Broken Allegiance Post Production & Visual Effects doco official feedback thread

I speculate one blooper will be an erroneous yank at Calis when Thor does the force push. I bet the guys operating the cable pull to hard or something, or she swing back and knocks Thor down, like the cliché sandbag scene

Carl

 

I enjoyed this documentry almost as much as the movie itself. Infact, I can imagine that in future I'll probably be watching this more than the movie. Any behind the scenes interviews are always great reference material for anyone working on their own film/s. So a big thanks to Nick and the rest of the BA crew for putting together these behind the scenes docos.

As for the DVD, will that just be for those who worked on the film? As far as I'm aware Lucasfilm don't allow anyone to profit from fan films based in the Star Wars universe.

 

Yes, Avene, the BA will only be handed out to close friends/family, cast/crew and other people that have collaborated in this project.

Carl

 

i think i liked it MORE than the movie itslf.

 

Best Documentary yet. Really enjoyed it.

 

Site was up and very fast yesterday but today I can't access it at all. Keeps timing out.

Grrr.

 

Very nice documentary. I have one question. Did you pretend to be editing in front of the computer (you know those shots of both guys editing day and night). LOL, worthy of a Cinefex photo where you always have 2 guys in front of the computer, usually one standing up and pointing. It looked abit staged ;-).

Seriously it was fantastic. Even though it was extremely in depth it showed more than I expected.

 

Malducin, thats exactly what I was thinking. But its nothing to be ashamed of at all... docos are almost a movie in themselves aren't they? A little acting always comes along nicely... I dunno if this was the case, I'm just saying that if you're working on a project without docos in mind later on, you don't go filming some random work hours... or do you? If I had to stage a scene like that, I'd put the camera behind the screen like in this doco and point to the screen, and as the whole thing is silenced I could say something like "Login to TFN, lets see if TAC or Homer are bothering the newbies again..."

Carl

 

I think this is the best doco yet! It really shows all of the effort that went in the making of this film and the degree of professionalism that went into is making. For the verious effects like the explosions and steam that you shot against a black screen, did you hang a black sheet or whatever and not light it at all?

 

Fantastic to say the very least. I liked the sunset shot on coruscant. Very impressive and inspiring. My jaw dropped when I heard "four computers rendering day and night." Great Stuff! Thanks for sharing.

Jeff

 

Wow, now I can see I will have a hard time beating those effects.

 

Another excellent doco... I still wanna know if the shots of editing were real or just Nick going,

"Okay, let's look like we're discussing something on the screen... okay, now let's look pleased with our job well done... great. Next shot tonight to make it look like we do this 12 hours at a time..."

There's a gag reel coming? Joy! I wanna see Vader trip on his cape and fall. That's all i ask. Just something about a Sith Lord being a klutz makes milk come out of my nose... even if i'm not drinking milk. PLEASE bring forth the glory!

-Chris

 

Yes ok I confess, the editing shots of Steve and I was something we mocked up specifically for the purpose of this doco to show the many hours put into editing. We know it comes over a little staged, but hey, it gets the point across.

 

Hey Vidman,

Great documentary

I have a question though - the coffee mug - when you filmed it was it cold (winter - not the water) or did the steam just show up when correctly lit against a black background?

Mushi

 

Are you ever going to post deleted scenes on the internet? Just a thought.

What about that deleted model- I really liked that

 

Deleted Scenes are already online and downloadable - and have been for quite some time.

The trick with filming steam, smoke or any kind of vapor, is that it only shows up on camera when back-lit.

It's all in the lighting.

 

I'm lazy and while I downloaded the doco when it came out, I only watched it last night.

I really enjoyed it. I'm especially happy for the editor guy who got to do cool new things

However, I'm curious about the green screen part; the discussion of the problems of DV footage suggest that rotosplines had to be used. Is this true - was this done for all shots?

There are tricks to works around the chroma sampling problems, for example Digital Fusion had a filter that will smooth out the stepping in the chroma, an in Shake what you would do is convert the image to YUV and blur the U & V channels. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with AfterFx, but it's my understanding there are many DV-optimized plug-ins.

I thought the CG in Broken Allegiance was very good, and it's even more impressive when you see how the shots were put together.

I know people pointed out things like ships moving too slow and such, but the part that bothered me was actually the crew pit in the Destroyer. The problem I have with it is that a lot of trouble when into keying people in there, to put stars and reflections in the windows, etc, but the CG lighting in the crew pits makes the background look very CG, while it could have been lit very dramatically. Of course, it probably looks different with the gamma of a TV set.

 

Rotoscoping was only done on the extreme wide shots where the actors appeared head to toe in frame. Anything that was mid shot (head to waist) or tighter was keyed normally.

The main trick we used was the tutorial available at http://www.neopics.com/bluescreen/ this certainly helped a lot of our keys which were done in Combustion, which we found to produce the best results.

 

Bluescreening DV:

PAL DV and NTSC DV is different in this regard too.

PAL DV uses 2x2 pixel blocks for the chroma sampling, while NTSC DV uses 4x1 horizontal blocks of pixels instead.

/Z

 

So which would be best - PAL or NTSC ?

I have Pal

Mushi

 

I'd suggest donning the opinion that PAL is better

/Z

 

Cool

 

I mean c'mon, we PAL-heads have film-like frame rate, higher resolution per frame, and a better (IMHO) color sampling structure. How can we complain?

I'd suggest most people doing fanfilms or any form of "film" using DV equipment should think about getting the PAL version, even though they may live in the US. But maybe thats just me being biased....

/Z