Cineversity

Hi there,

A new series is online!

JET (Junior Extra Terrestrial), a short movie created to showcase many different “standard” methods creating movie footage.

This series is created like the “Making Of” material that you find on BluRay/DVDs. With the only difference, it is detailed and in depth.
Just lean back and enjoy, each part is normally dedicated to one “take” or if you like clip.

This series is 38 parts long. The discussed “take/clip” is always on the start and the at the end, so you can see first what I needed to do, then why and how I did it. On the end the final result again.

The first part and the playlist is here:
http://www.cineversity.com/vidplaytut/jet_making_of_part_01

The Trailer to the movie is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtBHyYaOQ9I

I haven’t found a distribution for the movie so far. It is not online anywhere. I hope to wrap it into an iBook with some interviews and other stuff soon.

A little bit of background to the movie short:

The movie short JET (Junior Extra Terrestrial) was so far “Official Selection in over 20 (international) festivals across the U.S.A. and even in Australia. Several times winner of the festival (in its section) and many other Awards. (...as well Finalist) Currently it is for one+ more year available at KidsFirst, where this work got the award “Best Of Festival”. Festivals and movies is since long part of life.

So far, this was a breath-taking adventure. JET is based on the mix of practical footage and CG elements/animation done in CINEMA 4D.

Continuity is for every movie one of the highest priorities. To keep this going, even with mixed media and the idea to have for each “take” a different way of telling the story, was quite a challenge. This is not typically done, but for Cineversity, I used this approach.

Except for the score (but I did the arrangements and splitting of the MIDI files I got), I did all on my own: “From the Story to the Awards”, I produced it and financed as well the festival circuit. I traveled around in the U.S. to showcase my 35mm cinemascope copies, and did (so far possible) a QnA after each screening, with up to 300 people in the audience. These 14 Q&A were supposed to be the place where I introduce the audience to the tools that I have used, and had great “after talks” about CINEMA 4D of course.

I call C4D since long “my studio in a pocket”, and I introduced to this idea during my traveling. It was always a very nice event, and I can only suggest to try it for yourself.

The image shows me, (photo ©RGW) filming Downtown L.A., CA. I rented a Helicopter (on my own expense of course) and got some nice shots from there. No doors!

I hope you enjoy the series.

Sassi

Keywords:

I cover here a lot of themes: camera tracking, camera projection, pre-visualisation, HDRI, panoramas, pretty much anything that was discussed in the “Integration 101” series, animation, set creation, rotoscoping, planar-tracking, image-stabilization, digital-matte-paining, environment creation, compositing, VFX, editing, color correction, audiomix etc.

All in all I utilized forty applications along the “feature-film-pipeline”, sometime just for the sake of variety, sometimes just out of necessity. Of course a majority is taken based between the great Adobe and MAXON. ‘integration”.

Festival Interview

(International Filmfestival Sedona, AR)
JET was “Finalist” in the Audience Jury!

... just to give you an idea about some weird times, hehe, giving interviews and joining press meetings during the festival rush:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=7NQ3VhybSdg

The Story

JET Junior Extra Terrestrial
 
(One day - Planet Earth - Family Vacation)
 
J.E.T. arrives, with his family, on planet earth. Father goes off to other interests and the four other family members travel from the desert, over Las Vegas, and finally to Los Angeles. We see J.E.T. as a happy young spaceship, with too much energy to follow simply his mother. He is a cute little scamp—open for everything. The family is more in a conservative mood. They are traveling as an educational experience only. J.E.T. has other plans and becomes lost in downtown L.A.
 
He realizes this quickly and begins searching, half thinking that it is a game—half in mild panic. During that search, he loses his voice based on fear—the sound he makes to call and answer his mother—and so she cannot hear him when he can only make a dull noise. He is alone and lost.
 
During his long search, he reaches a house where something looks familiar and having no better option available, he finds a Kitchen Aid mixer (Aida K.). This one is very sad—doing the job and that is it.
 
Both have a completely different method of communicating but, even sad, J.E.T. manages to get her to communicate with him. Then something magical happens, based on a new trust and feeling of friendship. What has been created—and if Aida K. or J.E.T. did it—is up to the audience to decide. The fact is that it gives him his voice back just in the moment he hears his mother calling. 
 
Not all of that has taken away his happy-go-lucky attitude—the opposite is the case: he can share something wonderful now with his family. The smallest in the family has the biggest win from that day.  However, and more importantly, he shares it.
 
It is a movie about different cultures, being open to and finding the language of the heart. Staying in communication is the practical wonder that we all need, every day.

Awesome!  Making my way through the Cinematography series right now and loving it.  Can’t wait watch them all.  Currently, my 5 month old daughter is picking up a lot—Dr. Sassi shows up at feeding time every night

Hey Biagio,

Thanks for your ongoing support and feedback.

Congratulations to your daughter, and I wish her well! No one can start early enough with Cinematography! Hehe.
Let me know when she needs some free practical introduction with a Steadicam or RED, I’m on my way then ;o)

Really—thank you very much. You and Joke do so much for the “media”-community, it is great to have you onboard.

BTW, I though about your input (Camera-Projection), and the examples on your site are great.
My idea was film a set/situation in 4K like I would for “film” (crane, dolly or steadicam). The training is then, to rebuild this with DSRL stills in camera projection and C4D. In this way - we have a valid proof how real these things can get. ...and perhaps where we have to fix some stuff in “post”.
Shooting as well some HDRIs and gray/mirror-balls, besides that a MacBeth chart should help to validate anything. We will see if I get this idea supported. :o)
If you know a situation in L.A., CA, this would make it much more neutral, as if I would pick it ;o)

Have a great day.

Sassi

I love the sound of that training!  Sounds really great.  Most of our shows right now aren’t on sets per se, but I will keep my eyes and ears open in case a good opportunity presents itself.  However, as we do more scripted type projects, I love the idea of having the set completely rebuilt using DSLR stills.  It’s fascinating material, and I hope others are interested as well!

All the best,
Biagio

Thank you very much Biagio for the feedback.

There is certainly a change in the past decade. When I joint my first “GreenScreenIntensive” training in 2005, we had Marty Rosenberg (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0742276/) on set and other people who pushed this idea a lot. You can see stuff from that shooting as well on the DVDs at Gnomonworkshop from Tim Dobbert. A great time. Steve Wright and Alex Lindsay, both Shake trainers at that time mixed then all together, etc. These ten days diving into the world of digital sets were an eye-opener for me. In fact a little bit later I gave based on that material my first “Camera Mapping” intensive week, of course with CINEMA 4D.

With 5K cameras now, tracking and green-screen is easier than ever. CINEMA 4D is certainly a great tool to get these things done. Examples such as the “Ice-Gave” scene on the new Blood&Chrome; show from Universal Studios are very motivational as well. (I supported that a tiny little bit). Many examples comes to mind. Yes, I agree with you.

The “Camera Mapping” training, with all the details and “basic-concerns” is recorded and I hope we can have it public soon after the JET series. The Making of the music video (link below) is done as well.

The practical RED vs DSLR/C4D challenge could be done perhaps in Summer. (Though—I think sometimes animated footage on projection needs to be discussed as well. Hence a reason more why I bought a new camera ;o). I have to find an nice “set” to get this, if you prepare a show that would need some “teasers” perhaps… ;o) We will see what the admin team things about, to keep me going on this stuff. :o)

Have a great day

Sassi