48 Hour Film Project Houston - Carrara Animation Trailer: "Dreamscapes"
Steve K
Posts: 3,232
A 48 second trailer for our entry in the 48 Hour Film contest in Houston, which ended 10July2016. The genre is Fantasy and the prop is a flashlight (the required character and line of dialogue don't show up in the trailer). The story: a young girl fantasizes about great adventures, based on her wonderful toys. The 5 minute video will be uploaded after the 26 July screenings.
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Comments
Cool!
Steampunk collector, eh? I have a bunch of that stuff too... but certainly not all of it! There's some neat stuff going on in there.
Love your work, Steve!
Thanks, Dartanbeck. Yes, Steampunk is a favorite genre, although it seems to be fading somewhat with the public. It just seems to offer more elements for story telling (read "Big Powerful Stuff") than more modern technology I can somewhat understand a steam driven ... anything, but I have no idea how a microchip works. Partly because I majored in chemical engineering, which involved a LOT of steam stuff - phase diagrams, anyone?. Sadi Carnot is a personal hero.
Here is a pretty good history of the genre if anyone is interested:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/076034891X/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
There are still a lot of steampunk fans out there though... I think. I like to try and cross the line between steampunk and scifi.
Raw Art has this really cool product that I'm always tempted to grab - and frankly, I'm reaslly surprised that I haven't picked it up yet - is Steam Battles, a Steampunk rendition of Star Wars stuff!
That settles it. Fairly soon (famous last words) I'm dropping that in my cart and hitting the Commit button!!!
looks awesome. sound effects too
Well done. Thanks for posting.
Great sound and steam effects! I thought a couple of the scenes would benefit from a little camera pan, nothing too dramatic, but overall this looks excellent!
Thanks, MistyMist, diomede, Phil. Phil, you're probably right about the camera motion, but sometimes the scene is a fixed background with something animated in the foreground. (And BTW, Carrara's Shadow Catchers can be a big help here.) This can save considerable rendering time, a big factor in a two day contest. I may have mentioned the advice that is given to 48 Hour filmmakers: "If you sleep, you're doing it wrong".
Do you have Howler? I can't remember. Anyways... Howler has excellent tools for changing that - allowing us to keyframe changes like transforms, zooms, effects filters... many, many things.
Like all of my previous babble sessions, this one is no different in the fact that I take over a half an hour to explain something which should really only be a five minute speach... but I am who I am ;)
I'll be making new tutorials using a different format in the future... instead of Babble-Sessions, they'll actually get to, and nail home, the point! Some day....
In short, the above babble session babbles on (and on) about how to take this 7 second shot
and edit it into this 7 second shot
Dartanbeck -
No, I don't have Howler, but your demo is pretty impressive. That's the kind of tool that can be very useful in a two day contest.
Just to mention it, some similar features are available in my video editor, Magix' "Movie Edit Pro", and some can be keyframed, etc. The screenshot just gives rough idea - rotate, zoom. I do use these occasionally, but where possible I try to get the original animation as close to the goal as possible. If I have time, not always the case in the two day rush.
Thanks
..... And there is Hitfilm too, Express will do and is free
Yes... Very similar! How do you like the Magix? I have Magix Music Maker Premium and, after using that, I can only imagine that their Movie Editor is killer too. They even now own the movie software I use: Vegas Movie Studio HD. I also use Corel Video Studio Pro.
I'm certainly not paid to sell Howler - as much as it might seem that I am... but no. Just a happy camper using it, It's not something we use to put the movie together, but I definitely love using it to apply VFX to my individual clips. Then I go from Howler into my organizational clips folders to later be stitched together in the final edit - very much how one would use Fusion.
...which brings up:
This is awesome software! I still need to upgrade to the new free HitFilm Express 4.
This baby not only has the VFX studio, which is watered down from the pro version, but if you never get pro... it still functions amazingly well. Then there are also posibilities to upgrade the free version with only the individual Pro tools that you need... which is really kind cool. For me, I think I'd just upgrade to pro if I end up using it fully.
Here's the thing... it also has a built in movie editor - for finishing off the masterpiece into final output format! So you can go into VFX mode and add muzzle flash, green screen, magical auras, combine clips using masks, do your color grading, turn Balthazar's eyes into glowing furnaces... VFX all of your material, even adding pans and zooms, and then turn around and bring all of your clips, sounds, music, voices, imagery... all of it together and publish it out as a final product!
Oh that's a lot of babbling.
Here's the thing, though. Software is software. This has that and that has this. I bet Magix Movie Edit Pro has many, if not all, of these abilities too. And if not, Carrara can actually be used (to certain degree) as a compositor/VFX editor in its own right. I'm certainly not implying that your stuff needs any help! I'm a fan!
The discussion just got me off on a tangent... talking about stuff that I love to do. I just recently aced a course: VFX for Guerilla Filmakers, through Norwich University of the Arts, and to give everybody an even playing field, we were all encouraged to download the free HitFilm Express, and one of their gurus was one of our instructors - but only for the HitFilm lessons. It was fun, much more interesting than I thought it would be, and I think a valuable pile of knowledge that I didn't have before - where I thought it would be more a recap on what I've already discovered on my own. I was wrong! LOL Gladly! I saved the whole course on my computer... so much theory and cinematic know-how stuff... going back to the first films ever to the latest and greatest in Guerilla VFX. Even a lecture from Gareth Edwards!!! Very cool stuff!!!
Am I still babbling? Go to bed, Dartan!!!
The version I have is "Magix Movie Edit Pro MX Premium Download Version", from about five years back. I've resisted their numerous low price upgrades to newer versions/programs since the new features listed did not interest me. I like the program, originally buying it because it had many "After Effects" type features. I have an older version of "After Effects" and consider it a powerful program, but I'm really not into "Motion Graphics", so the video effects features in Movie Edit Pro were/are more than adequate, and allow me to avoid switching back and forth (the focus is always on the two day contest). Also, it came with a lot of effects presets, templates for short videos like trailers, third party plugins, etc. Of course, by now its become as second nature as Carrara, so I'm pretty biased.
I also have Music Maker, the Sound Track edition (or something like that), a better program than one might think (I also have a lot of old Soundpool DVD music collections (loops) from Magix). Although I have to admit I usually find something in my Digital Juice royalty free music (I have lots - Staxx, BackTraxx, Music Box - and its easy to preview all of it), again its much faster. Digital Juice has switched to a subscription basis, which I don't care for, so I've kind of lost touch, but the old stuff works fine.
Cool! Kinda the same page then. Although I've been taunted into trying some new software lately, for the most part I'm really happy with what I have so I'm reluctant to make a move in any direction - with the one small exception possibily being my final movie edit software. Yes... I'm happy with Vegas Movie Studio, but since I haven't done that much (of my real stuff yet) in that department, I might be tempted to try something else, if my arm got twisted hard enough.
I am, however, very happy that I'll never ever need to drop tons of cash at Adobe, since Howler has so completely stolen my heart for both image editing as well as VFX.
I have a good supply of soundpools as well, but recently have decided to actually write and record my own, like my original plan was. However, now that I've had a taste of making some cool compositions in Music Maker, I have a really good handle on how I can use the soundpool philosophy to make loops out of my own writings/recordings to enable me to more easily match up my music with my action videos - saving a lot of time in the studio recording in the end.