Here are some SFX shots from my movie...

[Tuukka]

Here are some SFX shots from my forthcoming feature lenght movie. I have done the digital matte backgrounds myself, I bought a CD-rom with pictures of N.Y and then modified those pics quite a lot. I added buildings, fog, altered clours, etc..

http://us.f1.yahoofs.com/users/116fc560/bc/tuukka/__hr_SFX+from+GOTD.jpg?bclfyN9ATSP5H5tW

The first pic is a simple matte painting. It will have animations later on.

The second picture is a matte painting with live action plate (girl walking over a bridge) and some 2D spacehip animations (dots on the sky) and moving 2D clouds.

The third pic is matte painting with moving clouds and a miniature of a spacehip shot against bluescreen. I made the miniature myself, but eventually we decided to go with 3D models instead. I will post pictures of those later on. Miniatures were too hard to handle, the movements were jerky and we were able to achieve better blue-sceen with 3D models. The background is from Helsinki, Finland. We shot almost the entire movie in Helsinki.

The fourth pic is again a matte painting with 2D clouds and spaceship animations.

Feel free to write comments. How do you like these pictures in artistical sense, and how realistic they look in your opinion?


[This message has been edited by Tuukka (edited 07-18-2002).]

[LilWolf]

I love it!! Hollywood couldn't do any better! Keep up the good work.

[Zing!]

BRAVO! The composite work looks really top-notch! Let us know when you've completed your film - I know a lot of us schmoes would love to see it!

[arto_j]

The shots look great! Is this a "professional" film or just something of an amateur work? Because it definitely looks professional enough, at least on those still shots.

[Tuukka]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by arto_j:
The shots look great! Is this a "professional" film or just something of an amateur work? Because it definitely looks professional enough, at least on those still shots.</font>

I guess semi-pro is the correct term. It's a fairly ambitious project and some aspects, like the SFX work, should be pretty impressive. But the budget is only 8.000 dollars, which will show every once in a while in the final film. But as far as ultra-low budget movies go, it should end up being pretty professional.

[arto_j]

Will you be releasing it on dvd or something, I'd love to see it? And also, is it in Finnish or English?

[Tuukka]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by arto_j:
Will you be releasing it on dvd or something, I'd love to see it? And also, is it in Finnish or English?</font>

The film is in english. I'm using finnish actors, but all the dialogue will be dubbed by english-speaking people in the post-production. The film has only 150-200 lines of dialogue and everyone speaks in english, so we don't have to worry about lip-sync.

I'm intending to get a DVD and VHS release in english-speaking markets. USA is of course the primary target. If we don't get it distributed by DVD and VHS, I intend to sell it to TV market.

Studios sell movies to TV market as packages. There is always the one good movie that the TV channel wants, and 4-5 poorer movies come along with it. The good movie can't be bought alone. So if our film fails as a whole, I intend to sell it to some distribution company that can include it as one of the 4-5 poor movies they sell along with the good movie. There is a HUGE market in there, and while the money you get from your film is very small by the film industry standards, it's still quite a lot to low-budget filmmaker like me.

I'm just making a guess, but if I manage to sell my movie to some distribution company as "one of the poor movies", I can get around 20.000 dollars for it in the worldwide market, at minimum.

20.000 dollars is enough to pay my rent for six months and to do a new film during those six months. I do normal, daily work on a finnish TV station right now, but I would like to leave my work in the beginning of 2003.

[bedhead_dl]

wow, cool shots...keep up the very good top notch work!

[rtatick]

Good for you man!!! I still continue to only be able to DREAM about making my movie ideas come to life. **Sigh** http://www.joblo.com/ubb/frown.gif

[radiofreememory]

I can't view the pics, what is going on?? Email them to me??

[jeffkantoku]

Yeah, link's not working. Please fix it so others can see!

Thanks,

-J

[Tuukka]

I think I know what has happened. I'm having my pics at Yahoo! and they usually start messing with links that have too much traffic.

I think that in 24 hours the pics will available again, but they will disappear again when the link get's too much traffic. I try to put them up at some other site that has no restrictions...


[This message has been edited by Tuukka (edited 07-18-2002).]

[radiofreememory]

Sounds good. I'm checking back so much because I'm interested in seeing them.

[Tuukka]

HERE IS THE WORKING LINK!

You can click on the pictures to see a larger version.

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/tuukkatiensuu/lst?.dir=/SFX&.src=ph& .order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ (http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/tuukkatiensuu/lst?.dir=/SFX&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/)


[This message has been edited by Tuukka (edited 07-18-2002).]

[radiofreememory]

Yep the link works, those pictures are great. They create a great atmosphere. Yes, they do look realistic. Artistically, these are great. The photo of the person on the bridge is a great composition. I spend the longest on that one. Just examining every little section of it.

I am so excited about finally getting the chance to view this film. The anticipation is killing me. What makes it better is that I have no idea about the story and don't want to know until I see it.

[ak]

I must say, it does looks very impressive, considering it's on such a low budget.

Can I ask you - Did you get a semi-pro to do the effects work? Or a friend who is just very talented at it?

There's a lot of atmosphere going on in that, and, in my opinion, that's the most important thing in film as a visual medium.

I'd be interested to see these shots as moving images though, cause effects may look great as stills but once they move they can look a little tacky. Would you expand on that....

[radiofreememory]

I agree with ak, is there anyway we can see these in motion??

[RaiderMan]

Nice looking stills. I'm interested in the whole project myself. I'd love to see more. If you make it big don't forget us schomes and host a contest or something so we can make it too. J/K. Well kind of. Nice work. Out!

[Tuukka]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by ak:
I must say, it does looks very impressive, considering it's on such a low budget.

Can I ask you - Did you get a semi-pro to do the effects work? Or a friend who is just very talented at it?

There's a lot of atmosphere going on in that, and, in my opinion, that's the most important thing in film as a visual medium.

I'd be interested to see these shots as moving images though, cause effects may look great as stills but once they move they can look a little tacky. Would you expand on that....</font>

My 3D animator friend is a very talented semi-pro. He is working on the same TV company as I am, and he has done 3D animations to commercials, program trailers, etc. He usually does 3D that looks like 2D. Simple, very graphical, style. He has a good eye, which is more important than technical skill and experience. We have just finished 2 spaceship models, one small fighter and one large frigate. He has made the models, and I have made the textures. Now we are starting to work on some 3D asteroids. I intended to do them as miniatures as well, but we did some 3D tests with great results.

You can see moving images from my film in about 4 weeks. The teaser trailer should be ready by mid-August. It will have 15-20 SFX shots.

I agree on the atmosphere part. We can't possibly have as sophisticated SFX as in big Hollywood movies, so I try to concentrate on the artistical impact instead.

[This message has been edited by Tuukka (edited 07-19-2002).]

[TheFrost]

Man, that rocks. It is truly brilliant, keep it up dude your doing great.

[Zed]

Damn Tuuka! You're one talented schmoe!

The effects really seems believable!

[jenzie]

They are very good .....
except the first one, the angled city shot with the fog.

Dosn't look realistic because the fog isn't too evenly spread over, as I can clearly see the dividing line between the light fog area and the thick (background) fog area.

Spread out the fog effect more and you'll get a better effect. The second fog shot has the same problem, but to a much lesser effect, and will work all the same.

The ship shot is pretty well done, will it be tracking the ship or be a static shot?

Definately love the bridge shot though.

Good luck with it.

[PhantomRhyter]

Damn Tuukka these shots are absolutely BEAUTIFUL! man! You have got to be one of the best I have ever seen (I saw your other stills you posted too). I really love the atmospheric quality of your shots. Did you say that you made this in video format?? If so what sort of filters did you use?

Can't praise it enough, I'll be looking for that DVD and I will tell all my fiends too. We'll petition someone to release it if we have to, but this is going to be a must see!
Great job man!

Chills,
PhantomRhyter

[Tuukka]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by jenzie:
They are very good .....
except the first one, the angled city shot with the fog.

Dosn't look realistic because the fog isn't too evenly spread over, as I can clearly see the dividing line between the light fog area and the thick (background) fog area.

Spread out the fog effect more and you'll get a better effect. The second fog shot has the same problem, but to a much lesser effect, and will work all the same.

The ship shot is pretty well done, will it be tracking the ship or be a static shot?

Definately love the bridge shot though.

Good luck with it.</font>

Good point about the fog. In real life the volume of the fog often varies in different distances and heights, but I agree that in the first picture it gives away the fact that it's been photoshopped. I will fix that one along with the 4th picture. There is a small pan in the spaceship picture. The clouds are also moving in three different speeds according to the distance. We will get rid of the miniature and replace it with a 3D model, thought. I always incorporate lot's of moving 2D elements to my digital matte paintings, because if they are too static, it automatically gives away their SFX nature.

[Tuukka]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by PhantomRhyter:
Damn Tuukka these shots are absolutely BEAUTIFUL! man! You have got to be one of the best I have ever seen (I saw your other stills you posted too). I really love the atmospheric quality of your shots. Did you say that you made this in video format?? If so what sort of filters did you use?

Can't praise it enough, I'll be looking for that DVD and I will tell all my fiends too. We'll petition someone to release it if we have to, but this is going to be a must see!
Great job man!

Chills,
PhantomRhyter</font>

Yeah, I've been shooting the film in video format. Naturally video always has some problems in picture. It's too cold and hard, and there are always certain compression problems that make distortions to the picture. I have done a lot of testing with my music videos and I have found a reasonable way to make video look like 16mm film.

1. Remove the fields to achieve a more jerky, film-like quality.

2. Add 1 pixel of blur. This removes lot's af compression problems and makes the picture more soft and attractive. On TV it's impossible to say in negative sense if blur has been used, 1 pixel blur doesn't make the picture seem like out of focus.

3. Add a bit of grain (very little).

4. Add some occasional scratches (but very few of them).

5. If you like you can alter the colours, Every shot in my movie has colours being altered.

[Tuukka]

I mentioned the 3D asteroids earlier on. We finished them today, and they are looking pretty good. I added some nebulae on the background.

http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/tuukkatiensuu/lst?.dir=/SFX&.src=ph& .order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ (http://photos.yahoo.com/bc/tuukkatiensuu/lst?.dir=/SFX&.src=ph&.order=&.view=t&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/)


[This message has been edited by Tuukka (edited 07-21-2002).]

[Dr. Lector]

those pics are great, i congratulate you and i must say that those asteroids are some of the best i've ever see (low and high budget)

[RavenBlade]

Kudos Tuukka,

Those pics a great looking.
I look foward to seeing, if ever
a chance arises.

Keep up the good work

[kiwihitman]

Just gonna bump this thread up to see how tukkaa's movies going.

[areyoubeingserved]

Amazingly well realized, impressive in nature paricularly on a board like this. It appears you are getting the full worth of the budget. I only hope the story can hold up to the quality already presented.