Category: Pre-production

Here is the start of the suit flashlight electronics and the 3D model of the front panel.  It’s being 3D printed still!

 

In other news we locked in a very talented Director/Cinematographer to help out during production. Very happy indeed to be working with such talented people.

Pre Production

I have settled on a final location and the producer has just gotta work out the details.  Hopefully that process is complete.  We are only a few weeks away from the production and there is still a great deal to do.

wCGI was worked on over the past couple of weeks. Some new help from Enrique who is polishing some models that were already created and creating a few of his own.

The script has been reworked and made considerably better.  Bernhard spent a great deal of time adding new awesome stuff, removing average stuff and generally polishing it up.  Tis now in a place where I think we have something really special to shoot.  Along with that Mike has been painstakingly breaking down the new version so that we can finalize all the items that make the film happen.

So things are progressing nicely with the suit.  Out of desperation  I borrowed a sewing machine and started making the undersuit.  Yes that is me using a sewing machine. Turns out to be not that difficult.  I bought a girl sized coat and got busy sewing some additinal ribs which is stuffed with the polyester. Seems to be working, just gotta finish it.

The Suit

I had a bit of a set back with the boots. I didn’t think they would need to be plastidipped and after a 5 minute walking test the paint was no more. Anyway that led to better stuff and a scene in the film where Freeman demonstrates the power of the HEV suit.

I have been working on every piece and adding details as I will be having my one fitting with Bernhard in a week or so.

It’s coming along.  Better? Maybe not yet. Inspired by Half-Life, You bet your ass. With the 3D printed logo, the electronics in the midriff, the undersuit to finish and then the aging, weathering, battle scars, etc, I think it will be an improvement for sure.

I am around about 80 hours of work on the suit redux.  Putting the original one together took me quite a bit longer.  I would say with time and materials, if I had paid myself a modest hourly rate I would we charging a buyer around $25,000 for it so far.  If someone offered me $25,000 to make another one, I would say no. (I would say no to $50k as well.) Several people have offered to pay for them. I have said no each time.  I will give it to one lucky person after we finish the film, as promised.

Vort

And now for something that literally has me doing a little dance.

Yep thats a Vortigaunt puppet. Or it will be soon.  You wanted a Vortigaunt and you will be getting one.  Not something half ass.   This will be incredible when it’s finished.

Relish the moment.

Short update but lots of cool stuff going on behind the scenes guys.

I think I will start posting shorter updates more frequently as some of there posts are taking a lot of time away from the film.

Thanks!

HEV Suit

I finally pulled out the needle and thread.  Being that Bernhard (Freeman) and I no longer live in the same city the sizing of the suit is tricky.  It has to stretch to fit him but also be tight and stay in place.  Nothing beats just being able to have him come over to test things out.

But alas I am making things work with an old mannequin I pulled out of a dumpster was given by a local department store.  It’s quite a bit bigger than Bernhard so in comes the elastic, black polyester thread, needles and some of the worse sewing you have ever seen. See left. I was not confident that any type of glue alone would hold the elastic (see image right) in place, so I pulled out the sewing kit and got to work.  We’ll see how it holds up. I did apply liberal cyanacrolate as well.

I have basically sliced down the seam of every piece of the suit and sewn in either elastic or some kind of buckle in place. It’s a good thing as the suit was endlessly slipping down in the first episode and a couple times we forgot to move it back into place and that bothered me greatly.

Have blazed forward on several pieces this week.  Got to work on the thighs, the biceps and the cod piece/belt.  I painted all the edges in silver acrylic then dabbed a bunch of copydex/masking fluid all along the edges.  Once that was dry I spray painted the whole thing with a couple of coats of acrylic spray paint.  Once that was dry I picked the copydex off which leaves a nice chipped, worn edge look. Every time I do a new piece I discover some way to make it look or work even better.  The only problem being that takes 5 time longer to make it and the filming deadline is getting closer not farther away.

Undersuit is still a work in progress. I received the garment and stuffed it with the filling from a polyester pillow I found in the bedroom in the garage.  I plastidipped some of the fabric to see how it takes paint and we’ll see how it goes.  Out of everything I think the undersuit is still my main worry, it has to fit the actor really closely and that generally involves making patterns and stuff like that.  Costume designer shit that makes foam and paint seem like a piece of cake.

The 3D printed parts are delayed (thanks Shapeways), 3D printing is an amazing process if you ever actually get the parts in the mail. Delivery is now due in December so I may just have to start the progress on the chest without it.

Still got an immense amount of work to do but the main thing is that progress is being made. Part of me wishes I had just made some minor modifications to the suit but a bigger part really wants to be as authentic as humanly possible.  Even if i do go nuts.

I think I will start dedicating each piece to a backer as it gets complete.  Maybe its cool to know that your $150 went to a particular piece of the movie and if the camera was in the right place it would see the name of the backer.  Gerry you can let me know if its a good idea or not.

CGI

Rodrigo and his team have been working on some CGI elements. The Vortigaunt has come along a good ways and a test shot for Vortigaunt lighting is part complete.  Very exciting to see these things come together. Modeling a realistic Vortigaunt is a very time consuming process, then the texturing, lighting and rigging are all monumental tasks themselves.

We want to have something available for testing but its really a massive project so we will likely be deep into post production before this model is complete. Then there is motion.  There maybe a small possibility of mocap.  We’ll see.

LOCATIONS

Location scouting ccontinues.  Location people are not the most responsive, especially not at the budget we are at. No love for the indie film makers these days. There are some other really awesome locations that we want to use. See the pictures below. One of these locations would be fantastic so hopefully we can get the right people to respond. I really, really, really hope we can get these, or locations like them. Really I do, really.

Sick eh?

CASTING

Casting is going to be ramped up soon.  The number of actors required for this episode is much bigger.  We have revisited the script to see about cutting it down and combining some people to reduce cost.  We will likely need some kind of stunt team for this film and that’s a challenge in itself.

So that’s about it for this week.

Pre production continues.

Production or modification of the HEV suit is going slower than hoped.  The undersuit is really pissing me off. The effect I am trying to achieve with the ribbing is proving to be difficult to create without the tools of a seamstress. I am going to try cannibalizing some existing garments and I’ll share that progress next week once it arrives from amazon.

So from the images below: The horse shoe shaped thing is the padding that goes into the top of the chest piece.  It was red before, but I had to re-cover it in pleather so as to match the look of Half-Life.

I finished the other wrist and some modifications and details.  I have decided to take the whole suit to a more orange look, as per Half-Life.  The HEV Mk5 concept art from VALVE had a yellow/orange de-saturated look to it and I tried to emulate that first time around.  This time I want to emulate the Black Mesa model based on the HEV suit in original game with some additional stuff and a bit of my own flair. I can only do so much, as the suit is just one part of the film.

I have added a kind of jump/fall shock absorber to the boot for effect. This is a bit of creative license. The feet will be the least seen part of the suit so I can practice and have my screw ups on parts that don’t get a lot of screen time.

The suit is still a big work in progress. None of the really fine detail is done yet.  All of that, i will leave until the very end.  Right now it looks like a big orange thing. Although I think the suit will be 3 or 4 times better in this film than the previous. I was never happy with it.  It just looked fake to me and it had no weight to it. This time I am improving something that already exists so it’s more interesting.  Oh and I will also put weights in it. The chest electronics are being tackled soon as well as the chest itself.

Location scouting continues. Some shots of ones I particularly like. We are still waiting on costs of these. Conceivably we could do a 3 day shoot but depending on the cost of locations it could end up being two. I was originally planning 4 but then the producer told me in a nice way I am an idiot and to get my head out of my ass out of the clouds. 🙂

Visual effects are being broken down and prioritized.  Work on the Vort model and the nasty green lighting has begun.  The modeling of the barnacle has also been started. There is a small team spending a few hours each per week now.  It’s really opening up the possibilities for what will might be able to do in this episode.  And don’t worry, I will avoid using CG for the sake of it and I am not a fan of CG that obviously isn’t real so there wont be any of that either.

Episode one had only a single computer generated shot (slo mo bullet). I made it in 3D studio max after I got excited watching an Andrew Kramer tutorial. There was a bunch of compositing in post production but it was all 2D, guns, smoke, bullet hits, blood splats, etc.

For this episode we have done far more complex work simply for testing.  It’s really an exciting process but very time consuming. VFX production on the first episode was pretty much a solo affair and my experience in 3D is was very limited. It still is, but the experience of the guys working on it right now is not limited at all.

Lastly I have been breaking down what props and costumes are absolutely necessary for the film.  I had a bit of stuff from the first film plus the teaser we shot.  I have added a bunch of soldier uniforms and weapons that will be needed to pull of the scenes that feature many HECU marines.

There is a urge to buy a bunch of props and what not, but the budget doesn’t have the leway for that, so it’s better to get the minimum required to get the shot.

There will certainly be instances where we shoot multiple shots of the same scene to composite many more people than we will have available on set, thus reducing the need for people, equipment, props, food, transport, etc.

We need to do several large scale gore effects for this episode and I am breaking down those scenes to see what we can achieve for the money we have.  Major death count, gibs and some crazy burn makeup would all be ideal.  Whether or not we will have the budget we still need to fill the spots on the team that will be taking care of this.

I am hoping for the return of our SFX artist Leanne who I have worked with a couple of times now.  She has bene stellar but we have never got any money to pay her what she is worth so it’s fingers crossed time again. If she does have a gap in her scedule I am sure she will need help on this one, we will be looking for additional people as we get closer.

That’s all for this week.  We have a mountain to climb to get this thing done, but we have some great people along for the ride.  It’s always best to get the great people first and then figure out how your going to get there after.

Chariotdrive

 

P.S. Remember to get more Freeman glasses this time!