Since then we’ve had many a chat about the short and the script. We’ve had lots of tea-fuelled meetings, breaking down the script, the characters, the plot… everything including the title went under John’s single-finger ninja typing technique for a re-write and now the latest draft is finished. I think this is number 8? He’s some man for the typing!

It’s still a while before anything actually happens but I think this is the best time to start blogging about ‘Swerve’… even though I’m not really going to say anything about it.

It would be really nice if it looked anything like these:

The exhibition will showcase a series of Kilkenny-based Hollywood-style fake movie posters, shot against a green screen with a large cast of Kilkenny actors and familiar faces, as part of the Not An Empty Space Programme in association with the Kilkenny Arts Office and the Arts Council of Ireland.

Here’s the teaser poster for the exhibition featuring:

Jack O’Leary, Alexandra Christle, Ken McGuire, Brendan Corcoran, John Morton, Ruth Phelan, Aoibhín Murphy, Thomas Flood, Sara Begley, Gemma D’Alessandro, Sarah Dreeling, Alan Dawson and Thomas Donoghue.

More details Coming Soon! #comingsoonkk11

Aside from thinking about poster concepts for the exhibition (while lounging in the sun), I realised it’s been way too long since I worked on any film projects. A situation that’s quickly about to change.

Since I got back I’ve already had one meeting for a project that’s suddenly been kicked into overdrive, pre-production will soon start on a short film that I’ll be directing and I have another meeting this afternoon for a music video project. I’m very excited to be getting back to moving images!

Also, during the week, members of the Cartoon Saloon popped in to the studio to shoot some rotoscoping tests using a scale model against a green screen.

Here’s a sneak peek behind the scenes, you can see more photos here on my RossCostiganPhotographyBlog.

For now, here’s the latest video from Mycrofilms, a nice little round-up of everything that has happened previously on Vultures…

Just online today is a selection of clips from Devious Theatre’s productions of Dario Fo’s ‘Accidental Death Of An Anarchist’ and ‘Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!’ which ran in the Set Theatre in Kilkenny in December 2009 and March 2010 respectively.

I still miss my orange dungarees.

I didn’t spend a lot of time on this, like in the tutorial I just duplicated the same building created from a single image. I just wanted to get through it and figure it all out.

Now, I’m going to go back in and play around with it, try add some weather elements, some new buildings and then hopefully… blow them all up!

The music video for DJ Diarmaid O Meara’s track ‘Selfish Bass‘ has just gone online. Produced by ThanklessFilms, the video was a five-day shoot filled with mannequin madness.

Behind the scenes photos coming soon.

I’ve just uploaded a new video, some basic green screen background replacement tests I’ve been playing around with the last few days.

Shot on the Canon HG10 with the green screen set up in the sitting room; I was on my own so had to keep it simple with the camera set up on the tripod. I only had one construction light so it was pretty difficult to key properly after.

The first shot was the easiest, adding the alley to footage of me walking on the spot and then playing with the scale and position to add some movement. The second shot took a while to get right, my first attempt was scraped after I got well and truly lost in 3D & time.

Attempt 2 went better, but you’ll notice as I raise the gun at the start that it disappears briefly, I spent hours trying to adjust things so that wouldn’t happen. I’m told it’s not my fault… it’s something called inter-frame compression on the camera. I’ve had Sla explain it to me a few times and kind of understand it but if I tried to explain it then my head would explode.

The next problem I had was timing the movements of the two separate clips of me with the background as the camera follows the bullet. Once everything was in sync I added the muzzle flash and the bullet hit. I did some very basic colour correction on the whole thing and added the bars, some sound effects from iLife and music from Garageband.

The first version of the shot was sped up by precisely 715% (thanks Sla) to get the fast whip and the second shot plays at the speed I put the whole thing together but appears in slow motion thanks to a nice bit of sound design, once again thanks Sla.

Finally, after explaining inter-frame compression several times then cleaning up my speed and sound issues, Sla added some colour grading in Magic Bullet.

Overall, it was good fun and better practice and as always comments, feedback or advice are welcome.