Making "Flying High"

A documentation of the trials and tribulations of finishing my F3 project with the FSU College of Motion Picture Arts, a sci-fi stoner comedy called "Flying High".

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IT IS DONE.

If anyone is still following this blog, I salute you. It’s been a hell of a long time since I made a post here. In my defense, though, it’s because I’ve been caught up in the hullabaloo of locking & screening my F3. That’s right, after over a year, Flying High is finally DONE.

I have to say, while it had its ups and downs, it was ultimately an incredibly rewarding experience. The night of the screening was just about everything I dreamed it would be during all the hard late nights of work. It was very surreal to watch it on a huge screen, and also finally hear laughter in all the places I expected (and some that I didn’t).The stuff with the male aliens played particularly well, and it was amazing to hear the audience get sucked up into the laugh train to the point where people were doubling over and missing jokes because they were already laughing so hard. That whirlwind of joy and laughter made it all worth it for me.

In retrospect, though, the thing that brings me the most relief and fulfillment is that the incredibly hard work of my classmates didn’t go to waste. I was at first stoked and a little bit cocky that I had more than half the class working on my film, but then later realized I’d be the ultimate laughing stock if I had all that help and the film still didn’t come together. How utterly disappointing it would have been if the collective talent and work of all those people amounted to something mediocre because of my lack of vision or directing ability. 

Thankfully, I can confidently say that we did in fact pull it off, and my film stands strong as a flagship (pun intended) for what my class is capable of and how the Animation & Digital Arts program is redefining what a student film can be. I feel incredibly lucky that I’m in the game at time where, thanks to the magic of visual effects, I’m able to let my imagination run free to create zany sci-fi adventures, even when working with film school budgets and resources.

Unfortunately, since the film is legally owned by FSU, I can’t just post it on this blog. With luck, however, it’ll soon be hitting a few festivals. If there ever comes a point where I am allowed to post it, though, I’ll be sure to do so.

Thank you to anyone who’s been following this blog. It’s been a crazy but satisfying journey, and I’m super excited to move on to the next one. If you want to keep up with that, I’ll be posting the chronicles of my next project on my main blog, wrongagainklein.tumblr.com.

Farewell, chodes!

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Still Here

Oh hai there! If anyone is still reading this, I apologize for the supreme lack of posts. We were encouraged to think as little about our films as possible over break, and I vigorously obliged. But of course, break went by in a flash and now the gears are slowly starting to turn once again. 

Joe Hernandez (Hunter) and Jacob Harrelson (Thompson) came in to do ADR the other day, and we had quite a bit of fun. The film school has that classic “Hollywood recording studio” setup where the person working the computer is looking at the performer through a window, and has to press a button to talk to them due to the sound-proofing. Needless to say, many jokes about us blowing off the ADR to instead record a rap album were made.

Another big thing that happened recently was that composer Zac Stryker sent me the first draft of his score. In my opinion, he knocked it out of the freaking park. He struck the perfect balance between action and comedy, found thematic motifs that I didn’t even realize were there, and found new comedic moments. I was bouncing with excitement and laughing out loud for the first time in a VERY long time since I’ve had to watch my film dozens of times by now, which is nothing short of magical. I’m very excited to see what he comes up with next after addressing my notes.

I probably won’t be making any posts on this blog for awhile, because they’ve got us in full thesis mode now. It’s weird to start thinking about what’s next even though my F3 isn’t even done, but hey, plenty worse things could be happening. Expect at least one more post in the form of a final reflection, and then be on the lookout for my thesis blog. All I’ve got in terms of thesis right now is three  words:

Post-Apocalyptic Musical Comedy. 

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The Lamest Adrenaline Junkie

Oh hey there. Been awhile. I’ll be totally honest, my excitement for this blog has been waning as the completion of my film draws near. It’s excruciatingly close. So close, in fact, that I’m rapidly losing drive to work on it because I keep subconsciously writing it off as done. There’s still a fair amount of cleanup to be done, not to mention all the final rendering, but I feel little to no pressure to get it done. That’s why, with two days to go, I have decided to create pressure.

I’m adding an entirely new, fully CG shot. Yup.

I understand this is not healthy behavior, and this production cycle is the last time I’ll be pulling crazy stuff like this. The shot is very simple; just a peaceful wide of the ship drifting through open space. It took about an 2 hours to storyboard, animate, and light, and it’s rendering right now. But damn if I didn’t have fun dreaming it up. Now, instead of twiddling my thumbs while I wait on renders tomorrow, I can be comping this new shot instead. I’m actually excited to come in and get to work tomorrow, which hasn't happened in awhile. 

So for the last time, let’s do this.

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Reference Image of the Day: With the end drawing near, it’s only appropriate that I post another still from Edgar Wright’s “The World’s End”. I really enjoyed the mood and color palate of this penultimate scene. Even if you haven’t scene the film, you can still look at this shot and get a good sense of what’s going on: two characters at a safe distance from sort of apocalypse pause for a moment and let all their emotions hit them. It’s not just the characters who are experiencing a change of pace, though; the whole film itself pulls back from the crazy alien invasion fantasy it has been and into realistic moment of what it’s truly about: the mending of a broken friendship. I’m going for a similar moment at the end of Flying High, and only time, color, and sound will tell if I achieve it.

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Here’s a shot Austin spent all day doing clean on. As you can see, it looks just about as seamless as it possibly could considering the bizarre-looking sky. A lot of time was spent meticulously refining the key to get as much fine hair detail as possible, but it clearly paid off. 

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Straight Outta Compin’

It’s the end of the final Tuesday, and I’m pleased to report I’m officially done with the last shot requiring complex compositing on my film! Of course, I’ll probably go back and touch up a few of them if I have time, but across the board they’re all watchable. Tomorrow I’ll be getting off my high horse of cool spaceship shots and joining Austin and Collin in the world of mundane cleanup tasks. As I’ve been saying before, it’s not the most thrilling thing to spend 8 hours a day on, but hey, it’s a very small price to pay for getting to make movies for class credit. I’ll post some pics of that work soon. 

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Since I’m running low on reference images, please enjoy this ancient relic of the first draft of Flying High. The first draft, for lack of a better phrase, was f**king insane. There was an entire scene in a future Earth city, an uber-powerful drug called Ultra Nova that was being used as a power source for a giant alien death ray, planets blowing up, a drug trip scene that took place during warp speed, and a chase scene involving this giant alien ship. I was so excited about it that I immediately spent weeks modeling said ship, only to through it away later when I realized the story wasn’t working and that the scope was impossible. Alone though, I feel it’s a decent piece of modeling. I designed it with a “maw” that would open up to emit a tractor beam and pull other ships in, which you can see in the open position here. The three side thrusters can also rotate from horizontal to vertical, giving the ship six “legs” to walk around on. You know, for all the times a ship that can FREAKING FLY feels the need to walk around instead. 

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Here’s an example of some really nice key cleanup Collin did today. As you can see, we’re getting a lot of really nice hair detail. Only thing left to do after he finishes that is touch up my crappy-ass resolution-didn’t-hold-up composition-flattening matte painting.

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The End Begins

Well, here we go. The last (?) week of VFX has officially begun. I added the question mark because we get one week after this to continue working if we need to, while those who have finished get to participate in fun activities. I’ll almost certainly be among the labrats during that time. 

On the bright side, we had a spotting session today that went pretty well for me. For those unfamiliar with labrat lingo, that’s when we all get together and watch the most recent version of our movies to see if there’s any glaring errors present that weren't apparent when we were just looking at things shot by shot. Overall, my class seems pretty happy with the way it turned out, and the only complaints I got were nitpicky things like rotos slipping and colors being inconsistent. That being said, it was also unspoken knowledge in the room that not all of my shots are done, so they easily could have been holding back additional criticisms.

Either way, I know exactly what needs to be done, the optimal order it needs to be done, and how to do it. No it’s just a matter of doing it. It’s not gonna be glamorous, but we’re gonna get it done. 

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Reference Image of the Day: WHERE MY FELLOW BROWNCOATS AT?? That’s right, it’s one of the most beloved spaceships of all time: Serenity from Joss Whedon’s “Firefly”. Both outside and in, this ship is amazing. She doesn't waste resources looking flashy; her design is functional, sturdy, and believable. The detail and weathering on the hull not only clues you in to what kind of ship she is, but also that she’s old but tough. On the inside, monumental amounts of incredible production design and set dressing make her a living, breathing character just like rest of the cast. Overall though, I think the most impressive thing about her is that she just feels homely, like she’s an actual place you’d want to live. As much I love other ships like The Falcon and The Enterprise, they feel like sweet rides, whereas Serenity feels like home. I’m sorry, but to me, that just means so much more than being able to make the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.

How do this relate to Flying High? Oh, uh, the swiveling engines.

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Oh hey, looks like Not Horrible is back for more! After several failed attempts, Nuke finally managed to cough up the full length of the shot. As far as I can see, the only issues are that the timing of the second cloud of dust is off and that it’s weird how the ship and alien rise in perfect sync. Shouldn't take too long to fix.

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The Sound of Silence

Today I had the privilege of participating in a lecture given by visiting FSU film alumni Dustin Cawood, a sound designer who has worked on many well-known animated films such as Up, The Boxtrolls and Ratatouille. Most intriguing for me was that he edited the sound for the first 30 minutes of my favorite film of all time, Wall-E. He was an incredibly nice guy, and it was a wonderfully surreal moment to be standing in the film school, shaking hands with a man who worked on one of the films that put me in film school.

Alas, the rest of the day was pretty much joyless. The shot of the ship landing is really starting to come together...at the cost of my Friday night, of course. I have officially reached the phase of dark, quiet nights alone in the lab. On the bright side, I’ll be going to bed early and getting plenty of rest for what is sure to be the busiest weekend of the semester.

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Everything Will Be Ok

....said the infinitely wise and incredibly talented Don Hertzfeldt. And indeed, it is finally starting to feel that way. BFA1 Mark Breedlove came in to the lab to see what we were up to, and his excitement over a shot Austin and I were working on was incredibly refreshing. After hours and hours of drudgery, it’s often easy to forget that your original goal from the beginning was the create something fun and exciting, and that the work you;re doing is actually very interesting to other people. My only major concern now is that I have to show a full cut of the film, regardless of the state of the VFX on Monday, and the state of some of my VFX are not good. I’ve been spending so much time on the more elaborate ship shots that I wrote off some of the simpler shots, and now the fact that some of those simpler shots haven;t even been started yet is coming back to me. With a little luck and a lot of hard work this weekend, I should be fine though.

No picture of my work today because Nuke is slow and no reference image of the day because I;m tired.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present “not horrible”.

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Apathy

Dailies today was lackluster, and I came out feeling the usual “it’s not good, not bad, just eh”. After addressing the notes i received on the shot of the ship rising up behind the leader alien, it was referred to as “not horrible”, so I guess that something. Across the board, I’m noticing a widespread case of apathy between the students and the faculty as we near the end of production. No one’s particularly excited anymore; we’re just there to get the job done. In fact, there’s so much apathy that I don;t think I can even fi

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Reference Image of the Day: AWWWWWW YEAH. WHAT UP MY FELLOW FURIOUS 7 FANS?!?! VROOM VROOM SMASH SMASH THE STREET ALWAYS WINS!!

Ahem. So in all seriousness, this scene became a reference for me because of they way it used the score. By holding off on using vocals in the score for the whole film until this scene, the scene instantly became ten times more hilariously awesome. I vividly remember sitting in the theater, everyone quietly on the edge of their seats, the signature “movie score” vocal chants starting, and everyone bursting out laughing. It wasn’t “Oh my God, this is the silliest thing ever” laughter, though, it was “Oh my God, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen laughter”. When I got home, I sent this scene to my composer, and we agreed it’d be a great idea to try doing something similar in the score for Flying High. Here’s hoping it ends up working!

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The animation I was describing earlier. Like any shot, there’s still a million tweaks that could be made, but it’s definitely good enough to move on, which I have to do.