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The pace of production picked up precipitously, and probably permanently!  But at what cost?

It seems as if gluing the characters to the floor and leaving them out for months might not have been the best idea.  Stupid unpredictable clay!  In addition, Cliff was visited by the Melty Man’s ghost and given a terrible curse.  His cuff is fused to his hand, all so that he may hold onto a screwdriver.  Such a dedicated employee of Sumo Inc.

The good news, though, is that we were able to bang out over 300 frames in only about four hours of work time.  This was all despite some long setup times for new camera angles, which we hope to refine in the coming weeks.  Also, we ate a delicious baked chicken.

Lighting was less of an issue this week, as the lights in a bag really came into their own.  We also made the largest movements in the show so far.  One sequence demanded the actors perform and react to special effect sparks that will be added in post.  Their performances were inspired and convincing.

Until next time,

-Mike and Steve

Behold, the solution to last time’s lighting problems.  Lights in a bag!

The cardboard helps the lights in the back from being in the bag.  For the next scene, we might try using something besides Christmas lights.

We’re also working out how to log our shots so that they can be easily lined up with the sound track later.  At the beginning of each line we have written down the frame in which the waveform begins.  The marker on the right shows the different camera angles as well.  Hopefully we’ll know what all this means a year from now when we’re in post!

And finally, some interesting statistics:

• Estimated runtime: 18 mins.
• Approximate total number of frames: 12fps x 18 mins. = 13,000 frames
• Approximate frame progress: 3.1% (397/13000 frames)
• Script progress: 3.3% (115/3,510 words incl. direction)
• Scene progress: Currently filming scene 1 of 9
• Approximate number of filming days remaining: 12600/220 frames per day = 57 days
• Approximate filming completion date: 57 days / 3 days per month = April, 2014??

Until next time,
-Mike and Steve

Hey All! We are one session away from recording the first footage for SpaceBase:Infinity! Exciting, I know! Hence the !

Lighting tests were done today, and the above is the result. Xmas lights sure do Quake the room up, if you can dig.

Audio was also hammered out for best takes and timing. Not as stunning visually, but with this we are set to start the stop motion:

And so we begin our foray into the multi-framed abyss that is stop motion photography, and truly learn the meaning of patience, and postponed payoffs. Stay tuned!

-The Bman cometh

It’s both surprising and satisfying when months of planning and experimentation pay off in the form of a successful 13 second animation.  After learning from countless mistakes, we may finally have a production process that will work for the final episode.  Amazingly, it’s easier to list the things that went right this time around, rather than what we need to learn from.  It’s in widescreen 1080p, the lighting looks good, the animations are relatively interesting and believable, the mouths match the words and head movements, and the picture quality and camera work have a relatively professional feel.  Life is good at the Vienna House.

Vegas has some great tools for animating mouths using keyframes and matching the waveform of the audio track.  We don’t, however, have the computing horsepower to preview our animations at full 1080p, so we’ll need to solve some technical issues there.

Next week, we’ll attempt to make some lounge furnishings (sink, refrigerator, sofa) and some mounting rigs for the (Christmas) lights.  Until then, you can also check out this flythrough of the set for the filming of “Meet Rufus.”

-Mike

SpaceBase:Infinity’s crew has come together for the first time in corporeal form, and don’t they just look great! Finally deciding on how we’d pose them and dress them, the skeletons were completed and we gave them their fleshy clothing.

Check em out:

Continue reading They Have Bodies!

So we (Steve) have finally gotten serious about photographing Spacebase.  “How serious?” you ask.

After fiddling with some options, we were controlling focus and avoiding automatic white balance with ease and precision.  Cue proof video…

 For additional content, follow this link to see why Steve chose the camera he did.

Only a week or two left until filming of the episode will begin.  We’re making some adjustment to the body construction after melting the Melting Man in the video above (weights in the feet?) and finishing up wall decoration.  Mmmmm… progress.

-Mike