Scripts, Smoke, and Snow

Greetings, one and all! This week life came to play. We started out the week with yet another round of ship detailing, followed by some non-film work. Then the snows hit, and we lost power for a while, which put a hole right in the middle of the week. So, what did we accomplish? Well, first off, the team on Sunday was smaller than usual, and since life sometimes literally beats up on us, they weren't exactly feeling up to physical activity. So, we pulled out the hard copy of a script I'd been working on for a couple years, and we did a reading.

 

It was an unexpected turn, but one that provided a couple hours of productive fun, and gave me a better understanding of the material. All in all, it was a win.

Despite the power outage, we managed to squeeze in a few more pieces of effects work. Everything from changing the speed of a planetary bombardment for greater weight and impact, to animating the smoke from a blast, to smoothing out a digital camera move.

So, a very different week from what we expected, but progress has been made.

Well, that's about all for this week. Until next time!

Color, Cues, and Cutlasses

Greetings, one and all! This week has been a fairly diverse collection of events. First off, we finally came back around to color correcting and doing the effects for the prologue. On top of that, we tinkered with the audio and dialogue bits for it. No sound effects yet, though. Secondly, Saturday saw our second ADR session, this one with Tristan, our series' Jack. Here you can see him preparing to re-record his dialogue from that challenging shoot in the park...

  
Sunday, the team met after the snow and ice hiatus to continue refining their choreography skills. This week catapulted us into an era we don't usually visit: The Age of Piracy.

As we moved into the week proper, there were many non-film related tasks, but we did manage to apply yet another layer of detailing to the Hunter's ship. Still no pictures, but hopefully sometime soon.

Well, that's about all for this week. Until next time!

A Week for Replacing Things

Greetings, one and all! This week has been a fascinating slog. First off, we synced Hunter's dialogue, and processed it to sound like it was coming through a speaker in his helmet.

Second, there was the little situation of a blinking corpse. What with using real people for our casualties, it's no surprise if they can't keep their eyes open and staring through an entire scene. However, this blink happened right behind our lead, and so had to be addressed. Motion tracking didn't work, so I hand animated the replacement eyeball over the actor's original blink, and melded it into the post-blink stare.

I would say mission accomplished, on that one.
Last but not least, I realized the composition of a scene was gravely lacking, and so began the tedious process of rotoscoping out the one actor, in preparation for re-integrating them into new footage.

We shall see how that goes, in the long run.
It is also with great pleasure that I announce that our BTS team has finished their first video! We will be reviewing it on Friday, and deciding how and when to release it.

In other news, yesterday marked the five year anniversary of the release of the first episode of Gatewalkers! My, how time flies...

Well, that's about all for this week. Until next time!

On Shields and Turrets

Greetings, one and all! This week has been a successful string of major little things. First off, we've made major progress with the Hunter's ship, adding engines, armor plating, and even a magnetically mounted turret.

 

Secondly, we've finally made significant strides with Lianna's shield. Apparently making a low-key, yet visible shield is harder than one might think.

Thirdly, we took a momentary diversion from regular processes to clean up some audio for the first BTS video for Stormborn.
Lastly, the team met on Sunday and, as planned, worked through refining the fight that had been laid out last week. The result amped up the energy, and eliminated any dead spaces that can easily slip into fight scenes.

All in all, a quite productive week.

Well, that's about all for this week. Until next time!