Updates, nerves and chaos

You know, I am a guy who likes to keep things steady. This goes especially for computers. My slogan was and will always be “Never change a running system!” My experiences with hardware and software problems of all kinds certainly proof this point, let alone the experiences of the last few days (I never had so many hardware failures and crashes, ever).

But this slogan is also a hindrance in terms of upgrades because I worked with good but increasingly old stuff while the amount of speed and storage certainly went up – and I totally missed that (not missed in terms of knowledge but missed in terms of usage).

Well, compared to The-Good-Old-Times (© Anyone Bitchy Corp.) the PCs today are……powerful.

Rendering and Pixels

This brings me right to A ROBOT’S DREAM: since the initial idea I was thinking of the technical process. How can I do this, how can I save time, heck, how can I even finish this? And so on. One aspect that always nagged me was rendering, or to be more precise, the final image resolution of A ROBOT’S DREAM.

Although I was and am quite sure that this 3d animated tale never ever will get a movie theater release, HD is constantly knocking on the door. And this is the exact moment the dilemma starts to shape because HD means a lot more pixels to be flushed through the CPU. In other words: rendering times explode.

So, “What should I do?” was a constant follower. Should I go for HD (720p) and increase render times at least by factor four or should I ignore it altogether?

2 x 2 = 4

Those questions bring me right back to the beginning: the nerve-wrecking upgrade of my PCs. You know, in all this constant chaos I ensued I never realized one elementary thing: I just upgraded my PCs with new hardware. And this fact finally sank in some minutes ago.

I was sitting around, cursing my PCs until one thought crossed my wrecked mind: “Wait a minute…I upgraded my computers. As a result I now have two machines, each one having a Dual Core CPU…Hmmm…*think*….*smile*…”

In the past I used one computer for 3D rendering because the other one simply wasn’t worth it. Yet, the better one was not the best either, having only a Celeron as a working brain it. Now I have in fact four CPUs to use, the first step to a render farm. No Celeron but full blown 64bit processors. This means I just increased the power of my original machine four to six times, considering general improvements of everything.

And this means that I just threw all questions regarding rendering resolutions out of the window.

It is amazing that a side-effect (really, it started with a simple graphics card) can become such an awesome opportunity.

But it is getting even better: taking my personal project speed into account (seriously, how long can it take to write some tiny script?) I think the future will be bright and HD because when the 3D animation production of A ROBOT’S DREAM kicks off, 32 core CPUs will be normal, and I’ll be dead.

Did you upgrade your Computer recently just to discover some amazing opportunities?

Although my previous five short movies didn’t have that goal today I want to make sure that A ROBOT’S DREAM is as clear as possible, leaving room for interpretation, yes, but not leaving someone with a big question mark floating above his head about what was going on visually.

Up to now I thought that this is a realistic goal. Hey, how hard can it be to create a movie that is crystal clear about what is going? Not hard at all I’d would have said up to yesterday – until I read a film review of WALL•E in a German online newspaper. And my world crumbled.

When even film critics don’t get it

Come on. How hard can it be to be a movie critic? When you take away all the fluff and art-talk there is not much you have to do: looking at a screen and understand what’s going on -at least on the action level of things (he did this, she went there and so on). Hence, movie critics should be pros beyond good and evil at grasping what is happening in a movie.

But it seems that even this is not possible for German movie critics. Spiegel Online, one of the biggest online newspapers in Germany, in that regard surpasses everything because in the movie review the author apparently watched WALL•E (my hunch was right) yet not only misplaces the story but also has an impression about Eve as wrong as it gets.

While the movie never clearly tells us, in which city WALL•E is set, we at least get a glimpse near the end, when the hyperjump goal is something that is not New York (screenshot will follow as soon as the DVD is released). OK, no biggie here – although embarrassing – but anyone could have made this mistake, because New York is almost every time the center of destruction. But later in his review this movie critic absolutely hits the low by writing that “when she [EVE] is aroused she atomizes everything in her way with laser rays.”

Ooookay. Since when was Eve aroused when she shoots at anything making a noise? How the critic came up with that one is beyond me. I think EVE never used her gun in a sexual aroused kind of way. Not even once. Oh boy…

This incidence, however, shows me that no matter how hard to try to write something as clear as possible, there is always someone who doesn’t get it.

By the way: whoever came up with the second title “Der letzte räumt die Erde auf” (“The last one cleans up Earth”) should be fired immediately (you can check out this and this post to see more stupid movie title “translations”).

It’s been almost one month since I last posted something about my beloved project and almost two months since I really put some thought into the story. Granted, much has been going on: I redesigned this site, had a bunch of real life projects to finish and went south on my personal health level for almost two weeks.

But this doesn’t mean I did nothing at all. While occupied with the other stuff I tried to give the story something “more” (which I gladly keep that vague) and realized that I might have to rework the story structure big time. And the guys working at Pixar helped me to realize that – for which I hate them.

The dreaming robot

Writing a short movie is quite a hard task. It is harder than I expected it to be although I knew from the beginning that there would be some road blocks along the way. Nevertheless it was surprising. On the contrary I wouldn’t want it otherwise.

A ROBOT’s DREAM is, after my other four short movies, the first project in which I really write a script beforehand. Some of you might argue that thinking for months about the structure without writing anything is suicide. Granted. But over time the little fellow and its adventure has grown to me so much that I simply want to treat him (and you) as good as I can. And this means creating a story as good as possible.

Yet, this wish of mine with the aim for a truly touching story brought me many problems. One is complexity and one is sympathy, both of which I learned much about in Pixar’s WALL•E.

The Pixar Wall•E Factor

OK, anyone who didn’t watch this movie up to now should it immediately. Since I am living in the center of Europe and the Disney has this we-don’t-care-about-the-world-and-release-a-movie-many-months-later kind of thinking I watched it just two days ago – in cinema…in a preview. Quite Twilight Zone-esque, isn’t it?

After the movie finished I knew two things:

1. This movie is awesome (Seriously, who needs an ogre called Shrek when you can have Wall•E? See? Exactly.)
2. I really have to rethink my story structure or I am screwed

Both points make me wanna kick their asses for doing something so fine because it raises the bar significantly (on the other side, they give me a bunch of great ideas (almost) for free).

As mentioned above, WALL•E showed me my ongoing problem of complexity. In Pixar’s movie a lot is going on, yet, Wall•E himself only wants to do one thing: hold hands with the girl he loves (damn, it is so sweet I could kick their asses for it). It is truly simply but so human and sweet it immediately get me to the second point: sympathy. Come on. You have to have a heart of stone to not root for this little guy.  It is only holding hands but the perfect writing, timing and animation draws us into this.

Both points are present in my current story structure, but still there are many points missing.

The result: change of plans?

In terms of content, A ROBOT’S DREAM, is more simple than WALL•E: one robot in one room. Less is impossible. Yet, in my current design there are a lot of plot points and big changes – way too much for 20 minutes. But for reasons beyond me I stuck with them. WALL•E finally snatched me out of this I-keep-those-elements-even-if-it-kills-me-attitude and I am now trying to toss all unnecessary elements into garbage. It won’t be easy but I hope I will then finally gain the upper hand.

The other thing is sympathy: since the get go on this site I knew that my unnamed robot will be childish and mentally young. It was an important element in the story and also implemented a technical aspect into it (weak A.I. or something like that). So, no big change, heh? Unfortunately, it is not. While the character remains the same, I have to change the characterization of the robot tremendously. Up to now my robot was “simple minded” in his mind but not in his behavior. Wall•E is it on both levels – which makes him sooo cute (damn!!!!).

Although it will be a very risky gamble to go for a similar characterization approach like Pixar I think it is the only way to go. There are not many options left to make something artificial and not talking cute, adorable, and worth rooting for.

Or do you think this approach is too risky?

Real Life

I think everyone of you noticed some lack of new content regarding this movie project. The simple and harsh truth is that I didn’t continue because real life has struck me with work. During the last weeks I was constantly working on three college projects simultaneously. All three were big and all three included lots of writing. This resulted in some spare time which I could have used to work on my movie but in the end didn’t want to. After hours of writing bad stuff I mentally was too exhausted to write even more stuff.

A ROBOT’S DREAM

Funnily enough some of this lackluster of updates and progress is because there is apparently no progress. For weeks, no months, I am stuck in the outlining process – I try to find the story structure (what happens when, how does it end etc.). And this is frustrating me as hell.  I know that this is the worst thing that can happen to you but it happened.

So, why do I care so much for the story of my short movie and don’t move on? The reason is simple: because I am only one person working on this project. This means, that the results you will see can’t be anything near the professional visual quality you see everywhere else. And this means that I want to create a short movie that is able to move and to touch you. When in the end everything is finished and the dust has settled I want to read comments like “The visual quality is very good for a one man doing everything, but what blew me away was this wonderful story.” It is the most important asset I can throw into the ring and I won’t miss!

What will happen next? Well, in the next few days I have to continue working on those projects which have to be finished. And I have to reload my creative energy bar (which almost sounds like some strange candy). So, please expect some down time as I also find my inner writer.

(By the way: I have also started again to read tips about blog writing to serve you better in the future. Do you have any tips or wishes you want to see fulfilled? I’ll be happy to hear them.)

As a final gift to for the lack of updates I hereby present you a total and obvious xkcd ripoff showing you what I went through each day in the last weeks (hope you like it):

I so hope Randall Munroe didn’t already do this one in his comics.

Despite the missing updates in this electronic personal space of mine (aka blog) I worked on my 3D animated short movie “A Robot’s Dream”. But the reason for missing news is simple: the end of “A Robot’s Dream”. I know it is an old one in this project but for a long time I thought I cracked the code to move on. But as with everything I soon started to know one thing for sure: the end needs a serious rework – without being one. See the example at the beginning.

I know the outcome of my movie, this much I already know. I have the camera setups in my mind and I have the final closing image in my mind as if I was watching it on TV. Yet I still don’t know anything about the climatic action in the third act which defines the whole message of a movie.

So, as you can see I am currently in one of those times.

Let’s call it The Time of Road Runner.

Although I managed to find a cool idea for the story (this once in a while lucky ray of brilliance you mistake for talent) there are at least three other things stacked up in my queue right now – finding the appropriate genre for my short movie, for example.

But there is another thing that won’t let go of me since a long time: which way is the best to design, not write, your screenplay?

There are many ways to design, not write, you screenplay. You can write on cards, you can write on paper, you can write in you mind and so on. In essence you could say that there are two ways to design your story: the real world way and the digital way.

Analog?

For me, the real world didn’t work quite well. At the beginning I wrote down my important story events on cards so I could rearrange them. Yet, as I hit the ten cards mark, it became more and more problematic. The reason is that I wanted to arrange them in a good way but either the area was too small or something else in the way. And the floor was a non-idea either as it is not very comfortable.

A normal sized sheet of paper? Didn’t work either for one obvious reason: you cannot arrange your writing without tearing the sheet apart and ending up with small “cards” again.

A board to write on? Sorry, nothing I would use in a thousand years.

A board to stick the cards on it? This is so let’s-hold-a-meeting-and-do-something-cool. And at the same time, the problem mentioned above still exists. If you ever tried to arrange a number of cards in a good way on a board you know what I am writing about. It is pure hell on earth, downsized to fit exactly one room.

Digital?

On the other hand, the digital way of living (also called World 1.2) is not the best thing either.

Writing your stuff in a document in Word, OpenOffice or something else might be flexible as little-hell but for me this worked only to write down everything that popped into my mind. It is not great to move your plot events around.

I know of some tools with which you can in fact try to design your story. Dramatica is a well known example. But the budget of my project is small, so this is a “good idea, is nice to have, see you way later.”

Digital…

But who could call himself a movie maker if he couldn’t think outside the box. Because by doing this there come two tools to mind that might help: the much loved Photoshop and the much hated Powerpoint.

Although they are so far from each other, both tools digitally combine the best of both worlds, cards and flexibility. In both tools you can create “cards”, “write” on them and start to move them freely on as much space as you need.

Some might prefer Photoshop (who doesn’t?), but the unbelievable thing is that Powerpoint seems to work way better with digital cards.

The reason for this amazing realization is rather simple: in Powerpoint you can draw a simple rectangle with a background and a border, and immediately write something on it. No big time wasted. Trying to accomplish the same goal in Photoshop is no biggie either, yet it involves way more steps which take too much time if you have an awesome idea. Moving around your cards is more complicated in Photoshop, too. As your card is a layer and your text is a layer, you either have to reduce them to one (which destroys the chance of later changes), add them to a group (which are too many steps) or select them again and again. In Powerpoint you click and hold and move. End of line.

Although I really love Photoshop as the best image editor on the world this app is way too complicated and powerful for simply writing and moving around a digital card.

It will be interesting to see how everything develops. Will it work in some weeks? Will both of us fit together? We will see. In either case, it is by far the best experience I have so far with “moving cards.”

It is cruel when you are writing and apparently not writing. When you sit there and think about the basics. How should the script end? Which genre plays the movie in? Is the plot point good enough? How does the world function? Questions upon questions in this process called story design, the basis of everything.

Most of the time, the story doesn’t answer these questions. You are sitting in your dark and spacious room, hoping to find something. Waiting. Thinking. Moving ideas and story parts.

And then, way later, you will learn that these cruel times were not for nothing.

You lie in your bed, thinking about nothing in particular. Suddenly your brain, on its own, decides to start acting. In a split second it merges and compresses all those hours of countless thinking into one idea, one scene or one image.

And you know, within another split second that you have found it. You will start smiling because you have found an idea, a scene or an image that adds another part to your story. Even more, it adds another layer, adds complexity and adds possibilities. It puts your work to a completely new level.

And in this moment you know one thing for sure:

Writing a movie is wonderful.

The last days were in a way truly frustrating. Not because of the other work I have to do (challenging but interesting would be the best way to describe it) but because of the missing time to sit down, think about the screenwriting book and its wisdom of words and get something started. Or continued. And as an added bonus I didn’t have the time or the energy to think about interesting topics I could write about. You know, that stuff you don’t read elsewhere.

Regarding A ROBOT’S DREAM and (its) storyI came to the conclusion that the next step in my 3D project must be to nail one elemental thing down: the genre.

It might sound silly for the one or the other but up to now I have never thought much about the genre of my short – at least to a mighty detail. I know what the short is about. I know the mood and the emotions it should create and the more. But is the current story I have in my mind a maturation plot or an education plot? Or is it simply a drama (with a twist)?

Nailing this thing down will certainly help to further define the story.

If you have missed my last post on that matter, the title I chose is:

A Robot’s Dream.

It was a long process for me to decide for this one but in review one with a satisfactory result because I got what I wanted. Hopefully…(you know, the skeptic in me won’t rest until I die)

You know, one thing that comes to my mind when I read this title out loud is, how obvious it is. There is no hidden poetry or something else in that matter that I got out of my sleeve. It is “simply” a title that fits. Of course, you cannot know the obviousness, but believe me: when you watched it, you will think: fitting title.

Some might be upset because of this but I am not for one reason: I have read this kind of stories dozens of times in screenwriting books and tutorials/articles/blog posts. It is the curse of the-viewer-won’t-know-how-long-i-worked-on-that-one. It is the curse of the long and hard work to come up with something so good the audience will think: this was hard for you? come on…

You know, that kind of reaction. And starting today I belong to this group of creators/screenwriters and so on. A good feeling.

The title in detail

So, why did I chose this title and what were I thinking?

Of course, the title itself is rather short, 3 words to be precise (two when you don’t count the the’s, a’s, so’s etc’s etc).

So each word is important for the title. But before I dig into it, let me do the title check list I created some weeks ago, to see, whether my title is good or not:

• does my title have a nice sound to it? At least I think it is
• Does it tell something about the movie? Of course. It tells the main protagonist and the underlying reason for all his actions
• Does the title raise curiosity? Yes.

Let me start digging into the 3 words here, by the last point of the list: curiosity.

One of the main reasons I chose this title is the fact, that the words robot and dream don’t fit completely. A robot is a robot. It is technology of which we currently know it cannot think or even dream. Perhaps it will be different in the future but today is today. Hence this is a nice contrast which hopefully raises some curiosity in the viewers mind.

For some time, I was thinking about using the word “wish” for my title, creating “A Robot’s Wish”. In a way this would have fit perfectly, too, since you can name its desire dream and wish. But I decided to go with the “bigger” one because the “size” of the wish doesn’t matter. The robot wants something so deeply that it doesn’t matter if it is walking or seeing the sun. It is his dream. A wish is something smaller and something you tell others (“I wish you were here..” – something like that). A dream is deeper, and bigger.

Another alterantive was “the” instead of “a” – creating “The Robot’s Dream”. I am not truly sure why I went with the “a” version but my feeling told me to use “a”, because “the” would have made the title too specific. And too important. My short movie is about a robot. Not the robot.

It will be interesting to see whether or not I like this title in the future, as I have now decided to go with this one. This was and is also one of the reasons it took soooooooooo long to publish it. I wanted to make sure I do not regret it two weeks later (as with my website designs).

Oh, by the way: it is almost beyond my grasp, but the domain www.arobotsdream.com was still availiable. Of course, it isn’t anymore.

Oh, by the way number 2: the term “a robot’s dream” currently gives me 246 results on google. So, not much competition on this one, and enough chances to book this term for my 3d animated short movie.

I think I’m going to watch some movies now to get inspiration.

A Robot’s Dream

…

More about the title search and the thoughts behind this the decision can be read in the next post.