FX WARS! THE BIG FREEZE! Dutchman (Hybrid)

#1

We are going to war!

     [u][b]F X   W a r ![/b][/u]
     
     
     [b]CGTalk.com FXWar entry by:[/b]
     [right][b]Jochem Harmsen
     Gijs 'Dutchman' Leijdekkers[/b]
     [/right]
     
     [b]Starring[/b]
     [right][b]Joost Ossenblok
     [/b][/right]
     
     
     Hi all!,

I’m participating in this FX War this time! It’s my first time here in an FX War, but I’ve quite often practised in the same way, but then without a deadline.

Jochem Harmsen (who is not on this forum… He’s a CG beginner) is a mate of me who’ll be a sort of an assistent, ánd he’ll be giving feedback while working. A sort of second director.

Joost Ossenblok is álso a mate of me, who will be the actor in this quite-short movie. Because he has the right look for ‘the kind of man we needed’, we asked him, and his is very willing to help us!

Yesterday we’ve had the first 5 houres of plate-photography (of what you can see some stills under here), and tomorrow morning we’ll be shooting more stuff in the centrum of a near city.

     Big inspirations for this mini-movie for us, are '[b]BV-01[/b]' (by that dámn great guy, called Alessandro Pacciani!), [b]the Rock[/b], the [b]Matrix 1[/b] (the look of Neo) and also (of course) [b]The Day After Tomorrow[/b]!
     
     Storyboard etc soon... First we want to make you think yourself what you'd think it 'd be!

Owkay, time for some pictures! The upcoming pictures are just stills out of the footage of yesterday, and I did a quick (Photoshop) edit on those stills to show you what were planning to make the intro/opening-credits look like (to get you in the mood of the 2 minute movie)

     [b]On set:
     
     [/b][img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost1%20orig.jpg[/img]
     
     
     [b]PS edit:
     
     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost1%20PS%20edit.jpg[/img]
     
     
     
     On set:
     
     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost3%20orig.jpg[/img]
     
     PS edit:
     
     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost3%20PS%20edit.jpg[/img]
     
     
     
     On set:
     
     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost4%20orig.jpg[/img]
     
     
     PS edit:
     
     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost4%20PS%20edit.jpg[/img]
     
     
     On set:
     
     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost6%20orig.jpg[/img]
     
     PS edit:
     
     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost6%20PS%20edit.jpg[/img]

On set: (this will be the plate that will be in ‘the big freeze shot’. The base matte-photos will be taken tomorrow, so no PS-edit on this!)

     [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/joost7%20orig.jpg[/img]
     
     [/b][size=2]I [/size]hope you friends will like the stuff I told & showed, and that our fanclub will be twice as big, soon...! ;) In every case were on the roll, and working hard for it!
     
     Greetz & Good evening/day/morning/night!,
     Gijs
#2

Heey peepz :wink: ,

Yesterday we shot our photography stuff in the centrum of ‘Roosendaal’, the most near city around here. We did some ‘hand-cam-style-filming’ stuff, and we did some ‘action-style-filming’ stuff. Also we made some photographs (at 7 megapixel :wink: ) to use later on for the ‘real action/VFX-scene’ in the mini-movie (for mattepainting).

Some stills of that work and so, later. I’ll soon be buzzy with the VFX contents, and I’ll keep you up to date about that with some WIP stuff! :wink:

Hopefully thís time more people will reply! :slight_smile: :scream:

Greetz,
Gijs (& Joost & Jochem :wink: )

#3

Hi Dutchman! lookin forward to your entry :slight_smile: about the PS pictures, i tihnk they are too blurred/ oversaturated, little less would be better :wink:

#4

I agree with the ‘bad look’ of the PS-pics :wink: , but because it’s only to give you a bit of an impression, you shouldn’t need to mind… The FXWar yóur involved with looks very cool and interesting… I’ll be following you cheap Blender people! :twisted:

Time for the interesting stuff, as the last image just showed something of the intro… I haven’t been doing nothing, the last week(s), as I’ve been thinking of reasonable (compositing) solutions, and I’ve been watching Otomo’s Steamboy ( :love: ) which was very inspirational for the effects! Also I’ve been made a bulk of photographs around in the city of ‘Roosendaal’, to be sure to have enough elements to use for mattepainting and so!

To just ‘do something’, I’ve started mattepainting on the first one. This one will be containing a freezing from the camera to far away in the ally. The next shot will be then a fishereye-camera-move with also the freezing (and the fog/steam coming of it!) in the front of the camera…!

Time for the showoff:


The original photograph (7 megapixel)


Cleaned up (couple of people cloned away), and colorcorrected, for driving up the mood… (maybe the colorcorrection will be corrected to be a little less… it’s a bit tóó heavy now)


[b]And the Photoshop mattepainting. This one will be nearly the final, used in the film, but as it will be in picture for only 4 seconds or so, more detail/tweaking will not be needed. The big effects shot is another one. :wink:

[/b][size=2]And a little crew-picture:

[/size]
[b]From left to right: Joost, Jochem, Gijs [last one is me… :twisted: ]

[/b][size=2]I hope you’ll be enthousiast, maybe even enough to post a reply!

Have fun & Greetz,
Gijs
[/size]

#5

Looks good! Only the left tree or bush looks a bit weird (the snow):S

Ziet er goed uit, alleen het linker boompje ziet er een beetje raar uit :stuck_out_tongue:

Keep it up!

#6

lookin good, i especially like the left houses :slight_smile:

kijken goed, ik vooral bewonder de linker huizen

lol! :smiley:

#7

nice! good to see that you are a crew, I however agree about the snow on the tree, it needs some work, and if only it has snow it sure looks weird cause the ground or surrounding area should be a bit more “snowy” aswell :wink:

#8

@ xstijn : Thanks for the positive reply :wink: & I’ll correct that bad-snowed stuff soon!

@ Job : Thanks for the reply and the positive stuff, and also ‘thanks for liking that houses at the left’ :wink:

@ lv_88 : First: thanks for the positive reply :wink: , and second: yes, indeed the ground may have some more snow, but it just isn’t that simple to make it look good than (because than in one action 90% of the image will be white :wink: ). I’ll try some things to make it look better :wink:

The project is still running on full power! Yesterday I completed the intro (keying out the bluescreen, adding a background, doing colorcorrection etc etc), and also last night we did a pyro-elements shoot!

[b]The ‘set’ for the pyro-elements shoot: added a black screen in the back to be able to use the Luma-keyer in a later stadium!

[/b]

Under here I’m gonna describe what you’re gonna see in the final movie!:

[u][b]INTRO / OPENING CREDITS [1  minute]

[/b][/u] [left]A terrorist is preparing an attack: he takes his case, opens it up, puts on the countdown button so that it is ready to explode, takes a special ‘anti-cold’ suit on, puts on his sunglasses and leaves the room.

The room is really dark, and just lighted from one direction (from ‘the viewers side’, lighted from the right). On the back you can see some stones and such stuff. All is colorgraded quite blue.

The music sounds very church-like (big man-choir).

[/left]

[u][b]WALK THROUGH THE CITY [1:30  minute]

[/b][/u]
[left]We’re targeting for that you’d remind in this part to Alessandro Pacciani’s ‘BV-01’ movie. We’ve filmed very amaturistic footage in ‘Roosendaal’ (a near city), and different to BV-01, we’ll not have to add a robot to it. In our movie the main-thing is ‘the guy with the yellow case’ (> the terrorist).

The footage will probably be slowed down to 50% of the speed, and the music will sound very dramatic (probably some Hans Zimmer filmmusic). The color-correction will be nothing very special: we’ll just try to keep it look like DV-footage.

[/left]
[center]
[u][b]PREPARING FOR EXPLOSION / EXPLOSION [:30 minute]

[/b][/u] [left]This part is what it all is about: the terrorist walks up to a big stairhouse with allot of glass in it, and on the highest plateau, he places the case. You see some of the footage of happy people in the city: having a good chat, or happy children. Then the bomb begins to countdown… Every time you see quick switches between the happy people and the downcounter (so it becomes quite dramatic). (music: ‘The Rock’ > ‘The Chase’)[/left]
[left]Then finally the case really explodes: first you see just allot of fire coming out of the case (that’s why we did a pyro-shoot :wink: ), filling the whole stairhouse, and making the glass break and scatter away. Than it becomes clear it also freezes all stuff: especially in FX shots of small alleys you see that all is frozen…

[/left]
[center][b][u]THE CITY AFTER THE EXPLOSION [1 minute]

[/u][/b]
[left]After all those FX shots are passed, you’ll see a zoom-out of the terrorist - standing in the whole that was made by the bomb - and looking satisfied at the white city… Then the credits appear :wink: (music: ‘Steamboy’)

[/left]
[/center]
[left]I hope you’ll be looking forward to the final result… We’ll be working very hard on it! :slight_smile:

Greetz,
Gijs [& Crew :wink: ]
[/left]
[/center]

#9

Really nobody with an opinion over here…? :shrug: Can somebody tell what he/she thinks of the discribed story…? :slight_smile:

In every case the compositing has began: I’ve done some tests with that fire footage and have tryed some Luma-keying, and it works damn good! :slight_smile: Really interesting to continue! :slight_smile:

I hope for more replies this time… :smiley:

#10

i got to say that you guys really put some time to this project and thats damn good thing :slight_smile:
Story seems to be filled with nice action and music choice from The Rock sounds good. If you could get Mr. Cage in to film then it would certainly be the best :wink:

#11

looks like you have got all out on this project.

#12

@ BloodHo : Thanks for the thrust in the project! :scream: And you really get the idea indeed: if we’d have had Mr Cage this would have become a blockbustermovie (or 3 minutes :wink: )! But by the way: you don’t know nothing about the acting abilities of our own Nicolas Cage: mr Ossenblok! :twisted: He may be the new mr Cage… :rolleyes:

@ google monkey : Thanks for that reply…! :slight_smile: We’re indeed trying to get a really cool short movie as the entry…!

By the way: I’m reaaally buzzy with the effects now! I’ve choosen to not use 3Ds Max in this ‘production’, as I want to use all options built in After Effects (and Photoshop :wink: ). It’s just a nice AE-training in this way! :slight_smile:

The secret of making good action-effects seems to be: activate motion-blur, add a camerashake, do some extreme colorcorrection that varies along the timeline… Because I now know the way I can make it look the best, I’ll now be able to do at least 3 shots today… So that will mean we’ll get finished before the deadline of next week! :twisted:

I’ll try to keep this up to date… Maybe some screenshots or stills, later! :scream:

Greetz,
-Gijs

#13

Ok, time for an update!

We are still working on the short-FX-film. The upcoming 2 days I’ll be working incredibly hard to be able to finish it all in time! Some still of the (4 :shrug: ) shots I yet finished… Also the intro/prolog (of almost 1 minute!) is finished!

 The stills come right out of AfterFX without compression, so it may take some time to load the PAL-size-stills...
 
 [b]The Case opening up because of the explosion inside:[/b]
 [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/01_koffer%20openvliegen_1.jpg[/img]
 
 [b]The Terorrist being blown away because of the pressurewave:
 [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/02_van%20trap%20vallen_1.jpg[/img]

Flames coming down in the stairway…!: (this shot may be removed in the final cut, because rendering may take to long… I mean: 5 minutes/frame! :smiley: )

 The explosion seen from outside... By the way done for 100% in AfterFX, using the 'Scatter'-effect, and some simple tricks :) :
 [img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/04_glasexpl_1.jpg[/img]

Snow spraying outside, after the explosion… This part of this shot is not yet finished… The snow looks a bit to blocky indeed :wink: :

 [/b][size=2]It will be one big challenge to finish this in time, but if the result will be as 'Michael-Bay'-ish as planned, it would be worth it. ;)
 
 All 'collegues-participants': good luck to you! I can't wait to see your final stuff!
 
 I'm going to pick some sleep!,
 -Gijs
 [/size][b]
 [/b]
#14

Rendering, rendering, rendering, rendering… And some tweaking. :wink:

I’m just really buzy with the project…! The last 3 days almost non-stop…! :eek: :twisted: Let’s just hope that I’ll get the deadline…! :slight_smile:

#15

lookin good so far! :thumbsup:
i hope you make it in time, we had to drop a few shots allready :frowning:

#16

Thanks for that reply Job! :slight_smile: Thanks for the confidence in our FX-entry! :buttrock:

About that ‘shotdropping’, well, we have the same to… Some shots are less advanced than planned, and some simply disappeared/dropped… :shrug: We’ll see if the shots that we keep, will have the stength to hold the story… :slight_smile:

By the way: you Blender-guys are doing it really extraordinary well! :eek: So dámn awesome stuff! Especially that ice-masks and stuff, are sooo cool! :scream: I can’t wait to see your final entry… It should be of veeeery good quality, with such a big team! :wink:

Have a nice night :wink: … [While the PC is rendering… and rendering…],
-Gijs

#17

Great work…

The voting thread will go up this Friday, so if you wish to tweak the entry you have until then.

-R

#18

Wow man… That’s nice…! :scream: So if I understand correctly, I the (‘general’) deadline is moved to friday…? :eek: :twisted: Shouldn’t we say that to the other participants then? :slight_smile: Or is it just a ‘me-and-you’-appointment…? :smiley:

In every case… Rendering (on PAL-resolution) is finished: editing (and hosting :wink: ) is the only that rests ahead now… :slight_smile:

Greetz! -Gijs

#19

CLICK HERE for our promoshot…

Hope you’ll like that one… It cost quite some time and RAM to get that done in After Effects… :slight_smile:

And I’m still editing… Almost finished… The total time is yet on 4 minutes, and then I’m not even finished…! :twisted: For sure the Hans-Zimmer music will work fine with it! :wink:

CU!,
-Gijs

#20

We did it! The movie is finished… Now just let’s hope the server can hold it! :wink:

 [b]--------------------------

[img]http://gijs.lumix.nl/BigFreeze/promopic_1.jpg[/img][img]http://members.lycos.nl/oldentower/bestanden/BigFreeze_FXWar/promopic_1.jpg[/img]

And some stills:

ENTRY SUBMISSION:[/b]
   [u]Dutchman - FX Wars, The Big Freeze Challenge[/u] 
    
  Click [b][here](http://showthread.php?t=262183&page=1&pp=15)[/b] for our WIP-thread!
    
    
   [b]DESCRIPTION:[/b]

The Dutch city Roosendaal is scheduled for a terroristic attack! And not ‘just one’…! This is an attack with a Cold Case! The style is inspired by Alessandro Pacciani’s ‘BV-01’.

   [b]DOWNLOADS:[/b] (Length: 6 minutes 10 seconds)
     [Big Freeze Entry Movie 640x420  (File Size: 44.3MB)](http://gijs.lumix.nl/BigFreeze/DUTCHMAN_FXWARS%28640x480%29.mov)[i] (> Temporary offline... Hope to get it on working soon!)[/i]
    [Big Freeze Entry Movi](http://%0Ahttp://www.timon-royer.com/DUTCHMAN_FXWARS%28320x240%29.mov)[e 320x2](http://%0Ahttp://www.timon-royer.com/DUTCHMAN_FXWARS%28320x240%29.mov)[[u]4[/u][u]0 (File Size: 20 MB)[/u]](http://%0Ahttp://www.timon-royer.com/DUTCHMAN_FXWARS%28320x240%29.mov)[i](Allot thanks to Timo Royer for uploading this so quick after the request for webspace!)[/i]
  
  [b]--------------------------[/b]
  
  Hope you'll like it!
  -Gijs