SATblog:Episode 07: May the Slates be with you

Two days ago I came to visit the blog, and realized that it's been almost three months since our last post*, bad, really bad!!! I decided it was time to post something. But something good. So, I came up with this very special video:


SATblog Episode 07: May the slates be with you from Juan Falla on Vimeo.

I say "special" because for the first time you will be able to see actual footage from the movie. I admit it's not a very proper way to see footage like this, but that doesn't change the fact it's 'actual footage'!!! Hahahaa.

JF

*The reason we haven't posted much this year is because our daily jobs have kept us busy (which is good for us); but bad for SAT, as we can only work on it in our spare time. Nevertheless, it's coming along -slowly- but coming along.

New to this website? Do you want to see all the videos? Please click on the blue word "VIDEO" where it says: LABELS: VIDEO. (Two lines down).

Pencil Man Scene: Background

Here we have an example of one of the visual effects we're doing for SAT.

As you can see in the original footage (the one in the left), there aren't enough CD's on the shelfs. Plus, on the left side, the 'square shelves' are rectangular, and not square as in the rest of the background. You can even see some binders and books in them.

Click here to see a bigger picture

We could look for another location, but we really liked the CD background. So, because there weren't more CDs, we decided to "fix the background" in post.

The picture on the right, has the final background we're using. As you can see, it now has "CDs" everywhere. The binders and books have disappeared.

Pretty cool right?

On another note, we haven't posted too much lately because we've been busy doing the visual effects, and we don't want to give too much away. So we'll be posting tiny bits and pieces of how it's going.

Until next time!!!

JF

Post-Production: 3D Cleaver

With this post, I want to take the opportunity to present to all of you, Antoine Tadros.

Antoine is a 3D model artist, and he's been making several 3D elements we need for SAT. One of these elements is a "cleaver".

At some point in the story, a person throws a cleaver to the main character. Obviously, for security reasons we didn't throw the real cleaver at him; I mean, we can't afford to have any accidents, specially when it's being thrown at the main character... we need him for the other scenes!!! Hahahaaa.

Jokes aside, the cleaver gets thrown at the main character, misses him and the cleaver continues its fly at the camera (towards the audience). In order to do this particular shot, we created the cleaver in 3D, which is going to be added -in post- to the real shot of the main character 'reacting' at the cleaver being thrown at him.

Here's a picture of the real cleaver compared with the 3D one.



Pretty cool, right?

We still have more elements to build. When we get more done, we'll post them!

Until next time!

JF

December... Low activity

Hello to all,

December has arrived, and post-production is... not as fast as we had hoped for.

We've been very busy with our professional commitments (i.e.: our jobs), so I suspect this month we won't have updates or videos. Hopefully, by January things will cool down, and we'll be able to press the accelerator in the effects and music departments!!!

Making something as "low budget" has it's 'issues'. One of them: that things take longer to be completed. It's just part of the process. It's completelly normal.

It would be a differnet story if we were getting paid to work on SAT. I'm sure we'd probably had it finished by now. But because we all have jobs, we can only work on SAT on our spare time.

For all of you that have been present so far, thank you very much for your comments.

We hope to get back on track next year!

If by any chance we make progress this month, we'll post it!

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!
Let this month be filled of joy and happyness!

Until next time,

JF

Check list

Pre-production... CHECK!
That means: finishing the script, finding locations, finding actors, getting/building props, organizing everything for "the shoot", etc.

Production... CHECK!
That means, the actual shoot.

Post-Production.... (?)

Last Monday we finished shooting everything needed for SAT. I can finally say that we have everything "in the can", or in our case: "in the tapes".

Now it's time for the Post Production to begin!

For those of you who have no idea what Post-production is, here's a quick rundown:
Editing. Creating the visual effects. Composing and recording the music. Sound design and sound mixing. Color correction, among others (these are the main ones).

I do have to clarify that I began editing a long time ago. Once we shot a scene, I was editing right away. So the first scene we did (Pencil Man), was the first one I edited. Then it was the last scene of SAT: the Parking Structure. Then came the Restaurant scene, which we had to shoot in two separate days (two weeks apart); and last Monday we shot the remaining scene, which happens to be the opening scene.

So, the editing was happening at the same time as we were shooting. I oficially finished editing everything today. (For you editors out there, I edited each scene in a separate sequences).

At least, they are rought cuts which -I think- are 90-95% perfect. There are slight timing issues (a few frames) in the shots where we have visual effects that will have to be trimmed a little bit. We'll define these, once all the effects are done.

I've exported quicktimes of each scene. Damion and Robert will use them to create the effects (Damion) and the music and sound design (Robert).

We don't have a video to post, but we plan to make one about the process making the music, another one making the sound, and a third one about the visual effects.

We'll keep everyone posted as this process goes forward.

Until next time!

JF

Stills of the Restaurant Scene

Its' been a while since our last post. We've been very busy with our daily jobs, but we're finally back.

Although busy, we -somehow- managed to shoot the Restaurant scene. This was last Friday. We were allowed to shoot at the restaurant AFTER it closes, which is at midnight; and we had to be done BEFORE it opens, at 8:00am. So, it was a very 'interesting shoot' as we had to do everything from midnight to 8:00am. Here are a few pictures of that day, or should I say "morning'?


Here Damion aims at the camera.


Same shot but from the other side.

Damion rushes in...


Damion hides behind the metallic table.


Of course, we had to post a still with the slate!!! haha.

This picture was taken at 3:15am. It's the actors playing the two Bad Guys, they were resting. hahaha.

One of the Bad Guys aims and shoots at the Student...


Bad Guy 2 lurking...

This scene is going to be the longest. Not only that, but it also had three bad guys!!! The most of any scene.

At some point, we thought we weren't going to make it, 'cause we still had too much shots to do. But, we were able to do everything we had planned by the time the first employee of the restaurant arrived, which was at 7:30am. At that point we were doing the last shot!!!

At this point, we have 3 scenes "in the can": The 2nd, 3rd and 4th. We still have to do the 1st one, the shortest one. We'll do it on our lunch break. As with movies and TV, everything is shot out of sequence, so although the 1st scene opens the movie, it will be the last scene we shoot.

We'll try to post another video before we begin the post production process.

Episode 06: The $14 Steadycam

Click To Play

Here's a technical episode!!! In this video, the steadycam is built. The instructions to build it are from this great website: http://www.steadycam.org
If you want to build one yourself, please be VERY CAREFUL, look for professional assistance. I am not a professional, so I had to ask for help to my good friend Joe, who knows about this stuff.

Although the Steadycam is supposed to cost $14 dollars. In our case, it was $16.54. And that doesn't include the spray black paint, and the tennis racquet grip. Still, it's a very cheap steadycam. We already used it, and it's wonderful!!!

Next Week Episode 07: ?????
Oh my God.... I have no episode for next week!!!!!!
There are a few images of things we had to prepare (props). That might be interesting for next weeks episode.

New to this website? Do you want to see all the videos? Please click on the blue word "VIDEO" where it says: LABELS: VIDEO. (Two lines down).

Episode 05: The Guns Arrive!

Click To Play

On this occasion, the boys receive the guns for the production. These guns are NOT REAL GUNS. They DO NOT FIRE BULLETS.

One of the objectives of making SAT, is making fake guns look like real guns. So, we decided to buy BB guns, which look like real guns, but aren't.

Next Week Episode 06: The $14 Steadycam

The SAT logo is made!

Finally, here is the official presentation of the SAT logo:


We needed a logo that's going to be printed and seen in several parts of the story. So, Robert made this really cool design.

For those of you geeks out there: the three symbols inside the corners of the triangle are from an ancient language from another world. The first person who leaves the answer as a comment with the name of the language, or the origin of it, will receive a copy of SAT on DVD.

Episode 04: Storyboards

Click To Play

On this episode we talk and show part of the storyboard process.

Next Week Episode 05: The guns arrive!!!!

Stills of The Parking Structure Scene!!!!!

Last Sunday (Oct. 07) we shot the Parking Structure scene, which is the last scene of the story.

Here are a few stills of that day. Enjoy!


Marking the shot with the slate. That's Riko behind me, he is playing "Uzi Man".



Here is Robert with our $16 dollar steadycam, doing a 180 degree michael-bay-shot!!! Hahaha.
For more information on building a cheap steadycam, click here.



Coming back from doing another shot with the steadycam.



Here we're shooting a CU (close up) of Uzi Man (Riko), while he aims at the Student, who is standing behind us.



Robert and I setting up a shot.

That's all for now. We hope these pictures give you guys another insight into the making of SAT.

Stills of The Pencil Man Scene!!!!!

Hello to all.

Last Saturday (Oct. 06) we shot the Pencil Man scene (which is the second scene of the story). I'm so happy because the material is even better than what I imagined. Plus, I can finally start editing!

Here are a few pictures of the first day. Enjoy!


On this picture you can see Robert who is playing the Pencil Man. We used three lights, which can be seen here too. That's Damion (with the dark shirt) and me. The white paper with the six rectangular boxes is the storyboard we had for the shoot.



Here's Pencil Man getting ready for... THE ACTION!!!!



Damion and me setting up the green screen.



Here I am explaining the shot to Damion, who is playing the Student.



This one is interesting. That "top secret sign" is something we don't want to reveal just yet. Hahaha. And obviously, the famous 'film pose' with the slate.

We don't want to give away too much of the story, so that's all we're going to show for the Pencil Man scene. We hope these pictures will give you a little more insight into the making of SAT.

We'll make a new post with the pictures of the second day: The Parking Structure!

We want to thank our photographer of the day: Ximena!
She also was in charge of shoting footage for the Making Of, Make Up; and, my favourite: Pencil Handler. Hahahaaa.

Budget Updated #3

2 MiniDV tapes DVM63AMQ $9.95 each + tax $1.64 = $21.54
Used for the first shoot day.

Food/water for 1st day shoot: $18.45

4 MiniDV tapes DVM63AMQ $9.95 each + tax $3.28 = $43.08
Used for the second shoot day, and we still have three tapes left for our third and final shoot day.

Budget before: $220.08
The new updated budget is: $303.15

For a complete list, click here.

Budget Updated #2

As the first shoot date approaches, we are buying more stuff:

Aluminum Foil paper (50 sq. ft.): $3.29
This with the black tape, to make the bullet holes of the car.

Black tape: $6.98

Foam Mounting Squares: $2.99 To stick the "bullet holes' to the car.

Masking tape: $5.49 You always need masking tape for various purpose.

Black Paint: $6.79 Orange Paint: $4.39
This is to paint the orange tips of the BB guns black for the shoot. By law, all BB guns need to have the orange tip at all times. So when we finish the shoot, We'll paint the tips orange again.

2 Glue sticks bags at $5.29 each: $10.58
We're using the glue gun to stick a pencil to a shirt, when Pencil man gets hit.

Budget before: $186.55
The new updated budget is: $220.08

For a complete list, click here.

Episode 03: Location Scout

Click To Play

Here's our third episode!!!
Although we have 4 different locations in the story of SAT, we only had to do a location scout of the Restaurant scene, as I already new which are the other three locations. So this video shows when I when with a good friend to see 4 restaurants.

Next Week Episode 04: Storyboards

Budget updated

We bought more stuff:

Metal Washers: $0.98 cents
Although the bag came with 16 washers, we only used two to fix the Uzi we're using in the last scene.

Aluminium briefcase: $20.00
This one is where the Student carries the gun and three bullets.

Velcro: $3.00
We're using velcro to stick the pencils inside Pencil Man's coat.

3 dozen of My First Ticonderoga pencils: $29.46
1 dozen: $5.70
2-day shipping: $10.95
Tax: $1.41 (for a total of $29.46)

The new updated budget is: $186.55

For a complete list, click here.

Episode 02: The Script

Click To Play

Here's the second episode!!!

Next Week Episode 03: "Location Scout"

Episode 01: The Beginning

Click To Play

Okay, finally! Here is our first video. Enjoy!

Next Week Episode 02: "The Script"