16 march 2007 ~ R&D

Reasearch and Development is essential for this project; on several levels. First, we are entertaining using a plug-in for Maya that allows realistic demolition and destruction---right down to the particle and rigid body systems. NONE of us know it, but plan to learn it and develop our skills enough to create something worthy!

In addition, many of us come from a photography background and want to convert that knowledge and skill to cinematography. We have many aesthetic concepts in development, but more importantly know that we want NOTHING to do with the home video look (pretty hard when you are using DV). So we are testing several ideas of how to obtain beautiful photographic compositions while avoiding the family vacation look :)

We are testing a wide angle converter, as most of our locations and plates call for it. As well as, altering the gamma on the camera to bring the highlights and shadows more into the grey area---where we still have information, and color correct that in post.

We are also entertaining the idea of increasing the level of frenetic motion, by bringing the shutter speed up to a range of 1/250 sec to 1/500 sec when the script calls for it.