Brickfilms PE-Porukka Robukka Prinssi thread 2003 Ilmari

December 20, 2003 at 10:01 am #26480
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PE-porukka
http://www.archive.org/movies/movies-details-db.php?collection=opensource_movies&collectionid=Prinssimovie



A trailer is coming out this weekend

Take a look at me at http://www.pbase.com/image/24329543
December 20, 2003 at 10:33 am #26483
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David West
PE-porukka, I do not speak whatever language that was so I have no idea what the story is like. So I will only review the technical aspects of the film. Firstly, the animation was not exactly good. I think you should film at a higher frame rate, my suggestion woulld be 15fps. Next, go read a walking tutorial and just practice making a mini-fig walk. I think that one reason the animation was so bad is that you are trying to make a 2 hour movie, therefore you have rushed the animationso that you can finish it quicker. Even if you actually finish this movie, and it is 2 hours long, I doubt that very few people will download it. People are much more likely to download a short, well thought out film that has decent animation than they are to dowload a long movie that has a confusing plot and jerky animation. And just so you know, 2 hours is longer than lots of live action movies. I’ve seen lots of people claiming that they are working on a “hour long epic” or something along those lines. They never release a thing and do nothing but hype up their 10 bazzilion projects. One thing I will give you crdit for is that you actually made something. And not just a 10 second clip, a five and a half minute clip. Albeit a hastily thrown together clip, but a clip none the less. But don’t feel bad. You aren’t the first person to want to make a long movie. When I was six I thought for sure that I would make a 7 hour long movie about a shark in a lake using a camcorder and an inflatable shark towed behind a boat to look like it was swimming. I even thought that I would get it in theaters. If I were you I would make some animation tests to hone my animation skills, then make a nice simple 1-2 minute movie. I would reccomend you check out the events page and read up on the APE contest. You could enter a film in it. Who knows, you may win the Sisters award for best upcoming director. Or maybe even second place overall(since first is going to me hands down:wink)

“PE-porukka” wrote: And please, could somebody submit my film to the Brickfilms directory? :wink
Why cant you do it yourself? If you dont know how, go to the films page and click “submit a film to the directory”. From then on its pretty self-explanatory. :)
December 20, 2003 at 10:47 am #26486
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PE-porukka
Thank you for your comments, Mr. West!

We are proud to inform you that at the moment we have actually finished 1 1/2 hours of our movie. During this project we have learnt many things and the stuff we are filming at the moment has good lighting and beautiful sets. The animation has also improved, even though it`s still not anywhere near 15fps.

We are focusing on the story, really and once we have finished filming we will release some clips with subtitling or maybe we`ll dub something in English.
After we have finished filming, we will make a trailer to show some of the biggest moments in our Prinssi movie.
December 20, 2003 at 10:51 am #26488
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David West
“PE-porukka” wrote: Thank you for your comments!

We are proud to inform you that at the moment we have actually finished 1 1/2 hours of our movie.
WOW! :shock: I was under the impression that this was a spur of the moment thing. Good job. T’s record for longest Brickfilm is toast. And, if you don’t mind my asking, what exactly is the frame rate?
December 20, 2003 at 11:03 am #26490
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PE-porukka
This project began when the younger of us, Viljami, filmed this clip. Yes, it was done really fast but something in the story made me see the possibilities behind filming legos.

I`m not sure about the terms but the framerate is still the one you see here but we have done some quite stunning scenes using dozens of minifigs. Also, the thing with the camera we are using is that sometimes we get more frames in a second…

The length of our finished film is due to the fact that when our heroes talk, there`s no animation because the voices are recorded “in-camera” (while shooting).

To accompany these long conversations we have made quite a few spectacular action sequences where we can show our talents in minifig-walking, too!

Making this clip to the this state was good practice. We have learnt many things about camera-computer connections, capturing, editing, compressing and file-formats.

Expect to see less of our tables in the finished epic that is Prinssi ja Valon Miekka coming early 2004
December 20, 2003 at 11:11 am #26492
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David West
“PE-porukka” wrote: Also, the thing with the camera we are using is that sometimes we get more frames in a second…
What camera are you using? Is it digital camera, a web cam, or Divital video cam? And what capture program?
December 20, 2003 at 11:22 am #26494
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PE-porukka
We use a digital video camera using its framerec-function (a Sony one using dv-tapes). It is not the cheapest one so when the lights are set okay the picture is quite stunning (this clip doesn`t really do it justice).

We get are movies from dv-tapes (used two whole 60min tapes for our feature film) to the computer via USB. We are currently encountering some difficulties with the capture avi-files being too damn large and the mpeg-compression (conversion) while capturing being of really bad quality… :D

Oh, by the way, have you made some legofilms we could download?
(If films with 15fps look considerably better, we will have to use it for our sequel)

What makes our films look great at the moment is the tripod which our camera is on. It allows for experimenting with some interesting camera movements.
December 20, 2003 at 11:52 am #26497
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David West
“PE-porukka” wrote: Oh, by the way, have you made some legofilms we could download?
(If films with 15fps look considerably better, we will have to use it for our sequel)

.
I have only made a bunch of test and am working on my APE entry right now. SOOOO… my first film should be released in February. I reccomend you check out the films page and watch some films there. I don’t know the exact frame rates of every film, but I believe that The Letter and Out of Time were filmed at 15fps and both have excellent animation. If they weren’t filmed 15fps then I believe that they were filmed at 30fps taking “doubles” for most scenes. That is when 2 frames are captured at once so that if you can film at 30fps but only have to animate most scenes at 15fps, then if you need to, you can film at 30fps for a smoother animation. An excellent example of this is (correct me if I’m wrong) jamesfm’s Zero Gravity Rebellion, in which the walking at the beginning was shot using doubles (making it 15fps) and the hoverboarding scenes were shot at 30fps.
December 20, 2003 at 12:01 pm #26498
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PE-porukka
Forgive me asking but is this done on a computer software? (to make it into a movie file with a certain fps, you will have to think of it while filming, of course).

We are filming with what the camera gives us. Would it be difficult to get used to a higher framerate? For our film, we could definitely use a higher framerate for really important scenes…

I`ve been thinking about the fact that when I take the footage I´ve shot with the framerec function in my camera to the computer, it would be of great help to have a piece software to make my “frames” into actual frames.

Then, if I had filmed with a high framerate in mind, I could “squeeze” those “frames” to make the best possible animation sequences to make you fps-people watch my Prinssi movie…

So is there such software available?

Mr. West if you allow, I would like to copy your review of my film to archive.org or perhaps you have the time to write one there? (a short one will do just fine)
December 20, 2003 at 12:26 pm #26500
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David West
You could try Anasazi Stop Motion Animator. Its a good little FREE program that allows you to simply click a button on the computer screen and it grabs a frame. It compiles the frames in realtime so that you can watch what your animating before you are even done filming it. You can also change the framerate and use a nifty little feature called onion skinning. Onion skinning super imposes the current frame over the last frame taken so that you can see how much you have moved you figures. I’ll go right a review on the archive page for you :) .
December 20, 2003 at 2:06 pm #26511
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KG
“David West” wrote: Or maybe even second place overall(since first is going to me hands down:wink)
I contest that. :wink
Good luck with your film PE-porukka!
December 20, 2003 at 4:21 pm #26530
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PE-porukka
Thank you for your review, Mr. West. We`ll be looking forward to seeing your work. :)
December 21, 2003 at 8:10 pm #26684
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YSS
Yey, another finnish lego-movie maker ! :D
I am downloading the film right now, I will post my review later.

P.S Pe-porukka, mitä kameraa käytätte? Meidän “tiimillämme” on vaan se surkea lego-kamera… Ja olen samaa mieltä herra Westin kanssa, ehkä teidän pitäisi tehdä lyhyempi elokuva, mutta sehän on oma päätöksenne.
Näköjään saimme uuden kilpailijan  :)

EDIT:
OK, the film was quite confusing, although i understood the voices (I am finnish) It seemed like a part of the film was seen two times? Quite a mistake. And what comes to the animation, it was quite choppy, and only was used for the clips that didn’t move the plot at all (they moved from one place to another) I understand that you want to make such a long film, which is very ambitious, but not very good idea. You will get bored, and don’t want to continue making the film. You should work more on your plots, alot more. But, as it seemed like you weren’t so old, so this is acceptable for a first film. Don’t get so disappointed; your next film will be better. :wink