headbin

Comic updated

headbin gallery :: 20050630 comic I've updated my comic with stills from the shoot.

Site design forum

More thoughts into the site design process would be welcomed around now in the forums.
http://modfilms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=140

One thing I've picked up in my travels recently is that the simplest part of the project is also the hardest - how do we get across the concept of a re-mixable film in the shortest amount of time? So far, the best way has been to starting re-mixing Sanctuary on the fly with my little two-octave keyboard.

Another is how far we've got to go to make this SIMPLE and FUN for people.

How is this for a site design aspiration?

Get the idea within 30 seconds of looking at the modfilms.net home page.

Also on the cards, a call for pitches for all kinds of design goodies -

* information graphics for Sanctuary (both State and Activist)
* Sanctuary The Film web site
* modfilms.net phase one site

And that's just the beginning.

Getting the message across

More juggling this week. The rough cut is still very rough and the story needs a lot of massaging into coherant shape.

Needing to get more people involved in this forum on community site design.

http://modfilms.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=140

Visionbytes - metadata enhanced content

// visionbytes.com // metadata enhanced content

I met with Peter Fox from Visionbytes today to have a look at their XML tagging and browser capabilities. They've produced some impressive systems like the Video Hansard system used by Australian Federal Parliament and the all digital content management system used for Southern Star Productions.

Looking at their samples, two strong lessons emerged. Work with the flow of how customers are already using the data (e.g. their tools mimic what data entry people already use in various industries) and keep track of the start and end of every single word spoken.

In the case of Sanctuary, this implies tagging each and every event.

They are using Dragon speech recognition .

Sputnik 7

sputnik7 - Music Videos, Film, Full-Length Anime, & Free MP3 Downloads

EMI loved these guys and their Video on Demand Internet setup. Good example of vapourware though. Check the dates and update frequency. Case study in what to do (creating a buzz) and what not to do (burning out straight after launch).

Postcard from the edit suite

We almost have a rough cut. Not having the VFX side of the project locked in at this stage is proving a headache. I spent all of last week creating placeholder effects for the edit without which there are too many gaps in the narrative for it to make sense. We start showing the cut to people this week.

* Getting modelling and animation underway
* Finalising the copy for infographics
* Getting the story straight
* Finding the best bg plates for compositing, most options are DV
* Should Blake have shark eyes or not? Is she too hard to emphasise with like that?

rabbitears

XMedialab powerpoint

Yesterday I gave a sneak preview of Sanctuary at the XMediaLab - Singapore. We weren't ready with our Crystalspace-powered demo so I used Arkaos to re-mix the rushes. The project got a good reception and the VJ demo seemed to make all the difference in terms of explaining what the scope of re-mixing is all about.

One of the biggest challenges we're facing on the project is keeping the whole virtual team informed as to what we're doing. Volumes of text have been written now on the subject but nothing quite gets the subject across like a live demo. We must arrange more inward-facing ones.

PDF

Powerpoint

VJ tests

I've started mucking about with the rushes in Arkaos VJ. Fug's Motion Matte in particular, a Free Frame plugin, is quite good for suggesting RIG-style machine vision since it uses a simple differencing algorithm to create a b&w matte from movement in the video. The text is a cursor effect flash movie I picked up somewhere.

INTERVIEW MICHELA LEDWIDGE ON SBS

http://trac.modfilms.com:7861/realmedia/2005/mp3/sbs.mp3

Slow going

Another false-start today. Our dubs for editing weren't ready for us. There seems to be some problem at Cutting Edge with Superman and their machines are working around the clock. Told "if it's any consolation, Superman didn't get their dailies today". It wasn't really. Tim Steel, our new editor, is booked to do a TV show at the end of the month. We can't afford to slip anymore. Made several calls to arrange for emergency dubbing in the morning. Let's hope things get sorted overnight anyhow.

Spent the rest of the day working on the business plan for re-mixable DVDs, doing an pre-recorded interview for SBS Radio, and messing about in Arkaos VJ. My poor old Dell can't handle the latest 3D effects in the software but it still manages to scrub reasonably happily through 3x12Gb's worth of mini-DV rushes. Going to go and play on my brother-in-law's gaming beast of a machine and do some test renders with some of these real-time effects.

Congrats messages still filtering in from people who saw the article in the paper today and think we're all done. Hah!

SMH article with Russell and Brad

Well not quite... but alongside anyhow. Now we better finish the damn things!

Mixing movies at home - Film - Entertainment - smh.com.au

Xian's production stills

The full catalogue of Xian's production and reference stills from the shoot.

http://modfilms.thaumagen.com/pics/thumbnails/xian_thumbnails.pdf

CD pitch - JM2

SANCTUARY NEWSLETTER > JUNE 01 > 2005

ANU PILOTS VIRTUAL EDITING PROCESS
Yesterday the Australian National University demonstrated a pilot project to make a multimedia work available on-line using XML technology. Essentially they took a published disk-based multimedia work and deconstructed it into the component images, text and audio. The relationships between the components were then documented using an RDF-like language and finally everything got stored in the ANU's DSPACE digital archive. Cocoon software was then used to reconstruct on demand several versions of the original work for on-screen and print use. Perhaps the ANU's approach could be used for a film like 'Sanctuary', especially since editing the metadata would create a new 'virtual edit' of the film.

BIT TORRENT SEARCH
The man behind the popular BitTorrent file-sharing program has set up a way of searching for torrent files. The search tool on Bram Cohen's website makes it easier to find links which can then be used to download large files. t was launched as US authorities shut down a prominent BitTorrent site, Elite Torrents, which had links to download the new Star Wars movie. BitTorrent has become linked to online piracy due its widespread use to distribute copyrighted material. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4587371.stm

iTUNES FOR FILMS
Sony is to make its top 500 films available digitally in the next year. Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, said at a US Digital Hollywood conference that it wanted to create an 'iTunes for films'. Films will be put onto Flash Memory for mobiles over the next year, said Mr Arrieta, and it will develop its digital download services for films.

iPOD VS ART
About six months ago, artist Francis Hwang was blocked from selling an unauthorized Special-Edition Negativland vs. U2 IPod on eBay's auction site after Apple complained it violated its copyrights. Sometime later Hwang decided to ditch eBay and sell the iPod on his own website with the intention of turning a statement about Pop Culture into a Free Speech issue, even if Apple should launch a legal challenge. To this day Hwang still hasn't heard a peep from the folks at Apple, which is really rather odd considering how eager Apple were to embrace the customization of their iPod by a series of notorious Artist/Illustators about a year before Hwang embarked on his Redesign Project. You can check out those iPod Skins Apple went gaga over right here: http://www.macskinz.com/MACSKINZ/artist_series.html

COPYRIGHT FREEDOM FIGHTERS QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"It's about time that the obvious esthetic validity of appropriation begins to be raised in opposition to the assumed preeminence of copyright laws prohibiting the free reuse of cultural material. Has it occurred to anyone that the private ownership of mass culture is a bit of a contradiction in terms?" - Negativland

PR photographs

Photos for the press. http://modfilms.com/pr. Only give this link out to people who are confirmed as writing an article on us.