Saturday, August 13, 2011
I was not present for the green screen sections.
I had a conversation with Seishiro and he had a few interesting things to say about the current technical issues. I'll share the main one here.
The fight was shot on a standard definition camera. Unfortunately, despite having an MSRP of something like $2000 back in 2001 or 2002, the camera used for this fight really sucks for the purpose of green screening. The green bleeds into him during editing so he needs to edit by "cutting out" an outline around him, and then edit the remaining green out from himself pixel by pixel. He has to do this for every frame in which he takes a dive or a flip.
As an example, if he has 5 seconds worth of total footage he needs to edit out the green from with the method described above, at 30 frames per second, he needs to edit 150 images. That's a huge pain in the ass. He considered re-taking the shots of himself doing flips and falling down with an HD camera and then reducing the resolution of the footage to match the rest of the movie. He ultimately decided there's less work and physical pain involved if he edits the footage he already has instead.
I'll have a more detailed ramble about the two days we spent filming this fight when the finished movie is available for viewing.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
I played cameraman for this as well.
I don't know when the full version will go up. I just received the link.
Unlike the previous movie, I will not appear in this video at all. I played cameraman, which is pretty much what I wanted. :)
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
When you don't see me in the shot, I was holding the camera.
This movie was not directed by me. It was directed by Seishiro. He's the one in the fancy clothes and the hat. His girlfriend played the girl and one of our other friends (whose name I don't have permission to post here) played the martial artist to round out the cast.
While I have no career as a stuntman, I took some pride in slamming my head into the dumpster lid. XD XD XD
In case you don't know what I look like, I'm the guy wearing the white cap backwards. I wanted to experiment trying to create a drug addict character who frequently rubs his nose or sniff. When I wasn't in the shot, there's a 99% chance I was the person holding the camera. I enjoyed holding the camera more than slamming my head into the dumpster. XD
Friday, January 28, 2011
Romancing Clannad
If you're checking up on this blog despite me not having uploaded anything to Youtube after the outtakes video, then thank you. :) You get to read something new.
During Halloween of last year, Japan time, a "fan" computer game production group known as Chinchilla Softhouse put an "ad" on its web site asking for voice talent help. The game was Romancing Clannad, a role-playing game inspired by the 16-bit Romancing Saga game(s) starring the cast of Clannad (and Kanon). The "pay" would be a copy of the game once it's completed. I said what the hell and gave it a try. I sent in my audition audio samples, waited a week, and then was offered the part of the butler. Naturally, I accepted. Odds are very good I'm also the only voice cast member who doesn't reside in Japan.
I'm actually listed in the cast list here but you'll need to know how to read Japanese. While my full name isn't written in the cast list, my real first name is.
If you don't have Japanese encoding on your computer, then they will come out as garbage text.
After I sent my "for real" performance audio files to Chinchilla, I was asked for my mailing address. I replied to that message and waited another few months. The game was released December 31, 2010 Japan time.
Guess what arrived in the mail today? :D
YAY!! :D
During Halloween of last year, Japan time, a "fan" computer game production group known as Chinchilla Softhouse put an "ad" on its web site asking for voice talent help. The game was Romancing Clannad, a role-playing game inspired by the 16-bit Romancing Saga game(s) starring the cast of Clannad (and Kanon). The "pay" would be a copy of the game once it's completed. I said what the hell and gave it a try. I sent in my audition audio samples, waited a week, and then was offered the part of the butler. Naturally, I accepted. Odds are very good I'm also the only voice cast member who doesn't reside in Japan.
I'm actually listed in the cast list here but you'll need to know how to read Japanese. While my full name isn't written in the cast list, my real first name is.
"Butler" is: 執事
My real first name is written: ルカン
If you don't have Japanese encoding on your computer, then they will come out as garbage text.
After I sent my "for real" performance audio files to Chinchilla, I was asked for my mailing address. I replied to that message and waited another few months. The game was released December 31, 2010 Japan time.
Guess what arrived in the mail today? :D
From Kyoto.
This is the thank you note for participating in the game. :)
The front cover.
...and the back.
Interestingly, I've done more voice acting work in Japanese than I have in English. My last stint as a voice actor was for the Sony Crackle commercial.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Outtakes, Bloopers, and Miscellaneous Scenes with Jenn
The outtakes and miscellaneous reel will probably be the last video I'll release which features Jenn Finaldi for quite some time. I say this because everything else I have of her are of dialogue and story for a dead movie project (as already mentioned several times). If I'm fortunate enough to have another filming session with her when she returns to North America, I'll try and upload another movie short once that gets done. Until then, I won't have anything else featuring her I can realistically upload.
I hope everyone reading this already saw the three previous videos before looking at the outtakes reel.
The one thing you might notice more than anything else is, the characters have lines. Since the original intent was to have a story, the characters actually had dialogue. Not only are there bloopers for the fight scenes, you get to see the actors misdelivering their lines.
In my blog entry regarding the vs. Seishiro video, I mentioned I made the mistake of filming in 4:3 before I switched the camera back to 16:9. You can see my error in the outtakes reel. At approximately the 1:52 mark, you'll see the "black borders" on both sides of the screen.
At the 4:02 mark, Jenn is crawling on concrete and her hand hits the katana. Her hand hitting the katana was not intended and wasn't her fault. That was completely my mistake for not giving her better directions for what I wanted. I had to laugh when I realized that. XD
At approximately the 4:38 mark, Vlad speaks Russian and says, "I killed your husband." In my previous blog entry, I briefly discussed the original script's story. I decided in addition to the serious English language version, I wanted something silly for the outtakes reel. It finally sees the light of day.
At the 4:55 mark, you'll see footage which did not appear in any of the three previous fight movies. I intended this footage to be a quick flashback sequence to tell a background story. The "trucker hat guy" and the martial artist Jenn fights (who are both played by Vlad Rimburg) are supposed to be completely different characters. I also neglected to actually record the sound when I shot these scenes so you don't hear anything except for the bashing and slapping effects I added.
The footage from 4:55 to 5:34 was meant to be an actual scene for the story.
The footage from 5:35 to the end of the outtakes reel are actual bloopers and outtakes.
I hope everyone reading this already saw the three previous videos before looking at the outtakes reel.
The one thing you might notice more than anything else is, the characters have lines. Since the original intent was to have a story, the characters actually had dialogue. Not only are there bloopers for the fight scenes, you get to see the actors misdelivering their lines.
In my blog entry regarding the vs. Seishiro video, I mentioned I made the mistake of filming in 4:3 before I switched the camera back to 16:9. You can see my error in the outtakes reel. At approximately the 1:52 mark, you'll see the "black borders" on both sides of the screen.
At the 4:02 mark, Jenn is crawling on concrete and her hand hits the katana. Her hand hitting the katana was not intended and wasn't her fault. That was completely my mistake for not giving her better directions for what I wanted. I had to laugh when I realized that. XD
At approximately the 4:38 mark, Vlad speaks Russian and says, "I killed your husband." In my previous blog entry, I briefly discussed the original script's story. I decided in addition to the serious English language version, I wanted something silly for the outtakes reel. It finally sees the light of day.
At the 4:55 mark, you'll see footage which did not appear in any of the three previous fight movies. I intended this footage to be a quick flashback sequence to tell a background story. The "trucker hat guy" and the martial artist Jenn fights (who are both played by Vlad Rimburg) are supposed to be completely different characters. I also neglected to actually record the sound when I shot these scenes so you don't hear anything except for the bashing and slapping effects I added.
The footage from 4:55 to 5:34 was meant to be an actual scene for the story.
The footage from 5:35 to the end of the outtakes reel are actual bloopers and outtakes.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Jenn vs. Vlad (incomplete)
This was the earliest fight I shot for my original intended story. This was filmed in February of 2006. After that, it was all downhill.
The movie not getting finished is 99.9999% my fault. The remaining 0.0001% was beyond my control. However, I *could have* prevented the 0.0001% from having any influence at all. On the day we filmed this, I wanted to run some errands before the sun set so I wrapped up filming a bit too early. What I should have done was to keep filming until the sun set, and then run those errands later. Since I didn't do that, this fight scene is incomplete and that also started my downfall toward never finishing the movie itself.
I originally planned to complete filming this the week after but both Jenn and Vlad had plans. Fine. We scheduled filming for two weeks later. It rained on that day. Week after week, something came up and that resulted in me not being able to get anything done. Something beyond my control *always* came up, and I could have prevented that had I made sure to finish everything on just one filming session.
"Vlad" is Vlad Rimburg. He's also a filmmaker and I used to host his movies when I still had a web site. He's *probably* best known for his work with The Stunt People.
http://www.thestuntpeople.com/
I should talk about the fight scene's content.
In my original script, Jenn's character is a young widow. She married young and her husband died soon after their wedding. The circumstances of her husband's death were out of the ordinary and she recently acquired some clues for finding the real story. The fighter played by Vlad says he was the one who killed the hudband. This is the reason she becomes enranged. You don't find out *WHY* she became so angry just by looking at the video. As usual, I removed all dialogue from the uploaded fight scene.
After exchanging some blows and then getting hit in the face, Vlad's character turns his back toward Jenn's character. What comes after that is the part I never got to film. I planned and drew out on paper all kinds of crazy choreography which would have made Vlad fight with his back turned the bulk of the time.
For those of you who have played 3D fighting games, you know where this is going. In 3D fighting games, some characters' most powerful attacks come from having your back turned toward the opponent. I planned on having Vlad fight the same way while Jenn's character tried to find a way to counteract such a crazy technique.
While I never got to film the "Vlad-has-his-back-turned" fight, a small portion of the "turn one's back toward the opponent" technique was used by Seishiro's character in my previous video upload.
I'll definitely upload the outtakes reel next.
The movie not getting finished is 99.9999% my fault. The remaining 0.0001% was beyond my control. However, I *could have* prevented the 0.0001% from having any influence at all. On the day we filmed this, I wanted to run some errands before the sun set so I wrapped up filming a bit too early. What I should have done was to keep filming until the sun set, and then run those errands later. Since I didn't do that, this fight scene is incomplete and that also started my downfall toward never finishing the movie itself.
I originally planned to complete filming this the week after but both Jenn and Vlad had plans. Fine. We scheduled filming for two weeks later. It rained on that day. Week after week, something came up and that resulted in me not being able to get anything done. Something beyond my control *always* came up, and I could have prevented that had I made sure to finish everything on just one filming session.
"Vlad" is Vlad Rimburg. He's also a filmmaker and I used to host his movies when I still had a web site. He's *probably* best known for his work with The Stunt People.
http://www.thestuntpeople.com/
I should talk about the fight scene's content.
In my original script, Jenn's character is a young widow. She married young and her husband died soon after their wedding. The circumstances of her husband's death were out of the ordinary and she recently acquired some clues for finding the real story. The fighter played by Vlad says he was the one who killed the hudband. This is the reason she becomes enranged. You don't find out *WHY* she became so angry just by looking at the video. As usual, I removed all dialogue from the uploaded fight scene.
After exchanging some blows and then getting hit in the face, Vlad's character turns his back toward Jenn's character. What comes after that is the part I never got to film. I planned and drew out on paper all kinds of crazy choreography which would have made Vlad fight with his back turned the bulk of the time.
For those of you who have played 3D fighting games, you know where this is going. In 3D fighting games, some characters' most powerful attacks come from having your back turned toward the opponent. I planned on having Vlad fight the same way while Jenn's character tried to find a way to counteract such a crazy technique.
While I never got to film the "Vlad-has-his-back-turned" fight, a small portion of the "turn one's back toward the opponent" technique was used by Seishiro's character in my previous video upload.
I'll definitely upload the outtakes reel next.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Jenn vs. Seishiro
This post concerns the Jenn vs. Seishiro video. Since you're reading this, you should have some idea who Jenn is based on her DeviantArt site. If not, take a look at my previous blog post and visit her DeviantArt site now.
As for who Seishiro is, he is "DPXEntertainment" in Youtube. He is also the writer and director of the infamous "Rocky: Child Beater" movies. In my movie, you see him as Jenn's opponent.
If you haven't seen what Seishiro's been up to at all, I recommend you look at his movies here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DPXEntertainment#g/u
This was shot in 2008, which was before Jenn moved to Australia. Like with the Jenn vs. Akuseku movie, this too was supposed to have a lot of dialogue. Since I had to remove all the story elements from this fight movie, it's much, much shorter than I intended. While this video is a little under two and a half minutes, it was originally intended to be about 15 minutes due to the back-and-forth dialogue between Jenn's and Seishiro's characters. This was meant to be the final confrontation of the movie, in addition to explaining why everything in the story took place. None of that matters now and all I can do is to salvage just the fight scene.
In my original script, Seishiro's character had set up devices which released a mild hallucinogenic agent into the surrounding area. Seishiro's character is immune to the hallucinogen due to reasons I no longer need to decide. I thought about explaining this away by either saying he took a drug which makes him temporarily immune to it or he's become immune due to prolonged exposure over the years. Jenn's character is not immune to the hallucinogen, so she has trouble seeing during the fight and gets hit from behind several times.
The one thing I wanted to do with inserted dialogue in between the punching and kicking was having Seishiro move the katana from the grassy area to concrete. Since Seishiro's character spread a hallucinogenic agent into the fight area, the dialogue scenes would have both characters dressed unlike what they're dressed like in the fight. While they were having a conversation, I intended Seishiro's character to make fun of Jenn's character, pick up the katana from the grassy area, and then toss it onto concrete. I didn't get to do that so what you see is the implication the katana fell on grass, and then mysteriously teleported to concrete.
Seishiro's character also has powers identical to those of Akusesu. This is intentional. Seishiro's character was the "final boss" to Jenn's character. The "final boss" in a video game typically has more powerful versions of techniques used by boss characters of earlier stages. I planned having other "boss" characters, and Seishiro uses their abilities as well. Unfortunately, I either never filmed those "other characters" or something happened to cause one of the planned scenes to remain in a permanently incomplete state. I'll eventually edit together and upload the incomplete fight scene so there will be *some* basis of comparison between something Seishiro does and one other character.
Another useless fact is, I made the mistake of shooting the early parts of this fight scene in 4:3 aspect ratio. I didn't want to start over due to the amount of time we already spent filming by the time I realized this, so I switched over to 16:9 immediately after my realization and decided I'll worry about the incorrect aspect ratio later. The first 58 seconds were shot in 4:3, and I did some editing to make the footage 16:9.
As for who Seishiro is, he is "DPXEntertainment" in Youtube. He is also the writer and director of the infamous "Rocky: Child Beater" movies. In my movie, you see him as Jenn's opponent.
If you haven't seen what Seishiro's been up to at all, I recommend you look at his movies here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DPXEntertainment#g/u
This was shot in 2008, which was before Jenn moved to Australia. Like with the Jenn vs. Akuseku movie, this too was supposed to have a lot of dialogue. Since I had to remove all the story elements from this fight movie, it's much, much shorter than I intended. While this video is a little under two and a half minutes, it was originally intended to be about 15 minutes due to the back-and-forth dialogue between Jenn's and Seishiro's characters. This was meant to be the final confrontation of the movie, in addition to explaining why everything in the story took place. None of that matters now and all I can do is to salvage just the fight scene.
In my original script, Seishiro's character had set up devices which released a mild hallucinogenic agent into the surrounding area. Seishiro's character is immune to the hallucinogen due to reasons I no longer need to decide. I thought about explaining this away by either saying he took a drug which makes him temporarily immune to it or he's become immune due to prolonged exposure over the years. Jenn's character is not immune to the hallucinogen, so she has trouble seeing during the fight and gets hit from behind several times.
The one thing I wanted to do with inserted dialogue in between the punching and kicking was having Seishiro move the katana from the grassy area to concrete. Since Seishiro's character spread a hallucinogenic agent into the fight area, the dialogue scenes would have both characters dressed unlike what they're dressed like in the fight. While they were having a conversation, I intended Seishiro's character to make fun of Jenn's character, pick up the katana from the grassy area, and then toss it onto concrete. I didn't get to do that so what you see is the implication the katana fell on grass, and then mysteriously teleported to concrete.
Seishiro's character also has powers identical to those of Akusesu. This is intentional. Seishiro's character was the "final boss" to Jenn's character. The "final boss" in a video game typically has more powerful versions of techniques used by boss characters of earlier stages. I planned having other "boss" characters, and Seishiro uses their abilities as well. Unfortunately, I either never filmed those "other characters" or something happened to cause one of the planned scenes to remain in a permanently incomplete state. I'll eventually edit together and upload the incomplete fight scene so there will be *some* basis of comparison between something Seishiro does and one other character.
Another useless fact is, I made the mistake of shooting the early parts of this fight scene in 4:3 aspect ratio. I didn't want to start over due to the amount of time we already spent filming by the time I realized this, so I switched over to 16:9 immediately after my realization and decided I'll worry about the incorrect aspect ratio later. The first 58 seconds were shot in 4:3, and I did some editing to make the footage 16:9.
Jenn Finaldi vs. Akusesu
If you're reading this and have no idea who I am, then odds are good you got the link from YouTube.
The fight movie I uploaded recently stars Jenn Finaldi and Akusesu.
Jenn's deviantART site is here: http://xtremejenn.deviantart.com/
(If you want to more info on Akusesu, you can get it by searching for her in a search engine. At the time of this writing, I didn't have permission from her to post a link to any personal site she controls.)
The fight was shot in 2007. This scene originally had a bit of dialogue and a few other story elements which involved characters who were not even present at the fight talking about the characters Jenn and Akusesu played. Sadly, due to too many extremely bad circumstances which I couldn't control, this movie is permanently dead. I'll never finish this movie in the way I intended. Since I wanted to get *something* out from the effort put forth by me and the ladies who set aside the time despite their busy schedules to help me film the scene, I decided I should give up on the idea of ever finishing the movie and at the very least salvage the fight scene. I had to use some unusual cuts in places because the original intent in some areas was dialogue.
Toward the end of the movie, Jenn's character momentarily looks down, and then up again. Her character doesn't look down because she took a beating and momentarily lost her concentration of looking at Akusesu. The original scene had Akusesu's character throw down a DVD-R in front of Jenn. The original intent for the story was, Jenn's character would take the DVD-R, put it into her computer, and then find various "interesting" information concerning her family on the DVD-R. Jenn looks down at the DVD-R and when she looks up again, Akusesu's character disappeared like a ninja. (Akusesu's character *is* a ninja in the original script.) Or Batman. Or both. Since I had to eliminate the story aspect for the purpose of just having a fight movie, as the viewer, you never see the DVD-R.
The fight movie I uploaded recently stars Jenn Finaldi and Akusesu.
Jenn's deviantART site is here: http://xtremejenn.deviantart.com/
(If you want to more info on Akusesu, you can get it by searching for her in a search engine. At the time of this writing, I didn't have permission from her to post a link to any personal site she controls.)
The fight was shot in 2007. This scene originally had a bit of dialogue and a few other story elements which involved characters who were not even present at the fight talking about the characters Jenn and Akusesu played. Sadly, due to too many extremely bad circumstances which I couldn't control, this movie is permanently dead. I'll never finish this movie in the way I intended. Since I wanted to get *something* out from the effort put forth by me and the ladies who set aside the time despite their busy schedules to help me film the scene, I decided I should give up on the idea of ever finishing the movie and at the very least salvage the fight scene. I had to use some unusual cuts in places because the original intent in some areas was dialogue.
Toward the end of the movie, Jenn's character momentarily looks down, and then up again. Her character doesn't look down because she took a beating and momentarily lost her concentration of looking at Akusesu. The original scene had Akusesu's character throw down a DVD-R in front of Jenn. The original intent for the story was, Jenn's character would take the DVD-R, put it into her computer, and then find various "interesting" information concerning her family on the DVD-R. Jenn looks down at the DVD-R and when she looks up again, Akusesu's character disappeared like a ninja. (Akusesu's character *is* a ninja in the original script.) Or Batman. Or both. Since I had to eliminate the story aspect for the purpose of just having a fight movie, as the viewer, you never see the DVD-R.
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