improved trailer

Ok, so Expotees 2009 has past and the project deadline is rapidly closing in. I am a good chunk through the report and hope to finish it over the next few days. But here is an updated version of the trailer... i have added a few additional vocal elements to enhance the authentic trailer feeling.

... here it is.


improved trailer from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Movie Posters

Here's a couple of posters i quickly put together for Expotees.

The Black Chapter - Trailer

This is pretty much the final trailer. I have recently recorded and added the last bits of voice over and i will now be looking at spending some time nailing my report. I will re-visit it before the deadline and decide whether its worth making any more changes, but for now i am happy. Enjoy.


Trailer from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

VFX Breakdown

The past few days have been spent touching up my trailer and putting together a VFX Breakdown. Find it embedded below.


FMP - VFX Breakdown from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.


The next couple of days will be used to record the final pieces of dialog for my trailer. It will hopefully be 100% finished by the end of the week. I am now starting to think about my report and i plan to continue on with it over the next 2-3 weeks.

More Sound!

Here is an updated version of the sound for the trailer. Obviously there is still no dialogue, but i hope to have that coming along soon. Also i am still not happy with the gun shots... but this is the stage i am at now... i see the end, and it smells great!

NOTE: due to compression etc the version in this post cannot be played with Vimeo's HD enabled, therefore it appears extremely dark and low quality... but you can just click on the link to view it on Vimeo, where HD is enabled.


test edit 3 from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

First round of sound!

Ok, this is the first layer of sound for the trailer... i have used Video Co-pilot's Pro Scores to put together a track for the trailer. Its by no means perfect, and there are some timing issues at the end which will be sorted soon.


1st round of sound! from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

I also plan to go back stabilize the 'beach shot' at the beginning of the trailer.

Test Trailer!

This is my first edit of the final trailer with all but 2 shots which i filmed today. NOTE: there is no music, foli, dialogue or fades etc... this a rough edit.

There is also some grading issues that will be changed in due course.


test edit 1 from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

New Titles

I have re-looked at my title sequence and decided this version is a lot more fitting for the Style of The Black Chapter.


The Black Chapter 2 from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Title (b)


TheBlack Chapter (b) from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

What Next?

Ok, my plan for the next few days are as follows; I plan to replace the background on the Roar shot to one that is moving... it will only make a subtle difference but will help to enhance the authenticity of the shot. Also i am working on a shot that leads into to the 'arrow pan' shot, where Hannah raises her bow in preparation, before firing.

Extending planning on into the following week, i intend to start filming the remaining footage for the trailer so i can begin the final grading and rendering.

All the shots will then be transferred into FCP for editing. Any rough test i render off with be uploaded onto here.

Hannah ' Shocked"

This is potentially the last unique effects shot i will be working on for The Black Chapter. This shot actually follows on from the gun battle, Hannah hears the shot echo through the forest, spooking some bats, and she turns round to hear where it came from.

I used some footage from a shoot i did back in December with Nick Marshall in the New Forest as a background. I keyed the studio footage of Hannah and colour corrected it to match the back ground before adding an over all grading. For the bats... i used the same simulation from the Howl Shot and simply used a contrasted version of the shot as a matte, to put the bats behind the first layer of trees.


shocked_hannah from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Titles 2

Today i have been very busy. Here are 2 version of mid-titles for the trailer. The first, lighter video was my initial attempt. After a few peoples input i came to the conclusion that it wasnt professional enough for a trailer, and i had to re-think some of the fundamentals eg. the camera move, the lighting and colour scheme...


test_titles2 from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

This second video is the greatly improved and preferred version of the titles. Here you can see i have simplified the whole thing down and reconsidered the colour scheme.


titles2_test2 from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Arrow Panorama

This is my penultimate Live-action effects shot. In this shot the half human/half vampire, Danielle, fires the arrow that eventually kills the Vampire in a previous effect shot i have uploaded (arrow zip). In After Effects i created a panorama of stills for the background as the camera tracks a CG arrow in slow motion.

Unfortunately my 3D skills are not amazing, so the arrow looks very CG. But i think the over all effect is quite nice.


arrow panorama from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

ROAR!

Here is a quick shot i managed to squeeze out during Animex. Clearly a Vampire has made me angry and i am roaring at the camera. There is a subtle warp on the mouth to increase the size of the roar, the footage has been keyed and placed on top of a background. There was also some roto needed to remove part of the rubber teeth. This shot was put together very quickly and will be re-visited.


roar from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Arrow Zip - Rough & Final

Here is the first slap comp and the final comp for the 'arrow zipping through a forest shot'. The arrow does still look very CG, but for now i am happy leaving it how it is. I re-rendered this a number of times to get the animation right, i found that the less it moved round the screen the more realistic is looked, as the motion of the camera marked alot of the path of the arrow.

SLAP COMP


basic zip from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

FINAL COMP


final arrow zip from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Arrow - Render

Ok, the arrow passes are rendering as i speak. I hope to comp them together over the next few days and i will upload the finshed shot soon.

CG Arrow - texture re-work

Here i have added some more layers of texture to the arrow head to help make it look as real as possible. It was a very quick lighting set up, so it does still look very CG. Hopefully in the final render it will look alot better.

CG Arrow

Over the last few days i have been modelling the CG arrow that will be 'zipping' through the forest to kill the Vampire. I have modelled from reference as i will be using a real arrow on set. Below is some print screens of the modelling stage, and the beginning of the animation of the arrow. The bow and arrow was kindly donated by the one and only Terry Marriot.

Compositing Reel: January 09

This is a temporary reel i put together for the Animex Festival. I will be making massive improvements to this over the next few weeks.


jan 09 reel from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

The Next Step

Ok guys, i have reached a milestone a week ahead of schedule. I am now going to use this week leading up to Animex '09 to start producing break downs for all the shots i have done so far, and put together a small reel incase i happen to meet anyone worth giving it too. I will post that up hopefully towards the end of next week.

I am booked in the Phoenix Studio on the 2nd of Feb to get the last of the green screen footage. From there its game on to the end to meet the Expotees deadline.

Dodge

Another shot with ricochets and muzzle flashes. I have remapped the time to improve the flow of the shot and removed 2 tracking markers.


blog_dodge 2 from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Gun Battle

Here is another shot i have fired out over the last few days. This shot follows on from another slow-mo shot where Rou is charging at an Elder Vampire. In this shot Rou dodges a fatal shot to the head and flips the gun round back on the Vamp.


Rou/Elder gun battle from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Face - off

I began this shot a few months back and for some strange reason i put it aside and didnt finish it. This is a face-off shot with Rou and Nicolas, using the motion control rig in the Phoenix studio. I also shot a few Vamps in the background using multiple passes with the MC rig, and then tracked in the forest behind them. I may look into adding some fog, but i reckon it looks ok at the moment.


face_off from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Run and Duck

Another quick shot finished. This time its Rou running through the forest and an off screen Vamp fires, narrowly missing, hitting a tree just above Rou's head.

Similar to the 'arrow zip' shot, i tracked a ricochet and particles to the tree. I used a mask for the foreground tree and played around with the colour correction.


run and duck from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Howl shot take 2

I have been talking to a number of people who all agreed that the original 'Howl Shot' was too dark and the lighting wasn't as good as it could be. I have spent a little bit of time since trying to rectify this... i can't afford to spend too long over one shot so i am now leaving it as it is below, at least until i have time to go back.

I have altered the blue colour balance, and also lightened up the whole shot. There was also an issue with the shadow of the Werewolf not being dark enough, that has also been corrected.

Unfortunately, it is still dark on here due to bad compression, but there is an accompanying jpeg.


Howl 2 fog from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Elder firing off some clips

I finished this shot today, it only took an hour or so. I did originally track the muzzle flashes on to the gun, but as they were only a frame in length there was no need. The muzzle flashes were stock footage from one of Andrew Kramer's DVDs (action essentials). For the flashes on the trees, i painted them on to a frame in photoshop and imported them as a PNG, i think they work quite nicely. To finish it all off i added some shake with the wiggler and a quick colour grading.


Elder side on firing from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Clone 2 - Finished!

Finally! I have been slaving away rotoscoping 6 seconds of Elder Vamp out of the shot for just 2 second of final cut footage... but here it is. Although the grading may still be subject to change, i like it. The blues totally change the time of day, from mid-day to early morning.


clone 2 finished from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.


The picture below shows the change in colour.

Expotees 2009

I have recently had word from the University of Teesside accepting me to exibit my work at the forth coming Expotees exhibition. Expotees is a chance for the final year under-grads to exibit their work for potential employers to come and see.

The image below is what i uploaded to go into the brochure. At the time i did not have any finished shots that fully represented my project, but i chose this because i think it captures the feel of my trailer and was the best i could find at the time. It is by no mean a finished piece.

Clone 2

I am currently working on a new clone shot, similar to the one i did previously, except in this shot a group of Elder Vampires are searching for Rou in a forest.

This was a case of locking down a camera and asking my very co-operative bro (Jonathan Dawes) to do a number of takes walking past the camera, whilst wearing the embarrassing vamp suite. Then with the footage, roto around the Vamps to put them all in the one shot. For the 3 Vamps at the back of the shot i was able to roto a little loose, but for the Vamp closest to the camera (and for another even closer) i have to roto it very closely. This is the stage i am at now, i havn't quite finished with the guy closest, but will be soon moving on to adding another Elder Vampire in to the shot.

Will hopefully update again soon with the finished shot.

Arrow zip - UPDATE

The stage i am at with this 'arrow zip' shot is as so; i have altered the blur element with the adjustment layer tracked on to the end of the gun as a center point, there is an improved colour grading (still to be finalised), tracking markers removed and some particles using CC particle world have been used for debris from the bullets hitting the trees.

I am over all happy with the shot as it stands. On a later date when i have modelled, textured and rendered the CG arrow that will be 'zipping' through the forest, i will re-post the final shot. In the mean time i will be continuing to work on other shots.


Untitled from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.



(Still frame)

Arrow shot - UPDATE

I have been away and worked in the raw footage posted previously and this is where i am with it so far. I have stabilized it, i have tracked in some muzzle flashes and ricochets and i have also added a basic fast blur to the shot to keep the focus in the middle. Over the next week i plan to introduce some particles to enhance the ricochets and begin to remove the tracking markers from the trees. Below is the stage i am at now.


Test shot - Arrow through forest. from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.

Arrow shot

Ok, i have just got back from my christmas break and im all refreshed and ready to go.Over the holidays i did go out into the New Forest and shot some much needed footage for The Black Chapter. Although it took a few days to get something i was happy with it was worth it and im excited to get back on track and work on some nice shots.

The shot below is raw, but sped up to 5% of the original speed. Eventually i will be compositing in an arrow zipping through the trees towards the Vampire at the end.




Raw - Arrow shot from Sam Dawes on Vimeo.