Lounge Production Presents: Joint Efforts Project

[Guest]

Since I don't feel it would be right to take over the thread started by Steven, I start a new one. This thread is going to be dedicated to producing a movie as a result of those voluneers' joint efforts, who are members of Adobe Community.

The main objective for this project is to collaboratively create final product from scratch: from defining the project scope to finally publish a movie somewhere, be it a dedicated website or just YouTube or Vimeo, as we'll define later.

This main objective is not the only project's goal. It is assumed, participants will be able to work on a particular tasks so as to improve their own skills in a desired field via sharing creativity, knowledge and skills.

I also hope we'll gain the Forum moderators' support so as to be able to appropriately update this original post so that others, who might arrive here later, will be able to understand at which stage the project is that time.

Now let's try to define the project scope.

By 15 October we reached our first milestone and defined

PRODUCT SCOPE and PROJECT CONSTRAINTS & QUALITY CRITERIA

Product Scope

Item	Specification	Priority
Movie, The	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 60 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps Compulsory Elements: - 3D graphics and VFX (SciFi) incorporated into live shots - Specific consistent look (colour design)	Highest
Dedicated website	Genre: Promotional website Scope: 2 pages Compulsory Elements: - Web animation - Video streaming	High
Official trailer	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 30 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps	Medium
Behind the scene movie	Genre: Documentary Duration: 2 minutes Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps Compulsory Elements: - Short interviews with the project participants - VFX breakdown	Medium
Talk show appearance	Genre: TV commercial Duration: 30 seconds Quality: Broadcast Safe Luminance & Chrominance Format: 1080p, 24 fps, H.264, 32/40 Mbps	Low
Poster	Genre: 16 x 9 Billboard Quantity: 1 sample Format: 1920 x 1080 pix, PNG Genre: 4 x 3 Affiche Quantity: 1 sample Format: 1080 x 810 pix, PNG	High
Print ads	Genre: Glossy magazine ad, Front cover Quantity: 1 sample Format: Full page, Page-proof PDF Genre: Newspaper ad, Multi-column print Quantity: 1 sample Format: ¼ Page, Page-proof PDF	Medium
Article	Genre: Review Quantity: 1 sample Format: Page-proof PDF, ~500 words	Medium
Brief Report on Collaborative Tools	Genre: Review Quantity: 1 article Format: Page-proof PDF	Highest

Project Constraints & Quality Criteria

- 24 December 2013 is a strict deadline;

- All media used in final product, from sound to 3D model textures, must be created by the project participants. Utilising stock media in final product is not allowed;

- Missing media or incomplete elements must be replaced with placeholders, white noise or subtitles, which explain what is missing (e.g. 'nice music is playing on the background' or 'nice colour grading applied here' etc.);

- The project is accepted as successful in terms of quality control, if no less than 90% of all planned work is complete. The overall progress is calculated as the following ratio:

(SUM OF COMPLETE ELEMENTS MULTIPLIED BY THEIR WEIGHTS) / (SUM OF ALL PLANNED ELEMENTS MULTIPLIED BY THEIR WEIGHTS)

- The project is accepted as successful in terms of attractiveness to external audience, if we reach 1 000 hits within three months after final product release, where

100 hits = 100 website landing page visits = 10 visits of 2nd page = 10 movie views = 1 movie download.

The following hits distribution is expected:

600 hits within 1st month after release;

250 hits within 2nd month after release;

150 hits within 3rd month after release.

Discussion on the next project phase, planning tasks list and obtaining required resources, starts at comment #84.

[able123]

Hmmm.. must elaborate....

The 60 sec commercial is to SELL a documentary .  We will never make the documentary.  That is a given.

To sell the documentary we need parts of the DOCUMENTARY we will never make in its entirety.

Therefore we need the animation to SELL the documentary ( the animation 3d stuff is with live action ).  Eventually a shot list for exactly what parts of that will be decided.

in the MEANTIME for a poster to be made, a frame of the 3d animation would be nice to have as a background ( movie poster type thing )... also can be used in greenscreen whatever.

know what I mean ??

[Guest]

However, for the purpose of a " poster" ( and other ads, advertising )

Rod, for the purpose of a 'poster' I need to understand whether I will be able to incorporate 3D model into a live shot in principle and, preferably, complete my job in time. I won't be able, for example, within the project framework to create something with rigging - I'm just not skilled enough in 3D so as to declare such an ambitious task, while I could probably create a static 3D model for the sake of 'poster'. The question is why wasting my time on creating a 3D model, which is intended for rigged animation, if I know from the very beginning I won't succeed?

[able123]

yikes..

I see what you mean...

My only experience with 3d stuff is with maya.. and that has been very rudimentary. exporting an animation from there can be a number of things, including tif files or avi files etc...with alpha channel... so that I could drop what I want in that alpha channel in premiere etc.

I could also pick a camera and export a much 'larger' single frame of that animation ( like 300 dpi and very big dimensions in inches -- a single frame )...that is the one that I would use to make the poster image(s) within the design for poster ( the poster becomes a design thing in its own right to sell product ).

sooo, the maya stuff I did was with no rigging or real models but only stuff I made in maya.... and lets say I did something like an egg that turns into a spaceship and gets sliced up into flying saucers, and those flying saucers separate from original egg....I could have the alpha channel be the earth as seen from some nasa photo etc....

so now I have a model egg, turns into spaceship ( skin with metal looking stuff instead of egg shell ... and morph that transition in timeline )... and then it gets into slices ( separate the parts in timeline ) and then those parts fly off in different directions....

That could be the TOTAL of animation needed for the 60 sec commercial.  ONLY ONE FRAME of that would be needed for the poster.

The poster would ALSO inlude other stuff in its own design.. to sell the product ( text, credits, head shots, whatever )...  The fiction is the documentary. The commercial is the product we are making. The single frame for poster is coming FROM the commercial ( and ultimately reflects the documentary ).

[able123]

http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/duane_hanson.htm

you would use this type of materials ??

[able123]

ps

there is no such thing as knowing you wont succeed.. that is fiction.  I  have felt that way about shooting some of the stuff needed for this project..and working around that by thinking of new ways to approach the problem.. namely, the more simple idea of a commercial to sell a non existent documentary.... using simple maysles junk to do that.  everyone can do that.

now we have to figure out how your part fits in so you can do what you want and we make it work. no problem ...

[Guest]

now we have to figure out how your part fits in so you can do what you want and we make it work. no problem ...

Great! That's generally called planning, about which I've been talking for some time now.

Things like 'knowing for sure' do exist. They are based on clear understanding what ongoing skills are, what time required to improve them so as to be able to accomplish a task of a particular complexity is and what the deadline to accomplish the task is.

[able123]

This guy, Bill Wunder, and me, and a guy named 'chip' , homesteaded an abandoned building in the alphabet area ( 9st bet B and C ) back in the early 80's after getting out of Pratt.

We put money in escrow acct to buy from city for back taxes... and fixed up building so we could live there with water, elec and so on.  It was really dumb but cheap, and the city didn't give us the lease cause NYU and some corp matching funds got into developing the area, after we made it sorta 'safe'.  Artists were there due to cheap rents etc.. but we had to basically kick out the drug dealers without making them too mad .. or else they would just burn us out..

Anyway, Bill ended up moving down the road and opened his model making business there and ( amazingly ) stayed there.. is probably there today.  He went to Eton and could have used family money to be more " normal" .. but stuck with his own ethics and did stuff on his own.

We shared a lot of stuff back in those days.. living in the same apartment and building and dealing with all that stuff ...and I was into photography. I shot this one night around the corner from where we homesteaded that building...with a leica m3 ... 10 sec exp. tri X at 200... leaning on hood of car...

I liked the way the steam over time made a swirling motion... kinda like a volcano in nyc ??

Anyway, this is stuff Bill worked on....

Courtesy Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP / Modelmaker: SOM/Bill Wunder / Photo: Jock Pottle/ESTO

http://architecture.about.com/od/worldtradecenter/ig/WTC-9-11-Memorial-/Model-View-from-North.htm

Trust me, it took a lot of work for him to get there.  Not to mention saki heated up.. we froze our asses off in the winters down there in the 80's.

[able123]

point is, he has the shop to make models...

the clients can be anyone.. dont matter.. could be artists that need stuff fabricated... like this guy.. the man who made this was a carpenter in local 52.. film biz...nyc...

oldenburg

[Steven L. Gotz]

I will have two such young women in my "garage studio" at Thanksgiving. One of whom is a film school student and possibly more inclined to help out than her older sister might be.

I have a greenscreen already, and the lights to light it properly, but I have been considering one of those expandable ones that always stay perfectly stretched out without wrinkles. And it has blue on the other side in case they want to wear something green for the holiday atmosphere. After all, if December 24th is the deadline, something will have to be done about acknowledging the holidays.

I will be getting my PC back up and running this weekend. My wife's closet is almost done, with one more trip to IKEA and one to the Container Store. Then I need a decent desk to set up my stuff in the new office/editing suite. I want to get one of those PC stands with wheels for the big PC so a trip to Fry's is in my future. It is close to the Container Store. I would really like to get a special wheeled stand that could have the PC and the UPS but I don't know if they make such things. We'll see.

[able123]

very cool ! Please consider wardrobe, like hats, eyeglasses, wigs, eggs ( close ups ? ), macro stuff ( iris of eyes ), tons of stuff to consider....and shoot 24 fps 1080p.

That way you can make the same girls look like different girls as needed...

and there are probably some cheap places nearby ( used clothing etc ) to get those items.

also.. think about music. Most actors who are thinking they are " models " like to have some sort of high energy music in the 'studio'. I recommend the mindless high tech stuff and try to shy away from the laid back stuff ( like crosby stills and nash ).

thanks for visiting !

[able123]

just saw this... he is one of my most favorite artists.. his work is really really amazing. There's only about 10 people in all history I know of in this category...

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/arts/design/leger-modern-art-and-the-metropolis-at-philadelphia-mu...

the show and article dont do him justice, but its better than nothin...

[Guest]

Brief report for today.

I keep exploring free project management tools, and Teambox was another victim for this weekend. See key findings below.

Tasks and milestones.

The tool presents even more crooked paradigm on tasks and milestones than ZOHO:

- there are officially no milestones, whereas tasks themselves have no starting date and hence no duration at all, they only have due date and are portrayed as dots in Gantt chart;

- consequently tasks can’t be divided into subtasks (even though Teambox developers claim they are going to implement subtask feature in a next release, I can’t imagine how it could be possible to implement that without full revision of the whole paradigm);

- duration is the property of task lists. The way of setting duration is quite inconvenient: calendar shows only one month, but neither previous nor next one, so it’s difficult to set proper task list duration visually, whereas it’s impossible to set duration as amount of days or hours directly – this feature is not supported for some reason;

- neither tasks nor task lists have dependencies, it’s impossible to define critical path;

- even though Teambox provides time tracking, I have no the slightest idea on how this information could be utilised on conditions of tasks duration inexistence.

Some sort of a workaround for lack of subtasks can be achieved via assigning hash tags in task names.

File sharing support.

Teambox provides integration with Google Drive, Box and Dropbox. Box itself can probably be useful if it is paid account, but even though it offers 10 GB storage for free account, it imposes 250  MB file size limit. Dropbox doesn’t impose file size limitations, but Teambox in turn doesn’t provide Dropbox support for free account. Only Google Drive is fully supported with free Teambox accounts.

Files from Google Drive, Box and Dropbox have to be attached to a task before they appear in Files section, while I’d rather Teambox supported their direct attachment to folders in Files section so that it were possible to accumulate and manage all assets in one place. Also current file management implementation is a bit inconvenient: it’s impossible to just drill down a folder to see all subfolders and hence easily locate and move files from one folder to another. Sounds like the majority of web based applications suffer from that illness.

Aside from exploring project management tools I seems managed to find out what can substitute SWF object. I tested several tools for JavaScript obfuscation, so you can try yourself what this nice JavaScript code loaded into HTML5 webpage does (I created test website, which I’ll be using until we officially decide where to host our dedicated to ‘Movie, The’ one. Since it was Steven, who wanted to explore Creative Cloud tools, I left it to him and for the time being just picked the first free website hosting service I had been able to find with Google search):

I have no idea how simple or difficult it is to decompile obfuscated code back for human reading (Nancy can comment this on). For the time being I’m hoping it is the right direction.

[able123]

Wow, great going Fuzzy... the tools re: management and real time collaboration stuff are amazing. I kinda like the zoho one so far compared to this one.. even though even zoho has to be enhanced with stuff like our own emails and the thread here... at least it is exploring what 'works' as opposed to what is advertised and hoped for.

Nancy probably doesnt have a email notification for posts on this thread. We might try to contact her over at dreamweaver in a new thread... see if she can help more. The code for using swf and flv, or just flv without swf file, and the other device dependent ( and browser dependent ) video stuff is what Nancy posted earlier.. it is very complicated ( hehe.. that made me laugh when she said that ).  If it's something on the server side ( code behind ) so the client doesn't see that on the source code of pages .. it is full of stuff way beyond me ..

At least I can appreciate what is involved to some extent.. but thats about it.  She is an MVP and might know others in dreamweaver to yap with about this project ?

We should contact someone at IN Design as well.. for the poster and print ad stuff... as there's no way I can make a movie sized poster at 300dpi and have local printer do that with 4 colors...the size of that file alone with me using photoshop would be retarded. And I haven't tried to load Quark back into the new mouse OS.. that's a long story...but bascially quark for me started with a few 3.5" discs and then a ton of upgrades over the years.

I discovered that my dreamweaver serial number (macromedia) was on the back cover of the manual , which I left in NY when I moved... so that's history.

I got into the speedgrade stuff finally today.. with tutorials on mouse and working on pig... 2 computers side by side.  It is kinda cool !  Chad Perkins is doing the tutorials for adobe TV and I like him and the way he does stuff ( had a Lynda dot com tutorial for cs3 he made -- basic and advanced -- that was really good ).  In fact, 'mom getting in car' that I used for Red camera test was from his shot list in tutorial !

Sooo, for me so far....as far as my own desire with project goes....and learning about collaboration and my own workflow..... I am in fact shooting what I think works best from my nikon ( using ninja and getting mov with avid codec ), and will go right into speedgrade from there....for each clip I shoot.. and then go into prePro for editing.  That's as far as I've got so far.. no clue how to export from speedgrade etc...but its way better than just using levels in PrePro and then edit, and then go to SG .. I think... this is what I'm finding out... with this project.

[shooternz]

and will go right into speedgrade from there....for each clip I shoot.. and then go into prePro for editing.  That's as far as I've got so far.. no clue how to export from speedgrade etc...but its way better than just using levels in PrePro and then edit, and then go to SG .. I think...

Grading clips out of context and without any certainty they will lmake the cut...seems to be an inefficient workflow IMHO

[Nancy OShea]

I created test website, which I’ll be using until we officially decide where to host our dedicated to ‘Movie,

First, I can't reach your test web site.  The server keeps timing out.

Second, the JavaScript obfuscation is lost on me.  Why do you even need this?

Obfuscation is easily defeated by disabling JS in your browser. 

If you want to hide code from people, use PHP or some other server-side programming language, not a client-side language. 

Nancy O.

[able123]

shooter, I probably would not be moving all takes into speedgrade ever... for a roughcut ----  maybe just go to PrePro for that ....  do levels and do roughcut.

maybe for dailies I would do all takes straight to speedgrade, do a quick look thing for that stuff..  I really have no clue yet.. but am learning how to use the SG thing anyway...

I hear what youre saying .. havent figured it out yet.  It sorta depends on what I learn about the export from SG.. not up to that tutorial yet. From what I've read etc.. the round trip stuff and DL with SG is junk...so I gotta figure stuff out.

Nancy, thanks for post... same with me, couldn't see the website... even after adding " index.html " to the link...

The code behind stuff you refer to is the way to go I think.. I used to use visual basic with asp.net when I was learning that stuff with ms visual studio and sql server.  But I dumped all that and as you delicately mentioned... my dinasaur days are long gone

[able123]

Nancy, I'm using inmotionhosting as a server for website ( which is sorta a dead duck .. I just use that really to share stuff with pages and ftp off dot com site .... )

If you could help us out I could give you the info for the server and you might be able to use the functions they have ? can use mysql, php, park domains, redirect, all sorts of cool stuff. ????

you would basically own my server though.. the id and pass to the server root I use.

[Steven L. Gotz]

Just FYI,

I should be back to the forums a little more pretty soon. I bought the desks for the office/studio today, so the big PC ought to be up and running by the end of the day tomorrow.

Then I need to buy my wife a PC since we will not need to share anymore. We finally have room for two. She doesn't need a lot of power but she does need enough for basic things like Photoshop and a few other programs she uses.

I want tp put my big PC on one pf those wheeled stands. I need to find one that accounts for my fans being on the bottom of the case.

[Guest]

First, I can't reach your test web site.  The server keeps timing out.

Works fine for me, no single error so far.

Second, the JavaScript obfuscation is lost on me.  Why do you even need this?

Obfuscation is easily defeated by disabling JS in your browser.

If you want to hide code from people, use PHP or some other server-side programming language, not a client-side language.

The goal is quite simple: yes, I want to hide code from strangers. Yes, I do realise that everything, including code inside SWF, can be reverse engineered / decompiled. The point is how easy it can be done? Whether will it worth the efforts?

Regard to PHP, not every server supports it (yes, this statement is mostly applicable to free hosting), while I want to be able to deliver website to any. I didn't get how disabling JavaScript in browser can defeat obfuscation if all that html page does is loading external JavaScript. What does an end-user get this way? Blank page? Then I'm fine with that.

[Guest]

Since our product has something to do with Sci Fi, I suggest the following website design concept:

- webpage generally looks like a cockpit view;

- control panel consists of two panes: main buttons like 'Movie, The', 'Behind the Scene' etc., which are basically website menu buttons, and 'Content Dependent Control Panel'

If a user pushes e.g. 'Movie, The' button, a panel with stylised YouTube player controls appears. From here the official trailer can be watched and 'Movie, The' file downloaded.

If 'Environment Check' was selected, a panel, which allows to watch talk show appearance and browse posters, print ads and article, replaces previous controls.

The 'Pilot Manuals' leads to review on collaborative tools.

Now it's up to project management team whether to reject this concept or approve and build upon.

[able123]

Steve, great news... hope you find a nice desk type apparatus etc for computer and nice inexpensive puter for better half.  I put cs6 on the mouse with win7 and it works fine ...with just 4 gig ram and average graphics card etc..

I like your idea for the web homepage Fuzzy.. looks nice and simple and easy to use...

I wonder if some of the website could be used for other things as well.. like signing in to find out more about working on collaborative projects maybe ?.. but that would be a webmaster thing and in the spirit of getting something out of the work and time put into stuff ... some of that might just be what the webmaster thinks would benefit them ?

[Nancy OShea]

I wonder if some of the website could be used for other things as well.. like signing in to find out more about working on collaborative projects maybe ?.

Like Tiki Wiki perhaps?

http://info.tiki.org/tiki-index.php

Nancy O.

[able123]

wow.. thanks nancy.. thats amazing .. never saw that before....

[able123]

I wonder if you could work that sorta stuff into a website for our particular ' adobe lounge' collaborative effort dealing with a bunch of creative sorts of peoples.. spanning the adobe product line..( at least the current ) ... put together an idea of your own for a website that deals with immediate ( 4 months ? ) stuff and design it in a way that goes freely into future things that help your own clients or potential clients .. more or less point to you to solve both art type stuff and database stuff ( metrics as well as the heart ? ).

art is impossible to describe ( as is love ). The dictionary calls art the study of aesthetics, and aesthetics is the philosophy of art, and beauty is aesthetics.. so the whole subject sorta goes in a never ending circle ...but to combine THAT with metrics and sharing ... is pretty exciting I think... kinda like the link you posted ?

[able123]

just installed new ms office program on new mouse....will chk out the XL stuff soon....get moving more maybe with doc files...