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.
Showing posts with label Paula Sheils. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paula Sheils. Show all posts
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
"To Shoot A Rurf" - November Critic's Choice on MISHORTS
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. |
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year from Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils at Dwarfed Films.
Thanks for visiting the site and hope we can count on you to return again!
Thanks for visiting the site and hope we can count on you to return again!
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
False credit on IMDb for Night Falls
Scanning though I.M.D.B( the Internet Movie Database) I came upon something odd.
For our Dwarfed Films moveie "Night Falls", somebody had added their name as a credited "colorist/dailies". A Subsequent google search revelaed this person's name again credited as "dailies" on Night Falls.
Now either this dude is getting confused with working on another picture or he is just a bit of a chancer! I have never heard of this person i n my life. They never worked on Night Falls. Night Falls didn't even have a person for "dailies" or a "colorist". I edited the damn movie myself on my computer!
Again, this could be an honest mistake, but it may not be. I've had idiots pretending to be part of films before and even using the Dwarfed Films name, saying that they worked for us! Piece of advice - don't lie and pretend you've done something you haven't, you will always get caught out eventually and be made look like a gimp.
For our Dwarfed Films moveie "Night Falls", somebody had added their name as a credited "colorist/dailies". A Subsequent google search revelaed this person's name again credited as "dailies" on Night Falls.
Now either this dude is getting confused with working on another picture or he is just a bit of a chancer! I have never heard of this person i n my life. They never worked on Night Falls. Night Falls didn't even have a person for "dailies" or a "colorist". I edited the damn movie myself on my computer!
Again, this could be an honest mistake, but it may not be. I've had idiots pretending to be part of films before and even using the Dwarfed Films name, saying that they worked for us! Piece of advice - don't lie and pretend you've done something you haven't, you will always get caught out eventually and be made look like a gimp.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
OFFICE HOURS: what's it all about and other useless details!
Hi, I’m Shane Sheils, co-writer/director of Office Hours.
Hmmm, that kinda sounds like something Troy McClure might’ve said on The Simpsons!
Anyway, I thought it’d be “nice” to fill you in on what’s the story on Office Hours and really what the hell this whole filmmaking fuss is all about.
Well first here’s a bit of background info stuff.
It all began with To Shoot A Rurf. Well actually it started before that, but those other films were really just test runs and mainly dipping our toes into the animation water.
When I say “we” I mean myself and Paula Sheils, my co-writer/director/composer/producer/etc, but unfortunately I’m the idiot that is in charge of the animation and visuals. The reason? I have the “background” in animation and I can draw “good”. The thing is, I “studied” Classical Animation – which, in normal human language, mean’s 2D hand drawn animation like the old Disney stuff before Toy Story came along. I was a crap student. I never completed any assignments, I fell asleep in class and I hated it. Why? It was boring as hell, that’s why! I didn’t like being told what to do. Drawing should be fun and done for enjoyment. C’mon, it’s about using the right hand side of the brain – it’s not meant to be wasted on tedious repetitious lines and squiggles. Heres the thing, most animators end up doing the crappy work that people who watch movies don’t notice. Who the hell would seriously want to be the guy/girl that cleans up the lines on drawings all day? It’s not creative. It’s no different than dotting the “i’s” and crossing the “t’s”, the kind of work even the most uncreative pencil pushing office worker could do. Do I sound bitter? Heck, yeah! Classical animation robbed me of my love of drawing and I wanted out of that place fast! I also studied live action filmmaking – which I was much happier and better at – but live action equals money. I like films to look great, ye’ know sweet visuals, moody lighting, great locations, blah, blah. All that generally requires money, and anyone that knows me or has visited www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com or www.toshootaruf.blogspot.com, well you should know I’m a big believer in “cost saving measures”. Oh and live action also throws up the problem of dealing with stupid people. I’ve been pretty lucky that most people I’ve had dealings with were nice and tried hard, but there are always a few gimps that can mess up your whole day by doing stupid crap or simply just messing you around!
They say never work with kids or animals. It should really be “don’t work with gimps”. Myself and Paula put 100% into whatever we do and in return we expect at least the same in return. Some times that just doesn’t happen. Gimps create problems for you to deal with. Live would be much nicer if all the gimp-bags of the world were stuffed in a sack and dumped in the nearest river. I salute all the gimps that have crossed me – you will never get the chance againJ. Word of advice to those who are starting out in filmmaking: believe in what you do, trust your instincts, don’t get too comfortable in what you do – always be aware of what others are trying, learn from not just your own mistakes but other peoples mistakes too. Vary your interests. If you wanna do some animation stuff, don’t turn your back on live action, books, magazines, newspapers, and all the various pictures, photo’s, drawings and visual stuff out there. Slip a little of your personality into your work. Don’t be a carbon copy of somebody else. Put a little bit of your character into your movie, it could be anything like a hobby or a way of thinking or talking or acting, just do it. Can’t afford expensive equipment and tools? Don’t make excuses; just find a way around it. When we were planning a live action film called The Darkside, we didn’t have a camera, lighting or anything. Everything just fell into place, as if by magic. Remember, expensive equipment didn’t exist years ago and amazing films were made. Those guys just did their best with what they had, used their knowledge to find cool ways to do cool things that had never been done before. The same goes for story and plot. If everybody wrote and made the same films, the world would be a very dull place. Sure there are rules for story arc and all that kinda thing but rules exist to be broken! Don’t make the film others want to watch, make the film you wanna see. If others dig it, then great; but accept that your film may only find an audience with a few people. Shorts, in particular, are a tricky thing to work with. They are supposed to be a way to present and try out new ideas, but mostly they just turn out to be mini rip-offs of other feature length movies or TV dramas. And the people who watch shorts can vary from drunks in pubs, eager to laugh at anything remotely funny, to pretentious twats waiting for a literary reference to some boring old dead guy who wrote poncy poetry!
To do the films myself and Paula wanted to make we simply couldn’t achieve it properly in live action-land.
Attention turned towards animation. So I come full circle again to the animation “thing”. Ah, but this time it was different, now we were in 3D animation time. Yeah, but that 3D stuff is pretty costly, isn’t it? It is if you’re a rich idiot. I’m a poor idiot. I discovered the wonder that is Blender3d (www.blender.org), a free 3D animation programme and sequencer with advanced texture unwrapping and a fantastic in-built render engine. I’ll say it again – Blender 3D is FREE. That’s 100% free, not shareware or one of those featureless demo programmes that expires after 21 days. And it’s very reliable and dependable. Again, if you’ve visited our Dwarfed Films blog, you’ll have heard plenty about Blender as well as lots of other essential freeware programs for video/ audio/image editing. We even have an Essential Freeware List on the Dwarfed Films site with links to all the software.
Ok, if you’re still reading, then great – I appreciate your time – but you’re probably still wondering what this has got to do with Office Hours, or what the hell I’m even talking about. Be patient, we’re getting there.
So, like I’ve said, we did a few shorts, mainly as testers, using Blender 3d to see how the whole 3d thing might work out. This lead to To Shoot A Rurf. Visit www.toshootarurf.blogspot.com or www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com to find out more about this film and lots of images and background making-of stuff. For those too lazy to bother checking out these sites right now I’ll just say that To Shoot A Rurf utilised everything I NEVER learned from college life all those years ago. Yeah, It’s true, I learned nothing, nada, zilch. To Shoot A Rurf was a complete course – self taught – in 3D animation. In the previous shorts I’d handled lighting, camera work and basic texturing fairly well( My experience in live action lighting and camera work slightly helped but 3D lighting is more complex than the real world lighting situations). What I learned –through trial and error – on To Shoot A Rurf, was delicate character animation, cloth animation, fluid animation, physics animation setups, particle effects such as smoke, complex UV mapping, particle hair and lots of other stuff. It was a real learning experience – maybe no different than most self-taught users of Blender – but it was also one of the most rewarding filmmaking experiences I’ve had. Literally every day I learned something new. The picture edit and composing the music and all the other elements on To Shoot A Rurf was very enjoyable.
Actually To Shoot A Rurf is probably my favourite film. It is totally mad, utterly surreal and it has a quirky sense of humour running throughout it’s 8 and a half minute running time. I just watched it again today and I was struck by a number of things. The lighting is fantastic and the mood is set up right from the opening shot. The music, which Paula and I composed and performed, is great. The music accompanying the singing Rurf, Rurfetta La Fey, is like a gonzo version of a John Barrymore Bond theme. The liquid metal mirror snake is cool. It’s hard to believe that it was an afterthought that I decided to add to the movie because I simply wanted to animate a mirror snake! Ya see that’s the cool thing about making movies – anything is possible and you can add cool stuff just because you feel like it. Now I admit To Shoot A Rurf might not be to everybody’s taste. Maybe it’s a bit too “out-there” or seen as experimental.
Now we come to Office Hours, which will be a more “logical” picture. The story is far more straight forward, for a start.
The script was written by myself and Paula a few years back. It was originally planned to be a live action short but the To Shoot A Rurf lesson showed that it was doable in 3D. The story tells the tale of a lonely office worker who falls in love with a mannequin head he discovers in a trash can outside an old back street lady’s fashion shop. After his cruel boss gets killed in an accident, he digs up her body and steals it – taking it back to his office cubicle where he stitches his beloved mannequin head to the decomposing decapitated body. A freak-lightening storm brings the mannequin to life where it goes berserk and tries to kill the man who must fight for his life against the bizarre zombie.
It’s a romantic/comedy/zombie movie, all very tongue in cheek. To Shoot A Rurf (TSAR) was very surreal and weird. Office Hours is weird but in a less “mondo bizarre” way. Plus Office Hours looks way better than TSAR. Office Hours is being rendered out in hi-def format, the characters and backgrounds are more realistic and highly detailed. Actually realistic is not the right word for the characters – they occupy a place in between cartoonish and realistic.
Lots of tests have taken place for every aspect of the picture, and they need to: rendering at full scale can take a long time. 3D animation is more enjoyable to do compared to classical hand drawn animation but it can still be a pain! Working on To Shoot A Rurf, for example, thought me a lesson in using strand particle’s for human hairstyles. The particle hairs would sometimes react weirdly to movement giving the impression that the lead characters hair was alive! Also during rendering I noticed that depending on the camera lens used (yes-3D animation uses camera lenses just like live action filmmaking) and rendering size, the character would sometimes appear to be balder or hairier in certain sequences. Irritating stuff that only becomes obvious once a sequence has been rendered out – thereby wasting a lot of time on re-renders and fix-ups. Cloth animation also proved dodgy. Blender doesn’t have a dedicated cloth animation system but instead I used “Softbody” settings. These control the elasticity and fluid-like motion of an object and by tweaking you can achieve acceptable cloth like movements, except sometimes it doesn’t work out how you want it to. The lead character in To Shoot A Rurf magically opens his hand (after being attacked by a “liquid metal” mirror – don’t ask, just go check out the film instead!) and finds a mini version of himself standing in his palm. The mini character is wearing a tuxedo jacket on which I applied a cloth-like modifier. Sometimes it moved nicely, other times it behaved erratically and went “through” the characters body or stretched weirdly. Trial and error, people, trial and error is the only way to get through awkward situations! Office Hours will present as many hurdles to cross and lots of technical difficulties, but it will be worth it in the end!
So stick with the us and follow the whole process of the making of Office Hours by visiting this site www.officehoursfilm.blogspot.com or our main site www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com.
Hmmm, that kinda sounds like something Troy McClure might’ve said on The Simpsons!
Anyway, I thought it’d be “nice” to fill you in on what’s the story on Office Hours and really what the hell this whole filmmaking fuss is all about.
Well first here’s a bit of background info stuff.
It all began with To Shoot A Rurf. Well actually it started before that, but those other films were really just test runs and mainly dipping our toes into the animation water.
When I say “we” I mean myself and Paula Sheils, my co-writer/director/composer/producer/etc, but unfortunately I’m the idiot that is in charge of the animation and visuals. The reason? I have the “background” in animation and I can draw “good”. The thing is, I “studied” Classical Animation – which, in normal human language, mean’s 2D hand drawn animation like the old Disney stuff before Toy Story came along. I was a crap student. I never completed any assignments, I fell asleep in class and I hated it. Why? It was boring as hell, that’s why! I didn’t like being told what to do. Drawing should be fun and done for enjoyment. C’mon, it’s about using the right hand side of the brain – it’s not meant to be wasted on tedious repetitious lines and squiggles. Heres the thing, most animators end up doing the crappy work that people who watch movies don’t notice. Who the hell would seriously want to be the guy/girl that cleans up the lines on drawings all day? It’s not creative. It’s no different than dotting the “i’s” and crossing the “t’s”, the kind of work even the most uncreative pencil pushing office worker could do. Do I sound bitter? Heck, yeah! Classical animation robbed me of my love of drawing and I wanted out of that place fast! I also studied live action filmmaking – which I was much happier and better at – but live action equals money. I like films to look great, ye’ know sweet visuals, moody lighting, great locations, blah, blah. All that generally requires money, and anyone that knows me or has visited www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com or www.toshootaruf.blogspot.com, well you should know I’m a big believer in “cost saving measures”. Oh and live action also throws up the problem of dealing with stupid people. I’ve been pretty lucky that most people I’ve had dealings with were nice and tried hard, but there are always a few gimps that can mess up your whole day by doing stupid crap or simply just messing you around!
They say never work with kids or animals. It should really be “don’t work with gimps”. Myself and Paula put 100% into whatever we do and in return we expect at least the same in return. Some times that just doesn’t happen. Gimps create problems for you to deal with. Live would be much nicer if all the gimp-bags of the world were stuffed in a sack and dumped in the nearest river. I salute all the gimps that have crossed me – you will never get the chance againJ. Word of advice to those who are starting out in filmmaking: believe in what you do, trust your instincts, don’t get too comfortable in what you do – always be aware of what others are trying, learn from not just your own mistakes but other peoples mistakes too. Vary your interests. If you wanna do some animation stuff, don’t turn your back on live action, books, magazines, newspapers, and all the various pictures, photo’s, drawings and visual stuff out there. Slip a little of your personality into your work. Don’t be a carbon copy of somebody else. Put a little bit of your character into your movie, it could be anything like a hobby or a way of thinking or talking or acting, just do it. Can’t afford expensive equipment and tools? Don’t make excuses; just find a way around it. When we were planning a live action film called The Darkside, we didn’t have a camera, lighting or anything. Everything just fell into place, as if by magic. Remember, expensive equipment didn’t exist years ago and amazing films were made. Those guys just did their best with what they had, used their knowledge to find cool ways to do cool things that had never been done before. The same goes for story and plot. If everybody wrote and made the same films, the world would be a very dull place. Sure there are rules for story arc and all that kinda thing but rules exist to be broken! Don’t make the film others want to watch, make the film you wanna see. If others dig it, then great; but accept that your film may only find an audience with a few people. Shorts, in particular, are a tricky thing to work with. They are supposed to be a way to present and try out new ideas, but mostly they just turn out to be mini rip-offs of other feature length movies or TV dramas. And the people who watch shorts can vary from drunks in pubs, eager to laugh at anything remotely funny, to pretentious twats waiting for a literary reference to some boring old dead guy who wrote poncy poetry!
To do the films myself and Paula wanted to make we simply couldn’t achieve it properly in live action-land.
Attention turned towards animation. So I come full circle again to the animation “thing”. Ah, but this time it was different, now we were in 3D animation time. Yeah, but that 3D stuff is pretty costly, isn’t it? It is if you’re a rich idiot. I’m a poor idiot. I discovered the wonder that is Blender3d (www.blender.org), a free 3D animation programme and sequencer with advanced texture unwrapping and a fantastic in-built render engine. I’ll say it again – Blender 3D is FREE. That’s 100% free, not shareware or one of those featureless demo programmes that expires after 21 days. And it’s very reliable and dependable. Again, if you’ve visited our Dwarfed Films blog, you’ll have heard plenty about Blender as well as lots of other essential freeware programs for video/ audio/image editing. We even have an Essential Freeware List on the Dwarfed Films site with links to all the software.
Ok, if you’re still reading, then great – I appreciate your time – but you’re probably still wondering what this has got to do with Office Hours, or what the hell I’m even talking about. Be patient, we’re getting there.
So, like I’ve said, we did a few shorts, mainly as testers, using Blender 3d to see how the whole 3d thing might work out. This lead to To Shoot A Rurf. Visit www.toshootarurf.blogspot.com or www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com to find out more about this film and lots of images and background making-of stuff. For those too lazy to bother checking out these sites right now I’ll just say that To Shoot A Rurf utilised everything I NEVER learned from college life all those years ago. Yeah, It’s true, I learned nothing, nada, zilch. To Shoot A Rurf was a complete course – self taught – in 3D animation. In the previous shorts I’d handled lighting, camera work and basic texturing fairly well( My experience in live action lighting and camera work slightly helped but 3D lighting is more complex than the real world lighting situations). What I learned –through trial and error – on To Shoot A Rurf, was delicate character animation, cloth animation, fluid animation, physics animation setups, particle effects such as smoke, complex UV mapping, particle hair and lots of other stuff. It was a real learning experience – maybe no different than most self-taught users of Blender – but it was also one of the most rewarding filmmaking experiences I’ve had. Literally every day I learned something new. The picture edit and composing the music and all the other elements on To Shoot A Rurf was very enjoyable.
Actually To Shoot A Rurf is probably my favourite film. It is totally mad, utterly surreal and it has a quirky sense of humour running throughout it’s 8 and a half minute running time. I just watched it again today and I was struck by a number of things. The lighting is fantastic and the mood is set up right from the opening shot. The music, which Paula and I composed and performed, is great. The music accompanying the singing Rurf, Rurfetta La Fey, is like a gonzo version of a John Barrymore Bond theme. The liquid metal mirror snake is cool. It’s hard to believe that it was an afterthought that I decided to add to the movie because I simply wanted to animate a mirror snake! Ya see that’s the cool thing about making movies – anything is possible and you can add cool stuff just because you feel like it. Now I admit To Shoot A Rurf might not be to everybody’s taste. Maybe it’s a bit too “out-there” or seen as experimental.
Now we come to Office Hours, which will be a more “logical” picture. The story is far more straight forward, for a start.
The script was written by myself and Paula a few years back. It was originally planned to be a live action short but the To Shoot A Rurf lesson showed that it was doable in 3D. The story tells the tale of a lonely office worker who falls in love with a mannequin head he discovers in a trash can outside an old back street lady’s fashion shop. After his cruel boss gets killed in an accident, he digs up her body and steals it – taking it back to his office cubicle where he stitches his beloved mannequin head to the decomposing decapitated body. A freak-lightening storm brings the mannequin to life where it goes berserk and tries to kill the man who must fight for his life against the bizarre zombie.
It’s a romantic/comedy/zombie movie, all very tongue in cheek. To Shoot A Rurf (TSAR) was very surreal and weird. Office Hours is weird but in a less “mondo bizarre” way. Plus Office Hours looks way better than TSAR. Office Hours is being rendered out in hi-def format, the characters and backgrounds are more realistic and highly detailed. Actually realistic is not the right word for the characters – they occupy a place in between cartoonish and realistic.
Lots of tests have taken place for every aspect of the picture, and they need to: rendering at full scale can take a long time. 3D animation is more enjoyable to do compared to classical hand drawn animation but it can still be a pain! Working on To Shoot A Rurf, for example, thought me a lesson in using strand particle’s for human hairstyles. The particle hairs would sometimes react weirdly to movement giving the impression that the lead characters hair was alive! Also during rendering I noticed that depending on the camera lens used (yes-3D animation uses camera lenses just like live action filmmaking) and rendering size, the character would sometimes appear to be balder or hairier in certain sequences. Irritating stuff that only becomes obvious once a sequence has been rendered out – thereby wasting a lot of time on re-renders and fix-ups. Cloth animation also proved dodgy. Blender doesn’t have a dedicated cloth animation system but instead I used “Softbody” settings. These control the elasticity and fluid-like motion of an object and by tweaking you can achieve acceptable cloth like movements, except sometimes it doesn’t work out how you want it to. The lead character in To Shoot A Rurf magically opens his hand (after being attacked by a “liquid metal” mirror – don’t ask, just go check out the film instead!) and finds a mini version of himself standing in his palm. The mini character is wearing a tuxedo jacket on which I applied a cloth-like modifier. Sometimes it moved nicely, other times it behaved erratically and went “through” the characters body or stretched weirdly. Trial and error, people, trial and error is the only way to get through awkward situations! Office Hours will present as many hurdles to cross and lots of technical difficulties, but it will be worth it in the end!
So stick with the us and follow the whole process of the making of Office Hours by visiting this site www.officehoursfilm.blogspot.com or our main site www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Office Hours: more street location stuff
Two new images from Office Hours, the film directed by Shane Sheils & Paula Sheils and produced by Dwarfed Films.
Both are of the same street scene, except the bottom image features a couple of cars.
Click on the images to view the images larger. Pictures are at 1/2 scale.
Email Dwarfed Films or leave a comment on the site.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
"New" film website: FestivalFocus.Org
Festival Focus is a website I only came across by accident yesterday - which is weird because I am listed on it along with a brief biography of myself and Paula.
I'm guessing that we were included by one of the founders of the Angel Film Festival, Chris.
Anyway the site has extensive listings of international filmmakers, films and festivals. Since discovering the site I have added some stills and a few more details on some of our pictures.
Go check out the site here.
Email Dwarfed Films or leave a comment on this site
I'm guessing that we were included by one of the founders of the Angel Film Festival, Chris.
Anyway the site has extensive listings of international filmmakers, films and festivals. Since discovering the site I have added some stills and a few more details on some of our pictures.
Go check out the site here.
Email Dwarfed Films or leave a comment on this site
Sunday, April 08, 2007
THE DARKSIDE: on Directors Notes website
On our internet travels we came across a piece on "The Darkside" on the Directors Notes website.
The piece originally appeared in Showreel Magazine (issue 6 - Winter, 2004) and was written by Marvin Belle who now runs the Directors Notes independent filmmaking site.
"The Darkside", directed by Shane Sheils and co-produced along with Paula Sheils, was a very 'interesting' film to make: robbery, homelessness, bizarre accidents, murder (well, ok, maybe not murder!) all needed to be dealt with during and after shooting. We're very proud of "The Darkside" - particularily the visuals and audio. In fact the film features some of our most subtle visual FX work: all scenes featuring grafitti during the film are totally CGI.
The film is pretty much summed up with these choice words from Marvin Belle:
"Marrying his dislike of the corporate office job to an Invasion of the Body Snatchers theme, The Darkside is a classic tale of a free spirit hunted down by a steadily growing body of mindless, conformist drones."
Friday, March 23, 2007
Essential Free Software
NOTICE: Click here for the Updated 2011 List of Dwarfed Films' Essential Free Software.
There are some incredible programs out there for creating/editing/viewing/manipulation of images and audio. Even better is the fact that a lot of these programs are freeware or open source. At Dwarfed Films we use certain open source products like Blender 3d and The Gimp every day so we've decided to include a list of software that other filmmakers might find useful.
The following programs are the equivalent (and in some cases superior) to many commercial products so don't let the "freeware" tag scare you off!
Some of these programs are a lot less cumbersome and processor intensive than their commercial rivals and are suited to specific tasks. Many of them have very small file sizes because they don't come bundled with tonnes of tutorials and manuals.
Also this is a rough list and certain products may have been forgotten or excluded for other reasons and website names may be incorrect or have changed too.
Look up these programmes on www.google.com
******************************************************************
Essential Freeware or Open Source Software:
Note: items marked “*” are frequently used by Dwarfed Films.
*Blender 3D: Open source (freeware) 3D modelling, animation, sequencer for windows/mac/linux/etc www.blender3d.org
UV Mapper: Freeware UV texture unwrapper for 3D models.
Plant Studio: Freeware creator plants and leaves. Expots to .OBJ format.
*The Gimp: Open Source image editor that is just like photoshop www.gimp.org.
*Irfan View: Freeware image viewer supporting practically every format from .png to .mov. 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. www.getpaint.net/index2.html
*Voodoo Camera Tracker: Freeware camera tracking software. www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/download.html
*Terregen: Freeware landscape creator for making stunningly realistic landscapes. www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/
*Terranim: Freeware plugin for terregen that makes animations of created landscapes.
*Landformer: Freeware landscape map generator for use in Terregen
Win DV: Freeware tool for importing/exporting footage from DV camera to computer. windv.mourek.cz/
Super: Freeware video converter for conversion to avi/mpeg/wav/mp3/swf/ogg/mobile phone/etc and vice versa. www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
*Audacity: Open Source audio editor and recording audacity.sourceforge.net/
*Quartz Audio Master Freeware: Free version of audio/midi editor www.digitalsoundplanet.com/SoftwareHouse/Products/Audio_Master/Freeware/freeware.phtml
*VM midi keyboard: Freeware virtual desktop midi keyboard www.granucon.com/vmk.html
*Psychle: Freeware audio sampler/sequencer psycle.pastnotecut.org/download/files/docs/psyclemidi.html
*Audio Grabber: Freeware audio recorder/convertor/ripper. www.audiograbber.com-us.net/
Hammer Head Rhythm Studio: Freeware drum sequencer. Download available from DOWNLOAD.COM
Groove Drum Station DT-010: Freeware drum sequencer. www.d-lusion.com
Shittalker: Basic text to speech program. A bit dated now but still funny. www.unaesthetic.net
*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
*7Zip: Open source compression software. Much better compression than winzip/win rar etc. Supports all compression formats. www.7-zip.org/
*Mozilla Firefox: Open Source web browser. Far more secure and user friendly than Internet Explorer. www.mozilla.com/
*************************************************************************************
At Dwarfed Films we don't just use freeware. The following are some of the best commercial products out there. You might wonder why we haven't included Final Cut pro, Adobe After Effects, Avid or indeed the free learing edition Avid Free DV? Well the reason is that these programs get the job done without too much fuss and without wasting too much processing time and they are very stable (crashes are generally rare).
*Magix Movie Edit Pro: Video editor. Renders on the fly so gives fast playback when editing which is very important! Newer versions handle .png / .tga formats which is suitable for compositing. Trial Versions available but you would need broadband connection. www.magix.com
*Sony Vegas: Video editor. Fast, lots of FX and extras. Supports .png / .tga formats. Trial Versions available but you will need broadband connection to download.
*Deep Exploration : The best 3D model viewer. Made by Right Hemisphere. Also renders and exports to variety of formats. Very useful to find stuff on your hard drive when in a rush. Trial Versions available. File size approx 15mb. www.righthemisphere.com
Reaper: Audio editor (also includes video playback) with layout that would be familiar to users of Sony Vegas. Trial Versions available. File size approx 8mb
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.
NOTICE: Click here for the Updated 2011 List of Dwarfed Films' Essential Free Software.
There are some incredible programs out there for creating/editing/viewing/manipulation of images and audio. Even better is the fact that a lot of these programs are freeware or open source. At Dwarfed Films we use certain open source products like Blender 3d and The Gimp every day so we've decided to include a list of software that other filmmakers might find useful.
The following programs are the equivalent (and in some cases superior) to many commercial products so don't let the "freeware" tag scare you off!
Some of these programs are a lot less cumbersome and processor intensive than their commercial rivals and are suited to specific tasks. Many of them have very small file sizes because they don't come bundled with tonnes of tutorials and manuals.
Also this is a rough list and certain products may have been forgotten or excluded for other reasons and website names may be incorrect or have changed too.
Look up these programmes on www.google.com
List compiled by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils of Dwarfed Films.
www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com/
Contact us
www.dwarfedfilms.blogspot.com/
Contact us
******************************************************************
Essential Freeware or Open Source Software:
Note: items marked “*” are frequently used by Dwarfed Films.
Animation/Modelling Tools
*Blender 3D: Open source (freeware) 3D modelling, animation, sequencer for windows/mac/linux/etc www.blender3d.org
UV Mapper: Freeware UV texture unwrapper for 3D models.
Plant Studio: Freeware creator plants and leaves. Expots to .OBJ format.
Image Editor Tools
*The Gimp: Open Source image editor that is just like photoshop www.gimp.org.
*Irfan View: Freeware image viewer supporting practically every format from .png to .mov. 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. www.getpaint.net/index2.html
Visual FX Tools
*Voodoo Camera Tracker: Freeware camera tracking software. www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/download.html
*Terregen: Freeware landscape creator for making stunningly realistic landscapes. www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/
*Terranim: Freeware plugin for terregen that makes animations of created landscapes.
*Landformer: Freeware landscape map generator for use in Terregen
Win DV: Freeware tool for importing/exporting footage from DV camera to computer. windv.mourek.cz/
Super: Freeware video converter for conversion to avi/mpeg/wav/mp3/swf/ogg/mobile phone/etc and vice versa. www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
Audio Editor/Sequencer Tools
*Audacity: Open Source audio editor and recording audacity.sourceforge.net/
*Quartz Audio Master Freeware: Free version of audio/midi editor www.digitalsoundplanet.com/SoftwareHouse/Products/Audio_Master/Freeware/freeware.phtml
*VM midi keyboard: Freeware virtual desktop midi keyboard www.granucon.com/vmk.html
*Psychle: Freeware audio sampler/sequencer psycle.pastnotecut.org/download/files/docs/psyclemidi.html
*Audio Grabber: Freeware audio recorder/convertor/ripper. www.audiograbber.com-us.net/
Hammer Head Rhythm Studio: Freeware drum sequencer. Download available from DOWNLOAD.COM
Groove Drum Station DT-010: Freeware drum sequencer. www.d-lusion.com
Shittalker: Basic text to speech program. A bit dated now but still funny. 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/
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
*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
*7Zip: Open source compression software. Much better compression than winzip/win rar etc. Supports all compression formats. www.7-zip.org/
Web Browser Tools
*Mozilla Firefox: Open Source web browser. Far more secure and user friendly than Internet Explorer. www.mozilla.com/
Operating Systems
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/
*************************************************************************************
Good Commercial Software Products:
At Dwarfed Films we don't just use freeware. The following are some of the best commercial products out there. You might wonder why we haven't included Final Cut pro, Adobe After Effects, Avid or indeed the free learing edition Avid Free DV? Well the reason is that these programs get the job done without too much fuss and without wasting too much processing time and they are very stable (crashes are generally rare).
*Magix Movie Edit Pro: Video editor. Renders on the fly so gives fast playback when editing which is very important! Newer versions handle .png / .tga formats which is suitable for compositing. Trial Versions available but you would need broadband connection. www.magix.com
*Sony Vegas: Video editor. Fast, lots of FX and extras. Supports .png / .tga formats. Trial Versions available but you will need broadband connection to download.
*Deep Exploration : The best 3D model viewer. Made by Right Hemisphere. Also renders and exports to variety of formats. Very useful to find stuff on your hard drive when in a rush. Trial Versions available. File size approx 15mb. www.righthemisphere.com
Reaper: Audio editor (also includes video playback) with layout that would be familiar to users of Sony Vegas. Trial Versions available. File size approx 8mb
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
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.
NOTICE: Click here for the Updated 2011 List of Dwarfed Films' Essential Free Software.
Office Hours: even more particle hair
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Office Hours: character in underpants
Here is a test render of the lead character in his underpants and vest. Why? Well, it is to be used during an important scene in the movie, thats why!
Contact Dwarfed Films here
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Office Hours: female character
Another image from Office Hours, this time the female character (who is actually a mannequin).
A number of costume designs are being worked on for her in various styles. Also skin tone textures are constantly being updated and revised.
Office Hours is the latest film from directors Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils.
Contact Dwarfed Films here
Office Hours: animated gif
This is a 3 frame animated GIF of the lead character from Office Hours. This was used as a test for how the characters facial rig would be set up and also to fine tune movements in the eyes, mouth and eyebrows areas.
Dwarfed Films can be contacted here
Friday, March 02, 2007
Office Hours: pre-production screen grabs
Here are some screen grabs of pre-production work on the 3D animated short OFFICE HOURS, directed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils.
As always you can click on the images to view them full size.
To contact Dwarfed Films click here
Friday, February 16, 2007
Office hours: location images
These images are untextured work-in-progress screenshots from Office Hours.
Top image is a dark back alley. The other image is of the city street location.
Click here to contact Dwarfed Films.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
OFFICE HOURS: Male character NEW
This images are the latest rigged version of the lead male character from OFFICE HOURS. As you may notice, the models face has changed a bit. The previous version's face was simply not practical to animate, whereas this one has edge loops which should enable expressive animation that is easier to pose.
Check out more news from OFFICE HOURS on this blog and stay tuned for updates and plenty of brand new images.
Dwarfed Films can be contacted here
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Office Hours: location models
Here are some pre-production designs for the office location from Office Hours. Though un-textured and not yet properly lit, you can get a sense of the films style.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Office Hours: updated character design
Here are some pre-production character design images from "Office Hours".
They are the newest versions of the male lead.As you can see the mesh has undergone some changes with lots of unnessessary vertices being removed and the characters hands being enlarged.Hair and clothing have yet to be added also.
More pictures will be added very soon.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
To Shoot A Rurf: Completed
"To Shoot A Rurf" is completed.
Directed by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils the film follows the trials of a man suffering a hangover from psychadelic drink "Rurf". Lets just say a lot of strange things happen to this guy both in the bathroom of his rundown city appartment and inside his own head!
You can find more stills and information about To Shoot A Rurf on this site and we'll keep you updated with any further news on the film too.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Office Hours : Name revealed of new film in pre-production
Dwarfed Films latest film is called "OFFICE HOURS".The film is in pre-production at the moment with characters being designed,modelled and rigged as well as scenary/buildings being created and textured. "Office Hours" is described as a dark comedy with a Frankenstein-esque plot and will utilise even more detailed designs and moody lighting than "To Shoot a Rurf".
Directed/written/produced by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils,"Office Hours" will be an atmospheric and thrilling short that you shouldn't miss!
Pre-production images will be available soon showing concept desings and model meshes, etc. Stay tuned.
Directed/written/produced by Shane Sheils and Paula Sheils,"Office Hours" will be an atmospheric and thrilling short that you shouldn't miss!
Pre-production images will be available soon showing concept desings and model meshes, etc. Stay tuned.
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