Category: Project Update

Even though the full episode of SB:I will only be in 3d if you consider Einsteinian theory, we do have some conventionally 3d treats for you today.  If you have your computer connected to a fancy TV or a Nintendo 3DS laying in a charging cradle somewhere, click the link below each of the following pictures to bask in the full muti-dimensionality of SpaceBase: Infinity.  If you’re stuck on a 3d incapable iPad or some other such unfortunate device, try not to get a headache from these gifs!

Download Winona here.

Download King here.

Download the sandwich here.

If you are motivated to purchase a screen that can show you these inspiring 3d photographs, follow this link.  Or this one.  Or even this one might work, maybe.

As for real progress, fear not, we didn’t spend all of our time fiddling with stereo photo maker.  We should be able to complete shooting scene 3 the next time we meet.  We’ve captured over 1000 frames so far, for those keeping track.

-Mike

After nearly a year of filming test shots and with one scene already in the can, we figured it was time to learn how to use a camera.

From what we can figure out, besides focal distance and zoom, there are three settings that affect the look of a shot: aperture, ISO, and shutter speed.  Shutter speed was intuitive.  The longer the shutter stays open, the more light is allowed to pass through to the lens.  This results in a brighter and clearer picture, but also encourages the ghastly appearance of the phantom hand.  Slowing the shutter speed past five or six seconds will diminish the depth of field effect coveted by semi-pro photographers and super-amateur stop motion animators (such as ourselves).

Aperture determines the amount that the shutter opens.  An aperture setting of 5.6 opens the shutter twice as wide as a setting of 8, which is twice as wide as 11, and so on.  The amount the shutter opens determines how much light hits the lens.

According to photo.net, ISO is apparently a swarm of bees gobbling up the light passing through the shutter.  Steve likened changing the ISO to adjusting the number of photo-receptors available to take in light.  An ISO setting of 100 has half as many receptors as a setting of 200.  Increasing the ISO creates a brighter picture with a smaller aperture and faster shutter speed, but at the expense of adding graininess and noise.

And with that, we’re over 300 frames into our next scene.  It’s nice to once again measure our progress in frames.  Looks like the entire scene will end up having between 1700 and 1800 of them.

-Mike

The short answer is yes.  The long answer is the rest of this blog post.

Steve and I worked diligently on crafting the mouth animations for scene one until we got about halfway done and came up with not one but TWO brilliant ideas that completely set us off track.  While implementing our original idea (which we’ll call Mouth Animation Idea #1), we realized that the animation looked like a flapping sock puppet.  Sooooo

Mouth Animation Idea #2:
What if we used a black sock puppet to BE the mouths?  Wait, that might be too hard.  What if we used a piece of foam board leftover from set creation and put it on the end of a stick that may or may not be bamboo.  Oh, and hang a green folder over it.

Mouth Animation Idea #3:
Ok, so that sort of worked.  What if we actually did the puppet idea?  It’d probably be way better then, right???

So maybe neither of these systems is better than using static mouth images and animating them.  We are weirdly inspired to make a cell shaded puppet show though.

-Mike

Hey everybody, we’re back!

So Mike and I picked up from a slight dip in SB:I activity and started figuring out just how we are going to animate the characters mouths. Although doing the mouths in the fashion we had decided on takes a lot of the pain out of filming each scene, the post processing has its own challenges. We are definitely up to it; just look at how hard at work we (one of us) are (is)!

I swear I totally did some work too!

At the end of our session we had about 3 or 4 lines of dialog, which is a great start. And since this is something we can do on our own time we should be able to tear through the scenes as they are finished… definitely much speedier than the actual character animations themselves.

We also purchased some sweet LEDs to light some of our future scenes, and decided to combine them with a little demo of the dialog. Be warned… it got a little silly:

Next time we’ll be putting the finishing touches on our set to film the next scene… stay tuned!

-Steve

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