Awww come on! I know it's your project, so go ahead and keep it in. At least do something about his name. I know it doesn't show up in the movie, but in the credits, could you just put a black block or something over that guy's name as it rolls up the screen?
I'm going to have to figure out how to change the credits anyway, to include everybody that's helped me on this forum. I don't see why I can't change the guy's name. I never even knew he was called "Eli Sledgehammer" or whatever his name is.
They kept putting emotion in his eyes and facial features.
But when Frank Oz performs Yoda, all the emotions come from the movement of the face and body!
In AOTC, Yoda turns his eyes to look at something. In ESB, Yoda turns his entire face and/or body to look at something!
This is entirely different animation than what Frank was doing. The got a few of his mannerisms down, but not his overall acting and movement.
Exactly. CG Yoda's eyes move around far too much. So does the skin around his neck. In fact, everything moves around too much; apparently the animators couldn't leave anything alone. With the undersampling, some of this minor wobbling movement is gone, which makes all the difference. I can't do anything about the actual image that appears onscreen (aside from the colors and blend). What I can do is turn around a lot of Yoda's dialogue so that's it plays normally now (instead of "Blind we are if creation of this clone army...", "We are blind if creation of this clone army...", for example). But this recent technique I have is really making Yoda much more convincing for me. And it only takes a couple of seconds per shot! The funny thing is, the only reason it works is because Lucas' directing style is so static. Had Yoda's shots had a moving camera, this would never have worked because the zoom would've been choppy.
I forgot to ask this in my earlier post, does Yoda still fight Dooku?
If you mean with force lightning or with a lightsaber, no. I've left in the sequence where Dooku throws objects at Yoda, a la Darth Vader. I've intercut the scene with Yoda stopping the falling tower (threatening Anakin/Obi-Wan) and Dooku escaping with Anakin getting his arm chopped off. So Dooku's fighting Anakin, Yoda walks in, and Dooku turns around to face Yoda. Dooku realizes he's sunk and brings down the big tower thing on Obi-Wan. Anakin jumps out of the shadows in front of Dooku, only to get his arm cut off. Dooku force pushes him beside Obi-Wan. Now they're both under the falling tower. Dooku runs away and Yoda saves the day. The scene ends with the clone running over to Padme lying in the sand. Somber music plays as we cut back to the two Jedi lying in heaps on the floor. Wipe to next scene.
The only problem with this scenario is that I'm having a hard time establishing where Anakin is during the time period where Dooku is facing Yoda. How do I establish that he's waiting in the shadows for an opportunity, before the shot where he leaps out in front of Dooku, presumably to save Obi-Wan, Yoda, or both? I'm trying to work out a solution to that.
And I can't wait till the trailer *does happy crazy dance*;P
It's coming! I kind of feel like maybe the time spent on the trailer would be better spent actually working on the movie! But it's coming...
Trooperman--regarding music cues, have you considered using the Shadows of the Empire soundtrack?
Yes, actually; a couple cues from this soundtrack have already been incorporated into the film.
Also--I really like having Anakin become angry with Padme. It should give the scene some sorely-needed believability.
I definitely think it does. The original scene was the biggest piece of garbage I've ever seen in a Star Wars movie. It scared me so much that originally I wanted to just cut the whole thing at all costs and never see it again! Fortunately, I was talked out of it, and recently I wrote this new dialogue to conform to the necessities of editing the sequence, which actually added a whole missing piece to the movie. In my cut, Anakin is cold towards Padme at the beginning of the morning scene where he tells her he has to save his mother. She says, "I dont' want to disturb you," and Anakin says, "It didn't bother you last night." Then, you go back to the "last night" scene at the fireplace, and you realize that nothing much actually happened. Padme basically told him it wasn't possible, told him to listen up, and put him in his place. Meanwhile, Anakin moped.
One of the original goals of the project was to remove any parts of the movie that came about as a result of Lucas' new philosophies, or politics, or what have you. Padme bossing Anakin around and Anakin behaving in a mopey and stupid manner was the PC thing to do in 2002. It is not classic filmmaking, it isn't good, and it's certainly not fitting to Darth Vader of all people. So I kind of projected myself onto Anakin and wrote some new and more appropriate dialogue. "You are asking me to be rational. That is something I know I cannot do. Believe me, I wish that I could just wish away my feelings." What kind of PC garbage is that? Anakin should be ANGRY, not whining about his obsession.
Here are a couple saber shots, Andy. Here's one of my first attempts (executed on a very small monitor), for everyone's amusement
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And here's a screengrab from the current process:
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Oh, and by the way- I've decided that when I release my "press screening" or "test cut" to a couple people in a couple months, I don't mind if you copy that and send it to other folks that can't wait for the real deal. Like I've said, I would really recommend that most people wait a couple more months. The test cut will have a watermark or a logo on the image so that it is easily distinguishable from the real thing. This is to hold you guys over while I spend another couple months trying to figure out how to do chapter stops, menus, commentary, subtitles, PCM stereo with matrixed surround sound (this is hard), and the whole nine yards. I don't want to come onto the forum every week in October and November saying, "Sorry guys, it's coming. I had a synchronization error on the 247th subtitle and I now have to reauthor the entire disc." I want to be able to learn the technical process of DVD creation and authoring, knowing that the die hard followers of this project have the film to watch and review in the meantime.
And I don't want a feedback or review thread or anything at that point. Not until I release the single-layer and dual-layer version, with cover art included and so on.
-TM
P.S. Just one small request- does anyone happen to have the "Mine Car Chase" cue from the Temple of Doom soundtrack, uncompressed? I would hate to have to use the mp3 in the final project, and the official CD appears to be OOP. Just a thought...