one of those little model buildings that architects have made-up when showing off a new development. It should be well made so as to convince viewers of the viability of a project and show a proposed depiction of what the finished job might look like. But it is an intermediary, a simulation of what the finished project might be like. It is not the finished goods - just like a script’s job is to be the solid foundation of a movie, something to inspire filmmakers on their journey to produce their best work.

Happy writing!

(all images from google images. Copyright of their respective owners)

Inspirational Cinematic Photography Examples

2011-09-22T17:07:00.013Z

Often a still image can convey a greater story than most feature length movies, creating a mood that goes far beyond what is a solitary frame.

On doing a Google search for ‘cinematic photography’ I was disappointed with what popped up: mostly some Flickr photo’s cropped top and bottom with a black bar.

I also got some tutorials on turning a photograph into something ‘more cinematic looking’ – which basically involved upping the contrast and saturation and adding the obligatory horizontal black bars.

I’m sorry, but this is not cinematic.

Cinematic (to me at least) is not simply taking random snaps and re-formatting/messing about with curves!

Cinematic involves making a picture that tells a story that goes beyond the act of photographing a single moment in time.

Cinematic photography is making an image that creates in the viewer an experience that makes you start to piece together a storyline that exists before and after that initial frozen moment in time.

With that idea in mind, here is a brief list of just a few cinematic photographers that I like (in no particular order).

Click on each name to see a tiny thumbnail sample image of their brilliant work and make sure to look them up on Google to view more of their photographs.

*Gregory Crewdson:

*Alex Prager:

*Phillip DiLorca Corsica:

*Christophe Dessaigne

*Laurie Bartley:

*Astrid Kruse Jensen:

*Julia Fullerton Batten:

The thing to notice when you check out these images is how none of them feature those dreaded horizontal black bars!

Do you know of any other cinematic photographers that you’d like to share?

Get in touch or leave a comment on the blog.

-Shane

Dwarfed Films NEW ESSENTIAL FREE SOFTWARE LIST

2011-08-18T16:15:00.019Z

A few years ago I compiled what I believe were the best free software tools for movie-making in list formate (DWARFED FILMS ESSENTIAL FREEWARE 2007).

Well I think it's about time I updated the list for 2011, taking into account any newer programs that have popped up during this time and removing programs taht are obsolete or which I personally are old hat.

So here goes:

DWARFED FILMS NEW ESSENTIAL FREEWARE LIST 2011

Essential Freeware or Open Source Software:
Note: items frequently used by Dwarfed Films.

Animation/Modelling Tools

(Alternatives to Maya/XSI/Lightwave 3D/Cinema 4D/3DS Max/Poser)

Blender 3D: Open source (freeware) 3D modelling, animation, sequencer for windows/mac/linux/etc
Still, in my humble opinion, one of the best graphical software programs out there. There has been a massive redesign of the user interface with versions 2.5+.

The only issue I have with the new versions is the problems it has displaying images in the sequencer; to make your images display in the display window while editing you need to set the output formate to 512X512 pixels (also works 1024X1024, etc). Maybe this has been corrected in the updates but I haven't checked.
Anyway, you can always use an earlier version (Blender 2.49 for instance) for sequence editing.
Visit www.BLENDER.org to download Blender (you can visit the archives and get earlier versions also)

Makehuman: Open source software for creation of hyper-realistic human characters with no need for any modelling experience - just toggle some parameters and you can tweak every anatomical part of the base character to create any male/female character of your choice. Exports to OBJ format.
www.makehuman.org/

Image Editor Tools
(Alternative's to Photoshop/Painter/MS Paint)

The Gimp: Open Source image editor that is just like photoshop www.gimp.org.
I've used The Gimp for years and prefer it to Photoshop and Painter. Some people find it fiddly, but I love it and think it is reliable and allows me to do whatever I need to get done.
The very best graphical software program - and its free.

Irfan View: Freeware image viewer supporting practically every format from .png to .mov.
Mainly use it for converting images to different formates and viewing stuff. Fast, reliable.
Find it at www.irfanview.com/

Paint.Net: Similar to The Gimp but easier interface and it also loads much quicker. Supports layers and a whole range of effects.
Haven't used in a long time, but if you like nice interfaces and want something like Painter - but Free! -then this is for you.
www.getpaint.net/index2.html

Visual FX Tools
(Alternative's to Adobe After Effects/Nuke/Mocha)

Terregen: Freeware landscape creator for making stunningly realistic landscapes.
Haven;t used in a while but this program can really give you options if you really need a cool helicopter-flying-over-mountains type sequence.
Terragen 2 was released which offers import of 3D objects and creation of fully 3-dimensional worlds.
www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

Terranim: Freeware plugin for terregen that makes animations of created landscapes.
Without this you only get static images from Terragen. With it you get unlimited camera moves and image morphing (to simulate a flat plan 'growing' into a mountain, for example).
Do a Google search to find "Terranim plugin for Terragen".

Landformer: Freeware landscape map generator for use in Terregen.
Do a Google search for "Landformer for Terragen".

Voodoo Camera Tracker: Freeware camera tracking software.
Raely use as I have After Effects and don't really ever need 3D motion tracking, but this could od the trick for you. And its free. Downsides are the import formates accepted: TGA.
www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/download.html

Apophysis: Fractal-based image creation. This can produce incredible imagery (see our short film "BIRTH" for Apophysis designed animation).
Not sure if the basic download package includes an animation output, so do a search for "apophysis animation plug-in" on Google if it doesn't.
www.apophysis.org

Video Editors
(Alternative's to Sony Vegas Pro/Adobe Premiere Pro/Avid/Final Cut Pro)

Lightworks Beta: the legendary Lightworks video editor is now available for free!
Enjoy the weird editing process and famous Shark delete button in the safety of your own home!
I remember learning to edit using this thing when I was in college. It was very intuitive once you got the hang of it (is that an oxymoron?). It has auto save...which is handy becasue the program has an annoying habit of randomly crashing. I find it a bit finicky nowadays when compared to other video editors such as Sony Vegas and others. But it's a small download (approx 40MB) and it can't hurt to try it.
http://www.lightworksbeta.com/

Blender: Didn't I already mention this? Who cares! Not only is it a great animation/modelling program, but the Blender sequencer is one of the best video editing applications you will find: fast and free.
www.blender.org

Image Players/Editors
(Alternative's to Windows Media Player)

Handbrake: Open Source media converter. Highly regarded.
http://handbrake.fr/

Super: Freeware video converter for conversion to avi/mpeg/wav/mp3/swf/ogg/mobile phone/etc and vice versa.
www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

VLC Media Player: Multi formate media player.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

MPEG Steamclip: Plays and converts multiple file formats.
http://www.squared5.com/

VirtuaDub: Still good after all these years. Great for quickly converting video footage to image sequences (although I personally use Blnder to do this as I find it faster). http://www.virtualdub.org/

Audio Editor/Sequencer Tools
(Alternative's to Pro Tools/Adobe Audition/Sound Forge)

Audacity: Open Source audio editor and recording audacity.sourceforge.net/

Reaper: The best audio composer/editor. It's not free technically, but you can download it and use the full version indefinitely if you don't use it for 'commercial purposes'.
Excellent program.
www.reaper.fm/

Acid Xpress: It's free and it's Sony. Sony make good products generally, so put two and two together and see what you come up with.
www.acidplanet.com/downloads/

Shittalker: Basic text to speech program. Not sure how much use you would get out of this but it will make you laugh, and that's gotta be a good thing. www.unaesthetic.net

DVD Tools

EXPRESS BURN: Excellent, Freeware DVD/CD/BlueRay/HD DVD burn sotware that is 100% compatible with Windows Vista. Nice clean design and the best DVD burning program we've yet seen. Choose this instead of Final Burner! Download it here http://www.nch.com.au/burn

DVD Shrink:Excellent and versatile Freeware tool for copying DVD's and compressing them so that they can fit on a standard DVD-/+ disc. (NOTE: Copying a commercial copyright-protected DVD may be done for personal use only). www.dvdshrink.org/

Final Burner: A great Freeware CD/DVD burning program like Nero (the program - not the Roman emperor). Small download size (about 2mb) and with a user friendly interface. Recommended (Note for personal use only). http://www.protectedsoft.com/

Presentation Tools
(Alternative's to Microsoft Word/Excel)

*Open Office: Open Source equivalent to MS Office, but far superior. Can write direct to .pdf format. www.openoffice.org

*Wink: Freeware tool to create presentations in .swf (shockwave flash) or .exe (executable file) format. Records mouse movements and allows you to edit this into a tutorial demo. www.debugmode.com/wink/

*Cam Studio: Open Source screen-grab utility that records video/audio to .avi or.swf format. Pretty much similar to Wink except for the .avi capabilities. Very useful.
www.camstudio.org/

*Foxit PDF Reader: Freeware PDF reader and editor. Better that Adobe Reader. www.foxitsoftware.com

*PDF Xchange Viewer: Freeware PDF reader and editor. Again better than Adobe Reader. www.docu-track.com

Compression Tools
(Alternative's to WinZip/WinRar)

*7Zip: Open source compression software. Much better compression than winzip/win rar etc. Supports all compression formats. www.7-zip.org/

Web Browser Tools
(Alternative's to Internet Explorer)

*Mozilla Firefox: Open Source web browser. Far more secure and user friendly than Internet Explorer. www.mozilla.com/

Operating Systems
(Alternative's to Windows/Mac)

Linux Ubuntu: Open Source (ie: FREE) operating system that is updated every 6 months. Has received a lot of very good feedback and reviews and is considered to be more secure that Windows. Comes with software such as Open Office, etc. Can be downloaded from the site or you can apply to receive a copy by post for free! www.ubuntu.com/

Freeware Websites

Major Geeks: Safe and secure freeware software arranged into various categories. Click here to visit site

Sourceforge: Directory of open Source projects with downloads. Not the best laid out site in the world but you can find programs of all types for all formats. Click here to visit the site

VST4FREE: Site offering free VST plugins for creating and editing music. Use the plugins alongside other free audio creation software such as Psycle or Reaper. Click here to visit the site

PC-Utilities: Website of the PC-Utilities magazine. You can directly download software in various categories. Click here to visit the site

Wikipedia: The Wiki list of Free/Open Source software. Click here to vist the site

FSF/UNESCO Free List: A list of freeware compiled by the UN. Click here to visit the site

Light Links: This is a bit strange but it's religious site offering freeware! You can ignore the christian preachy stuff and check out the free software links on the left hand side of the main page. Click here to visit the site

As always you can contact us here
Or you can leave a comment or any other links to free software that you think others might find useful.

Zoom H1 Audio Recorder

2011-08-16T17:03:00.007Z

Just received a Zoom H1 audio recorder.

It's the 'baby' version of the more swanky Zoom recorders such as the H4n, and from the reviews I've read it certainly scores highly.
First impressions:

- It's small. Smaller than I imagined. It's tiny! You can literally fit it in your pocket and almost forget it's there.

- It comes with a 2GB micro SD card (with adaptor) and a battery to power the unit. This is nice as some electronic products ignore the basic fact that people like using the product straight out of the box without having to worry about scrambling to find essential accessories. But it doesn't contain a USB cable for connecting to a computer....but I prefer using SD cards to transfer work.

- It's very 'plasticky'. This was something that most reviewers commented on when I was reading up on the recorder. This causes A LOT (I'm emphasising this becasue its important!) of creaking sounds when you record if you hold the device in your hand. The main area that makes noise is the battery compartment cover: it creaks more than an old door in a haunted house!
If using the Zoom H1 for hand held recording, the battery compartment would need to be gaffer taped securely.

- There's a screw-in hole for connecting the recorder to a tripod, which is nice.

- It records to WAV (up to 24bit/96khz) and MP3.

- It has one line-in and one line-out jack connection.

- The microphones are pretty good (but ultra sensitive) and you can listen back to what you've recorded using an in-built speaker. Online reviews have heaped praise on the quality of the H1's recording capabilities despite the low cost.
To really get any practical use from the Zoom H1 you need to plug a lavelier or shotgun mic into it...you simply couldn't use the in-built microphones as they are far too sensitive.
This webpage offers some recommended microphones to use with the Zoom H1 if you are unsure of what to look for.

- Something that is far more annoying than the creaky plastic noises is the way the machine plays back what you've recorded. Say, if you have 10 recordings and you want to listen to the 8th recording, you have to go through the previous ones first before you get to hear it instead of being able to skip through to the ones you want!

Conclusion:
Pro's:
- Small and easy to transport.
- Good sound recorder when used with external microphone.
- Cheap and cheerful.

Cons:
- Wading through audio recordings instead of being able to automatically jump to the ones you want is a nuisance.
- Cheap construction causes creaking noises when hand-held.

- Shane

Get in touch by leaving a comment on the blog or email dwarfedfilmsinfo[at]gmail.com

The Importance of Sound in Film.

2011-08-15T17:13:00.004Z

How important is sound in film?

Well, it’s more important than the image. Crazy talk, you say? Nope. It's much more important than your beloved images.

Think about it: how many times have you sat through a movie you watched back in the day on a fuzzy VHS tape? Many, I’m sure.

Now how many times have you got frustrated watching a DVD that had pristine, crisp images but bad audio? You can tolerate the bad pictures if the audio is fine but the other way around and you go mad, pull out your hair, strip naked and run screaming through the fields slaughtering animals on your way (?).

So how do you get clean audio?

Use good microphones and an audio recorder. Your audio equipment needn’t be something that is gonna leave you broke and homeless, but it should be up to the task.

Test your audio equipment before shooting. Go to where you wanna shoot and do some experiments where you talk and record it. If it sounds crap then you know its better to find somewhere else rather than cause yourself heartache trying to cope with crap sound in post-production.

Back to the topic of audio equipment: you don’t need some ridiculously priced brand name microphone with audio compressors and a fancy-schwansy recording device with 20 gazillion XLR inputs, etc.

A Dictaphone placed near the actors could do what you need it to.

Do you need a sound person? It’d be nice to have one. But someone who is a sound person generally LOVES sound and might get on your nerves after a while as they ask for ‘another take’ because they heard a mouse tap-dancing just off screen.

If you don’t treat them nicely they could just walk off and then you are back where you started – except they’ve taken their fancy equipment with them AND the tapes with your audio!

Try your luck with a Dictaphone or cheap pocket recorder first and see how that goes.

The Sound of Silence.

Sometimes too much sound is bad.

From composing the soundtrack of every film I’ve made I know that it’s better to be selective in what you let the audience hear just as the cinematographer needs to be selective in what the audience sees.

On our short film A POLISH WINTER I was composing the music in bits and pieces that I kept adding to. Each piece sounded great on its own and in my head I thought ‘My God! This is going to sound amazing when it is all played at the same time!”

I was wrong.
Things may sound good on their own, but it needs to sound good in context otherwise it's just noisy crap. I went back over the music and made sure that the sound heard on screen was only what was needed and removed anything that got in the way - even if it meant scrapping stuff that I loved.

On the ALIENS DVD featurettes there is some good stuff on audio, and particularly the importance of silence. The sound mixer is talking particularly about the sequence in the film where the marines are investigating the miner's colony and they discover a person still alive but attached to the walls by the Alien gunk.

The sound levels drop dramatically (almost to silence) as they approach the seemingly dead person, but then the sound shoots right back up (with a flute-like high pitched squeal) as the head is raised and they are revealed to be very much alive.

The use of sound makes this scene have the 'leap out of your pants' scare effect!

And at the end when Sigourney Weaver says the line 'Get away from her, you bitch!", the sound drops again to emphasise the classic line and remove any background distractions.

So, audio is really important.

But the weird thing is the way that audio is treated in film-making. It is normally one of the last considerations when people are shooting.

I remember back in my college days of yore (circa 9000BC) and watching a student film that had ridiculously bad audio. When the characters mouths moved nothing came out, that’s how bad it was. Maybe it was audible to dogs? I don’t know. But it sure as hell was not audible to human beings.

The person that made the film told me that they shot the movie in a house that was right beside a busy road and the audio recorded was basically unusable. They had to lower the sound levels on the movie because otherwise the cars driving by on the soundtrack would be heard and ruin the mood (I think the film was supposed to be set in a rural, isolated place).

This happens all the time: film-maker finds great-looking location but doesn’t consider that it’s not great-sounding location. End result is frustration at your film being ruined by something so seemingly basic.

This is one of the main reasons why the vast majority of my films have featured no dialogue (or limited dialogue). Recording speech is tough. All it takes in a creaking door or a gust of wind blowing against the microphone to destroy what the actor is saying.

There’s a scene in BLUE VELVET where Laura Dern and Kyle McLaughlin are talking in a diner. I have no idea what they are saying for certain sections because the sound levels are awful.

This sort of audio problem happens all the time.

Mainstream movie's have ADR to compensate for this where the actors are brought back into little sound booths to re-record their dialogue in order to have perfect audio.

This seems very time consuming and wasteful; surely if the sound was recorded correctly the first time then everybody would be much happier?

Sometimes it’s unavoidable. You can’t help it if an aircraft flies over just as your lead actor is in the middle of making an important speech. And sometimes you just don’t have enough time to re-shoot because you need to get other shots or it’s getting late.

In those cases you may have to resort to ADR (which is a luxury for independent film-makers).

But what I don’t get is somebody deciding that they are going to shoot in a place next door to an airport landing strip and thinking that it won’t affect the audio!

So, recording your characters dialogue is the most important factor when making a movie. You could cheat by filming the entire movie with the speaking characters facing away from the camera and re-dubbing later on….but that is entering the Ed Wood school of movies!

On a side note, I've read before that one of the main reasons that people's films have not been accepted for film festivals is becasue of the quality of sound. It seems such a shame to spend time making something and then ignore the importance of sound...the thing that has the capacity to ruin all your work in one fell swoop if it is messed up.

-Shane

[All pictures from Google.com/images; images remain the copyright of respective owners]

Where to put the camera

2011-08-14T17:04:00.006Z

When you're making a film the most basic thing you should know is where to put the camera.

But there is no 'perfect' place to put the camera. The choice is entirely up to the director and cameraman.

I was 'inspired' to talk about this today because I just watched some crappy TV movie who's film-maker randomly plucked camera positions out of a lucky-bag!

Don't ask me to name the film because I can't remember what it was called (or even who was in it). It was a TV movie but that doesn't excuse the laughably incompetent camerawork and framing it featured.

Anyway, back to the topic of camera placement.

If you are a multi-millionaire film-maker who loves showering money on his productions then you probably get lots and lots of coverage. You probably film with dozens of camera's running simultaneously from every conceivable angle. And when it comes to the edit and you notice that you are missing something, you just go back and film extra stuff.

Good luck to ya!

If, on the other hand, you are dirt poor then you may have limited access to a single camera and a limited supply of camera batteries and stock. Welcome to the world of the independent film-maker.

Coverage to you is getting just enough shots to make the scene 'read'.

Sometimes you are limited to a so-called wide mastershot where you let the entire scene play out and just film everything as is.

If this sounds pathetic and sad then you are wrong. A well-framed and staged mastershot can beat a multi-cam/multi-angle shoot with ease.

Off the top of my head, I’m thinking of some of the scenes in RESERVOIR DOGS - particularly the ones between HARVEY KEITEL and STEVE BUSCEMI in the toilets. Hey, if the single-shot has worked for playwrights for centuries then its gotta be ok, eh?

But it still comes back to where to put the camera. Even in a mastershot situation you still need to put your camera in a position that allows the scene to payout in an understandable way for the audience AND look pretty. Don't ignore the pretty aspect. Pretty images are good. Pretty images are your friend.

Ok, so where to put the camera?

The simple answer is this: POINT THE CAMERA WHERE YOU WANT YOUR AUDIENCE TO LOOK.

That's it.

There's no secret formula. No scientific method. Just point the camera at where you want your audience to look.

People can get into things like the RULE OF THIRDS for framing and stuff like that, but it really comes down to POINT THE CAMERA WHERE YOU WANT YOUR AUDIENCE TO LOOK …and you can add on after that……if it looks right it is right. The human eye likes order. If something doesn’t appear (or ‘read’) right then it more than likely is wrong. Change it until it does look right.

EXAMPLE: A person is in frame but the background is too busy and distracting. It doesn’t look right, so you move the camera (or person) or change your focus to make the background less distracting.

I learned a lot about camera placement not from live-action film-making but from animation, particularly 3D animation.

In 3D animation you have an unlimited choice of places to put your camera, as well as lens' and intricate camera moves. In 3D animation you are unburdened by the physical reality of live-action stuff: you can have a camera do literally anything.

But the thing is that nobody wants to see that. People like simple. They don't like to be bombarded with epilepsy-inducing moves and angles. They like to actually see what is happening in the scene. Strange that. ha ha.

If you follow this simple rule you will ALWAYS put the camera in the 'right' place.

I'll give some examples.

Lets say you are filming a man entering a room through a door. It’s a simple scene. Door is closed. It opens. Man enters.

Now where to put the camera?

Well first things first: where NOT to point the camera?

It would be a bit pointless to point the camera so that the door isn't in shot. That would defeat the whole purpose of having the man entering through the door.

So it makes sense to pit the camera TOWARDS the door. But how close? How high? Is it a moving shot?

Calm down! We're getting there.

For the purpose of the film, you need to ask yourself this: why is the man entering the room? Who is the man? How is this scene important to the script?

These are the questions that will lead you to decide on the final camera placement.

Say for instance that the character of the man is a detective and he is returning to his office. Ok, now we've got the man's motivation: he is returning to HIS office.

But what is his mental state? Is he tired? Angry? Has he just found out that his partner/informant/cat is dead?

The camera placement should inform the audience about the character of the, ahem, character.

It is not just simply there as an emotionless tool to record the onscreen events. If it was then every single scene featuring a man entering a room through a door would be the same. BUT THEY'RE NOT!

DAVID LYNCH filming a man entering a room is different from MARTIN SCORCESE filming the same scene, or STEVEN SPIELBERG, or JOHN CARPENTER, or ALFRED HICHCOCK, STANLEY KUBRICK, ORSON WELLES, AKIRA KUROSAWA, FELLINI etc.

Each director would use their camera to help the audience feel some particular emotion, which the director set out to create in their work.

It's why a character could be shown coming through the door in a heroic manner, or a pathetic manner, scared, angry, or whatever emotion is needed. And all because of where the camera is pointed. Amazing really.

Think of the motivation of the character and the mood you want to place in the audiences mind and you get the 'perfect' camera position.

Here are some random images of characters entering doors.

NOTE: [All images taken from Google.com/images. All rights belong to copyright holders]

They are all showing similar actions in dark rooms, but each is depicting a variety of differing ideas.

Notice how there is a mysterious feeling to the majority of the images . Also notice how the angles and framing sizes change considerably from one shot to the next. All basically depict the same action but the audiences emotional response to each is different.
Take for instance the final image (the shadow of the man against the wall). This casts the character are more threatening than the others (regardless of the fact it looks like he's holding a knife!).
Compare it to the topmost image (the side-profile wide shot of the guy in yellowish clothing). This framing makes the character seem more vulnerable. It's almost as if he's walking into a threat hiding in the darkness.

It all comes back to the directors emotional intention towards the audience.
I'll repeat the simple rule one last time:
POINT THE CAMERA WHERE YOU WANT YOUR AUDIENCE TO LOOK.

-Shane

5 Random Thoughts on Movie Making

2011-08-14T12:41:00.032Z

As I am trying to piece together our first feature film, I started to think about what I've learned/taken from the short films I've made over the years and how I can put that in use on a full length feature.

1: Make sure the effort is worth the wait.
When I first started making movie's I began with a borrowed video camera from school that I messed around with while making a stop-motion animation. I can't remember what the film was called. I can't even remember what it was about!
All I really remember is the massive size of the camera and tediousness of manipulating inanimate objects around a tabletop one frame at a time. It was mind-numbingly boring work but it taught me something important: if you're gonna spend a lot of time on something make sure the final product is worth it!

2: Choose a medium that suits your goal.
I started in classical animation (the drawn on paper stuff) and this was mainly becasue I liked watching cartoons as a kid. I was also pretty good at drawing.
But being able to draw doesn't mean you can animate!
I hated classical animation with a passion.
This was way worse than the stop-motion 'experiments' because you had to physically draw a 3-dimensional object on a flat 2-dimensional plane...and make it seem believable.
This was waaaaaay too much for my attention span to cope with.
2D animation was not for somebody like me.
I realised that live-action would probably be a better bet to enable me to display what I wanted to show. I alter wet back to animation (the 3D kind) when I felt that live action didn't suit the topics and style I wanted to pursue at that time.
Just use the medium that suits the project .

3: Use what you've got.
Live-action film-making requires expensive equipment and a crew. Well that's what some people seem to think. I think otherwise.
When I started messing around with live-action films I used what I could get my hand son: a TOMY black and white toy camera.
It connected to a TV by a 15ft cable (which meant you could only film within 15ft of the telly) and recorded to your video recorder.
The sound recorder was the camera, and if you stood more than 6ft away you couldn't be heard.
This sounds limiting but in reality it forced you to make choices about what you could film and how you could film it.
Limited choices are good. Too many choices make you waste time thinking about your options. When you have no optns you just get on with it!
Editing was done in camera. You filmed in sequence. Occasionally I got more 'extravagant' and hooked up two video recorders and recorded what was previously 'filmed' on one tape back to a different tape. This allowed me to rearrange sequences and also to add music and effects.
Ah yes, music and effects.
Let me tell you about this: I used the SONY PLAYSTATION and a copy of the 'game' MUSIC to create the soundtrack. This I recorded onto a cassette tape (there was no way for me to record the music directly out from the PLAYSTATION). Then I would play back the tape cassette as it was pressed up against the TOMY video camera's little microphone as it recorded using the previous 'dual video recorder' set-up I spoke about earlier.
I had no money and no way to get my hands on 'proper' equipment like the 'professionals' use.
So what?! Use what you have and make the most of it.

4: Plan carefully but be ready to scrap your plans.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. It's an old saying but it's true. In fact you could add to that: 'anything that can go wrong will go wrong...and even worse will happen on top of that!'
Everything from locations, crew, actors, equipment, weather will most likely let you down in some way.
It's just the way things work. You therefore set out form the beginning with a plan of action of what to do in the case of a disaster happening.
I remember on a short film I made that I went around looking for a particular location that I needed. I knew one which was written into the script. I had used it before many times with no problems with. I had filmed there in a guerilla style (no, not wearing a monkey costume) without the owners knowledge. This time I decided to ask for permission because I knew I'd spend a few hours in the place. Well, I asked and was sent on a wild goose chase to get forms for insurance and all sorts.
I shouldn't have bothered. This really messed up things. I had written the script with that exact location in mind for the express reason that I was sure I could get it. I thought I'd planned things out but I had instead put all my eggs in one basket.
I eventually found a far better location and it cost me the grand total of....a box of chocolates.......and that was expensive by my humble standards!
But the process of being refused the location I have banked on messed up my time and forced me to scramble. When you scramble you make mistakes. That's not good.
I had storyboarded the movie based on the previous location. Anyone who knows me will know that I storyboard shots quite a lot. But since the experience of losing that planned location I no longer cling to my storyboards like I once did.
Storyboards are a blueprint. They are there to give you ideas or try out ideas. I use storyboards for inspiration but then shove them back in my pocket and do what seems right at the time. What looks good on paper doesn't look as good in reality.
So my point is (after the long-winded talk that has gone before!) is to think things out as best you can but always ALWAYS!) be prepared to toss those plans in the bin and move on with another plan.

5:Don't just do what 'they' do.
First of all who are 'they'? 'They' are the so-called 'professionals', the ones you see with the fancy equipment and the big budgets. When 'they' make a movie it is like a military operation; and like a military operation everybody has a particular role that they must stick to or everything comes crashing down.
Low budget film-makers are not trainee 'professionals'. If you make a film, no matter how short or seemingly insignificant, you are a film-maker. Just felt like I had to get that out of the way.
The thing is, 'they' have set practices for the way things are down. the majority of these things are set in stone based on the previous experiences of movie-making down the years. Every so often somebody new comes along and adds another little trick to add to the list of established routines and procedures that the professionals use.
Which is good, but when something stops being new and becomes merely a procedure it loses its charm. The people who decided it'd be cool to release mainstream movies using handheld 'wobble-cams' were probably seen as wacky but now that they process is overused it beocmes annoying.
I'm personally sick and tired of hearing some movie being promoted as 'gritty' simply because the camera is moving about like a spastic monkey.
Low budget or real independent film makers shoul''d borrow some of the techinques and practices of the mainstream 'pro' lot...but not just go crazy copycatting fancy crane shots or whatever.
A perfect example is the crazy idea of low budget film makers spending a load of money on making their 'prosumer' camera look more 'professional'. A big fancy matte-box stuck on the front of your camera may make you look 'cooler' to those passing by but I don't see how it helps in any to make the actual film any better.
Are people gonna sit and watch your movie and comment on how wonderfully professional your matte-box looks? No. Because they won't see it!
If it doesn't make the film any better then it serves no purpose (unless you really need a big fancy matte-box becasue you are filming your movie entirely in a permanently brightly-lit area...like the SUN).
The same goes for crew. If you don't need a clapper-board person then why have one. Do it yourself if you can. Or get one of the actors to do it.
If you are obsessed about having a long list of credits at the end of your movie just like a 'real' film then invent a bunch of names and shove 'em on at the end credits!
I did that once a long time ago and I still cringe at the thought. Why? Because nobody cares! nobody reads the credits apart from the people who worked on the film, and I seriously doubt your imaginary crew will be too worried about seeing their names on the silver screen.
Independent film-makers need to be what they are: independent. Copy the good things that mainstream film-makers do but be aware that you are not mainstream. Play to the independents strengths of freedom and speed: get the shot and get out of there.

Well that's all I have to say for the tie being but I'm sure I'll have some other crap to add at a later stage.
Any comments to add you can make here on the blog or else email directly to dwarfedfilmsinfo[at]gmail.com

-Shane

[Images from Google/images.com; Copyright belongs to respective owners]

"To Shoot A Rurf" featured on 366WeirdMovies.com

2011-07-31T13:38:00.003Z

Our 'out there' short film "To Shoot a Rurf" is featured on the website 366WeirdMovies.com.

We're proud to be featured on the site as it celebrates the weird and odd movies that we love so much - and 366WeirdMovies also happens to have the funniest and smartest reviews I have ever read.

Seriously! Read some of the write-ups for 'Manos the Hands of Faith' or 'Death Bed: The Bed that Eats' and you will literally wet your pants!

You can watch To Shoot a Rurf film here.

Nofilmschool.com's FREE DSLR Cinematography Guide

2011-06-29T17:43:00.004Z

The website NoFilmSchool.com (I love that name) have a great FREE book resource covering digital SLR camera's for shooting movies.

It's available here: http://nofilmschool.com/dslr/

A simple, straightforward bit of writing that explains all you need to know about picking and using one of these for making a film.

Very useful if you are deciding on what camera to use when making a forthcoming action thriller feature film....

"Birth" - Watch the Short Film Online

2011-06-14T16:58:00.005Z

You can watch our latest short film "BIRTH" on YouTube.

Click here to view BIRTH.

The film was directed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils and created using Blender 3D, Apophysis, After Effects .

The music was composed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils.

The movie was composited and edited using Sony Vegas Pro, Blender 3D and After Effects.

Click here to view BIRTH.

New Short Film "Birth"

2011-06-13T17:26:00.002Z

Our latest short film "Birth" was completed recently.

We'll upload some images and possibly a lo-resolution version of the movie itself shortly.

This film is a audio/visual exploration of Birth and was created using various animation software such as Blender, After Effects, Apophysis and others.

The orcehstral score was composed by myself (Shane Sheils) and Paula Sheils.

"To Shoot A Rurf" - November Critic's Choice on MISHORTS

2010-11-17T19:06:00.004Z

Sorry we haven't been updating in a (loooong) while, but we've been busy with other projects that have really eaten away with our time.

Anyway, here's some news;

"To Shoot A Rurf" is one of four films chosen this month on the Mishorts.com website as part of the Critics Choice.

The film was made back in 2007 and was created using Blender 3D and other Open Source software programs.
Directed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils, it is one of the oddest movies you are ever likely to see!

From the MiShorts site:

Guest Critic: Michelle Thomas

Michelle Thomas (aka Coco Forsythe) sits on the advisory committee of the British Independent Film Awards and has been a FutureMovies editor and reviewer for the past five years. Her ‘proper’ job is in film marketing and although preferring indie/arthouse fare, she confesses to enjoying a bit of mindless entertainment now and then.

To Shoot A Rurf

An impressive noirish animation depicting the effects of long term drinking. If that sounds like some sort of Government Health Warning, its not; with black humour, original style and fantastic sound design, its miles from Drugs Are Bad, Mkay style messages. Set mainly in a gloomy backroom bar and the protagonist’s dingy flat, this is an extremely accomplished film, deftly creating a sinister atmosphere with its clever use of lighting and colour. A film for anyone who has ever regretted that last drink.

A Polish Winter Wins Best Short @ Athens Jewish Film Festival

2010-02-26T18:37:00.003Z

Our Holocaust-themed animated short 'A Polish Winter' has won best short film at the 2010 Athens Jewish Film Festival, Georgia, USA.

Directed by Shane Sheils & Paula Sheils, A Polish Winter tells is a moving tribute to the children murdered in Nazi death camps in Poland.

Festival More news on "A Polish winter"

2009-12-15T18:47:00.002Z

More news on "A Polish Winter" screenings at upcoming festivals:

It is showing at The Greater Phoenix jewish Film Festival, In Arizona, USA.

It is also showing in competition at the Derby City Film Festival, USA

You can download and watch "A Polish Winter" at this link
The file is in XVid Mpeg4 format and it's size is approximately 165MB.

"A Polish Winter " is a moving tribute to the Holocaust through the eyes of a child.

"A Polish Winter" Nominated for Blender Suzanne Award

2009-10-26T18:01:00.002Z

Our Holocaust-themed short film "A Polish Winter" is nominated in the category of Best Film at this years Blender Suzanne Awards.

The Suzanne awards are the Blender Foundation's version of the Oscars, so we are very happy to be nominated.

Blender 3D is the software we used to create A Polish Winter.

A Polish Winter - Screenings Update

2009-10-08T17:26:00.003Z

"A Polish Winter" is playing at the Bangkok International Film Festival shortly and also screened at the Portobello Film Festival London a few weeks ago.

Sci-Fi Short - Location Design images

2009-06-25T18:22:00.004Z

Here are some images of the location that the Sci-Fi 3D animated short is set in.

You can see that it's a grimy, dark spaceport room with a bizarre television set as the focal point!

All models were created using Blender 3D and all textures were made using The Gimp.

Click on the images to view full-sized.

More images to follow soon....

Link - Ohio Blender User

2009-06-16T17:46:00.002Z

Here is a link to a filmmaker and special FX guy from Cleveland, Ohio who's been using Blender.

http://clevelandfx.blogspot.com/

I'm always interested in hearing from other Blender 3D users around the World and finding out what techniques and work they're doing with Blender.

So, if you have some tricks up your sleeve or are doing some interesting stuff with Bleneder feel fre to get in touch and i'll try and put up a link to your website/blog.

Shane
Dwarfed Films

Camera Projection in Blender 3D - Tutorial

2009-06-16T17:24:00.008Z

Camera Projection in Blender 3D

For our latest short film I wanted to add very subtle camera movements to simulate a kind of hand-held feel to the action.
There are three ways I could go about this:

The first would be to animate the camera jittering about while doing the animation.
This would lead to longer rendering times of the backgrounds especially in scenes requiring lots of ray tracing and mirrored reflections.

The second way would be to render the scenes with a static camera and then import these sequences into Blender Sequence editor and apply the ‘Jitter’ plugin.
This would render faster but the jitter not very convincing.

The final way would be to render the scenes with a static camera and then import them back into Blender for use with Camera Projection.

SO this is the technique that I’m gonna use.

Ok, what’s the purpose/benefits of doing this?

Well, firstly, camera projection involves projection an image onto a plane (or any shape – but mostly a flat plane) and then using a 3D camera to perform simple pans, rotations and zooms on this image.
By doing this you can achieve some simple camera effects like handheld jitter.
Its not 100% accurate but it will suit some scenario’s and it is a great little way to do some useful cropping and post-processing on pre-recorded/animated footage.

It’s really easy to set up a projection plane:

All you need is a Camera and a Mesh Plane.
When inserting the Camera and the Plane, press ALT+R and then ALT+G to clear their rotation and location co-ordinates.

Then drag the Camera back on the Z-axis far enough so that you can see the Plane in the Camera View. Press CTRL+A to clear rotation/location/scale.

Now press the ‘0’ key on your keyboard to enter 3D view from the camera’s perspective.

Now, I’m working in this instance with footage that has dimensions of 720 X 300 pixels.
(For the actual film I will be using dimensions of 900 X 432 pixels but lets just use 720 X 300 for this example)

In the Render Buttons panel enter 720 X 300.

Now scale your mesh plane in Edit Mode so that it fits perfectly inside the camera view.

Fig 1: The image before being scaled to fit the camera view.

Fig 2: The image scaled to fit inside the Camera view accurately.

Enter UV edit mode and select all the vertices and Unwrap using “Project form View Bounds”. (It helps if you select a single still image from your image sequence and import it separately into the UV window so that it allows you to visually line up your plane to the correct scale)

Go to the Material buttons tab and add a new material to the plane.
Go to the Texture buttons and add a new texture to the plane – select an image sequence or movie. Enter the amount of frames you want to use in the box to shows up.

Go back to Material buttons and select Shadeless (and TEX FACE if you want).
In ‘MAP INPUT’ choose ‘UV’.

See the enclosed image for settings (you may note that I was using an image sequence with an Alpha channel).

Go to the render buttons panel and enter the output frame size you wanna use.
In this instance it’s 720 X 576 (PAL).
You will notice that the top and bottom of the 3D viewport fame has increased.
This is because the frame size I choose before (720 X 300) was intended to give a ‘letterboxed’ image.

Make sure Ambient Occlusion is turned off when rendering or else you will end up with the sky showing through in the background and increased render times.

Now that you are all set up, you can move the Camera about in 3D space and animate it using IPO’s.
You can zoom in on selected areas, or do pans and rotations.
Remember that when doing pans and rotations you need to be zoomed in slightly (or a lot!) or else you will end up with a strange looking cropped image.
This is why I rendered my initial sequences of the film as larger than my intended output size – 900 X 432 instead of 720 X 576.
This means that I can zoom in for camera movements without the image getting blocky or pixellated.
Add ‘jitter’ camera movements that zoom in and out and pan from side to side and up/down using IPO curves.
Be careful not to over do it or to add too much movement as it will become disorientating – and look a bit crap! Subtle moves will help add to the general feel of your movie.

Experiment with this technique and see what else you can come up with!

Shane Dwarfed Films

New Image from lender 3D animated Sci-Fi short

2009-06-10T17:15:00.001Z

Here's another image showing the television from our latest short film.

Keep watching this site for further updates, images and news!

HP Printer will not install on Windows Vista? - Heres what to do

2009-06-01T16:46:00.002Z

Having a problem trying to install a Hewlett Packard printer onto your Windows Vista PC/Laptop?

Does your install stall after failing to locate the drivers?

Well, I sympathize with you becasue the other night I nearly went crazy trying to get a damn printer to install on a Vista machine!

The computer would not recognize the new printer despite many, many attempts.
I tried re-installing the software multiple times to no avail.

I searched the Internet for solutions and went to the HP website for help.
I emailed HP for assistance - no reply yet.
I went to the HP website and downloaded the driver software again - even though I had the brand new install CD!

Well, it doesn't matter anymore because I found the solution myself!

Here was the problem (in case anyone else out there encounters similar):

After installing the software and drivers on the enclosed CD, the set-up screen then asked me
to connect the device to the machine using the USB cable. Then I was asked to search for the driver - the first option was to search the install CD for these drivers.
After a few moments the screen then said that the drivers could not be found.

Crap!

THE SOLUTION:

The solution was actually very easy!
I unplugged the USB cable and then replugged it again, prompting the set-up screen to ask me to locate the drivers for the printer.
Instead of selecting 'Search install CD', I choose to manually search for the drivers and redirected the computer to search the path: "c:\windows32\" or just "c:\windows\" - in other words, telling the computer to search your local hard drive for the files.

After a few moments the drivers were located and the machine installed correctly!
If you come across this problem, I hope this helps you out.

Now, how the hell did HP allow such a simple but annoying issue to crop up?
Surely they should've sorted a basic error like this before launhcing equipment and software.

I wish software/hardware manufacturers would get their act together and not release software until it has been properly screened, tested and checked.

Irritating nonsense like these install issues are the sort of thing that puts consumers off using certain manufacturers products in the future....

Blender Sci-Fi Short - Vicious Bug Character

2009-05-21T21:08:00.003Z

Here is the re-designed bug character from our latest short 3D animated film.

Click on the image to view larger.

The previous model I created for the film just didn't feel right so I did a complete overhaul and redesigned this one yesterday then completed the texturing and rigging late last night.

It's a nasty-looking winged bug that I feel fits perfectly with the style of the film much more than what we originally had.

The lead character - which you can see in a previous post - is a slob-like, chain smoking, fat, lazy, bum!
The razor-fanged leech-shaped fly fits the whole stylistic design we want the film to have.

I mentioned in an earlier post about the lighting and how important it is to the look and feel of this short.
The atmosphere really depends on having the correct lighting setups for the particular scene tone.
Get it wrong and you run the risk of messing up movie, so I'm spending a lot of time working out the correct lighting setups and how they will work with shot angles and how they basically make the character models look.
Bad lighting can destroy a good model!

Keep tuned for more updates on this film which is being made using Blender 3D and other open source/freeware software.

A Polish Winter showing in Geauga Ohio film festival

2009-05-18T17:48:00.000Z

Hi there!

Our short 3D animated film "A Polish Winter" is screening at the inaugural Geauga Film Festival .

Heres the press release from the festival:

"
....Geaugafilm.org, in cooperation with the Geauga Lyric Theater Guild, has selected the films for their inaugaual film festival June 9-14.

“We had over 70 films entered from all over the world” stated Greg Pribulsky, vice president of the Guild and committee chair for the festival. “It is great to see so many talent filmmakers wanting to show their work in our historic theater.”

A total of 44 films (both short and feature length) will be shown over the 6 day event starting on June 9-14. Films from as far away as Meath, Ireland, Los Angeles, California and Palm Bay, Florida were entered in this first film festival for the Geauga Lyric Theater organization.

“We had films from all over the US, Canada and even Ireland entered.” said Pribulsky. “I really am amazed at the quality of the work..."

We are delighted to have the film screen at this film festival which takes place in Ohio, USA.

A Polish Winter was written/directed/produced/animated/music composed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils.
It tells the story of a young boy who discovers an abandoned train cattle carriage in Eastern Europe. Upon entering inside and finding a discarded doll, memories are triggered of the Holocaust and the murder of countless children in Nazi death camps in occupied Poland.

The film was made using mostly Open Source software such as The Gimp, Blender 3d and Audacity.

For further information, you can view the making of this film on these websites:

www.apolishwinter.blogspot.com
www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com

New Sci-Fi Short Being Made with Blender 3D -UPDATE

2009-05-17T14:49:00.003Z

Well, here's a cropped test image from some of the experiments being tested out during the making of out as yet unnamed Sci-Fi 3D animated short film.

We are very pleased with the script and the production is moving along nicely.
Certain elements such as atmospheric effects and lighting and texturing are what are taking up most of our time working through.

We are using 3K textures for the characters that have been exported from UV maps in Blender to The Gimp where they have been meticulously altered and improved, then re-imported back into Blender and altered some more!
Then the process begins again until we get the look we're after.

The room in which the story takes place is not yet finalized and a few other elements in terms of 3D design.
The lead characters were designed and rigged pretty easily -it's the texturing and lighting part that requires lots of focus and attention.

So far we're not going to divulge any plot details apart from saying that the film is certainly gonna be one of the strangest and most bonkers things we've ever made!

Keep watching for more updates and making of details.

New Sci Fi Short Film being produced by Dwarfed Films

2009-05-09T21:32:00.003Z

Hi there,

It's been a little while since we last posted here so lets get up to date with whats going on!

We've a new Sci-Fi short in the works.

Here's a composite still with 3 images pasted together showing the lead character - an alien creature who chain smokes!

We're not gonna reveal any plot details at the moment but are simply gonna share the following:

The film is another 3D computer animation
It's being produced using Blender 3D
Both of us are directing -as per usual
We've been working on a fantastic soundtrack and sonics
It's a Science fiction film!! - we've waited a long time before getting around to making one

More pics, plot details and making-of's soon.

Keep visiting for more info.

A Polish Winter -Completed

2009-03-03T18:15:00.003Z

A Polish Winter has been completed.

The film is set in Eastern Europe just after the end of World War II and is a moving tribute to the children murdered in Nazi death camps during the Holocaust.

The 3d animated short film was written and directed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils.
The soundtrack was also composed by Shane and Paula.

The entire movie was created using Blender 3D, the Gimp and some other open source or freeware software programs.

We will try and upload the A Polish Winter Press Pack soon.

Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique Playing at Belafast Film Festival 2009

2009-03-03T18:08:00.002Z

Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique is in the Jameson Short Film Competition at this years Belfast International Film Festival in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Visit Belfast Film Festival Website

The festival takes place in March.

Mr. Humpfninkel was written and directed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils of Dwarfed Films. The part of Mr. Humpfninkel was played by American Sherman Alpert.

A Polish Winter - January Update

2009-01-23T18:14:00.000Z

A Polish Winter – January Update

Here are some new images from the Holocaust-themed short animated film “A Polish Winter”.

The first shows the lead character – a young boy - walking through a snowy landscape.

The second image is a composited image that shows a previously seen image of the boy – except this time with background, lighting effects and colour grading applied

Colour Grading and Compositing

The most time consuming aspect of this film is (once again) the rendering of separate layers and passes which must then be composited together in order to achieve the final image ‘look’.

I personally love the ability of being able to alter and grade each shot in this way but it does tend to get very monotonous filing away every single frame of animation in particular folders rather than having to deal only with only a few thousand fames instead!

‘Grading’ is what gives a film’s images a particular ‘look’.

That could involve a desaturation of the films colours to give a more grey-tinged hue or could involve dong the opposite and increasing the saturation of particular colours in the movie to give it a more extreme look.

I prefer the look of strong light and dark tonal qualities, which emphasises the highlights and shadows of an image. It helps create a visual unity of each still image while at the same time making the character blend better with his surroundings.

I also don’t like the ‘plastic’ look of 3D animation and try as hard as possible to avoid this. I hate surfaces looking too shiny and perfect.

Another ting is depth of field: unlike reality, in the computer world it has to be faked. Also, in the natural World, colours need to integrate as a unit, rather than stand out on their own (unless it’s a deliberate effect). I find that reducing saturation levels, and compensating for a washed out type image by upping the contrast, really helps blend a shot better and make it seem less ‘computery’ looking. It’s not about making photo-realism – and the cartoonish-styled “A Polish Winter” is never gonna have to worry about that – but an attempt to make an obviously false World seem more ‘real’ and tangible.

It’s amazing how much time is spent trying to create an ‘imperfect’ image!

It’s amazing how much you can alter a films look in the colour grading stages: a sequence that seems pretty uninteresting can be immediately given new life and excitement by simply altering the colour levels and contrast settings.

Grading is mostly used to ensure a flow of sequences blend seamlessly.

Lighting animation is similar to real world lighting in that what looks ‘right’ from one camera perspective, may not look so good (or indeed, look terrible!) from another viewpoint.

On “A Polish Winter” I would set up the lights for each particular camera view and then have to alter each one in order to ensure nothing ‘weird’ happened: for instance, the character being light with a bright light from the left hand side suddenly is lit from the right side in the following shot.

Sometimes this is done on purpose when I want to create a highlight along one side of the character’s face when in partial silhouette, so as to separate him from the background (they do this all the time in Hollywood movies and TV shows like CSI). But when I’d cut to the opposite viewpoint I’d switch the highlight to the characters other side. This wouldn’t happen in real life but it’s an age-old filmic convention going back to the early days of cinema. It just looks good!

But with animation you can’t predict what way the entire animation sequence will look until it’s been rendered, so occasionally you might find that the highlight you set up for that character doesn’t work so well because the figure moves at angles that obscure the effect.

It’s moments like these that you sometimes need to get a bit creative in the grading department!

Altering contrast on particular colours can create artificial highlights. You can also create a glowing white-coloured mask of the character that you composite with the original footage in order to separate the figure from the background.

Making Snow

Because the film takes place in a snowy setting, our software of choice Blender 3D must calculate large amounts of particle data.

In one 500-frame sequence the storage space needed just for the baking of particle data reached over 2 gigabytes!

Side Note:

Just this morning I received another external portable storage device, which is mainly to cope with archiving all the files needed to make an animated movie.

Unfortunately the Western Digital device I got didn’t see to want to work on Windows Vista so I spent a bit of time looking up solutions on the Internet and trying to locate device drivers.

Eventually I got Vista to recognise it but then I noticed that this 320 Gig portable drive was formatted to the older-style FAT32 filing system which limits the amount of individual file sizes!

It took about 5 hours (yes, 5 hours!) for Vista to reformat the drive into NTFS format.

A previous Western Digital portable drive we were using worked immediately out-of-the-box so I can’t understand the issues with this newer disc.

Using Baked UV Maps to Cheat!

I’ve tried to cut back on long render times by baking textures quite a lot.

For instance, the snowy ground plane has had its textures and shadows baked into a UV map. This allows me to apply a shadeless UV mapped material to the ground that doesn’t need to use of valuable rendering time as the textures and all-important shadows are already there.

The main exterior scene area of the film is surrounded by barbed wire fencing that was originally modelled and designed as 3 dimensional meshes.

This seriously ate up CPU, so instead I created a UV mesh of barbed wire and fences, then baked shadows and lighting onto these UV’s. Then I applied these pre-rendered UV maps to simplified meshes and planes in the scene to replace the original complex models.

The result? Faster rendering and the ability to visualise camera moves in the 3D view port more efficiently.

‘Cheats’ and ‘tricks’ like rendering baking often take up a lot of time to set up in the first instance but pay off in the end.

Mixing a combination of baked texture planes in the background with fully modelled 3D objects in the foreground works very well.

Remember that the final image will be viewed as 2D, regardless of the fact that it was once a 3D object!

Baking textures and shadows onto meshes also helps prevent horrible flickering during playback of animated frames and can also allow you to create more complex and detailed multi-layered textures (you can edit the baked textures in The Gimp/Photoshop as much as you want and then drop it back into your scene to see how it looks).

Music Composing

We’ve also scored the main theme music from the film.

Mostly performed on harsh violin and cello, the sound is then distorted with heavy reverb. Other VST effects are added to the mix to boost the low end and liven up the mid-tones.

It’s haunting and really adds to the poignancy of the themes of the film.

More images and details about “A Polish Winter” will be added to the site soon.

New image from "A Polish Winter"

2008-12-18T18:18:00.001Z

Click image to view larger

A Polish Winter -Colour grading in Blender 3D

2008-12-11T18:40:00.000Z

Click on image to view larger.

Just a simple demonstration of the importance of colour grading images used in film production.
The image on the left is with grading while the image on the right is the unaltered original image.

A Polish Winter - image

2008-12-09T18:42:00.003Z

Another still from "A Polish Winter".

The film is our latest short film and is set in Poland in the post 2nd World Wat period.
The still features the lead character - a young boy - but there is no background rendered, as yet.
Surprisingly, the films animation is rendering pretty fast and colour grading of the animated frames is very smooth also!

Click on the image to view larger.

A Polish Winter - new image

2008-12-08T18:17:00.001Z

A new image from "A Polish Winter"

Click to enlarge

New film Update

2008-11-23T15:12:00.004Z

Here's an image from the latest short 3D animated film were working in.

The film is called "A Polish Winter" and is set in Eastern Europe in the 1940's.
The young boy you see in the image is the only character in the movie .

As I've said in a previous posting, this film is a major departure from "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique" in terms of storyline and tone.
A Polish Winter is a moving tribute to the child victims of the Holocaust and indeed all children who were murdered in Nazi extermination camps during World War 2.

On a more technical note, A Polish Winter uses a different style from our previous films. The characters eyes are like little, black stones: for some reason we were just drawn to this kind of look for the boy. It makes him seem more innocent, possibly.
The lighting is still being thought out , but it will be more dreamy and ethereal - by that, I mean that the film will focus less on crisp details and more on an overall sense of mood and spirit to reflect the tone and substance of the tale.

Snow will play a major part of the film's design but we don't want to get too bogged down in a 100% realistic depiction of snow, but more an overall sense of feeling again.

We've done an awful lot of reading about the Nazi extermination camps (particularly the Action Reinhardt camps in Poland) in the build up to A Polish Winter. But this film does not aim to depict the actual camps themselves but to reflect more on the human loss of life that took place in those evil places.

More updates and images soon.

You can contact Dwarfed Films here with any questions or simply leave a comment on the site.

Shane

New images from new movie

2008-11-04T19:02:00.003Z

Here's a 3D model of a cattle train car from our latest short film which is in the pre-production stage at the moment.

More details about the movie will be revealed over the coming weeks.

New Movie in Production

2008-10-27T18:14:00.003Z

This is a character model from our latest short film which is in production.
The image shows four facial expressions to test the character mesh for any irregularities.

We're going in a different direction with this one compared to Mr. Humpfninkel (which was a comedy) and To Shoot A Rurf (which was a surreal tale).

We can't give you any plot details at the moment apart from saying that the movie is set in eastern Europe in the 1940's and concerns a young boy.

Follow along with the entire production as we post images and a breakdown of the entire production/editing/musical scoring on this our latest project.

Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique - Complete!

2008-10-18T13:50:00.001Z

Yes the film is completed!

A lot of hard work and dedication to get to this stage. We'd like to say a big thank you to our voice actor on the short, Sherman Alpert from New York.

We'll try and upload a lo-res version of the movie if possible too.