Stalled Trek 2012 —Finished!

[largento]

Thanks! I finished the main animation for episode two yesterday. I'm going to have to get a female friend to voice the female characters, so I didnt animate their lip syncing. It's just three lines, but there are more in future episodes.

 

Working freelance this week, but using time to render shots. Have a bunch of modeling to do this week and hopefully will be able to animate episode three over the weekend.

 

Four and five won't require any more models, so I should be able to animate them next week.

 

Then it's a matter of writing and animating the Paunk! Wraparounds and Series One will be finished!!

[largento]

Man, this has been a rough week. Most of the time at the freelance gig, I've been there as back-up, waiting for work to come in. Kinda' like being in a waiting room day after day. I've got to go back in today, too. I'm just hoping that I don't get the flu that's going round up there. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the work, but it's hard not to think about how much work you could be getting done at home.

 

Episode two is almost complete. I still need to get my two lady friends to record their lines. Hoping I can get that done soon. I've rendered all of the shots except those three shots that need the female lip synch.

 

I'm looking into the possibility of making it four episodes instead of five. I think it may be possible to edit 3 minutes out of the last two episodes to make it just one. My thinking is that it might seem a little long drug out to the fifth episode and I can make the extra time exclusive to the DVD version, giving incentive for folks to make the purchase. This also means that I don't have to do a wraparound for the fifth episode, which makes meeting my goal easier. I'm waiting until I've got the Stalled Trek part completed to see if this is doable.

 

With the pilot up, I've seen a few comments from around the web. Most are on the positive side, but there was a reviewer who called it "Innocuous eye candy, not much more." But he also said, "...the humor ranges from sophomoric to silly to somewhat sly, but overall I enjoyed it, and I'm pretty much a grownup, at least chronologically-speaking. It's very colorful and fun to watch..." and gave it a mild recommendation saying it would do as a "virtual snack."

[Gerry]

Hi Mark, finally watched this today and left a comment on YouTube. Really great work and lots of fun! I can see where you may want to tighten up some timing things but that will come with practice and I'm not about to niggle anything, I can see you're on top of all this! Keep it up! I'm going to go share it on FB now.

[largento]

Thanks, Gerry! Please do share it. You are right One cool part about doing something like this is that you know you're learning as you go. The big thrill for me is just being able to do it. Who hasn't dreamed of having their own TV show? :-)

[Rodney]

With the pilot up, I've seen a few comments from around the web. Most are on the positive side, but there was a reviewer who called it "Innocuous eye candy, not much more." But he also said, "...the humor ranges from sophomoric to silly to somewhat sly, but overall I enjoyed it, and I'm pretty much a grownup, at least chronologically-speaking. It's very colorful and fun to watch..." and gave it a mild recommendation saying it would do as a "virtual snack."

 

If your negative reviews are reading like that... you are definitely on the right track.

 

I can almost see a silly ad that uses these quotes (although one could wish they applied to 'Wannabe Pirates' because it'd fit Flemm perfectly).

 

 

"Innocuous Eye Candy" - The Review

 

"A virtual snack" - More of the Review

 

"Sophomoric... silly... somewhat sly" - More Notes from The Review

 

"I enjoyed it" - The Reviewer

 

"Very colorful and fun to watch" - More Views

 

I can even see a show where Paunk is reading and reacting to the reviews.

(This is comedy...make those 'negative' reviews work for you too!)

 

 

I could only hope to receive such reviews.

[largento]

Agreed, Rodney.

 

I've been going through my old files and with some adjustment, I've been able to use most of the pieces from the old Vulcanine arena set I modeled back in 2007 in the new set.

 

Certainly going to add some new lighting challenges.

 

[Mechadelphia]

largento,

 

Would you mind if I write a post about this on my blog?

 

I know that I could just go ahead and do it but if I were to do it, I think that some input form you would be make the post a little more informative.

 

Thanks.

[largento]

I wouldn't mind at all!

 

What input do you need? You can mail me at randarr@gmail.com

 

Thanks!

[TheSpleen]

They finally got the transporter to beam the legs too!

[largento]

Speaking of transporters. My first experiment doing the transporter effect:

 

 

transporter_ae2.mov

[TheSpleen]

Speaking of transporters. My first experiment doing the transporter effect:

 

 

transporter_ae2.mov

That is PERFECT!!!

[robcat2075]

Pretty good. There should be lots of room for comedy in transporter malfunctions.

[Gerry]

Great transporter effect Mark!

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

What's been fun for me, is that there are still elements from the aborted 2007 version that I've been able to make use of in this new version. The sparkles come from the "glitter cylinder" I created back in 2007 and showed in this post. I didn't even re-render it. Just used the old quicktime movie I'd made.

 

There's some controversy over how the original sparkles were created. The "official" story is that it was by pouring glitter down a cascade of water with a heavy light on it, shot against a black background. Others have claimed it was a very large, backlit tank filled with alka seltzer. :-) Whatever, I still think the spinning transparent cylinder works, since you can get sparkles moving in different directions.

 

I looked again at some online tutorials, but found them somehow lacking. The basic idea that the characters fade into view (in other words, you fade from a clean plate to one with the actors in it) and covering the figures with a matte outline and some kind of sparkle effect is obvious, but it didn't quite look right. I did some reading and found a reference that Roddenberry made in a production note that the people should come in as a single color. I never found a reference to this before, but it instantly made sense. I added a yellow layer that fades in first and then sort of fades in and out slightly over the fading in of the figure and blammo, it instantly looked more like the real effect.

 

For the actual shot, I want to do a tighter matte around the figures and I plan on adding a couple of moving elements to the scene so that it feels less static.

[KenH]

That's a great effect! Nice one. Those fingers.....must...resist....bending....them.

[largento]

Fight it! Fight it! :-)

 

Thanks, Ken!

[largento]

There wasn't a redshirt who beamed down in the actual episode, but how could I do a Trek parody and *not* kill a redshirt? In previous versions, this was just a monster, but for this one, I based it on a LeMatya, which is a Vulcan animal featured in an episode of the Animated Series:

 

[largento]

A quick update. Still building all of the stuff I need for Vulcanine. Here are the Vulcanine Bell Carriers:

 

[MMZ_TimeLord]

All I can say is ... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

[largento]

Ah the word I was hoping to hear. :-)

 

Just for fun, here's some stereo anaglyphs of three of the sets I've built for this:

 

 

 

[mtpeak2]

Looks great Mark! I like the stereo renders.

[largento]

Thanks, Mark!

 

Finished up T'Poodle's model today. Don't know why, but I kept putting her model off. I just have a couple of props to make and then I need to make sure I have all of the voices recorded. If all goes well, I may be able to start animating the final section tomorrow. I'm expecting it to take about 9 days.

 

Once that's finished, I'm going to look at how I can edit it down to 12 minutes so it can be broken up into four parts (instead of five.) The wraparounds shouldn't be too difficult to do. I'm going to try to limit those to one minute before and one minute after.

 

February is almost over (thank goodness this is a leap year!), but I feel pretty good about being able to complete everything by the end of March.

 

[largento]

T'Poodle's "pet-bed" chair.

 

[MMZ_TimeLord]

LoL... I LOVE it!!! Keep it coming!

[Darkwing]

A quick question, do you have a Stalled Trek site, or are you just sticking with the Youtube page or something? Cause I had an idea to widen your audience a bit, but didn't know if there was a central place to direct them

[largento]

I'm certainly agreeable to "audience-widening." :-)

 

Right now, I'm just focusing on getting it finished, but once it's finished I'm probably going to launch the web series on Blip.TV. Beyond that, I'm going to set up a website for it (I have purchased the domains for both paunk.com and stalledtrek.com). I would expect that site to be the hub of everything, but that's going to be built *after* I complete the work on the series and the DVD.

 

I still appreciate any support and if you'd like to point people to the Kickstarter page, that would be a great thing. It has images and additional video as well as a link to the YouTube video of the pilot.

 

Thanks!

[Darkwing]

Sounds good. Basically I'm just gonna make your existence known to the community that helped give Red Squad a bit of a leg up

[largento]

Cool! Thanks!

[largento]

A quick update!

 

One week into my Kickstarter campaign and I've raised nearly twice my goal! It's looking very good for me to be able to make a decent enough number of DVDs that I won't have to worry at all about selling out during the convention!

 

I'm back at work on animating and after a little bit of a rocky start, I'm back to having fun. From here on out, all the shots are set on Vulcanine and I'm so looking forward to getting to the fight sequences. Those were the whole reason I wanted to do this animated all those years ago.

 

I think I'm okay, schedule-wise. I'm giving myself until the 24th to finish the animation, which should be more than enough time. After that, I need to move onto the wraparound stuff.

 

I've got some breathing room with that, since the episodes will be weekly.

 

I won't receive the money from the Kickstarter campaign until about the 20th of April, so that's my deadline for having the DVD finished. Depending on the turn around time needed, I might could cheat that up to the 1st of May if necessary.

 

Thanks again to everyone who donated and/or helped spread the word!

[Rodney]

Congratulations on your success with kickstarter Mark!

 

I still plan to throw a few dollars at you but I hope you'll forgive me if I can't get it done this time around.

If I can't I'll plan to support a future project of yours.

 

Best of everything to you in this effort.

[largento]

Thanks, Rodney! And no worries!

 

After the convention is over and I come out of my inevitable coma, I plan on looking at a way to sell DVDs online.

 

I'm kind of getting excited about doing another series of episodes. I think it would be possible for me to get the ball rolling again and have another 4 come out in September.

[largento]

I finished the animation for part 3 yesterday and it ended up coming up short (2:37) of the three minute mark. I could probably let it go, but since I've cut it down to four parts, I really need to get more story in.

 

I wrote a new "captain's log" transition and plan on moving about a minute and a half from part 4 to the end of part 3. By coincidence, this ends part 3 at the point where the original webcomic version was abandoned.

 

I'm hoping to finish up the new four minute version of part 3 today and then I'll have only one more part to do!

 

And I'm thinking 4 minutes might be enough to encompass all of it, meaning I won't have to cut anything.

 

I'm thinking that with the longer running times, I may cut back on the wraparounds for those two episodes. I won't be able to make that decision until I've written them.

 

My Kickstarter campaign passed the 200% mark last night!

 

My thinking now is to create a run of 500 DVDs.

 

Beyond the convention, I'm thinking about contacting some Star Trek Fan Clubs and offering to come do a showing of the short at one of their meetings and sell copies there.

 

I think I've picked the next show I'm going to parody, too, but I'm not ready to announce (ie commit) yet. :-)

[fae_alba]

I think I've picked the next show I'm going to parody, too, but I'm not ready to announce (ie commit) yet. :-)

 

Indiana Jones!!!

[Gerry]

I've often thought of doing an Indy parody called "Hindustani Jones" about a bullwhip-and-pistol packing adventurer from the Middle East who comes to America to search for a mysterious treasure, have adventures, completely misread the culture, and randomly shoot and beat up unsuspecting Americans. It would be HILARIOUS! Do that one Mark, do that one!

[robcat2075]

I figured with the old television theme it should be "I Love Lucy"

[largento]

Robcat is closer, although Indy would be a lot of fun.

 

Gerry, that idea is greatness, you should totally do it! I could see that being very funny.

 

I'm still in the bouncing between ideas phase. I've got to finish this one first. :-)

[Gerry]

Gerry, that idea is greatness, you should totally do it! I could see that being very funny.

Kind of like Borat with guns.

[detbear]

Giligan's Island all the way Mark......That would be one of the best choices in my opinon.

 

William

[Gerry]

Just my two cents but you probably shouldn't do a sitcom. Unless you turn it serious

 

I just watched "A Beautiful Mind" and of course noted the fact that "The Big Bang Theory" is that movie, updated and turned into a comedy.

[largento]

I think Gerry's right about it being easier to parody a drama than a comedy ...but they used to do it all of the time in Mad Magazine and Cracked when I was growing up.

 

I just agreed to do a huge freelance job today that might throw my schedule off whack. I think I'm going to be okay with fitting it in ...but I really have no choice, since I need the dough.

 

I haven't gotten the final tally yet about what's going to be required of me, but it could be substantial ...and due this month.

[largento]

Well, the freelance job ended up taking up a majority of the last two weeks, but I'm back on task again.

 

On the plus side, I was able to send shots to render over night and finished all the rendering up to the current part I'm working on. I have just over ten minutes of finished footage now. I've experimented with color-correcting it for broadcast and exporting it as 2.97fps (both from Photoshop) and the result was really good. The colors do get choked some, they blow out without doing this and it does make it look more like an old TV show.

 

Normal/Broadcast Safe

 

I'm about forty-five seconds into this last section. I'm finding it slow going, but I expect it to speed up as I start to see the finish line.

 

Once it's done, I'll start working on the wraparound sections for the Paunk! Show episodes. Those are easy to animate and should go quickly.

 

I want to complete everything before I start putting them online.

 

The

has gotten over 900 views without a whole lot of promotion, so I'm hopeful that there'll be an audience for it when it launches.

 

Wild to think that just three months ago this project wasn't even on my radar.

[TheSpleen]

your kicking butt

do not stop

[largento]

Thanks, Gene!

[robcat2075]

"Security Guard Red" is noted by fan boys for the trouble it gives NTSC.

 

Also, early MPEG encoders for DVD had a built in flaw when dealing with strong reds.

 

Your show is looking good!

[largento]

Thanks, Rob!

 

Yeah, I remember when I first got "Superman: the Movie" on blu-ray and I set it up so that I could pause on the same frame on both the blu-ray and a DVD copy and switch the input signal on my TV back and forth between them. It's astonishing how dramatically "wrong" the colors are in NTSC. Superman's cape is more of an orange and his costume more aquamarine. Seeing the vivid reds and blues on blu-ray to me was more impressive than the resolution.

 

Photoshop has a series of actions you run that first makes sure the saturation levels are okay and then the luminosity levels. It's the second one that is most dramatic. Whites become light grays and blacks become dark grays.

[largento]

As predicted, once I got back into it, the animation is starting to pick up. I'm 3:08 into the final part and estimate I have about 2 minutes left, which means my original estimate of 15 minutes is going to be pretty true.

 

I have three more shots to finish tonight and seven to do tomorrow and I'll have finished the basic animation. I still need to go back and adjust the lighting before rendering and then there's going to be a fair amount of sound design needed for these "action" shots. I also want to take a crack at recreating some of the more familiar still frames from the closing titles.

 

One thing that's been a big help to me is this app I have on my iPhone: Animation Timer.

 

I bought it years ago, but had completely forgotten about it. I was struggling trying to figure out the timing on the non-dialogue shots when I finally remembered I had this app. It's not perfect, but for many shots, it's been a huge help. I just start the timer and tap out the things I imagine seeing on screen and then I can go back and see the overall time of the shots and the holds between taps. I really wish I'd remembered it before yesterday.

 

As time hurtles out the window, I've decided to hold off on doing the web series until *after* I've finished the DVD. In addition to the animated short, I want to do a making-of feature and spend some time designing the menus and cover art. I'm also planning on getting a retractable banner stand and a couple of postcards, which all need to be designed soon, as well.

 

I don't want to short-sell either, so I'm going to put off doing the wraparound animation and putting up the episodes until after the DVD is complete and off to the replicators.

 

With that in mind, the web series may go back to being 5 episodes, since a big reason for making it four was to conserve time.

[largento]

Exhausted, but the final shot has been animated!

 

I'm now officially in post-production!

 

The total running time (not counting closing credits) is 14:58, so almost dead on with the 15 minute estimate.

 

I got a surprise contact today from a local composer who does video games and movies and was really interested in scoring Stalled Trek. I told him I wish he'd come along earlier, but he insisted he works insanely fast and so I've commissioned him to score it!

 

This is huge news. By far, the biggest regret has been not having a score on this and now that's not going to be the case! Of course, it now also means, that I'm no longer operating at a profit, but I'm gambling on sales of the DVD justifying it.

 

I've got about 5 minutes worth of footage that I have to do final renders of and there's a lot of sound work needed for this last section, since much of it is sight gags with little or no dialogue. I'm going to be recording a lot of grunts and noises to try to get them to work. :-)

[robcat2075]

Very impressive, Mark! I'm sure you mentioned it but what convention are you preparing this for? Is it in Dallas?

[largento]

Thanks, Robert!

 

Yes, it's the Dallas ComicCon, which is on May 19-20. It's in the Irving Convention Center and looks like it's going to be their biggest convention yet. They have some big names: Stan Lee, Patrick Stewart, a bunch of Batmans: Adam West (along with Burt Ward), Kevin Conroy and Val Kilmer. Neal Adams is coming to this one and boy would I like to see a panel with him, but I'll be stuck at my table the whole con. The one downside of doing this, I never get to see any of the guests unless they do signings in the dealers hall.

[Rodney]

The best to you in your effort at ComicCon.

I'm optimistic you will sell out of your stock in no time.

With that prediction under consideration, the two things come to mind:

 

Take a small TV/laptop so that you can show outtakes from the DVD. This will be mostly be used to give folks something to see after the supplies have run out.

 

Consider how those who are too late to get a copy might be able to order the DVD at the Con (perhaps even at a slight discount for being willing to invest in a second printing).

 

As for any concern of selling out your entire inventory at the convention I can only say... you will.

Think positively!