sci-fi

We should be ready with the whole short movie in a couple of months.

Iv'e been checking you guys website regularly to see when you made some new stuff and I'm blown away.

The best yet on Likeastory - great logos you've got (that guy in a straightjacket
Great effects, great design, great sound, great website - virtual sets? Get out of here!!!

Looks as good as that 405 movie IMHO. Makes me proud to be a Skandinavian.

Will it be possible to download it over the net?

r2d2

i'm blown away. i've seen one other Cyco Production before, and wasn't that impressed, but this trailer was awesome. You've got good actors, good sets, good effects, good editing.... share a little with how you filmed it!

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Visit our site at:
www.caliberfilms.net
Post in our forums and give us feedback.

We started out as all of you others on this board, by experimenting, and we still do. The budget involved for making this movie is peanuts... that is, about 5000 swedish kronors or 500$. The money we got by making some jobs for the university. We helped them move old junk to a scrap-yard for example(100$), and we got to film a guest lecture that the university wanted for streaming over the net(150$), etc.

100 dollars went for buying old army clothes.. we then hyped them up ourselves..
Another 300$ went for buying an old machine used for blowing leafs(but it looked kindu futuristic and we hyped it up aswell), and for the iron that make up our own "machine"-guns.
Then we used up a 100 dolars for buying soda for the actors and extras.

That's pretty much it

We contacted the local municipality and asked for the guy handling all their estates there and if he might be intrested in lending us some kind of "time-less" factory site. We called without having any expectations as you would think the guys working at such places wouldn't be intrested in helping people such as us. But we were totally surprised in how eager they were to help us out. We didn't get access to just one site but so many we could even choose not to use some of them. All free of charge. That's a thing you might think about, "you never loose anything by trying", the worst that can happen is that you get a "no", right? We also had certain sceenes were we couldn't use any of the sites lent to us by the nice municipality people, so alot of research were made, driving around in an old car, trying to finding other suitable places.

For us the key to finishing this film has been the way we complement each other.. One is better than the rest of us in designing web-pages (so naturally he did that), another one is better at 3D, yet another one on soundFX, editing, communicating with people, etc.

But hey.. we don't charge anyone(who could we charge).. were doing it when ever we have some spare time, and were doing it because it's fun and because we learn..

It's also important to highten the lath all the time.. we started of by making an action trailer(Davidian) with muzzle flashes.. that's great "we thought", we know how to do muzzle flashes, and now we have to move on, put the lath higher. You try to jump over the lath until you succeed, don't move onto a higher level until you do. Then all of a sudden your jumping as high as the "big guys".

We started out planing for a sci-fi, and that was almost two years ago. A sci-fi because it is the furthest you can get from the swedish genre. The swedish genre wich is typically about psyche, death, and other very dramatic near earth stuff. Of course we are also VERY fond of sci-fi

Half a year passed, discussing all sorts of scripts.. If you looked at our first script and our latest(the one we use) you wouldn't find ANY similarities, hell you wouldn't find any similarities between our eleventh script and the one we use today. Sometimes we got into fightes over what should happen next in the script, and sometimes we got into fightes over what shouldn't happen. We also had to take into consideration of how high we were able to jump. One scenario for example could be:
-"..and then we let them fly to this hughe complex of hangars and platform in the midle of the ocean, and it's all deserted rain sweaping down from heavy clouds..."
-"Hughe complex in the midle of the OCEAN! You must be kidding.. Man! Be realistic.. even my new version of light wave can't handle that.. and you wannt to somehow merge this whit real fotage? tssshh..."
-"Why not.. can't you handle the pressure.."

That's what a conversation could look like. And while the two guys arguing about the possibilities -and this is important and why the key to finalization of this movie was possible through complementing eachother- someone would say.
-"Look here.. you are both right.. the sweep down towards this complex would be difficult mixing real fotage.. but hey if we get the virtual camera high enough you wouldn't see anything in detail and so it could all be made with cgi.. then we could cut from that high angle to a more workable angle with workable possibilities of mixing live fotage ..."

The script was finally done..and we knew what was possible after having discussed it for half a year and after having experimented with ideas both on the computer and outside at upcoming scenes.

We needed cameras and our university had just bought like 20 pieces of DCR-TRV900E, digital video camcorders for their media program which were almost never used by the people going in the media program. They were only for these people and as me myself, studying for software engineering, and the others had no connection to anyone in the program we were first denied a borrow. But never give up, smooth-talking is the way to go. You can't imagine what people will do for you if you smooth-talk them good enough.
So we had a camera and more if we wanted(hell, in the end we could have all 20).

In the first scene we learned how to manage extras.. and it's not easy.. we weren't prepared enough and so extras got tired of just sitting around waiting for things to happen.. We were on the scene 2 hours before the extras putting up lights, checking angles, preparing props.. we still weren't ready when they arrived.. and we would't be for another hour.
Think about rigging everything that you want to rig in time, if possible the day before! Luckely the cosmetic-girl that we had borrowed from the local SPEX(a university kind of theater-organisation) kept them somewhat occupied with here face powder and other stuff.

When shooting your scenes it's better to take one extra shoot than one to few.. or you'll have to go back to that scene the next week and do it all again.. and THAT you don't wannt to do, telling all the extras to show up again..

There's a lot more to tell but I guess I've already written too much.. FAR to much even, and I didn't wannt this to be a novel.

Hope you enjoyed some of it anyways.. and remember.. most things are possible.

Well taken.

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Visit our site at:
www.caliberfilms.net
Post in our forums and give us feedback.

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Visit our site at:
www.caliberfilms.net
Post in our forums and give us feedback.

i'm impressed at what you were able to accomplish on a small budget though.

but then again, most of the clips posted here have a $5 budget.

i didnt find that the cg looked realistic as others said, but it did look good.

good show.

use the following logon information:

Name: caliberfilms
password: llama

the file is itd_trailer_low[1].mov

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Visit our site at:
www.caliberfilms.net
Post in our forums and give us feedback.

[This message has been edited by DackL (edited 02-09-2001).]

WOW! very cool!

--Trey

And is it just me, or do the ships in that first shot look kind of like the Psychlo ships from Battlefield Earth?

WOW! very cool!

--Trey

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A great tailor cuts little.

i only had two problems (i always do, dont i?)

i didnt find the cgi all that convincing (then again i seem to have a bizzare eye for cgi and i can pick it apart shot for shot, it gets annoying at movies to my freinds)

and the other problem was now i really want to see trhe whole freaking movie!

what was that spider thingy?

HELP!

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You smell like speghettios

I think the biggest problem with cgi is that it almost always is used to do really impossible things. When you see something impossible done in a movie (and especially in lowbudget ones) you think - CGI!
If that flying thing had been a realistic chopper - not even a fancy military one - filmed handheld, it would have fooled anybody.

I also liked the set extensions/mattes. A great way to ad production value and some degree of art direction. Those 4-5 shots really look like a million bucks.

And what about the cinematography?

- What camera did you use?
- Did you use any filters on the cam, special settings/tricks?
- Any color correction in post, and to what degree?

I think some of the shots looked really good. I am doing some test myself with a trv900 and I am really curious...

r2d2

We didn't use any special filters on the camera.. But you should think about using the zebra function on the camera in order for you to control a correct balance between the lighting in sceenes (if you don't have a LUX meter that is). When filming darker scenes, reduce exposure to avoid some of the noise that occur. Try to keep shutter speed at a minimum.

Unfortunately we didn't have any colored lights which we should have had.. So we had to do color correction in post(not recomended), which reduce the quality of the film somewhat. Color correction is made through almost the whole movie or atleast where the atmosphere demands it for the environment to look more futuristic/mysterious.

It's very hard to get non-cartoon looking cgi. One way to reduce this is by making the cgi very detailed with flaws, such as scratches, dust. You should also let the cgi be out of focus when it should be(a long corridor made from cgi for example should get out of focus more and more, or follow the focus of the real environment).
Reflections are also important as is applying the same light as on the real scene.
When an object moves it will be somewhat speed-blured and there's a milion other things to think about.. and when you are finished it still turns out kind of cartoonish in some scenes and very realistic in others..

------------------
Visit our site at:
www.caliberfilms.net
Post in our forums and give us feedback.
Or how about participate in the infamous Genre poll.

------------------
Visit our site at:
www.caliberfilms.net
Post in our forums and give us feedback.
Or how about participate in the infamous Genre poll.

The guy is saying something like this
(in order):

"Sorry that you had to be called back on such a short notice..."

"...You are going to Treva."

"As you know, the platforms are armed with L-2 modules..."

"...to protect against any intruders."

<Some movie interaction>

"You willescort Körberg, a civilian technician from ITC..."

"...so that he may undertake certain technical measurements."

<Movie interaction until end of film>

All times are ET (US)