First color correction of Thieves

This is the first pass at color correcting the first half of Thieves. I'll need to check this on different monitors and projected, but it's moving towards the soft glow saturated look that I've been getting with the other footage. Sound is still just temporary and may in fact be messy - there is the camera recorded sound and the dat sound waiting to be mixed properly.. but enough:

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Minor blur test

Below is a short clip of boxes flattening themselves into the wall - the box highwaymen disappearing back into the wall. The original effect (shown first) was done as a frame by frame reshifting of the boxes. I was curious to see if cross dissolving over the single frames would simulate a motion blur (the second version). There's no real difference, though the second one is a bit softer and the one that's going into production. It's a little hard to tell with such a small screen, but if you go over to blip.tv's site (http://westerray.blip.tv/) you can see it as well as all the others at twice the size!

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First color correction for Mailman hallway

Here's the first minute of "Mailman" with color correction and filtering applied. It's considerably brighter and more defined than before - it's now at the point where extra art direction can be layered in on top of the footage to give the hallway a bit more life.

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Next steps are adding in reverb to the Factory Workers dialogue to sell the idea of a cavernous space as well as add in the temp cg for Mailman's Tube Station segment.

Large factory floor finished

So here it is:

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Later on, once the rest of the short is set, I'll add footage of a small supervisor working in the observation station and that should give it just the right amount of movement. This version has better lighting that still keeps it dark and gloomy, but at least picks out the chain at the end in the top foreground that really gives it depth. Not sure how good this small version looks, but the final is at full HD quality. To take a break from the factory, I'm color timing the opening hallway scene of Mailman with Hayley and Olsen.. coming soon.

Render test of the massive factory floor

Here are the results from the overnight render. It's too dramatic of a camera move, so it'll need to get slowed down over just the last part of the pull back and there is a problem with a chain hanging in the foreground at the end on the top right side. Easy fixes - should get finalized today.

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Factory sideshot complete

Here's the final composited sideshot of Bethann and the factory behind her. There were blinking red lights and a moving foreman up in the top observation box, but they tended to draw attention from Bethann's movement and make for a distraction, so this is pared down to a simpler background. The massive factory shot that goes after this is close to finishing and a test render is going to run through the night tonight..

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First color pass at Factory Workers

Here's an edit of Factory Workers that has the first set of color corrected shots. Some of them turned out great, others are off - too red, too light, too dark, etc. And that end tv sequence feels shaky without the sound design set into place. The initial groundwork is in place and now each piece gets updated until it flows smoothly:

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More color correction

Factory Workers in its entirety is exporting overnight with color corrected shots in place - this does two things - first, and most importantly, it zeroes in on a final edit, which once done allows sound design to move forward, and second it will show if the color correction is smooth across all shots. That gets posted in the morning. For now, here's a sample of Brent in the original footage and then after the correction process:

New background for the cashier

Considering how claustrophobic Factory Workers gets especially in the second half, I went ahead and blew out the back wall of the cashier's area to show another view of the factory floor. It's not meant to draw too much attention - it's just a background reminder of the volume of space around them. And a nice glowing sign to break up the monotony of the left wall..

New post! Opening of Mailmen

Hi, Everybody! After a long stretch of moving and traveling on the East Coast, new work is ready to be posted for you to look at. First off is a short detour from the Factory Workers - this is the opening to Mailmen that is finalized and color corrected. Of note is the intro shot that utilizes a fully computer generated light that moves through the box passageway - once Felix steps in from the right is where live action kicks back in. On a minor note, a slight oval vignetting of the second shot took care of some lighting issues and focused attention in on the fire.

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