Secrets Of Secrets Of Cat Training

I wrote an article about working with showbiz cat Paddington - you can read it on the Real Bloggers United group blog here. Make sure you also check out the rest of the blog - particularly the other June entries. RBU usually has a monthly topic, but the June theme was "blogger's choice" and I thoroughly approve of the choices - a wide variety of subject matter and several posts that are still making me laugh. It's also introduced me to some interesting blogs I might otherwise never have read.

This is the first time I've ventured outside my own blogging domain in this way, and it's a surprisingly big step outside my comfort zone. Firstly, I was quite pleased with the article, so there was a bit of a dilemma - hang on to it and post it here on my own page, or let it fly elsewhere in the blogosphere? Also submitting it to be edited - EDITED! - by other people was an unfamiliar feeling. I chose to go ahead & be part of the June edition, and I'm really pleased I did - I will be back for more.

Post-production on Paddington's film continues - you can find out more and watch our trailers on the Bast: Secrets Of Cat Training website here.

If you are visiting The Sci-Fi Gene for the first time - welcome! Tea and coffee are in that cupboard, or if you prefer I can fix you something a little stronger. I'll be right back so settle in and make yourself at home.

Caturday Night Fever

Update: The Bast: Secrets Of Cat Training movie website http://www.bastthemovie.com/ is currently down for maintenance. Dogs may or may not be to blame. On the plus side - and this is very cool! - Bast now has an IMDb entry.

I also wrote a piece about working with Paddington for the Real Bloggers United group blog and this will appear later in June. Post production continues - the schedule slipped heavily due to some Real Life stuff but there will now be a finished film in July.

With thanks to clockworkkitten for the title pun. Cats rule!

[edit: main website now back on the air]

The Purrfect Storm

The Eyecat Training Collar has some serious competition - well, it made me laugh. Thanks bro.

In other news, Sci-Fi London is coming in April. I'm getting a team together again for the 48 Hour Film Challenge, but right now I'm still working on post-production for Bast in every minute I can squeeze in.

Demo of post-production work on Bast. I'm working in Blender 2.49. The steps:

Artefact reduction: Quad blurring the Cr and Cb channels in the compositor leaving the Y channel unblurred. You can't see this step at all if you're watching at 360p as YouTube tends to add in some lovely artefacts of its own. If you're watching at 480p look at the candle during this step.

Colour consistency: lift gamma gain balancing in the VSE so all the shots in a scene look similar. Blender 2.5 will include colour balancing nodes in the compositor as well, seriously speeding up the process.

Lighting: adding or reducing highlights - meshes with gradient textures in the 3D scene, multiplied in the compositor.

Gradients and overall colour look: adding local colour uses same approach as lighting step. Overall colour look is a colour curves node that is applied equally to all the shots in the same scene. Here I've just bowed the red and green channels slightly to add warmth.

Reducing DV Artefacts in Blender

MiniDV is a compressed format. It could be far worse - it's still very watchable on TV but the colour blocking is very visible when viewed on a large screen. However the luminance information (Y) is stored at much higher quality than the colour information (Cr and Cb) which provides the DV Rebel with a way of reducing the artefacts. Here's a close-up and closer-up before processing:A noodle network to separate and quad blur the two colour channels leaving the luminance (Y) channel untouched. As luminance is stored at higher quality, the detail in the image is retained, although if you blur the colours too much you can still get overspill, loss of contrast and very very slow rendering. The close-up shows less colour blocking and the picture will stand up to slightly more scrutiny. Quad blur is slightly better than flat blur at preserving sharper edges.

Bast: Secrets Of Cat Training [Trailer II]

Ol' Blue Eyes Is Back

I recently returned from a course where I learnt the Interview Rules of Survival. They're pretty similar to the Zombieland Rules of Survival although apparently the double-tap is frowned upon by most HR departments. On my return to Paddington I came across this space-time anomaly:

I was impressed by the group of excitable orange-suited RailTrack engineers who were making a fuss over Bittern (a sister locomotive to Mallard) on a rare excursion down south.

In other news I'm uploading a sequence from Bast to YouTube that I thought would make a good second trailer, this time with some of the animated content. I'll post a link when it's up and running - check back here or on the Bast website later today.

[produced in Blender]

Bast: Secrets Of Cat Training [trailer]

A first attempt at a trailer. Bast is still a work in progress - some shots still need some adjustments but from this point I'll be working on the final version. The film will eventually feature an original soundtrack - for the trailer I've used Gustav Holst's classic trailer composition "Mars" performed by the USAF Bands Programme [via wikimedia commons].

The film website is here. Further updates planned soon including more about the cast.

Bast: Secrets Of Cat Training - update

A certain unruly cat now has its own home on the World Wide Web: our website is now live here.

[Ariel Tan, Paddington, Tammy Sander, Lewis Westbury. Photo: Stuart Birch]

*catteries not included

Two location shoots later, thanks to the kindness of software engineers and bookstore owners, one improvised camera dolly and lots of pizza: as of yesterday night "Bast: Secrets of Cat Training" is officially in post production. I'm fairly tired now but more on that story later.

Bast: Secrets Of Cat Training - Day 1

Overcoming embarrassing ailments, exploding glue canisters and other everyday cinema hazards, Bast: Secrets of Cat Training has survived and progressed to production day 1. Some photographic highlights from the day:

Paddington arrived early with his staff of one.

Read-through (Tammy Sander and Ariel Tan)

Costume check (Tammy Sander)

Trainer Charlotte Wilde teases an Oscar-worthy performance from Paddington.

This movie business is highly technical.

Lewis Westbury does all his own stunts.

Composer David Novan joins the crew.

You can never have too many photos of the cast sitting on some stairs (Tammy Sander, Lewis Westbury, Ariel Tan)

Further updates and details to follow. All photographs by Stuart Birch.

Felindependence Day

The main shoot for Bast took place yesterday. Thanks to everyone's hard work we got through the slate - just two off-location scenes left to film, then a lot of post-production to come. I am now recovering from a very full day - I expect other cast and crew members are too - but will post updates and stills shortly.

Work in progress: pyramid scheme

Engage... coffee break.

Coolness enhancement...complete!

Engage... coffee break.