The End?

Okay, after months of denial (by simply choosing not to think about it), I've decided to go ahead and just admit that this project just will not get made. We enjoyed what we got out of it, we enjoyed the times we had together down in the woods and on the beach, we had fun training. But it's just not going to make it. The reasons are many, but they come down to these...


1. Dedication - The dedication of one person in particular is relatively lacking. And without this person it could not have gone ahead. Oh, we're all to blame in some way, but it absolutely could not have been made without a certain person. And this person just didn't want to continue almost right from the start.

2. Time - When we started this, I was unemployed. Mike was in first year, Kevin doing his Junior Cert. Rob was the only one working, but he had a day or two to spare per week, usually. Come September when the training was going very well, Rob had quit his job and both he and I were enrolled in college. But since we started college and Kev and Mike started their new school years, we haven't trained once. Not once. I've only thought about the film several times since starting. Now as we're into Spring and Summer is on it's way, I thought we'd have the time to train again, but this isn't the case. Rob is going to be working a lot to pay for college fees when he moves away to a different part of the country. Kevin is going into fifth year, and Mike will be doing his Junior Cert. I looked at what we'd accomplished so far and it's just a fact that with Rob leaving come September, there's no way we can train and complete filming this year. It's just not going to happen, for all manner of practical reasons.


What have we accomplished? Well, to be honest, when we last trained in September, it was still in it's very early stages. It was going well, it was looking good, but it was still very early. The three way fight was dropped for various reasons, and things went much quicker when Kevin could just concentrate on one person at a time. I don't mind saying that my fight with Kev, and his fight with Rob, were looking fantastic. It's a shame we won't get to go any further with them.

Michael's duel with Kevin was dropped for a number of reasons, relating to both the story and practical matters. We'd been looking at costumes and related materials (such as a latex head for Oolrath Corral), but hadn't chosen anything. We hadn't planned a budget, just set a figure and then forgot about it, thinking that we'd sort it out when training progressed to a point where we could start preliminary filming.

Cíarda and then Brendan joined the group, though Brendan never actually got the chance to do anything, such as attending a training session. Friends at college were very interested and one in particular has flat out said that if he can do anything, he'd love to be involved. As I've already worked with him on a film (that actually got made) I would have loved nothing more than an excuse to get him working with us, but I'll have to break the news to him on Monday. He was really looking forward to it.

Rob messed around with editing programs and edited a few short clips of our training sessions, mixing in his Paint Shop Pro skills to produce some very good effects. Those still photographs on this blog of us holding lightsabers? That's all Rob's work, and believe me, it looks just as good when in motion.

I have loads of footage captured onto my pc, loads of training stuff. I even have two Video CD's with examples of the duels and Rob's special effects work, that we showed to our Kendo instructor, and I was due to show as an example of work I'd already done when applying for college. If anyone's really interested, I can send you a cd of one of these.

And that, friends, is as far as it got. Who knows? Maybe we'll get a chance to make it some day - this started out as something Rob and I have always wanted to do, hopefully we will, sometime. For now, I'm sorry to say that it's not possible. I'll leave the blog open because it's an interesting read, I think, and I like reading and looking at the progress we made.

But for now, this is the end.

- Brian

More Of Rob's Lightsabery Wizardry

We managed to get down to Marlogue Wood again today, intended as one last day before Kev and Mike have to go back to school. We did get some stuff done - Rob and Kev managed to piece together their earlier fight, and add new moves, and I did some tests with Mike on the beach, the reason for which I can't really tell you, for it has to do with the story. But anyway, it's all looking good. Unfortunately, by the time it came for my turn with Kevin, he was too wrecked to do anything but a few duels. Ah well... we tend to work best on working out new moves when we're on our own in the back yard.

Down below are a mixture of shots - all are from today, but some of them have been touched up by Rob before I could get to Blogger's Dashboard to add this post. Now, if Rob will only settle on that one shade of blue I want...



Kev and Rob practise. Touched up shot, obviously >_>



Shot of Rob on his own.



Another touched up shot of Kev and I as we practise.



Another one from today.



Kev and Rob "take a break"...



One of the few untouched photo's, Kev and I practise. At this point, Kevin was wrecked. Next time, I'll be sure to have our duel first ^_~

Wow, An Update?

As unlikely as it seems, the four of us tramped down to the woods today for some practise, as you can see in Rob's post below. It was very windy, so you can't hear anything on the camera footage, everyone was tired and sore, so we only stayed for little over an hour... but we did manage to get something done. Mike can actually do a certain scene properly, now!

Kev and Rob did well enough in their fight seeing as they hadn't practised in well over two months, now. In the beginning we intended to work on some new moves, but everyone shouted down that idea by the time my practise with Kevin was ending. Everyone was just too tired and sore by then, and the weather seemed to be worsening. Still, we got some nice pictures, thanks to Rob's excellent digital camera. So, here you are...



I don't know what Kev and Rob were doing, but every time they'd restart their fight, they'd stand there looking at each other and not move. It was like that news reporter from the Fast Show - standing on a beach, smiling at the camera and finally saying, "Hi, I'm Ed Winchester!" only to have his cameraman moan that it's too late - the tide is coming in and the water is already up to Ed's knees...



Mike takes some direction on his performance... for once!



Kev and I practise.



Nice shot of Rob and Kev practising.



This would've been a better shot had the tree trunk not been there!

That's all for today - you never know, I might be able to motivate them into going some other day during the week.

Training, Training, Training...

Well, here we go with another batch of photographs straight from today's training session. Some couldn't make it but we had a good session nonetheless and worked out some of the logistics of some scenes. Kevin and I also are now very comfortable with the first sequence of moves in Rohan and Jereth's lightsaber duel and are ready to move onto the next batch... can't say the same for other people ;)

You might have noticed by now that I never keep my promises about when to expect the next update, or even just new pictures. Well, it's not my fault... we have things to do and sometimes - okay, a lot of times so far - they interfere with training. I'm sorry about that, but there's nothing to be done about it. So, from now on, I won't say anything about future sessions - there's just no guarantee. We do make an effort to be there, but... no guarantee.

Here, I must also apologise for the quality of the photographs. The problem stems from video acceleration options in all the players I have. We do not stand around in poses so we can get good shots for the blog - what we do is let the camera run while we train, then when I have copied the footage onto my computer, I play through the image and try to get the best shots I can. This has been helped recently by downloading new players that let me go through the footage frame by frame - though it certainly hasn't helped to speed up the process. The problem is that while the footage is playing, we cannot take snapshots of any frame while the video is playing, or not - not with video acceleration enabled. It just doesn't work. So, we have to turn video acceleration off, and the end result is that the photographs look horrible. It has to do with the way the DV-AVI format is pre-rendered by Premiere Pro and saved onto the computer, and the way the camera works. Converting the file to .wmv (which is what I usually do - for the technically minded, the settings are 2.1Mbps PAL, 25fps, 720*576) does nothing to help. So, once again, I apologise for their quality. The original footage, and the final result once it's been rendered, is far superior and suffers none of the clipping problems that plague me during the screenshot-taking phase.

On with the photographs -



Kevin and I in our duel... and going very well it is, too.



Kevin and Mike go through the motions of their fight...



This is the best shot I could get of this frame... I had to cut myself out of it because the clipping was so bad on my side. Kevin flies through the air on the ending move of our first duel sequence...



We focussed a lot today on our facial expressions during the duels, and this is an example of Jereth's anger as he tests Rohan for weaknesses. Again, not a static shot - Kevin is in full motion, about to strike me.



Kev and Mike discuss options on one of the finishing moves...

More... next time ^_~

About Time We Trained...

Today we've had the first proper training in over two months - Mike joined Kev and myself out in the garden. Kevin was late coming home, though, so we had to make the best of our time. Though, as you can see below, we took advantage of the darkening sky for some interesting photographs ^_^

I apologise for the blurriness of the shots - next time, I won't be relying on just turning off the hardware acceleration in Media Player to get them, I'll be using a program like VLC or VirtualDub. We'll see. In any case, the next photographs you'll see should be a big improvement. And the next set of photographs should be coming tomorrow.

While the project is definitely going ahead, I'm very worried about the special effects. Oh, not the lightsabers - as you can see in Rob's posts, we have no worries in that department. No, what I'm worried about is finding someone willing to work for peanuts to do a few sequences, for example a ship firing at another as it dives into a planet. Nobody on the team has either the time or the skills needed to create such sequences. We do have the programs - kinda, I'm not sure yet about Atmosphere and LiveMotion 2 - but not anyone who can use them. Boo. Because of this, and because of delays in pre-production (we'll be at this stage for a long time, I think) I can't give any kind of estimate for the date of release. Boo some more.

On with today's photographs...



Kevin and I in a very blurry shot...



Kevin and Michael, their silhouettes against the night sky.



Kevin and I, in the same situation.



Who knew that Kevin was so acrobatically inclined? Our duel is looking very good indeed, and progressing at a nice pace.

Movie - confirmed!

After a few weeks of serious doubt, it seems that the movie is back in pre-production, if not on schedule. Special effects are our biggest problem right now, as there's just nobody currently on the team who either can do them and have the experience to show for it, or someone with the time to learn it. So that's our biggest problem right now.

Rob came up earlier and had a small session with Kevin, and when he left, I had a much longer one with Kevin. Our duel is coming along, really, really well, much better than before. I have no pictures because Mike's video camera is at home, Rob forgot to bring his, and the batteries in mine need replacing. But tomorrow I will call down and take a loan of Mike's camera, and I should have some pictures of another very long session with Kevin.

Until then, may the Force be with you ^_^

Quiet

Things have been very quiet lately, the reason being that Rob and Kev are just too busy to give too much time to the movie - Rob with work, Kevin with school, Kendo and band practise. In fact, for the last month, the movie wasn't discussed... at all. But this is changing.

Kev and I went down to Mike's yesterday and had a good talk about the movie, and more specifically Michael's character, Oolroth Corral. We're not sure yet of some of the action sequences for Oolroth, but we hope to be working on these on Sunday, along with more practise for my fight with Kevin. That's the plan, at least, but Kevin's gone and hurt his foot at school, and it's looking doubtful that it'll be well enough for him to practise. But even if we don't, many decisions will be made on Sunday.

I'm still looking for a costume for Oolroth, but we're not going to be able to get them for a while yet. Everyone else's is decided, though, so that's something. The next update will be on Sunday, but whether or not I'll have pictures to put up here is a matter of debate.