[Darren Edwards]

Update: Mark kindly asked I didn’t reprint his
viewpoint(s).

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

I got in touch with Mark @ Enigma about this. He was VFX on Season
1. This was his reply:

… awaiting permission to quote.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

Cheers, mate.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

I’ve a couple of FAT32 drives (stuffed full of
archive media) which need converting to NTFS at
some point. Two reasons/caveats I keep putting
it off are:

– There’s no quick return to FAT32 if it goes wrong.
– There’s a good chance that data will be corrupted
during conversion, so the lesson there is to empty
the thing of anything important before you start.

Aside from that though, the tutorial I have seems
quite likeable and understandable.

Good luck.
Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

The reference still (as stated) is from BG, Season 2.
BG’s grading connotation (as is ours) is post-nuclear
war; the planet is hotter, skies polluted, residual
fallout in the clouds. Orange and white which reflects
the primary colours of a mushroom cloud, I presume. The
BG still is quite likely to be a CG still, so hence
they found it quite easy to maintain the oranges
and greens without a lot of colour-correction hassle.

One obviously (of course) is to trawl the BG forums,
but there isn’t enough hours in the day for that.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

MB w/LS will give you the grade (ie. sepia, B/W,
whatever), but Digi-effects’ AE plugins allow grain
control to a (ridiculous, really) nth degree.
Magic Bullet PPro suite *is* a really useful addition
to PPro though – I’ve graded quite a few music vids
in PPro with it without the need for After Effects
plugins. It still takes bloody ages to render, of
course.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

XDCAM will shoot in 24p and 25p, even the SD
500 series. 24p requires an expansion board
though.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

The ‘hell look’ is fanatastic, isn’t it. I watched
the film (DVD) for the first time a few months ago.
I watched the director’s commentary version immediately
afterwards (as you do), and if remember rightly,
the discussed the CG/VFX quite informatively as it
appeared in the film – so my starting place would
be to pick up the DVD in a second-hand store somewhere.

Random director’s commentary fact: they got script approval
(which can sometimes take years) almost immediately,
but because the Matrix happened, it took almost 10 years
to get Keanu and the film to the big screen. Quite
depressing, really. Ditto the unjustified(?) luke
warm reviews.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

Tom,
These kinds of fundamental questions belong in
a more ‘basics’ forum.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia

[Darren Edwards]

Dalek – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek
A third of the way down the screen, the modulation,
EQ, and sine wave tools which is mentioned in the
‘Voices’ paragraph, can all be found within Audition.
You’ll probably need all 3 effects to pull it off
authentically, so consider it a good self-tutorial.

Robot Voice – Effects/Delay Effects/Echo/Robotic
This is will give you something metallic-sounding.
A start, at least.

Effects/Time_Pitch/Pitchbender/Up a Whole Step
Effects/Delay Effects/Sweeping Phaser
Effects/Filters/Dynamic EQ
– are just three of the ways to ‘alienify’ things.

Combine – Effects/Filters/FFT Filter/Telephone Filter
(or Voicemail)
These are walkie-talkie-sounding filters. Have fun
playing around with them.

Darren.

myspace.com/xgfmedia