September 22... its been almost a month since Josef released his latest movie, and just a little bit longer since the rest of us have put anything out.
It's the fall and everyone is getting back into the routine of work/school. (or for very few of us, work AND school! ;) ) So we can expect a little drought for the time being.
Had a small chat with Jason this morning; he cought me in my 8:00 am networking class which wasn't all the fun to begin with, (sorry for being half asleep Jason) but he did shed some light as to what some of you guys were working on - which at the moment seems to be nothing specific.
As for myself, im in the planning stages for a new movie, allthough some GPL purists may not be too happy with me: its going to be a NASCAR 2003 season movie.
I've already got some great clips from the offline championship i've been running since the beginning of summer, as well as some online footage as well. i've always been a little iffy on using online footage - mainly because of the warping and hopping effect the other cars have. I've used online clips in some of my other GPL movies, but I play GPL online far less then I do N2003, and when I did my GPL movies, i used the camera to hide some of the warps and hops - this technique works great in GPL because of the layout of the courses - NASCAR on the other hand is a little harder to cope with.
The majority of my footage is from oval racing. Its a little harder to use camera tricks and positions on the track to help alieveate the "online" syndrome. If i had to guess I would say around 1/3 is road racing. That should be more like the GPL movie making that im used to... but this leads me to another small dillema im working on now - How do I make oval racing look entertaining? For the fans in us, thats not a super difficult thing to achieve, but like i've always set out, I want my target audience to be varied. I'll have to work on this some more...
The next thing I have to figure out is music selection. I think I make movies a little differently then the rest. I know a few of you guys use a piece of music as the foundation of your projects. I on the other hand try to focus on a few select clips, then get a piece of music that fits what I want to achieve. By doing things this way I feel that I actually have a bit more freedom in the editing session later on because clips aren't put into positions based on where they "fit" the music, they are placed on where they "fit" my theme.
I usually have an idea of what I would like the intro and the extro to look like. they usually get planned and designed first. after that I find a piece of music that fits, and the middle clips just fall into place. "In a blur" was a perfect example of this method, yet "Name of the Game" and "Born too Slow" were not. both of those were a little more freeformed - which made the results a little more music videoish. Ironic? Maybe, as that was the theme I was trying to create from the beginning...
Ugh, Britney Spears just came on the radio - talk about ruining creativity...
Ok, thats fixed now.
As for the capturing process, I've been experimenting with MSXP and CCM. so far im getting similar results to a GPL movie, which is good. from all the horror stories I've heard about CCM and MSXP in the game i was expecting the worse. only downside i've found so far is the zoom control on CCM - it seems that when you zoom in to far, the ground below you renders farther and farther out. this results in "punching holes" in the polygons the closer they are as i zoom in. Its kind of hard to explain, but anyone of you who've tried CCM in nascar will know exactly what i mean.
Because of this I will have to be very careful with the zoom. Good thing is that I dont use it very often, but I had a great scene setup which required a very high zoom level, and I had polygons popping everywhere... no good. :( I have to work with this some more to get it right. im sure I can find a way around it, but I may need to borrow a third arm... ;)
Forgive the long entry, im just getting some planning down on paper so-to-speak. its also great to share my creative process with everyone. I've never made a movie the same way, so opening the doors to another way always intrests me.
Nothing else that I can really think of right now. Still sitting here planning, and I have a nice intro planned; haven't even touched the ending yet.
Im listening to a few CD's I have to get some creative ideas for music. Since its NASCAR im looking at the rock/bass catagory - maybe something a little harder than im used to, i dont know, but Im open to suggestions like always!
