AV: There were 123 special effects shots, in nine days I got a 'spine' of the effects done. I ended up fixing every shot over then next few months. I really have to thank my buddy Captain Morgan for helping me with all the VFX, he is a swell guy. Sadly, he was unaccredited in the film.
MY: I hear the Captain is quite good with After Effects. So how did you finish the film?
AV: Remember I'm on an older Apple G5. I exported film from Final Cut as an uncompressed file, that took about 8 hours (the film is 16 minutes). I added Red Giant's Frames in After Effects and film grain, that was 50 hours! And then compressing the first DVD was about 6 hours. I've done this twice now...
MY: As soon as you can afford it, you might want to consider upgrading your hardware. For your own sanity, if nothing else! :-) Did you utilize any green screen or blue screen?
AV: I didn't but I did a test with my roommate on blue screen. Below is my first Shake project :)
Panzer Corps Test 2
MY: What did you learn about filmmaking while making the movie?
AV: Oh wow, Michele. In post-production I was learning Apple's Shake as I went along. I would composite all day and take tutorials at night and apply those lessons to the next day's shots. Post felt like I was wrestling a bear, I was on top holding him in a headlock. He wanted to kill me, *laughing*, I had gotten myself in way too deep but I had to finish. I could go back and fix something in every shot but I gave myself a deadline and I kept to it for the most part. Later I trimmed 2 minutes to help speed up the film.
I'll just list stuff in a nonsensical list:
Marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), various compression standards, multiple plug-ins, how to punk youtube kids, preproduction with google aps, air cannons, guns, ebay scammers, motion tracking, keying, music rights, where to buy anything, working 3D space, analytics, headers, film festivals submissions, what your friends will do for you, film auditions, fliers, Amazon S3, social network sites, answering nice emails, answering a-hole emails, how to borrow money from your grandma, how to steal to pay back, sense of humor, really this list would go for a long while.
Needless to say this whole project was a learning experience. I learned as many things to not do as things worth doing.
