FOMF Production Diary

Current time: 20:51.

We’ve swung into Act II, now, where things start happening more quickly.

If you can imagine that.

Tom Reese (Gil Luna) comforts Lindsey Corrigan (Tara Walker) while the grownups hash out just how extraordinarily screwed they really are.

First significant zombie lair scene.  Lots of interesting complications, and had to re-render a couple of older effects to catch up with what I’m doing now, but the effect is, so far, very nice.  It’s surreal and weird.

I couldn’t quite get exactly the effect I wanted, which was more… steamy… but this is looking very nice anyway.

This’ll probably be the “official” effect for this location.

The house ALWAYS wins when you're brought this deep into an Undead lair...

Set up a rather elaborate jig to basically shoot a short effect shot of rock and debris smashing into the camera.

In the process, I managed to melt part of the camera, which was not at all what I’d planned to do.

Took a few pictures of my little setup:

Effects setup. Camera, light, and transparent sheet.

The idea was that I’d dump dirt onto the transparency so that it would look like junk collapsing against the camera.  Seems simple enough, right?

Effects setup. Wooden squares indicate camera framing.

Because the camera was at an angle, the frame was a trapezoid.  I promise you no one will notice.

Effects setup. White reflector "lid" suspended by yarn over jig.

Once the stage was set, I had to block the image of the ceiling, so I hung a reflector card over the whole rig.

Remember that trapezoidal frame?  This is where I discovered it mattered.

Effects setup. Stalwart Director "smooshing" dirt over glass.

Ready, and action!  Smooshing dirt.

The dirt, much like animal actors, really didn’t want to cooperate well with me.  It wouldn’t quite fall the way I liked.

Darn physics.

Effects setup. Cleaning up.

Cleaning up after the shooting.  This is an excellent opportunity to see several Guerrilla Production tricks in action.

First, notice that instead of paying good money for or spending good time constructing a sawhorse, we simply used a little cardboard box and an overturned trash can.

Second, our re-used tripod used to keep the light steady.

Third, our studio monitor appears to be — why yes, it is — a little $45 Target TV.

Fourth, the fancy device we’re using to angle our studio monitor up is an old tennis shoe.

That, apparently, is how we roll.

I did it! I managed to take what was kind of a stanky death scene and make it actually work out much better than I’d hoped. Between Sean’s advice and ardent diddling, I think we’ve got a good emotional death.

And the timeline count is 16:00, which is even closer to the end!

Mark Love (Bill Kelley) has a Very Bad Day.

Okay, got a Zombie-Motion effect I’m actually pretty happy with. First integration went fantastically.

There will be movement. Thus say I.

Here’s hoping whoever does the sound design can get the audio effect I need.

Current time: 10:31.

Just about to dig into the next sequence of effects and saw some peculiarities on the server. Seems as if the raw footage was not properly copied during one of those ancient data transfers.

Yikes!

I’m really glad I found this out before scratching files off the Production machine!

So, I’ve transferred the one file I want to fiddle with, effects-wise, over to the laptop, and have initiated a full copy of all raw video from the Production computer to the server.

It’s gonna take some time…

All effects and video edits done up to 10:07 (with the exception of the title sequence, which is its own special brand of weirdness).

Maybe going downstairs -- not such a good idea.

Finished the effects for the entire rooftop sequence. Mostly rain effects, and trying to keep track of where the rain was coming down depending on the camera angle. Probably missed a few, but oh well.

Built a nice minor explosive effect, though, of which I am somewhat proud. Went from a “Well, I hope I think of something” moment to a “Hey, that fits just perfectly right in there” moment, which is a good jump to make.

Still gotta drop this bundle of effects (13 different scenes) into the main timeline, but all things considered, I’m pretty happy with what’s going on so far.

Next comes one of the biggies — Zombie Motion&trade. I’m going to have to figure that out one way or another — might as well be now, and that way, I can track my progress in a more-or-less linear fashion.

Yep, puttin’ in rain effects.  It’s not quite as bad as putting in bullet effects, but still, it’s pretty tedious.

Am also doing some neat tricks with a little camera shaking here and there. Surprisingly effective!

Think I did about a dozen effects shots today.