Flash Gordon Fan Short Film Done

[detbear]

I finally finished my Flash Gordon Fan Film. It's certainly not perfect,

but if you've ever worked on a long, paced, and staged projects from idea

to screen, you know how long and how much work it takes.

 

I'm happy to have it done whatever the case. I did notice that the vimeo conversion

makes it glitchy in places. But I can't complain.

 

Hope you guys enjoy watching it.

 

 

Here's the Vimeo link to a "low Res" version: https://vimeo.com/135294317

 

Cheers,

 

William

[detbear]

Also.....Here are a few screen shots from the composite:

 

The ice was tricky, but I went with something I created inside Hash.

 

The freeze ray was a combo of After Effects and Particle Illusion.

 

The Planet transporter was done with Particle Illusion.

 

[Rodney]

Very impressive. I really enjoyed that.

That bring back memories of when I watched the Flash Gordon reruns as a kid and every episode ended with an impossible scenerio for our hero to escape from... which conveniently the shows creators just totally ignored in the next episode. That was part of its charm of course but oh so frustratng to me as I wanted to know how Flash had managed to escape.

 

Your animation is smooth as silk and the audio compliments it nicely. Entertaining it is!

Perhaps best of all, you have lots of nice character moments throughout to savor on repeated viewings.

A lot is going on there yet it all serves to support the charcters' performances and story.

Nicely done.

 

Please tell me you have the next episode waiting in the wings!

 

I do have one question regarding the general color.

It appears to me that you made a conscious decision to mute the color a little but I'm curious as to your thought process specifically related to dialing that back even more (pushing more toward toward the classic's black and white/greytones). Any insight you can share on that aspect will be appreciated.

[detbear]

Thanks Rodney,

 

I appreciate your kind words. They mean a bunch. ALSO.....I have some answers and comments for you:

 

#1...

The color draining ....... Yes! I wanted to de-saturate the color somewhat. Actaully I have several versions. One was

nearly black and white. It looked awesome in places, but it got so dark in others that it was too dark. I tried to light just the dark shots,

but it didn't match well.

ALL IN ALL....I couldn've made it more vibrant, or sepia....but the colors in the ray, laser, glows and other elements got too buried IMO...

But the plight of being the art director is that in the end you have to choose......Very difficult. I almost wanted to make it like Sky Captain & the world of tomorrow....but it would have taken a huge amout of time to get that right..

 

#2

I want to note that when this idea originally began, I was practicing "THIRDS" compositing. This is when you puposefully set up your shots placing the focal points on a "Thirds" grid...... The most apparent example of this is when Ming is holding the holographic earth and when he is holding the rocket up in the air. ...... The earth is on a focal point in the 3rds grid and Ming's face is on another. This is not true for every shot. But it is true for many.

 

#3

LET ME ALSO NOTE.....that I rendered out of hash and there are many places where the Hash render has only color overlays and maybe some blur effect. All to say, Hash renders worked well. I did render the background, star backdrop, and characters separately. That way I could control a fake DOF in After Effects.

 

#4

The MAT CAP shader is invaluable for quick rendering textures. The "Blue pearl" on the control handle of Mings hover craft is a straight up MAT CAP for instance. As well as Flashes pants and clothes.

 

#5

Because of time, I rendered most shots with SSAO at 9 multipasses. I did have to avoid Motion blur at some places because it doesn't play nice with SSAO.

 

#6

There is a small chance I could make chapter 2. But I had to create the entire audio track from the Movie. That is a whole different topic in itself. Plus...it takes a massive amount of time to go from an idea to a film.....As you know. I can only hope to get there. I have the Cinematic Submarine Shot also. Robert has been very patient thus far on that. I want to continue on that development.

 

If I can think of anything else, I'll post. Or if you have another question...let me know....

 

BTW.....I made a model that set up on the camera to show 3rds and triangles....when you finish the composite you can delete it. I think I just turned it off. Do you think the community could use that compositing gizmo?

 

William

[Rodney]

Thanks William, I always enjoy the insight into the making of just as much as I do the finished product.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Cinematic Submarine Shot!

 

I made a model that set up on the camera to show 3rds and triangles....when you finish the composite you can delete it. I think I just turned it off. Do you think the community could use that compositing gizmo?

 

I'm sure it would be put to use. I know over the years similar things have been posted but we having kept those resources in view. We should probably add a 'tools and utilities' category to the A:M Exchange area of the forum to collect some of the useful tools that can be made with A:M. I suppose that is what the 3rd Party area is often used for. Composition (and the rule of thirds) is one of those things where we rightly deem it important... then set it aside and forget too reference when we need it most. I do think there is a natural tendency toward balanced composition and with experience folks tend to incorporate those 'rules' into their work. I often think of the camera rig that Jason Hampton created and wonder if creating an all purpose (customizable) camera setup with such things as rule of thirds overlays might be useful. I suppose in the end everything can be useful.... if/when it is used. So, short answer, yes most definitely the community could use it!

 

Thanks for the additional info... I'm may not be commenting on it all but read all of it with interest. For instance, I've found that A:M's motion blur often works best in specific conditions but haven't set down to formulate/document my own approach. There have been times where I've wanted to proclaim that motion blur works best using rendered imagery BUT I know that would be an oversimplification and (also) just isn't quite so. Specifically, when Z depth is taken into account. Motion blurring a series of 2D images can't get at that third dimension.

 

A general theme of this discussion seems to revolve around 'planning' projects/shots and you've definitely got that going on!

[largento]

Bravo!!

[itsjustme]

Great stuff, William!

[serg2]

It's cool!

[ovni1]

Very enjoyable ! can't wait for the next chapter.

[Rodney]

We have a verbose community don't we.

 

 

I've really been enjoying your short and have been developing even more appreciation for what you put into it (in an almost accidental way).

I thought I might try to see what it might look like tinted more toward the black and white and failed there rather miserably. More on that later...

 

In the process of watching the short over and over again I kept noticing the nice touches you added throughout. There is a lot of physicality... movement through real space... innovative camera cutting... movement that complements and suggest that props are useful objects (i.e. real). And this doesn't even get into the excellent sound work, dialogue, lip sync etc. Which I gained even more appreciation for when I tried to resync the sound to the imagery that I'd recolored and discovered it didn't quite sync.

 

You sure now how to put on a show in the course of one minute!

 

With regard to my failure in my color study... my theory is that two elements might make the transition easier. I don't know if this is actually the case but I'll add it to the mix. Firstly, it seems to me that the title 'Flash Gordon in "Frozen"' could have been in a different color (yellow is what comes to mind but perhaps red or Red for his name and yellow for the subtitle). The reason being to differentiate that (currently) white text from the white of the clouds. This might have been a conscious decision (to blend the title into the clouds) but I'd say it mostly just makes the title harder to read. Another way of looking at it would be; if the film were in black and white the clouds would be white and the title black.

 

The second color change I would suggest would be the robots. If they were silver (rather than gold) that would help differentiate Flashes yellow/golden hair and (if colored) would focus more attention on him. Don't get me wrong... I love the golden tint on the robots but in the process of color studying I found I kept losing the differentiation (presence?) of Flash's hair. In black and white film the audience often 'felt' the presence of color even though it wasn't there. I suppose one could argue that making the robots silver and enhancing the yellow of Flash's hair might draw more attention to the robots but I'd have to test that out to be sure. My sense is that with Flash's darker contrast in the midst of two brighter robots the focus would be drawn to him.

 

I do have a side by side view of a slightly more saturated version where I decided it was about the best I could muster with color. I can post that if there is interest.

If pushing toward black and white some additional contrast would need to be brought to bear (such as in the titling).

 

Remind me to pick your brain for audio suggestions. IMO your layering of animation and sound approaches perfection. For instance, I can almost hear Ming's knuckles pop as he adjusts and tightens his grip on his ice gun. You've got a lot of nice touches that most folks would think of as unnecessary but they sell the whole thing and bring the characters into reality. And I love the turning of Ming's lift as it launches upward... nice touch there!

 

Shall I go on? I can.(and if no one else does) probably will.

 

 

Disclaimer: In case it's not obvious I'm not suggesting anything actually be changed. I'm just studying/analysing what is there. There is a reason the root world of analyse is 'anal'.

[detbear]

Hey Guys,

 

Thanks for your kind words. You are all soo talented. If I could rig like David S., had the comic sense of story like Mark L., the creative edge of Serge, and the creative tech knowledge of Rodney......I would be able to crunch this stuff out with a real bang. No...But seriously, I enjoy and admire all of you guys talent.

 

Rodney. You make some really great points about the color. Part of the problem is that the "Uncolored" original had more distinctions between the elements. When I got everything finally to the editing block.......it was easy to lose some of the vibrance. Especially when I began taking color away.

The white text on white cloud has a really nice look prior to any desaturated version.

 

Humbly, it is not the norm for an artist to where so many hats and be an expert at all. I have strengths and weaknesses like we all do. The color corrections can Sink or destroy a bunch of hard work. In the end, you have to make some decisions.

 

I considered and even tried a silver finish on the robots. They looked much worse IMO. I think a better choice would've been to contrast Flash's hair. But again....the desaturated look has some to do with that lack of contrast between the two.

 

Audio was incredibly tricky. I had to create and dubb dialogue from dialogue in the film.

 

It's amazing what goes into just one minute of story.

 

Back to the color.... I also find that what works well in a single frame doesn't have the same success at 24 or 30fps. There are about 16 camera shots. Keeping the lighting and coloring unified was a task. In hash every shot had to be lighted differently and yet when the film roles, it has to work together. I colored each shot individually as well.

 

Rendering in layers. I separated the background, back sky and characters so that I would have a bit more control over light values of things. This is always a luxury in post because you can brighten a buried part in the back or visa versa.

 

Also...I tried darker text on the title as you pointed out, but it looked un-authentic to the "older" look I was grabbing at.

 

I remember seeing an interview with the "Colorist" who place the "Look" on Sky Captain. He first took all of the color out and then placed color back in frame by frame. The studio jokingly said that they were concerned about his health because the process took so many months to do such tedious work.

[Fuchur]

Very well done .

I liked it very much and find the animation very nice too .

Keep up the cool work and please make a 2. Episode .

Keep on rocking!

 

See you
*Fuchur*

[John Bigboote]

EXCELLENT!

[detbear]

I had the initial stage play for episode 2 "pop in there" out of the blue yesterday. One that I think would add the comedy and drama appropriate for the second episode.

But it will take some serious development like the first episode.

So I don’t know when it will get done. But it was an idea that got me a bit rejuvenated about pursuing the second episode at some point.

 

It will require two additional characters. Maybe three. That will be the biggest hurdle of development.

[RS3D]

I really liked the animation. I especially like to see little extra touches that animators put in, even if most people will not notice. An example is the finger roll on the bad guy's control stick toward the end. It shows

the depth of thought that you used to lay out the scenes, etc.

[jirard]

Excellent work! Looking forward to the next episode.

[robcat2075]

That looks wonderful, Kevin!

(for some reason I've been calling William "Kevin" for ten years)

[Rodney]

I just watched this again.

 

Wonderful stuff!

[detbear]

Hey Rodney,

 

Just noticed that you posted here again. Thanks so much man.

I wish I had the time and resources to make more of these faster.

 

I'm working on 2 other projects. One is pending on some collaboration with

Holmen. He is very busy though.

 

The other is a never before seen project by the public or forums. Exciting Game

project that may never get finished......or really started either Heee Hee

 

But I'm really glad you enjoyed this Flash Gordon film I did.

 

Thanks again

 

Kevin