March 7, 2005 archives

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March 7, 2005

artist's way: week 7

by gl. at 11:57 pm

tonight we did what is usually one of the hardest activities for participants: authentic dance, which is 10 minutes of "dance" in front of a witnessing partner. we do several warm ups to lead up to this, and in a way last week was a warm up for this week. it's great to have a studio where i can dim the lights (i actually turned them off & just left the star lamps on). two of the participants had just been to the ballet, so the timing was quite good. (let's hear it for synchronicity!)

it's also the abundance chapter, and it marks the halfway point, so i like to do a grand gesture at the weekly altar:

artistsway-abundancealtarsp05.jpg

the heat from these candles made the star lamp above it spin. :) i also had large clusters of candles on the front porch, the bathroom, the kitchen & on the flat files.

one of the participants has voiced her desire to quit her job by the end of artist's way. wow! what is it about artist's way that provokes that reaction? :)

the one irritation this evening: just as we were getting started, a group of kids(?) ran up the stairs, rang the doorbell and ran away. grrrrrrr......

posted by gl. | permalink | categories: artist's way

LSGL work session #6

by sven at 11:41 pm

Time in studio: 1 hr

Accomplished:

Commentary:

There are two irreprable flaws with my lighting design...

First: The lavamen have no flashlights or lanterns. Walking into a cave, you'd think they'd be carrying something!

Second: There's no way for me to make the glow from the lavamen red -- it has to be white. This the result of how I've accomplished the "neon-gothic" look. Because I'm using all kinds of hue-shift, it'd be ridiculously hard to get the right tint.

Even so, I'm pleased with the look of the moving light source. It's subtle, but the changing shadows give the lavamen a way to actually interact with the environment, making them look less two-dimensional. ...In my own head, I think of it simply as the physics of this strange universe I've created.

Here's the documentation I created tonight:

SET-DRESSING PROCESS

A. BEFORE STARTING

  1. Open LW and AE
  2. In AE, open the animatic shot that you want to work on
  3. Make sure Viper is enabled in LW

B. CAVE SET

  1. Open “cave template” scene in LW
  2. Set cam location, height, angle Note: Use the horizon line as a reference, comparing to AE shot
  3. Apple-F9 to render a still
  4. Export still from Viper as a .psd
  5. Import .psd still shot into AE
  6. Place still shot under lavamen footage.
  7. Set hue/sat to about 150/90. Set brightness/contrast. ...How does it look?

C. ELDER THINGS

  1. Add Elder Things to the set (+) Note: control-C is the clone command
  2. Arrange the Elders using the animatic shot as a reference
  3. Apple-F9 to render a still
  4. Export from viper as a .psd
  5. Import .psd still shot into AE
  6. Place still shot under lavamen footage. ...How does it look?

D. LIGHT FROM LAVAMEN

  1. Set fps to 1 or 2
  2. Set length of LW scene to match length of lavamen footage
  3. Set first and last keyframes for light #2 (light associated with cam)
  4. In “render options”, name .mov file and location to be saved
  5. Apple-F10 to render movie
  6. Import .mov of moving light into AE
  7. Place .mov under lavamen footage. ...How does it look?

E. FINAL RENDER

  1. If the previous render looks good, go back and render a 15 fps, anti-aliased, etc.

posted by sven | permalink | categories: let sleeping gods lie, movies