FOMF Production Diary

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…

Getting a new hard drive for the laptop tomorrow. Very happy about this. Helps make effects work go MUCH faster.

More effects. Who knew? We’re just about done adding the muzzle flashes. One last scene. Most of the effects people are gone. I send out help calls, but no response. So.

We have fiddled and fiddled and fiddled with a digital helicopter model, but it continues to look like crap, so I have ordered a scale model of the helicopter we used. I’ll build a model of the thing and we’ll use that.

We had significant hardware issues in the past couple of months. The Production Computer basically cracked, and had to be replaced by a brand new computer. The big storage server cracked and had to have drives replaced (again, more data loss — this time with a mirrored drive system, no less). The crappy email computer died. Even Katrina’s old laptop, which has been slow-but-steady, apparently has died. No functioning computers anywhere in the house, except for the cell phone (but the case is cracking, so I guess that’s something). After a month or two, we have slowly managed to get things replaced, repaired, or sent off to better homes. Crazy!

Tried installing the latest version of After Effects today. Had to update the OS in order to do that. I’ve been hesitant to update the OS because I’ve heard that there are often troubles between Win2k Service pack 2 and Adobe Premiere. However, after about six hours of various updating cycles, I discovered that I’m probably okay.

Probably.

Had to update the video drivers, too. Everything seems to work just fine and the transition to After Effects 7 has been pretty seamless.

Our DSL has been down for two days, so I am somewhat crippled as far as transferring files and assignments. Some are coming in and I’m able to find phone numbers for some people, so calling is working out. Still, very annoying. It seems that Verizon has installed phone lines in Portland, Oregon without making sure that the phone lines are, technically, waterproof. Dingbats. So, I transfer assignments to my jump drive and go in search of a computer and hookup I can use somewhere else…

Finished the final touch-ups of edits. The effects shots start coming in. Several are approved and placed into the timeline officially. They all look really great, too! Need more all the time!

The biggest bitch is simply being able to get files to and from animators. My server bandwidth has been close lately (mostly because of freakin’ bandwidth thieves), but so far, the system that seems to work best is for me to upload them and have people download them from the http URL. Trouble is, I have to babysit the FTP transfer. Gr… Oh well, a filmmaker’s gotta do what a filmmaker’s gotta do!

Ah, found another glitch. Fixed it. Happy about it. Moving through, moving through, moving through. Tuning sounds here and there. I know these aren’t the sounds we’ll actually be using, but a little tweaking here and there to bring their volume levels to a place that seems appropriate will help our sound designer do his tricks better, I expect.

There are still places where when I try rendering the timeline, I get Total Premiere Failure, but usually, I can render those sections a little bit at a time and it works. Maybe I’ll have to completely re-install Premiere. Ack! Not until after this project! My system keeps bitching that the OS needs updating badly, but still — not in the middle of a project! Man, that would just suck to blow it this close to the end. Of course, I maintain backups of everything on the Linux storage server, but still, if the OS update turns out to be incompatible with the software, there will be much pain and suffering.

Had some kind of memory glitch. Not sure, but whenever it tries to render a part of one of the zombie lairs, the whole project just stops and Premiere closes. Weird. Took me a couple of hours and narrowed it down to one specific clip, which reported an “out of memory” error. I took out the sound of that clip and then it rendered fine. Weirdness.

Found the original tape with the original footage of the lost scene. Got that digitized. My camera is on loan, so digitizing requires borrowing a camera. Bleah.

Nice! Building the final scene with this new scheme is coming out very well. Every time I preview it, I’m thinking it’s cooler and cooler.