31st!!!

Yes! This is the date Bertie has given as the day Roanoke: The Lost Colony will be finished!

It will then be time for some test screenings with the crew, as only Dan and Bertie have seen it, the rest of us have only seen some clips that they showed us at the wrap party! After the screenings it will then start to be put on to dvd (which you can still pre-order for just £3)! Angela has been busy cutting together the behind the scenes featurette for it (that I have seen!), and although not finished it is still looking really good, even with the interviews from the crew!

So once again I am going to say that its nearly over (I'm sure its about the 5th time we've said this!) and I'm sure we will all tell you what we think of the finished production when we've seen it! I can't wait to see the product of all our hard work!

Always greener on the other side

Yesterday the crew got together with Ryan (Goodson) and Charlotte (Eleanor) who were also in the area at the time to have a bit of fun recording some green screen plates for the scenic section of the movie when we look out at the boat arriving in at Roanoke.
Sadly the authorities at Fleet pond and our budget didn't allow for a full 16th Century period long boat and hundreds of extras to arrive on set, for this reason we have had to cheat. In order to make it look realistic there are a number of ways it can be done, below is a quick rough example of one of those...


1. Here our DOP and Camera Man Dan stands in front of a large green piece of cloth in a studio in London, around stand the other crew members, reflectors and lights.

2. Here is an image shot in the Summer of fleet pond (Roanoke). It is very empty and although pretty, a bit boring.

3. IN the editing program we tell the computer to look at the image of Dan, find anything that is Green and delete it from our sights. We then put the image of Fleet Pond underneath so we get a very weird image of Daniel Standing in a studio above a very colourful backdrop.

4. As the "Green Screen" wasn't able to stretch across the whole room we then delete all the rest of the frame of Dan so that the rest of the studio is deleted. In this Picture below I have left the right hand side of the screen as it is so you can see what is happening.

5. When the whole of the studio has vanished we then can scale Dan down move him around and place him anywhere we want. In the image below i have decided to have him standing ankle deep in water.

And finally, add a few more crew members. In the real edit we'll make sure everyone is proportioned properly, there is alot more going on, we have a boat... but for now I hope this has been slightly interesting as to how the green screening idea works.

Updating Website

Update: Now all crew members and two cast members have profiles on the website, more coming soon.

I've started to update the website again now that the video edit has ended, I've just added a few Crew Profiles under the cast and crew section. The profiles give you a little bit of information about the crew member, their role, what they look like and a few things things they have to say about Roanoke The Lost Colony. I'll be adding the remainder of the crew members over the next few days, along with the cast members.

I've also continued to add the weekly quiz to the website which is proving to be a popular feature, and we will hopefully have a new trailer soon too.

On another note I've successfully backed up the whole of Roanoke onto some secondary secure hardrives. Yay :-D

28 days.... :-D

Over the Last Few Weeks...

...we've had alot going on in the Roanoke corner. Firstly it was great to get back together with everyone during the five days of re-shoots.

The re-shoots went down very well and it was fabulous to see the actors bring their characters back to life for a final time, adding further plot lines and character to their....well characters.

Congratulations to all the actors (not just those involved in the re-shoots) for portraying the emotionally and physically challenging roles to the highest degree.

It is great to finally say the video edit of the production is over. It is now down to the final compositions of music and the audio edit to polish off the feature film. These steps will hopefully be completed over the next 4 weeks, from there it will be down to a few test screenings to let us know which bits should be tweaked and tightened in order to portray this tale of hope and adventure to the greatest degree.

Soon, Soon....

Shooting is over! (Well nearly...)

As well as the other re-shoots we had to do, we made a last minute decision to return to the S.S. Great Britain in Bristol to re-shoot a scene that we had done before, and this took place on Thursday. The reason we decided to go back was beacause unfortunatly, the first time we were there, a catering van got in shot of some of the close ups, but luckily only in the one scene!

We spent an hour on the dock (the boat itself is too modern for the era), and unlike the other re-shoots, which have been new scenes, this was shot in exactly the same way as the first time around.

Although this was technically the last shooting day of Roanoke, we still have a day of recording James Alexander (Sir Walter Raleigh) in a studio for some voiceover lines, and another day spent in front of a green screen, again in the studio.

Apart from that, Bertie is still cutting together all the footage we have (and i can't wait to see it!), and still has to finish adding the final audio to it as it was recorded seperatly for better quality.

As well as this, the music has to be added, a vital part to any movie! As well as the small amount of CGI that has to be done.

Though this is around the third final day we've had, I'll say again that it has been a pleasure to work with everyone on this production, and I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product!

Very tired but a few pics

We're all very tired from two re-shoot days on the Golden Hinde and The Underwater scene, and I'll write an update date soon, however here are a few pics from the underwater camera, with Angela providing a mini video clip and some other images soon of behind the scenes and how it all worked.

Tonight.....

Is underwater night...more pictures and videos to follow in the first day of re-shoots and the most ambitious shoot day of all.

Bertie

Audio Update

So I'm a little over 50 minutes into the audio syncing and I'm thinking I'm going to pull an all nighter in order to finish it by Monday. Monday I'll spend the day touching it up and then we'll have a synced "proper audio" fine edit (excluding re-shoots) ready.

How wonderful.

Well I shall speak after I have recovered.

All the best,
Bertie

You Know it's getting to you when....

So it has now been a few days of audio syncing, and I'm on the last straw.

Trying to sync audio together involves (at least with the equipment used on Roanoke) matching timecodes and lips, lining it up with the camera audio, muting the original (bad) audio and making sure every word spoken matches up with a mouth movement.

In doing so you give yourself a very respectable dialogue track but in return a week of being a bit mad.

This week rivals the week of logging all the clips, a week sat in front of the computer needing to concentrate constantly on mouths and not getting out much. Do not get me wrong however, when you hear the difference after a number of weeks editing the film in the bad guide dialogue it does sound refreshing, it also seems odd on some scenes (such as the London Dock and some scenes on the Golden Hinde) to be able to hear the chatter rather than the sound of traffic!

I did however meet up with someone yesterday and it was odd to see all their dialogue was the same as their mouth movements! How interesting!

Ok well I've had a five minute break,

Back I go!

Bertie

The Audio Edit

So the audio edit has begun and there is the most delightful task ahead which involves finding all the dialogue spoken and sinking up the "real" audio with the video. I have set myself quite the impossible task (from a first look) of 15 minutes a day, so in theory I should have completed it (at least roughly) by Sunday.

I have found it very interesting that the brain will perceive any similar dialogue spoken to be similar to the mouth movements of the real line, I’m not sure I wrote that in the most coherent way possible, however in short it is possible to use the dialogue of various takes and layer it on the top of the video edit without it looking odd, which helps on some occasions.

I have also realised just how useful the clapper board really is. Although it is possible with us (due to having a bad camera sound as a guide) to operate when a clapper board is not in use, the sharp "clap" or frame that peaks in the audio wave in order to show the start of a new take can be extremely helpful when in reality one is operating "blind".

So yes, 0-15 mins yesterday, 15-30mins today (hopefully) and in similar sequence until the end of the film.