In-World War

FX help needed. Make history.

In-World War was written to be cheap. Or at least, that was the original goal.

No space ships. No alien invasions. No fighting robo-dinosaurs with bio-chemical laser cannons.

The special effects would be kept to a minimum and focus on what we could do with trick-photography and perhaps get some simple CGI from FX students who were looking to build their own reels and resumes.

However, as we moved through production, I became concerned that the film wouldn't "read" as sci-fi, that it wouldn't have enough FX and would seem simply like just another ultra-low budget drama.

I thought I was fine with that (In-World War will never be a traditional sci-fi blockbuster -- it's far too quirky and smart), but my inner sci-fi geek wanted more.

So along the way, our ambitions grew.

Bit-by-bit I found ways of adding small (and sometimes large) FX shots. Always to add to the story and build a richer world, but also because each new FX concept was -- well -- cool.

Fast forward to today: I stayed up late last night finishing the first preliminary FX shot list -- a scene-by-scene inventory of the special effects that we need.

Somehow, we ended up with about 100 FX shots in this simple little DIY sci-fi film.

So we need some help. Your help.

If you or someone you know does FX (concept work, modeling, lighting, producing, whatever), get in touch: brant [at] studiolomismo [dot] com

I'll be upfront: we can't pay you in cash. We can promise a copy of the film and the opportunity to be part of something that's bigger than any of us (hundreds have already contributed as cast, crew or donors).

If you're looking to join a ragtag band of indie film rebels and help hoist the sail on this unlikely DIY sci-fi epic, then let's talk. 

We're making film history here: who's in?

Latest tricks in DIY indie film distribution

I just got back from a cheapo trip to Sundance with a ton of notes and ideas for indie distribution.

There's a lot brewing and if you have an indie film, you should be paying attention.

Check it out: I wrote up a lengthy, content-rich article about the tips and tricks that I picked up at Sundance this year on my filmmaking blog DIY Filmmaking Sucks.

Audio podcast interview with In-World War's director

Local filmmaker Niall McKay interviews In-World War director DJ Bad Vegan (aka Brant Smith) for the Film Ireland website. Film Ireland is the magazine of Filmbase, the Dublin-based filmmaker organization that provided the gear and a location for the In-World War 2nd unit shoot in Dublin.

If you're interested in indie filmmaking and distribution, it's a good listen.

Topics in the podcast:

• What's this In-World War film about?
• How to make a feature film with nearly no money.
• What we learned about theatrical self-distribution from our experience with Quality of Life.
• The best marketing technique for ensuring people see your film.
• Why science fiction is a good choice for an indie film.
• The future of indie/DIY/artisan filmmaking.

Buckle up your headgear, since it's a wild ride down the rapids of DIY independent filmmaking:

Film Ireland: Niall McKay talks to Brant Smith Director of 'In-World War'

VR prop for 2nd unit in-world shoot

Really excited about this.

Wanted to share an image of a prop by the amazing Karen for our virtual reality 2nd unit shoot that Laura and Steve are putting together next week.

This is the persistent holophone that Junior gives Mary. The VR version is based on the actual phone we had modeled and manufactured using resin.

This image of the phone is the skin that will be wrapped around the 3D model (that's why it literally looks like a skinned animal). The blue marks will be used by the FX people in post-production to track the movement of the phone on the screen for inserting the hologram/UI elements.

We have rehearsals for the VR scene (all done in-world) on Saturday and then the actual performance on Monday. On Wednesday we have any pick-ups plus capturing the camera angles.

It's a busy week before I leave for Sundance on Thursday (not going with a film, just to see movies and connect with people).

The digital filmmaking life: 400+ hrs of transcoding and VR pre-production

Things are moving forward steadily on a couple fronts.

We're just about done with the transferring of footage from the RED (and other formats) into ProResHQ for editing in Final Cut. It's taken over 400 hours to do this work, since one minute of footage takes nine minutes to convert. Thanks to Dane for riding herd on all that digital data.

We had another drive fail (one of the ones that was supposedly repaired), so we lost a week due to that, but we're back in the saddle (and backed-up thankfully).

We're also in pre-production on some additional 2nd unit work in our most exotic location: a true virtual reality world. Actors will -- literally -- go in-world to act out the scenes. We'll record their actions and then later replay the action to "shoot" it.

It's a crazy, but very cool and flexible way to work: we separate the performances from the camera work. Basically, because we are recording the every movement of the actors in-world, we can replay it perfectly and then at leisure place the camera for recording and editing. This allows us to place the camera EXACTLY where we want, including shots that we could never afford in real life (helicopter shots anyone?).

It also allows us to shoot from different angles with exactly the same performance, since the performance is literally recorded. Totally wild. No continuity errors are even possible (um, hopefully).

Big thanks to Laura and her team for helping us out on this in-world shoot and making it happen.

This is the largest segment of the film left to shoot, so it will be great to get it in the can. We're planning on having the performance occur in the next ten days with later "recording" of the camera angles sometime later this month.

Eat your heart out James Cameron.

Post-production workflow step-by-step

As you may have noticed, we've been trying to figure out our post-production workflow for the past couple months while we've been dealing with the hard drive failures.

I'm happy to report that both problems have been resolved. We now have plenty of working drives (all 4TB multi-drive monsters) with multiple back-ups of all the raw footage. You can imagine how stressful it was to see our redundancy whither as the failed drives stacked up.

And now, thanks to Dane, Jesse, Sharon and Alex, we have a post-production workflow that makes sense for the project. Honestly, the post-production process for a complex film like In-World War has been somewhat of a mystery to me and only through their help have we been able to move forward.

Remember, we shot on four different cameras (RED ONE, Sony EX1, Sony EX3 and Canon 5D), and besides the usual post-production deliverables (editing, sound mix, conforming, coloring, etc.), we have VFX to worry about too.

If you're interested in such things, here's our post-production plan (as I understand it...I'm just the director after all):

Format: We've decided that since nearly all of the film was shot at 23.98fps, that's what we'll be using for the final deliverable. Furthermore, we'll offline at 1080p, knowing that there's a better than 99% chance that HDCAM SR is the best we'll need (HDCAM SR is 1080p).

However, we will maintain all the links to the original media, so we if we do decide to output to 2k resolution for high-end digital projection, we have that option. Since that's only likely if we do a formal (and expensive) theatrical delivery, we don't expect to need to worry about that (since traditional indie distribution for films like ours is basically dead). But we're ready, in case it happens.

One vital rule is that we will not move or rename any of the original files and even once in Final Cut, we'll use the filenames for the names of clips. We absolutely want to ensure that we maintain the links between what we're editing and the original source files within Final Cut. In order to ensure this, we will be making back-ups only via complete and identical cloning via Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner.

Our step-by-step post-production workflow:

1. Do a conform test: Import digital media via the Final Cut Pro Log and Transfer tool and then open the project with Final Cut Studio's Color program to make sure we can reference the original R3D files to maintain the link across the workflow.
2. Do a timeline test: Transfer sample footage from each camera to ProResHQ and make sure all the different types of footage can go into a single timeline. We shot on four cameras and that's one of the major issues we're dealing with. 80% of the footage is 4k RED at 23.98. That will move to ProResHQ without a problem. The EX 1 and EX 3 footage was all at 23.98 (we thought that some or all was at 25, since they were European cameras), so that will go in fine too. The Canon 5D footage is at 30fps, but we'll just change that down the line and not now.
3. Convert everything to ProResHQ in its native format. 
4. The director watches all the footage and makes notes for the editor.
5. The clips get organized by the asst. editor: put into separate bins for each scene.
6. The editor creates an assembly edit (with feedback from director).
7. VFX design work can start: sketches, storyboards, even basic modeling and animatics if needed. Detail work and full rendering won't start until we have a fine cut.
8. We film additional pick-ups for shots we missed or messed up.
9. These new shots are added to create the rough cut.
10. Finalize any zooming and panning within the RED footage (since the RED was shot at 4k resolution, we have room to move around in each frame given that we don't expect to output better than 2k).
11. Finalize the fine cut of the edit.
12. Visual FX work is done (based on the fine cut).
13. Sound design and mixing is done (based on fine cut + FX)
14. Conform! Put all the elements together at the correct 23.98 fps.
15. Color correct the entire film, with the elements in place (usually happens at the same time and place that the conform is done).
16. Very minor tweaks to the edit (nips and tucks basically) based on having all the elements together.
17. Picture is locked.
18. Project it in a high quality reference room as a quality control check. Make sure it looks and sounds great.
19. Throw a party. Drink a lot. Act obnoxious. Wake up feeling ill. Success!

That's the outlines of the plan. Naturally there are some major parts that are complex projects unto themselves (editing, VFX, sound, etc.). Now you understand why we need at least a year to get it all done since we don't have the funds to rush it.

Special thanks to Dane for stepping up as our post-producer and overseeing the process, including manually converting to ProResHQ. Kudos to Jesse for holding the line on a rigorous linear process to save us money (we can't exactly spend our way out of screw-ups).

And thanks to everyone who donated this holiday season. It's not too late to get that tax break for 2009 by making a tax-deductible donation to In-World War and getting your name in the credits!

For more thoughts on post-production planning, see the related post to this one on my other blog, DIY Filmmaking Sucks:

Post-production workflow for indie films

Muslim cowboy music

Why is it a political act to simply show that Muslims are people too?

Well, as you ponder that, dispense with other preconceived notions and watch this new music video featuring Kareem Salama: the first genuine Muslim country music star.

It's directed by Lena Khan (assistant director on In-World War) and shot by Donavan Sell (also DP on IWW), with help from a whole bunch of other IWW vets too.

The video is not directly related to IWW, but it's good to see the team getting real paid work for a change, esp. on a cool project like that. Check it out.

The year in San Francisco Bay Area filmmaking.

Veteran film writer Michael Fox interviewed In-World War director DJ Bad Vegan in his year-end column about Bay Area narrative filmmaking for the San Francisco Film Society's SF360 website. Turns out, there's a lot of narrative activity in our little Bay film community. Hurray for us!

In other news, a quick hello to our friends at SF Signal for the shout-out and support on their site.

And lastly, don't forget to follow us on Twitter: @badvegan

New stills from In-World War

As a special holiday gift, we're releasing a handful of new stills from the film.

This is also a first glimpse of two of the most well-known actors in the film: Erin Gray (from 80's legendary tv shows Buck Rogers and Silver Spoons) and Vivienne Connolly (Irish supermodel-turned-actor).

We're posting these stills as our thanks for all your support and to encourage you to donate to the film. We need your support ASAP!

Now that we're finished with principal photography in the Bay Area and 2nd unit work in Europe, we are starting the long post-production process, which is the phase where the film really takes shape. Here's a brief list of the major elements we'll be working on over the coming year:

• Transcoding and ingesting of the media files
• Assembly edit
• Rough cut
• Sound editing
• Foley and sound effects
• ADR/looping (re-recording some dialog)
• Music/soundtrack
• Sound mixing
• Special effects and animation
• Color correction
• Fine/final cut
• Plus assorted marketing and outreach activities to build the audience

As you can imagine, post-production is a long, complex and costly process. On our last film, Quality of Life, post-production was twice as expensive as production -- and on that we had zero VFX (unlike In-World War).

So please consider a small donation to In-World War to help us pay for post-production. We're 100% donation-funded and literally can't make the movie without your support. And by donating, you'll get your name in the credits and be part of cinema history. Donate today online!

Thank you to everyone who donated to support the film's production. We're on the way!

Enjoy these new unreleased, untouched stills from the film (click to see larger):

Photography is by Cinematographer Donavan Sell and most were done with the RED ONE camera, except for the last shot of Vivienne Connolly, which was taken with the Canon 5D.

Help us finish the film! Make a tax-deductible donation of $50, $100 or more today!

Remember, you get your name in the credits, plus a bunch of free goodies. (Notice how we didn't come through on the threat of crying babies and sad puppies. We've got your back, don't worry. Now do your part.)

Formats and the holidays

We're still noodling through the details on how (and when) to ingest the different formats we shot on. While 80% of the film was shot on the RED ONE, the rest was on the Sony EX1, Sony EX3 and Canon's amazing little 5D. This resulted in a bunch of different formats (the Sonys were used on our European shoot, so were at 24.98 fps, while the Canon was at 30fps and the RED was at 24fps).

I've also been spending a ton of time this month on sending out letters and emails asking for holiday donations to the film.

Which is a great segue to ask: Shouldn't you help  make the world a better place by a holiday donation (in your name or your fav sci-fi fan's name) to help us edit together the In-World War rough cut?

Don't be an art-hating grinch this holiday season: donate today!

We're not above hardball tactics. Next step if you don't donate today: bawling babies and sad puppies in cages. Only you can stop the madness.