You’d think I’d have learned by now — when my filmmaker friend Jon calls to ask “Is it possible to do XXXX?” I should just say no.
But I love a challenge.
There are something like 20 more shots left to do in this film, and each one has anywhere from 2 to 10 different CGI elements which must be painstakingly keyframed into the action by hand, and oftentimes they also require hand-drawn mattes because of things and people moving in front of them. I tried using computer-estimated motion analysis, but once something moves out of the field of view of the camera the computer can’t estimate where it moves to and it goes crazy. So, hand work. All of it. Silly me, I thought the computer could do it automagically when I said yes to Jon.
Well, at an average of 2 hours per second of footage, I’m flying right along and should be finished some time in October. Unfortunately, there’s a film festival coming up next month that he wants it shown at. (Not our own festival, DC Shorts, which is also taking up incredible amounts of my now non-existent time.)
This is the kind of situation when I want to zip out to McDonald’s because I don’t have the time for anything else. No wonder Type A people get more heart attacks.
I want to show you what I’m doing, if only to elicit sympathy for the painstaking work, but I think I’d better wait until it is finished and premieres somewhere. I’m a little paranoid to be sure, but there is a certain amount of indie-film espionage out there, you know?
