The making of Operation: Dogsbody
Dogsbody was shot entirely using a Sony HC7 Camcorder in SD and edited using Vegas Pro 8. The music was made using Sony Acid.
Because the computer I was using at the time was kinda skanky I didn't have enough performance to work in high definition, but at the time I thought this would be a month long project.... How hard could making a film really be? Did I really care about quality... naaa I just wanted to see if I could tell a story using visuals... I chose a simple story, something that could take place in a single room with a single actor, me. Why? Because I like being on film? Heck no, because I knew I was so clueless nobody else would put up with my ineptitude.
I knew I knew a bit about photography, a bit about computers and I like making models... apart from that.... Clueless.
The film I basically stole the idea from is called Hardware and has just been re-released on DVD if you care to check it out. When I finally stepped away from the computer and called it done, it had taken 2 years of my free time. How the heck did that happen?
Anyway this page has some pictures I found on my HDD that otherwise were going to get deleted...
Because the computer I was using at the time was kinda skanky I didn't have enough performance to work in high definition, but at the time I thought this would be a month long project.... How hard could making a film really be? Did I really care about quality... naaa I just wanted to see if I could tell a story using visuals... I chose a simple story, something that could take place in a single room with a single actor, me. Why? Because I like being on film? Heck no, because I knew I was so clueless nobody else would put up with my ineptitude.
I knew I knew a bit about photography, a bit about computers and I like making models... apart from that.... Clueless.
The film I basically stole the idea from is called Hardware and has just been re-released on DVD if you care to check it out. When I finally stepped away from the computer and called it done, it had taken 2 years of my free time. How the heck did that happen?
Anyway this page has some pictures I found on my HDD that otherwise were going to get deleted...
Cyborg Glove Puppet
This was my first attempt at the robot puppet. At the time I thought a glove puppet was the way to go. The head is made from some found items with red lights from Radio Shack. The problem with the puppet head was that it was a little small for my hand and also the lights kept burning out. You gotta admit though, its kinda cute.
Mk2 Animatronic head with RC
The Mk2 head is uses 3 channels of radio control. There are 2 servos to control rotation and tilt, plus a 3rd to work the jaw. This head also has better lighting. You can see in these pictures the head is made from ply, balsa and plastic sheet, detailed with cocktail sticks for teeth and plastic model parts. Its really rough, when I made it, I was expecting the project to last a month, not the 2 year slog it turned into.
This robot has arms that were driven by sticks like Kermit, and also had a hollow tail that could be made to thrash around by pumping canned air through it. An idea blatantly stolen from the Chester Burster John Hurt scene in Alien. In the film you barely see the arms move and you never see the tail? Why? Because its pretty hard to lie on the floor holding a big spikey puppet over your head whilst working two arms, and 3 channels of rc whilst watching an image on a 3 inch lcd 8 feet away with bright lights shining in your eyes. Sometimes I'd work the rc sticks with the back of my head. At one point I got fed up with that and bought a servo driver board from pololu which allowed me to drive the servos from my PC. I wrote some simple software in Python to drive them. It worked quite well, but programming the moves was a pain, so its hardly used in the shots in the film.
This robot has arms that were driven by sticks like Kermit, and also had a hollow tail that could be made to thrash around by pumping canned air through it. An idea blatantly stolen from the Chester Burster John Hurt scene in Alien. In the film you barely see the arms move and you never see the tail? Why? Because its pretty hard to lie on the floor holding a big spikey puppet over your head whilst working two arms, and 3 channels of rc whilst watching an image on a 3 inch lcd 8 feet away with bright lights shining in your eyes. Sometimes I'd work the rc sticks with the back of my head. At one point I got fed up with that and bought a servo driver board from pololu which allowed me to drive the servos from my PC. I wrote some simple software in Python to drive them. It worked quite well, but programming the moves was a pain, so its hardly used in the shots in the film.
Forced to get a new Perspective
So I watched the making or Lord Of the Rings and saw the stuff on forced perspective. My idea was I could have the robot look way bigger than the model. The problem with this thinking was two fold. Firstly the robot needed to have the same lighting as the actor (me) and secondly I'd need a shed load of lights to get enough depth of field to get the actor and the robot both sharp at the same time. So at this point I decided the robot would have to be a really small fast dangerous robot, rather than a big lumbering thing. This also made making the egg/pod thing for the start of the film easier because it could be a lot smaller.
Something else that is apparent in this image is that the location is mostly plain white, which makes lighting the foreground without blowing out the walls a big problem. The space is also quite small with a low ceiling. What a pain. I did actually buy a giant roll of gray paper with the idea of covering one wall in paper and then retro teching it up... but well... it just seemed like it was as step too far.
Something else that is apparent in this image is that the location is mostly plain white, which makes lighting the foreground without blowing out the walls a big problem. The space is also quite small with a low ceiling. What a pain. I did actually buy a giant roll of gray paper with the idea of covering one wall in paper and then retro teching it up... but well... it just seemed like it was as step too far.
No really, it's not gonna work Dave.
Here is another shot, showing that with only the limited lighting options in my dingy little apartment, depth of field was going to be a problem. So at this point I was really starting to think having the actor and the robot in the same shot was a complete non starter. I tried doing some wrestling with the robot and I also did a reverse action robot grabbing the actors face but they looked kinda silly. Framing was pretty hard seeing as I was out in front of the camera and at the time I didn't have an external monitor for the camera. The portable dvd player I picked up is the best accessory I've ever bought for my camera. The quality is horrible, but its 10x better than the onboard lcd. There are some cameras built for use in cars that have a "flip image" button. They sound even cooler. I have some funny footage of stabbing myself in the eye with the puppet somewhere on my hdd but I couldn't find it. Going back to framing, as I was shooting in SD, I didn't have a lot of extra image to play with. With my current project I'm using HD, shooting in 1080p but mastering at 720p, so I can crop my images quite a bit and still have great looking footage.
Side note, see how great stuff looks with a dark gray background. A real film maker would have repainted his home dark grey.
Side note, see how great stuff looks with a dark gray background. A real film maker would have repainted his home dark grey.
Flying Cars
It's a Aoshima Mazda rx7 with some oil drums stuck on the front and its a blatant blade runner rip off. My production process for the flying car was to shoot in burst mode using a dslr and then photoshop the stick out of every shot and then combine the resulting image stream to make a video. Which is mind numbingly tedious but it works pretty well. I tried doing stick removal from video from the camcorder footage but the data is just way too compressed.
Air Car deleted Scene
The Air Car comes into land. I actually built the first two floors of the Apartment with a parking space outside, with another car ( a tricked out Monte Carlo ) parked out there, but during editing I realized I didn't need it, so it never got finished. Its a shame you can see the pilot is wearing a helmet. I didn't think it would be visible on film. Doh.
One of the bits of the film I'm proudest of is the car landing. Its flying over clouds towards the tops of some buildings and then drops into the clouds. That shot used a techniques from Bladerunner and Aliens. The buildings are flat cardboard cut outs and the clouds are cotton wool, and for what it is... I think it looks pretty neat :-)
One of the bits of the film I'm proudest of is the car landing. Its flying over clouds towards the tops of some buildings and then drops into the clouds. That shot used a techniques from Bladerunner and Aliens. The buildings are flat cardboard cut outs and the clouds are cotton wool, and for what it is... I think it looks pretty neat :-)
So I just watched it again
And it makes me laugh... I guess that's the point eh :-)