How to finish DOG, step by step

October 18, 2012

Time for yet another revision.

1. update the current status for a subset of shots, let’s shoot for Red Hallway and Essentials, Act 1.

We’ve committed to Red Hallway so it’s effectively Essentials. Cabin Window is already included in Essentials. The only updating that’s really required is to review the complexity and percentages – complete and change, so three variables.

2. Well then have a projection on costs to complete the Series. For greater veracity, we might consider 3. adding on a task for final composite on shots that have several tasks.

4. Prepare all tasks in these series for bidding. 5. Roto welds. List of shots and descriptions with max starting bids. Some can be work samples.

6. Budget magic, research and preparations

To date, we’ve spent $7,740 on roto help with $3,365 accounts payable remaining. What percentage of the project is done as a result? I can’t say with confidence until the task and team spreadsheet is fully operational. I need a reliable projection to effectively build a fundraising plan. Another 20k…50k? I can drib and drab another 20k, but if that’s not enough, we’re stuck. There are intriguing options for raising more and I’ve initiated research and preparations. Can’t say that’s a distraction because if may prove essential to DOG completion.

7. Magnetize a team of 3-5 proven, available artists by reissuing the Reference and the FTP site, work samples.

Until we have funds ready AND we are caught up with compositing the roto we’ve paid for, our little team is just right.

8. Update entire task data set.

Budget, if audacious funding isn’t readily available, revise completion date. May have to stretch the completion to match existing revenue stream.

9. Project a schedule

10. Book of DOG

11. Compositing

12. Test master

13. Test screenings

I’ve made the movie I wanted to make, audience feedback might suggest slight enhancements, adjustments. Ultimately, we want to understand what folks feel, but the movie is what it is at this point.

14. Tweaks and adjustments

15. Final color correction

16. Sound mix

17. Master

10-14-12

How to finish DOG.

Prediction – reliable projection of time and money

I owe it to Jonathan who put a lot of sweat equity into DOG early on doing 3D. I asked him if he wanted to help me roto about a year ago, and he asked me to project a finish date so he could decide. In trying to answer him with confidence, I found myself diving into accountability. I still haven’t given him an answer because my prediction tools are prototypes. With the prospect of paying artists for the finish, I’ve got to bring these tools online.

Fill in formulas for the task and team spreadsheet and then update the current status for all shots.

Right now, I use a variety of criteria to guess at the number of hours a task needs, starting with the duration of the shot. Recently, I changed from how long in time to how many frames. It may seem a hair splitting distinction, because there are always a finite amount of frames per second, in the case of DOG – 24 frames per second. Frames feel more concrete, and very atomic. An artist bids a job that is 233 frames long at $400, that’s $1.70/frame. With enough experience, the complexity of roto on a given chunk of frames can theoretically be known, from frames 1-30 it’s easy because there’s no movement but from frames 30-60, it’s complex because there’s tons of movement and billowing hair. The first 30 might cost $1.00/frame while the second 30 might be $3.00/frame or $30 + $90 = $120. That’s how much it cost. Before I thought about a 2 second shot that was 50% hard (3) and 50% easy (1), so the average complexity is medium (2) and so the cost is 2 x base cost/second. Again, it’s an alternative, but frames require no conversions.

Historical note – When I started looking for artists, I was planning on tracking them by the hour using a web based time clock I developed. Could have been a real hassle to try and make that actually work. The CTC interns were pretty lax but then then they didn’t have much accountability. Ben and I both used it for a bit, and if adding up the hours were automated it would be great in house.

This means revamping tasks and team to be totally about frames. I’ve already done the heavy lifting of converting the legacy approach to frames, though when entering new data in the future I’ll focus totally on frame count, not time.

I’ve got to look at each shot in the AE complete consolidation and be sure tasks and team reflects reality.

Convert all calculations to frames

Using bids from proven contractors, establish a reference for shot complexity and market rate / frame. Be able to plug in new bids to determine cost/frame and negotiate.

Bid reference and comparison

How much will it cost in time and money?

Knowing the number of frames and their complexity and having a rate reference enables reliable projection. Gulp.

Magnetize a team of 3-5 proven, available artists

Re-issue the Artist Reference on Trickster Pictures, clean and slick the site a bit, which includes burying links. Project a compelling project. Post a few near finished stills. What are artists looking for in new projects? (search).

Determine stages of completion, what’s the sequence of VFX series? Finish by acts.

We had a plan way back when to handle the VFX in stages, starting with the essential. I broke that at the beginning of the summer when I assigned Ben shots in act 2 because and I was still figuring out roto welding in Act 1. Once we’re reorganized, I can evaluate whether it makes sense to return to this approach or whether just doing it all is feasible.

Budget magic

Here is where the rubber meets the road or shit hits the fan. If the numbers are crazy impossible as in multi $10k, then we’ve got to punt. We’ve got to make do. If there’s enough money but not enough time, we’ll throw more money to shorten time. Etc and so forth. If there’s plenty of money and plenty of time, well phew!

Project a schedule

When will the events that follow be accomplished? Make some intelligent predictions, based only on what we know, not what we need. Follow times with percentage of confidence.

Book of DOG

What goes behind all this fabulous expensive roto? Props! We need to develop the props and that’s where we’ve got to organize the art. Take over DOGthemovie.com as the project bible, it’s open source after all so why not? Either we sap our own momentum by giving away the show OR create a big behind the scenes theme park that will drive interest. If nothing else, we’ll learn something and we’ve got to have a prop reference to bring other artists in.

Compositing

We’ve got our roto, we’ve got art, now I’ve got to assemble it all into a coherent brilliant moving painting. What else do I need to know VFX-wise? How long will this take? Be great to monitor my progress on completing the supervision.

Test master

Test screenings

Tweaks and adjustments

Final color correction

Sound mix

Master

October 17, 2012

This is the executive summary and update 3 days after posting. For the preliminary rationale, see below 10-14-12.

Building plans is an iterative process. The first plan isn’t perfect, it is in fact far from anything that can actually be executed. Then there’s the next and the next, and each version has assumptions that prove to be completely wrong. Back to the drawing board.

What’s the proper mix between planning and execution? We can spend so much time planning that nothing get’s done. If plans are executed, they inevitably break. That’s the beauty of plans. Planning is process, trying to make sense of extreme complexity, ingest the parameters of the problem. Planning is about getting clear about what we want, maybe even why we want it and getting regular feedback about progress towards the dream. I did this and here’s what happened.

If plans don’t break catastrophically and often, you’re not really exploring your potential. See Galactic Pot Healer, PKD.

I guess the epiphany is that a plan is not an end in itself, the plan is not important. It’s what we achieve through planning. That seems obvious, but for me it’s very subtle. Here on this page are two posts about a plan. There are initial assumptions which inspire action and then there are revised assumptions which theoretically inspire further action. Having put so much time into a plan, it used to hurt when the plan didn’t work, or there was more to an objective than my puny plan envisioned. I felt a failure at planning. But who cares about the silly plan?! The plan is nothing, it’s just a thought experiment. If not results, does the planning at least yield clarity? Then I’m a badass planner – especially considering the mad objectives I am constantly taking on. I mean for real! I’m taking on colossal outcomes, ridiculous challenges. Realize the dream and marvel at the process, however many face plants it may trigger.

√ = done

1. Fill in formulas for the task and team spreadsheet √

2. Convert all calculations to frames √

3. update the current status for all shots.

Updating the current status of all shots would be better served as a process rather than a one off job. I need to make progress with the contractors and looking at the entire project rather than just the sections they are working on (31-53 and 49-84) is distracting. I need to feel confident the new assumptions on task and team are somewhat correct before applying those assumptions to all 300 or so tasks. Once I feel confident that the constants for time and cost are correct, I’ll be motivated to apply it overall.

3. Bid reference and comparison √ (10-18-12)

This is an important tool that needs to be configured. I want bids to be instantly broken down into $/frame and when hourly totals are provided into hours/frame. This might also include payments made towards a shot with a running total for how much we’ve spent so far. This could eventually feed back into the $ complexity constant so that it’s progressively less of a guess.

4. How much will it cost in time and money?

We can answer this in stages for now. The first wave should be 31-53. I can probably know roughly how far we’ve got on this section, because most of the roto is done. What might be a reasonable approach is to 5. add on a task for final composite on shots that have several tasks. We also need to activate all the VFX Series. Can a variable be used to define a virtual range? Then tasks could be added without busting the sum()s. Yes it can, so I can go ahead and 6. activate totals for all the VFX Series. √ (10-17-12) With this I’ve a chance at making a data driven 7. forecast for 31-53 and 8. a forecast for 54-83

9. Magnetize a team of 3-5 proven, available artists

Theoretically we have 3, though I might only have one. J is the artist I feel most confident about. Due to lax supervision, M messed up one job and then a did great on the next. I proposed that a discount on the third set to make up for the non-usability of the first, but he may reject that and just never return. R did a great sample but has yet to complete a shot, expecting results from her tonight. I do need at least two more in my stable, so I can insure constant progress, the chances of everyone being available at once is remote. This means 10. reissuing the Reference and the FTP site. I think getting more precise on the bidding by offering a starting bid – I will pay max $x/frame – might be the better way to go. Then the artists can bid under that.

11. Determine stages of completion, what’s the sequence of VFX series? Finish by acts.

I’m way beyond Essentials at this point. Red Hallway and Bathroom Chemistry are far along, and with 31+35 we’ve made a start on Boxes. There’s a 12. roto weld in Cabin Window and about 30% of it’s roto still to go, part of Essentials. Since I can’t contract the roto weld, that’s a priority for me. What else to wrap act 1? 13. Joe’s turn and… That’s what Tasks and Team should reveal, in an ideal world. It doesn’t yet, I need a method to evaluate at a glance, even if it’s just a reliable ‘number of hours remaining’ but best would be color coding tasks on the fly, but I don’t know how to format rows based on cell values, yet.

14. Budget magic

We’re in the process of the latest credit card caper. I dinged my credit rating by holding over 50% after battling to get it down, but if the caper is successful I can bump it up and expand the 0% APR reservoir. Finishing DOG was the ultimate motivation all along so can’t complain. The available budget to hire help is about 20k. I might explore a land deal to supplement. We’ve also got to keep close track of 15. what we’ve committed to with paying artists. √ (10-18-12)

16. Project a schedule

Ha, well basically it’s work fanatically through November and hope (!) we finish! That’s the old paradigm. In the next week or two, I should be able to see whether we really are close or no as we feed the artists and revise Tasks and Team. So I expect a real schedule to emerge by the end of October.

17. Book of DOG

18. Compositing

19. Test master

20. Test screenings

13. Tweaks and adjustments

21. Final color correction

22. Sound mix

23. Master