Finally have some time coming up to return to production on this film. Due to my position with the college, I tend to get most of my work done during the Summer and Winter breaks. I’m VERY excited to get back into this.
I’ve been using Trello for production management and thus far I have nothing but positive things to say about it. My students are using it for their short films and I’m in the process of migrating all of my assets from the schedule into Trello’s UI. Very organized. I have the software on my iPhone and iPad as well, so needless to say I am CONNECTED.
I had posted a trailer for this film and was lucky enough to actually see it on the big screen this past year (one of very few, evidently.) I thought it might be good to say a few words about it. Here’s the trailer again:
The film was produced in 2009 and released the following year. But the film is not of this decade. Stylistically, thematically, structurally, and aurally it is the 1980s – a decade that many of us understand texturally if not intellectually, and that many more will never understand except through the transitive experiences of contemporary life, seen through a glass and darkly.
This is precisely what Beyond the Black Rainbow is. For all its structure, it is a fever dream of the 1980s: an electronic ghost born from young filmmaker Panos Cosmatos whose father, George Cosmatos, had gained 80s notoriety with films like Rambo: First Blood Part II, Cobra, and Leviathan.
Panos himself experienced 80s cinema the way many of us did: as a boy. He would walk up and down through the aisles of neighborhood video stores, stopping to read the backs of video boxes and gaze at pictures of monsters, mutants, and muscle-men - all the while breathing in…. Taking in sights, sounds, colors and forms as only an adolescent can: intertextually, out of context, as otherworldly phenomenon existing in its own right, seemingly independent of causes and systems. Pure aesthetic experience. When he exhaled, this aesthetic experience was formed into a temporal digital breath called Beyond the Black Rainbow.
The film’s narrative pacing is loose – almost as if the tempo were applied post-manifest to the images that spilled from the director’s mind- but also structurally familiar. Part slasher film, part escapist thriller, part science fiction…… The film creeps along slowly – testing our limits of attention. It is best with this film to allow the sights and sounds to simply envelope you. Relish the slow movements like a slow symphony. It is okay to be anxious, even bored. The phenomenon of perpetual entertainment was the worst thing to happen to film since the focus group.
The ending is sudden and awkwardly abrupt. I’ll warn you now that you will not be pleased. It’s a flaw – perhaps an intentional one, but a flaw nonetheless. It is also distinctly 1980s, so perhaps it’s the only appropriate ending. Further, I’m reminded that it is the flaws in things that give them their charm, their hand-made nature.
The film will remind you of Kubrick, of Jodorowsky and his psychedelic filmmaking, and also of THX 1138 by some director who would never direct that well again. Panos may be tied to the same fate. He has no new projects on the horizon and this film is anything but mainstream mass-market.
Ultimately we’re left with an experience of sight and sound perfectly married.
Doc’s Voodoo Room has been completed. Doc is the character who initially diagnoses Roland’s sister with her sickness. He determines that the Gryphon feather is the only cure for her ailment, thus sending Roland on his adventure.
I designed the Voodoo Room to be mostly violet.
The room features one of the few full-dimensional models in the film – Doc’s Cauldron of Suffering. The model is still low-poly despite a series of 4 skulls clutching the bottom rung of the support stand.
Here’s the model for the space. There are a number of dimensional objects that form a stage-like area for Doc to dance around in. Doc’s textures are mostly violet and so are his background elements. Thus, there’s a danger of losing Doc against his backdrop. I’ve tried to include just enough brown and blue in the background colors so that even under the most basic lighting, Doc will advance and his background will receed.
Again, for you people who just learned how to light something for the first time within the last 12 months and subscribe to the ridiculous theocracy of obvious backlight and over-saturation of color, don’t get too excited! This isn’t a light test. What we’re looking for here is a contrast of surfaces. For example: you can see that while Doc’s head and torso look great against his backdrop, his legs completely vanish. Obviously I’m going to have to come up with a solution for this. Doc’s actual scene will have MUCH more light, but I don’t think the legs will be resolved without a slight reworking of their texture.
Also, a bump and specular pass will dramatically increase the tactile properties of the set.
I’ve been waiting a LOOOONG time for this to come out and I”m finally going to see it this evening.
Not surprisingly, Beyond the Black Rainbow is under limited release. Let’s be honest, it isn’t the type of film one would go see on a ‘date night.’
But I’m looking forward to it. Bad, good, or indifferent, the experience will enhance my visual vocabulary, which for me is what seeing films is all about.
Backgrounds continue to be modeled and textured. (At least color pass.) The models more most of the pieces are extremely simple as you can see below.
This is all that is required for a good deal of the background work. At least at this point. Once I’ve completed bump maps, I may revisit some of the models to make adjustments. Much of what I’m doing is figuring out the colors and how they respond to one another.
This palace chamber is fairly sparse, but it’s where Princess Marta is bedridden. I did a test, placing her in her bed and the bed in the chamber just to see how the textures jived.
THIS IS NOT A LIGHTING TEST. I through a few spotlights in just to see if she could be brought forward against the background. All you lighting snobs out there just hold your horses until the shaders are completed and the bumps are in place.
This…as I said…isn’t a lighting test, but it proves the characters will stand out against even a heavily contrasted background . YOu can tell that the stone walls are going to need more detail.
First background pieces are rolling out. I’m doing the backgrounds one scene at a time. First element is the massive skywheel which includes an illuminating sun and moon. You can see them below.
As you can see, the moon is actually capable of changing his expression. He will react to some of Roland’s actions towards the end of the film.
King Shugert has an entire Kingdom at his beck and call, but we only get to see a pair of his most elite palace guards in the film.
And here they are:
Not the most elaborate of characters, to be sure, but this is still exciting. Why? Because this officially concludes my color-texturing of the entire cast of Gryphon Animo. We’re done. Next up: BACKGROUNDS.
Once the backgrounds are complete, I’m going to go through and create bump, diffuse, and specular maps for the lot.
You’ve seen the Troll King and I’m happy to say I’ve finished his Trolls as well. You’ll notice that none of the characters have bump or specular yet. These passes I’ve been posting are just color.
I have two more characters to complete and the entire cast is finished. Then we’re on to the backgrounds, which should be interesting. I havent decided whether or not the backgrounds can be posted as unlit models. I’ll give it a try and see how they come out.
Rough Groceries is the name of the kingspider that lives in the thorns and guards the threshhold to the Gryphon’s cave. He’s a clockwork spider with a massive spinning abdomen and a swiveling black onyx skull head.
Talk about a rigging nightmare.
As you can see, the model is extremely simple.
He’s much more impressive with his texture, however. I’m not 100% set on the color, but I think we’re close .
If I’m going to have trolls, why not ogres? Let’s ride this F ‘er right into the ground.
That’s not a partial model. Those happen to be the entire Ogre characters. My thinking is that they don’t really do much. They sit around in caves and eat people, goats, and certain types of bats. Therefore they don’t really need arms, legs, torsos, or any other bodyparts. They can sit in their caves with their mouths open and wait for food to wander in. Their horns are used for cooling.
I also finished texturing the whale. The model is very simple, but it took quite a while to texture. He’s MASSIVE.
He occupies the top of the screen during a sequence at the bottom of Lake Dread. This officially wraps up the secondary creatures save for a few holdouts.
What I have left:
Characters: Angels, Knights, Trolls.
Creatures: Spiders.
Monsters: Rough Groceries (he’ll be my next. This is the great GodSpider who lives in the Thornes.
mtmaloney
