My first movie | Forums

[Bakelit]

My first contribution Ein Wintermorgen - A Winters Morning you can find here:

http://www.il2-skins.de/Filme/filme.html

Itâ´s a 43 MB wmv file, 7:14 Minutes long.
Not the league of the top movie makers but I hope you find it enjoyable.

Thanks to Dusty for hosting.

[Bakelit]

My first contribution Ein Wintermorgen - A Winters Morning you can find here:

http://www.il2-skins.de/Filme/filme.html

Itâ´s a 43 MB wmv file, 7:14 Minutes long.
Not the league of the top movie makers but I hope you find it enjoyable.

Thanks to Dusty for hosting.

[JRJacobs]

It's not up to the standards of the top moviemakers??? Shirley you jest. One of the better "First" movies I've seen. You've learned the techniques well. The Scragbat technique [motion sketching or whatever it's called in the software you used] was superbly done. Nice choice of music and the story built the suspense well. I found myself wanting the 109â's to hurry up and shoot down the IL-2â's before they did any more damage. Planes, Trains and Automobiles – nice. The lead-in of the Convoys and Trains was well done, showing the purpose of the attack without overpowering the story. I tell people that the first movie is for the author – to show themselves that they can do itâ... The second movie is for the public, to show them what the author can do. Looking forward to your NEXT movie.

"if you're a story teller and someone listens while you tell that story you're an artist..."
"If you're a story teller and no-one is listening while you tell that story you're schizophrenic..."
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it."
-- Robert E. Lee
www.virtualjake.com
Virtual Movie Forum at http://www.blacksheepwebdesign.net/VirtualWarCinema/

[Bakelit]

Thanks for your constructive critique.

I see several areas to improve on, technical and dramaturgical. I will do different mistakes next time but exclude the old ones hopefully !

[carguy_]

Ahh very fine movie.Enjoyed watching.

[Huxley_S]

Really Excellent!

[Huxley_S]

Would you write something here about how you made it.

e.g. what gave you the idea, how you captured and edited the movie, what software and effects you used and what you learned that you didn't know when you started.

That would be both interesting and helpful.

Thanks,

Huxley

[pettera]

Very good first attempt indeed. Your story, scenes and camera angles are among the best.

There are a few technical issues. The counter (as you mention yourself) and some stutter. The stutter can maybe be avoided by the standard trick tought us by Arthur Davinci: Run IL2 at half speed and record (using fraps) at 15 fps. Then, when editing the movie, double the speed to obtain the correct speed at 30 fps.

A brilliant example of this technique is Stranger on http://www.nr.no/~pab/il2.html. This is a classic in my opinion.

Keep up the good work.

Thanks
Petter

[Bakelit]

To Petter:

Thanks for the warm words about my work. This is really encouraging to go on.
I have kept "Stranger" and still do watch it occasionally. Already a sim classic. Counter wonâ´t be seen anymore in the future.
Unfortunately I had deleted the source aviâ´s when I found out about removing them with the new utility or by using a Virtualdub filter.
About the frames: Believe it or not, I captured at half speed with FRAPS set at 15 fps at 640x480 and later sped up. My P900, 512 MB jerked a lot when capturing which may be my fault or the systems limitation. Later Movie Maker 2 froze several times when I had about five minutes movie done. Adding a few scenes, freeze, STRG+ALT+DEL, restart system - doing some more, on and on and on.
I was about to give up because I strived for the smoothness of all those remarkable movies and could not get it .
When I can afford a new box I think most of those probs will be history.

To Huxley:

My motivation was doing something creative with FB and I love to watch all those FB movies and tracks when Iâ´m too tired to play. I play with skinning but have not yet finished something and so started the movie.
Idea came from the fact that I think the morning and evening winter graphics/light effects are spectacular. Also the movie I like most, "Requiem" was done in winter and so I set about that. To give more urgency to the situation there had to be something in danger, the ground troops. And I did not want it to be a one sided turkey shoot either, so it fit that the rear gunners set at average are still good at exterminating Daimler engines .

I made the mission in the FMB, disabled messages and flew it two times to get enough footage to choose from.
Maybe I should have flown as IL gunner to get that view too ?

I captured with FRAPS 1.9D at 640x480 set at 15 captures playing FB at half speed. Lesson 1: At half speed capture longer than you might think or you will get only very short clips. And do several angles to later decide what looks best.

I now had raw aviâ´s in the FRAPS directory. Then I went about watching them and putting a crude preversion together in Windows Movie Maker 2 to get a feel. At first I only wanted to do 3 minutes but could not bring myself to cut the music, Holstâ´s "Mars" which has about 7 minutes.
Lesson 2: Rename aviâ´s with CLEAR descriptions so you might find the takes better. Organize your work. I lost much time when I went searching for single takes.

With Virtualdub I went about setting the frame rate, doubling, or when that looked too fast slightly slower, say 28 fps. I also played with several of the plugin filters.
I worked through all those takes with Virtualdub.
However I got PSP 7 together with Animation Shop 3 as a PC mag full version just before Christmas and that was a blessing as in AM 3 you can rework avi files picture by picture if you so desire. A few motion blurs, the recoil and hit effects and the guncam were done with what comes with that proggie.

In Windows Movie Maker 2 I put all together. Itâ´s easy to use even for boneheads like me. Lesson 3: Organise your clip collections. I didnâ´t and again lost time
Always save a copy, if somethign goes wrong. Do a rough storyline and render it to get a feel for the movie. Transitions, cut are all done there.
Then you render a big wmv file in best posible quality and hunt for imperfections.

What I learned: Itâ´s a lot of work and you respect the work of others even more. To work and experiment with the programs. Take some scenes and render any filters etc in any program to see what might come out of it. Give yourself time, but not too long or you might lose enthusiasm and never finish. Did I mention organizing your work ?

Sorry for the longwinded answer,
Thanks to all for viewing.

Have fun
Bakelit

[Huxley_S]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>I made the mission in the FMB, disabled messages and flew it two times to get enough footage to choose from.
Maybe I should have flown as IL gunner to get that view too ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that would have been a nice touch... something for your next movie maybe.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>However I got PSP 7 together with Animation Shop 3 as a PC mag full version just before Christmas and that was a blessing as in AM 3 you can rework avi files picture by picture if you so desire. A few motion blurs, the recoil and hit effects and the guncam were done with what comes with that proggie.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The recoil effects are excellent!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>At first I only wanted to do 3 minutes but could not bring myself to cut the music, Holstâ´s "Mars" which has about 7 minutes.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Great choice of music.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Idea came from the fact that I think the morning and evening winter graphics/light effects are spectacular.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes they are!

Good work mate...