Dogfight Animatics and Darth Vader

I created 2 more dogfight animatics this week.

Here's a 2-shot sequence from Scene D237, along with its corresponding "Star Wars" reference footage:

In this 1st screenshot, the TIE Defender flies towards the camera while shooting at Brad's Jedi Starfighter (off-camera). Laser bolts will be added later.


Here's another screenshot after the TIE Defender has gotten closer to the camera. This will look a lot cooler after Brad rotoscopes laser bolts.

Here's a 4-shot sequence from Scene D239, along with its corresponding "Revenge of the Sith" reference footage:

In this 1st screenshot, Brad's Jedi Starfighter is starting a counter-clockwise loop.
In the "Revenge of the Sith" reference shot (2nd picture, above), I drew a red arrow to show the Jedi Starfighter that I used as a reference, since there are so many ships in that shot.


In the 2nd screenshot, Brad's Jedi Starfighter is a little past the halfway point in the counter-clockwise loop.


In the 3rd screenshot, Brad's Jedi Starfighter is coming out of the loop.


And in this last screenshot, Brad's Jedi Starfighter zooms past the camera.

In addition to CG, we shot some live footage -- well, audio anyway. I definitely saved the best for last, because you guys are going to LOVE these video clips!

Garry, Sarah's old boss, looped our Darth Vader dialog. Here's a behind-the-scenes picture showing our state-of-the-art voice effects (aka "cardboard tube"):

It's kind of hard to tell, but the boom arm is on the bottom-right of the picture and the mic is being pointed at the end of the cardboard tube. Garry's son, David, did a great job keeping the mic in the correct position -- not an easy task because Garry would move the cardboard tube around while he was recording his lines. It's pretty funny to watch. :D

Anyway, laugh at our cardboard tube technique, but you can't argue with the results! Check this out -- the 1st video is my old (temporary) ADR, and the 2nd video is the new ADR with Garry's voice:


That last word that got cut off is "destination." Our actual animatic is fine, but for some reason when I render to Quicktime format, the audio gets screwed up. :(

Here's another before-and-after sample:

Absolutely amazing! Is it just me, or did Darth Vader suddenly become ALIVE in our movie?

Finding a good Darth Vader voice was extremely difficult. I gave it a shot, Jay gave it a shot, and Brad even recruited some people on Star Wars Fan Film Forums. Nothing was usable until last night. When we were recording Garry's dialog, Sarah and I would look at each other after a good take and smile at each other -- we knew we finally had our Darth Vader voice! It was a great feeling.

Since we shot the Darth Vader live footage about a year before recording Garry's ADR, the action and the dialog don't match-up 100%. So... I need to go back to the original Darth Vader raw footage, re-edit it to match Garry's ADR, then re-render. I'll probably do that next week.

Also, there are only 3 more dogfight animatics that need to be completed, so I'll try to work on those next week too.

Later,
Bob