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Superman by Taolar (Formally: Son of Jorel) WORKPRINT AVAILABLE — Page 7

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The Denver showing went great! The movie was well received, and I have a new, much shorter list of items that need to be done before release. Since the previous showing I've made editing changes to several scenes and did a major overhaul of the audio mix. I re-added a bit of previously removed footage, re-edited some other scenes, and rebuilt two action scenes. As of the Denver showing the stereo audio mix is about 99.5% done, and about 95% of the video is officially locked. I currently have a runtime of 3:02, not counting end credits. I expect it to bump up to 3:03 when all is done, although if I have an editing epiphany I'll gladly bring it back down below 3 hours. But the most important thing is that the final result doesn't feel hacked up, so I've resigned to accepting whatever runtime feels the most professional. There are around a dozen visual fx that are in various stages of completion. Half of those are relatively easy, and the other half are quite a bit more challenging.

If I were able to work full time on this, I'm sure I'd have it done in a couple weeks. But unfortunately I have to deal with working on it a couple hours here and there after work and on the weekends.

-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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Considering that the circa 2000 DVD releases of Superman I and II total up to 270 minutes, or 4 1/2 hours, I'd say that a 3 hour 3 minute runtime is perfectly acceptable. Hell, that's only about 40 minutes longer than the first film! And congratulations on your recent showing.
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Evevryting looks great, and I'm looking forward to seeing how things trun out. However, I have one suggestion. I know that you had planned to drop the pome, but I thought that before you make the final desciison, you might consider this alternate footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj8ApCdC3PM

Dan
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Sorry for the lack of updates. The project is still going strong. Until recently I'd work on an FX shot until it started to became difficult and I'd be spinning my wheels, then I'd procrastinate and start working on a different one. That means I've been putting a lot of work into this, with no finished shots to show for it. I've put an end to that, and am now focusing on a shot until it's finished.

This week I replaced the final remnant of Superman 2's "new powers" (i.e. Zod's telekinetic finger) with a new effect. Yesterday I spent from noon to midnight correcting a horrible compositing job from Superman 2. It's less than 2 seconds of film, but it's one of those things that looks so bad it pulls me out of the movie.

Next on the list are a couple small and relatively easy compositing shots and then I'm diving head first into the mostly finished Tanker Truck action sequence. Its an effects shot that I've already put many hours into but I had to put off for later because I came to a point where I was in over my head experience-wise, and was not completely sure how to go about completing it with a professional result. But I've been through this situation several times on this project. It's just a matter of working on it over and over, sometimes re-starting from scratch several times, until either I figure out a new way of doing it, or my brain explodes.

Wish me luck!
-T

p.s. I don't know what I was thinking on the previous post where I said I only had a dozen FX shots left to do. More like 2 dozen, although most are relatively minor.

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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Out of curiosity, what's the crappy compositing job that you're referring to?

And as always, looking forward to this.
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Will this come out before or after the X0 project?

Dr. M

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Originally posted by: tweaker
Out of curiosity, what's the crappy compositing job that you're referring to?


Remember when the Zod 3 approach the news cameras and Non picks up the monitor? The image it's displaying doesn't move perfectly with the monitor. It tracked pretty well for the 70's, but looks a lot better now. The thing that really made it crappy was in the first 6 frames. They had to matte around Non's huge head and it looks completely different on every frame. It looks like each frame was matted by six different people who didn't get to see the previous frame. And two were blind.

-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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Originally posted by: Doctor M
Will this come out before or after the X0 project?


Hmm... I don't know.

How's this: I promise it'll come out before Paint Wars.

-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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Well, it's been a year since I announced this project, and I fully expected to be done by now. But that isn't the case. My inexperience with the FX has really slowed me down. Just about every step has been a learning experience. And since I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these kinds of things, it takes a lot longer than it probably should.

For those of you still interested in seeing this edit, thanks for being patient and sticking with me! Even though I don't provide updates very often, it's not stalled and I haven't lost interest in the least. Slowly but surely it's progressing.

For the one year anniversary of this project's announcement I'm releasing a sample of the new title effects, modeled heavily after the original but with a twist:

titlestestdivx.avi (1.2mb Divx) <--- Right Click and Download

The font isn't perfect, and the animation still needs some tweaking. But I hope you agree that it's a major improvement over the Donnor Cut titles, and in some ways an improvement over the original (specifically, in the original, the transition from 3d letters to 2d was a jump, while now they're seamless). Let me know what you think!

Back to work on the important stuff...
-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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That is just awesome, man!
I am really looking forward to your complete project.
Your project will be worth it in the end, and all that hard word will pay off!
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excellent stuff, waiting with baited breath!
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That's incredible! I'm really impressed! What program did you use to do this?
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Thanks guys!

I prepared the 2d text in Illustrator, and then used After Effects 6.5 Pro for everything else. I think the non-pro version of AE would do the job too.

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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I took a break for a while, and directed a crew for the 48 hour film contest. I'll post a link to our finished movie when it comes online. In the mean time here are some pics of the shoot. I'm the dope in the grey shirt who looks like he's constantly pulling his pants up. I lost some weight.

I just fixed young Kent's wave at the train today. The original footage was sped up and it always bugged me because there was no frame blending or motion blur. Clark's hand just sort of flashes around the screen real quickly. I've added motion blur so now it looks much more realistic. It took about 2 and 1/2 hours and a few false starts.

Next on the list is removing Otis from a certain shot that he shouldn't be in...

-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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How is this project coming along? It has been a while. I am very much looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Galatians 2: 20: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

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nice to hear from you again Taolar, glad your still working on this really looking forward to it.
Any ideas on the frame work for the completed product?
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Originally posted by: Coov
How is this project coming along? It has been a while. I am very much looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

Being a married man, with 4 year old son, running his own business, I don't have nearly as much time as I'd like to work on this. I envy the college students who can churn these projects out in a few weeks. But it's still my main hobby and I work on it at least once a week. I'm just finishing up an FX shot where I'm removing Otis from this scene: mst-otisbeforeDIVX.avi

It's taking a long time because Otis moves behind Ms. T as her arms flail about and the camera starts to dolly just as he enters the scene.

Here's what I've done so far: mst_otis1_render.avi

Ms. T is missing her feet, and the rest of the scene hasn't been matted yet. But I think I should have the rest of it done this weekend.

Originally posted by: lorang
nice to hear from you again Taolar, glad your still working on this really looking forward to it.
Any ideas on the frame work for the completed product?


Hi Lorang. Do you mean time frame? I'd love to have it done by Christmas, but I've proven myself to be such such a bad judge of how long it takes me to do FX work, that I'm not going to promise a date right now.

-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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Hey man, not to provide undue pressure, but are you still working on this? I'm still interested in seeing it.
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Hey Guitarfan, I'm still working on it, although not as often as I'd like. I'm glad someone is still interested. It will be released in 08, without a doubt. Hopefully sooner than later.

-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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Good to hear it's still 'a go', I too am very much waiting to see this project!
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Thanks for the encouragement. I have four more FX scenes (not counting the titles) that are left to do on disc 1. The scene I'm working on now is fairly simple, but time consuming. The other three are going to require skills that I don't have yet. I have put a lot of thought into ideas on how to accomplish them, but apart from a few 3d models, I haven't tried any of them yet. When I'm done with the FX for disc one, I'm going to master the audio (which will require me to get my hands on a CD of the original score, since I've been working with lower quality mp3s for the themes that aren't isolated on the official dvd). Then I'll continue work on disc 2 while disc 1 is being tested by various people.

-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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I'm glad you're still working on it. I wish I had some f/x skills. I may need to develop some soon.

Are you using After Effects for the editing as well as the f/x, or is there another program you use to cut the video and/or audio tracks?
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Originally posted by: guitarfan01
Are you using After Effects for the editing as well as the f/x, or is there another program you use to cut the video and/or audio tracks?


After Effects would make a terrible editor. I use Premiere, but only because it's adobe's editor, and I purchased the creative suite (photoshop, premiere, after effects, and illustrator). I'd ditch premiere in a second if I found an editor that integrated easily with those other products. It's given me a lot of headaches over the years, and Adobe prefers to let the forum suggest workarounds, than actually issue a patch. I'll probably drop premiere when I'm done with this project.

-T


Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel

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Today I started working on the FX clip that I have been most worried about. I'm changing the text on something that is constantly in motion, changing direction, folding, slightly rotating, etc. I had several ideas on how to do it, but I really wasn't that confident that any of them would produce a seamless, professional result. There's too much motion blur for me to do any automatic tracking. And since this clip is integral to this fan edit, its really something that I've been worrying about. I've been procrastinating even attempting it since I started a year and a half ago. Back then I definitely didn't have the skills to pull it off.

I've been working on it for the last 5 hours, and just got to the point where I could partially render a half second of the clip, and I'm happy to say it's looking great! I still have probably another 12+ hours that I need to devote to it before it's perfect, but I'm so relieved that it's working that I had to tell somebody.

Back to work!
-T

Working on: Superman: Son of Jorel