~ Saving Grace ~ Production Thread ~

[sisch]

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/Saving_Grace_promo.jpg


As production on my new, big movie project now starts in earnest, I thought it's time for a little thread..... :)


Saving Grace is a sci-fi story, conceived for Del's Distance competition. As always, I'm a bit shy of telling too much about the story at this point.

What I will say however is that the movie will be shot in both Moviestorm and TM, while the space footage will come from german developers Egosoft's game X³ Terran Conflict (http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3tc/screenshots_de.php); they kindly gave me permission to use it for my non-profit movie. I am very excited about this: the poster above shows the quality of the graphics off nicely, I think!

The script is ready, actors have been approached and have consented to their roles (and will be revealed at some point); music is already being produced for this..... so stay tuned for more updates in the following weeks, including some screenies! I am not at all sure I'll be able to meet the deadline Del set us, but I'll do my best! :)

[Killian]

Ooooo this looks like a nice 'un... deffo be keeping an eye (and an ear) open for this! :)

[Norrie]

Can't bloody wait.

So typical of sisch: as if using TM and MS isn't enough, let's mix in some video game stuff as well :001_smile:

[Sparky]

Looks fantastic. Keep us updated :balloon:

[TheFlyingDuDe]

gosh that´s gonna be real taff, the cpmetition!
Looking forward to it! =)

[Fospherous]

That's another date for the calender!

Can't wait for this Sisch!...a mix of TM & Moviestorm, that will be interesting!!! :)

Good Luck Sischy!

:)

[TINMAN]

:saddam: Is there no stopping of Sisch????!!!!!!! :taz:


I hope not! :7:


K4

[sisch]

Thank you all for your support! :)


Can't bloody wait.

So typical of sisch: as if using TM and MS isn't enough, let's mix in some video game stuff as well :001_smile:

Actually, getting the game footage is not as much hassle as I initially thought - I recently upgraded my Magix Video program to version "Video Deluxe 15" (they offer special prices if you already own previous versions and registered them!), and that has a very nifty feature: film the screen! So, I didn't even need fraps - Magix can do it all. :) And in high quality (1280x720), too!

What took me a little was get the "red" effect on good old earth... but I'm finally getting into using special effects, too.

Fun, fun, fun!!!!!! :D

And no, there's no stopping me, K4! :)

[Killian]

I sense that there is a lot more sumptuousness simmering away in the kitchen on this project ;)

[Nero]

Sisch does it again ... Cannot wait :)

[Chris62]

Sisch i have X3 REUNION and the space scenes are very cool.
Good lucky with your project can't wait to see it.

[sisch]

Thank you all for your interest! :)

I'm having so much fun at the moment - building sets, making the first shots and working on effects... just to give you an idea of the footage shot in X³ Terran Conflict, here's a screenie from the opening shot of the movie.... it might just be me, but I think the graphics are breath-taking!

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/ship_exterior.jpg

More to come soon!

[DL Watson]

Breathtaking is right! I might have to get my hands on the game to test it out.

I look forward to this film!

[BiggsTrek]

Sisch doing sci-fi... all my dreams come true (again!)

Very much excited about this!

:35:

[Norrie]

Looking very nice Sisch.

I, personally, can't wait for the part where the hero realises he can only defeat the aliens by mind probing the brain bug. :innocent:

[sisch]

Looking very nice Sisch.

I, personally, can't wait for the part where the hero realises he can only defeat the aliens by mind probing the brain bug. :innocent:

Oh damn Norrie, now you gave the whole plot away!!! :tt2:

I'm having kind of a screenshot rampage... two more to add to the collection! Production of footage is going well, but slowly. I hope Del will heed my plea for more time!

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/city001.jpg

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/city002.jpg

Stay tuned for more updates!

[Killian]

Ooohhh baby; lookin' sweet! Especially like the slightly blurred look to the buildings; gives it a wee surrealish (what? It's a word!!) quality.

[Dulci]

I love the lighting in the top one

[Fospherous]

Some great screenies Sisch! :)

[sisch]

Just a short update - I received the vo's from both my actors for Saving Grace today (yep, this is a three-people piece again) - and holy wow.... amazing!!! :)

Who they are? Did I say I would tell you yet?

Nope. :p

Stay tuned.... more updates soon!

[Killian]

Damn you, you great tease, you ;)

[sisch]

A short production update....

After having a lot of problems with Magix Video deluxe 15 Premium - don't ask, Killian got an earful about crashes, bad performance and wrong formats :D - thanks for listening to my rant! - I reverted for the time being to my old Magix version - which still isn't that much faster (apparently what I consider to be some small effecty thingies is in fact quite a lot - who would've thought? :p)...

...well yeah, 1 minute of footage taking 10min to export and taking my computer to it's limits (as defined by Magix - the program stubbornly refuses to use both the cores, so the CPU is always working on 100%)... you get the drift - this will take me a while!

The good news is - I finished another minute of work. :)

Yay for small successes! And to show off, here's a screenie that shows how great MS and TM mixed can look.... plus some other thingies, for those with sharp eyes.... :biggrin:

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/dylen_promo_mix.jpg

[Killian]

:thumbup:

...and you're welcome for the listening ear :)

[sisch]

Another small update...

I've done my vo's today (and could kill myself for my scriptwriting - I had troubles bending my tongue around some sentences! :p)....

and am ready to disclose the cast now....

Saving Grace will feature the amazing talents of AnotherNewDawn and Goofparade! Both have delivered outstanding performances (as they always do), and I'm very happy to have them in this movie.

I also finished about 2:20min of filming - a vital scene - which I think came out very well.... back to work! :)

[BiggsTrek]

And I was hoping it was another Ken and Roger combo. Oh well.

;)

[Norrie]

I, for one, can't wait to hear their duet of the title song.

Oh wait... That's "Amazing Grace" :18:

Can't wait to hear three great performance, and some stellar (haha) visuals. In other words, situation normal.

[Dulci]

Great cast - a movie can't go wrong with AND, GP, and Sisch all acting together!

[sisch]

Update-time again... :)

Work is progressing wonderfully - I'm having a blast!
I've finished the first half of the movie - around 9 minutes (did I say this would be shorter than usual? I must've been outa my mind.. :p) - round about 16 to 20 min for the finished film might be a good guess....

Moviestorm lends itself very well to my way of working - in little chunks - actually, I'm making seperate files and renders now for every line of vo (or several lines of one person together, depending).

I'm happily mixing in TM... to give you an idea, here's another screenshot:

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/Saving_Grace_dylen_g.jpg

Over at Dulci's TMU Blog (http://tmunderground.blogspot.com/2008/11/life-alone-by-dulci-and-old-gems-from.html) Ricky Grove used the word "anymation" for movies mixing different resources - I quite like that word, and will use it from now on... :biggrin:

More updates soon!

[Killian]

Me likey... more, my Teutonic lovely ;)

[Dulci]

Looks like this anymation project is coming along in true Sisch style :)

[Norrie]

That screenie looks blinking marvellous :tt2:

(sorry, bad MS joke)

[sisch]

Thanks again for your continued interest! :)

I know I'm probably posting too many screenies, but it is so hard to resist..... :biggrin:

Work is still progressing nicely - I finished off another 1:16 min today... and I also applied for a MS modders license... haha...

I realise I probably won't be able to do much with it - but for the next MS update, the modders have been told that one will be able to import Sketchup models... I have no idea about Sketchup, but well.... maybe I can learn some retexture skills, one never knows. :001_smile:

And here's the screenie!

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/grace_deepsleep_prom.jpg

[TINMAN]

Lurking around the set. Shhhh!
K4

[Killian]

SPY!!!! SPY ON SET!!!

(Beats K4 away with a boom mike)...

Does I get a cookie now? :)

[Chris62]

The screenies look great can't wait for the movie.

[sisch]

Oookay, another screenie... and another small update!

I know I thought it possible to finish the movie this year, but I think I'll not be able to manage that - expect it to be released in early 2009 - I now have a little over 12min of finished film (bar sound-design), and took a little holiday from filming the last few days. It doesn't help that I caught a cold again - though now the new release of MS is out, I'm itching to film on... :001_smile:

We'll see. Meanwhile, here's the screenie!

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/GraceandAico001.jpg

[Killian]

Ahh, Mrs Ambassador... you spoil us with your Ferrero Roche....

Sorry, wrong thread....

Errrr-hem; what I MEANT to say was: damn you and your talented kitchen elves who produce this stuff from thin air!!

We demand Saving Grace NOW!!!! (but failing that, when this beauty is ready will do very nicely, thank you very much :))

[Chris62]

Looking good sisch can't wait to see Saving Grace.

[TINMAN]

We usually say grace at the table.
Oh! Tis SAVING GRACE.... not saying grace.
Foolish me! hee hee

Hope you get better soon, Sisch. I just had 3 weeks of a cold myself... but now back to NORMAL (whatever that it). Yay! Maybe the movie should be re-titled SAVING SISCH. (wink) ? LOL Take care, dear!

K4

[sisch]

Thanks for the well-wishes - the cold is not as bad as the last one, and I'm on the mend already! :)

Meanwhile production is going forth at good speed - only problem is, the more stuff I add, the more fickle Magix is getting - meaning lots of crashes, sometimes not playing all the files... having to restart the program several times.. I know Mef had some problems with it, too, and I wonder if anyone else had them: Killian?

I just hope I will be able to render the whole movie in one piece in the end! Keep your fingers crossed.... :wacko:

Another screenie for all who are following production closely, and as always, thanks for your continued interest and support! :)

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/angryGrace001.jpg

[BiggsTrek]

Just when you thought it was safe to use outside editing... it goes and crashes on you!

Sorry you're having software glitches, sisch. Hope you're reporting the problems to Magix!! :)

(If it makes you feel any better, Sony Vegas was crashing/hanging on me all the time on my old PC... though it seems to work fine now on the new one.)

[sisch]

Thanks Biggs - I think Magix can't do anything about this...
I rather foolishly thought a AMD Athlon 64FX dual core processor and two Radeon X 1950 graphic cards plus 4 GB RAM would be fast enough.... apparently isn't.

To be fair, lots of the time I have two 1280x720 high quality vids playing at the same time, plus vo's, plus sounds... Magix does everything real time, so I guess this is a lot of data.

*sigh*

[Norrie]

Is there a real time rendering option Sisch?

In Final Cut there is a real time option that the books recommend turning off when the project gets too big.
You can then render each new thingy in isolation.

Best of luck anyway, looking forward to this one a lot :)

[Fospherous]

I'm getting Magix for Xmas, hope it don't bugger up on me...

Anyway keep going Sisch, really want to see this! :)

[asa.oleary123]

I've had no problems with Magix as yet, although I only got it a week ago...

[Killian]

Have made a post on the Software Help thread in regards to this, to avoid derailing the production thread.

On topic: Looking good, even with the issues :)

[TINMAN]

Saving Magix - Now playing on TMU! Yes, I've had Magix to crash when attempting large, LARGE files. Imagine all of the saves and undo files it has to write for that large file(s).

Saving Grace, I'm confident, will get through the hurdles and make a release. Tis part of the challenge. Whew! Sisch can do it!

I'm looking to seeing more of Saving Grace!

K4 :clap:

[sisch]

Well, I guess I know now why Magix is behaving strangely..

I started backing up and exporting the stuff that's already done, and saving it in little chunks (because since adding some little piece yesterday, it didn't want to work anymore - at all). Have a pristine looking render of the first scene (2:40min) now that's 110MB.... and the second scene (6:55min) of 200MB.... no wonder the program didn't like to play anymore.... :wacko:

So I guess it will have to be individual renders for every scene... :001_tongue:

[Dulci]

I'm glad to hear you are finding solutions!

[goofparade]

I like the sceenie by the way. I guess several 200meg plus files will eventually bog down all but the fasted, meanest computer. I'm sure you'll work around it somehow, till you get a faster beast.
GL
GP

[Nero]

If anyone can solve this problem , you can , don't give up Sisch :) Can't wait for the end product.

[TINMAN]

YEah, Sisch... that's alot of Megabytes it has to write over and over and over as you make changes here and there. Whew!

[sisch]

I won't give up, promise! :)

Meanwhile some more crucial scenes have been finished, and the film is nearing completion..... keep your fingers crossed!

And I've amused myself by making a poster - the final poster.
I dunno if I will post any more screenies now the finishing line is so near - so.....

http://tmohost.com/espacePrive/sisch/SavingGrace_poster.jpg

[Norrie]

It's tough typing with so many things crossed :001_tt2:

I'm off to slaughter a goat to the Gods of Magix rendering (makes a change from the Sound Synch Gods!)

[thebiz]

It's tough typing with so many things crossed :001_tt2:

I'm off to slaughter a goat to the Gods of Magix rendering (makes a change from the Sound Synch Gods!)

Are you sure that thing you do is called slaughtering (insert smilie here)?

Good luck Sisch.

[TINMAN]

Are you sure that thing you do is called slaughtering (insert smilie here)?

Good luck Sisch.

:scared: ::trying to stiffle a chuckle:: omg! LOL!!!!:4:
K4


I can tell you from all of the behind the scenes activity..... There is alot of chatter about Saving Grace! Sisch and Sci-Fi are outta this world! You know she isn't gonna half-way do something. Tis exciting to know the movie is about to soar onto the screen!

K4

[sisch]

So now the time for slaughtering those little animals has come...

I'm rendering a test-export for the finished movie right now.

21min06sec, the files I sticked together 1 GB of size.... :sweatdrop::scared:

[Killian]

Ooohhh lordy; that's gonna take a while, me dear :)

Fingers crossed for you...

[Norrie]

Sorry goat, but it's for the greater good.

http://rageprufrock.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/babygoats3.jpg

*sharpens his knife*

[Killian]

....that reminds me.... where's my elephant gun...?

[sisch]

Ooohhh lordy; that's gonna take a while, me dear :)

Fingers crossed for you...

Thanks! :)

I just bought the divx pro codec - and apparently there's the possibility to stick my individual scene exports together in that, too, and render it as a divx file from there - I'll certainly try that out!

For now Magix tells me it needs 1hour 34min more to render the rest.... which isn't that much, considering the file size.

I hope the sound quality will be okay - of course I had to adjust the levels manually... did you notice the the sound is always much lower in the exports than when you're playing the movie in Magix?

[sisch]

Sorry goat, but it's for the greater good.

http://rageprufrock.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/babygoats3.jpg

*sharpens his knife*



Oooooooh the poor thingie! :001_tt2:

Hah! I double posted! Yay me! :D

[Chris62]

Oooooooh the poor thingie! :001_tt2:

Hah! I double posted! Yay me! :D

LOL:clown:

[Killian]

I hope the sound quality will be okay - of course I had to adjust the levels manually... did you notice the the sound is always much lower in the exports than when you're playing the movie in Magix?

Yeah; had that issue when I did the Finale... still, I'm sure there won't be a problem with it (rushes off to find as much wood as he can touch... and also to locate the biggest knife he can find... I gots me some Nellies to carve up!)

[sisch]

Well, Norrie has approved of the sound, so this is an official announcement:

Saving Grace will be released on friday, the 26th of december!

Countdown is starting now....... :001_smile:

[Dulci]

Well, Norrie has approved of the sound, so this is an official announcement:

Saving Grace will be released on friday, the 26th of december!

Countdown is starting now....... :001_smile:


That is exciting news!!!

[Killian]

Then the huge mound of butchered pachyderms outside my front door was worth the terrible wrist pain... I can sleep soundly tonight...

Though somehow I think the binmen might have a spot of trouble on Wednesday...

UPDATE: Goddamnit! Just realised it's Friday, Boxing Day, and therefore I will be stuck with the feckin in-laws and unable to watch this when it premieres! Blast and buggery...

Oh well... I guess I'll have to wait another day... :(

[Norrie]

Yay for sneak peeks!

Oh folks, you're going to loooooove this so much :biggrin:

[Nero]

Well, Norrie has approved of the sound, so this is an official announcement:

Saving Grace will be released on friday, the 26th of december!


Has made my day , can't wait for this. :)

[Chris62]

Can't wait to see it.

[Fospherous]

A Boxing Day release huh?...

Look foward to it Sisch! :)

[goofparade]

It's Boxing day!

[Fospherous]

Yeah, nothing to do with the sport, Boxing at all, it's celebrated in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and some other countries that are in the commonwealth of nations, includes big sales in shops, and when all our sports including Soccer are in full motion anyway...

SISCH!!!...I want to see this movie now, you've kept us waiting long enough now, release! release! release! :p

[sisch]

Lol... I'm uploading right now!

Be patient, 220 MB take some time.... (and no Ken, don't faint, I will embedd... :D)

Soon, very soon! :)

[Fospherous]

Ah!, Well...whip the server and make it go faster! :p

[MikeDBoing]

Perfection..is about as realisticly i can muster a review...my jaw is still not working and the dogs were chewing on it from the floor...didnt notice because of the sheer brilliance of the whole film......going for the crazy glue until the surgeons figure how to put it back....then they'll have to scrape what is left of my brain from being blown away.....happy new year all!

[Vectis Ethaniel]

Wow. I am a big sci fi geek, but mostly what I see fails to impress me all that much. And I include Hollywood movies and mainstream TV too, which is mainly dumbed down and boring.

My writing mantra is "CONFLICT, CHARACTER, PLOT", not necessarily in that order, repeat as many times as it takes to remember.

So thank God for Saving Grace! It ticks all the above boxes, is visually engaging with a strong narrative and leaves you hoping for more.

I am now a huge fan. (Tho I stop short of groupie-ness, cos, you know, creepy.)

Congratulations on an excellent and inspiring production.