I’m not down on myself, in fact I think I’m one of the finest cats I know. Really, tho – what do I have to offer? Let’s think big. Imagine humans are getting off the planet and colonizing distant solar systems. Will we do to other beings what our Euro ancestors did to the indigenous of the Americas? Will we rape and pillage, spreading the contagion of the un-free market across the universe? That assumes of course that we won’t run into beings more adept at raping and pillaging than ourselves.

If we can’t even get in accord with the automatic life support system of this planet, what havoc will we carry to others? Fortunately, we’re stuck here for now. The choices on this planet of finite resources are simple, either off ourselves through ignorance or become stewards.

If we choose life and stewardship, what the heck does that look like? Like the sustainable civilizations postulated in Around Lake Michigan, it’s probably not going to be some slight variant of consumer culture powered by solar panels and wind towers.

If I can figure out how to become a steward, then I deserve to live. Define an enlightened earth being. Little or no impact, sure. Composting, recycling, conservation, yada yada – got it. What underlies the nuts and bolts of personal responsibility? The folks who really deserve to live are those that can awaken others, who are the wilds.

I want to emphasize the darkness here. DESERVE TO LIVE. Let’s say there’s an apocalypse around the corner. An apocalypse for humans that is, there’s already an apocalypse for lots of other species, for ancient ice, for atmospheric integrity. Ok, so postulating an imminent human die back, say from 7 billion to 1 billion or 500 million. That implies sweeping catastrophes, disease, total wars… really bad shit. Chance might play a huge role in who survives. No matter how many silver bars, assault rifles or dried food one was able to cache – it probably wouldn’t make much difference.

Probably the most important factor of survival aside from luck would be a driving idea. I’d guess that most people wouldn’t care to survive loss on such a magnitude unless they were carrying a metameme. Religious zealotry probably couldn’t weather such a storm, faulty premises would be ripped up at the roots. Only those who rigorously attend to now could make it. What’s the big idea then?

When I ask myself if I would want to survive, I could only answer yes if I am a steward. I deserve to live if I am living in accord with earth, a human incarnation of the wilds. If I ain’t, then ciao baby.

So do I deserve to live? Can I grow up to be a being worthy of the food I eat, the energy I use, the garbage I leave behind? I’ve gotten into the habit of taking stock of my impact, of keeping an inventory, of recognizing the cost of existence… but that’s hardly even a start. The deserving to live thing seems to be about getting in accord with the mother as a human. We are wildcards, able to be almost anything. What we choose to cultivate is crucial. My practices are certainly building physical presence, both performance and body awareness. This shades into feeling connection with the universe, at one and joyful. So far so good.

Any asshole can be a grizzled cutthroat in a hovel, that’s not for me. The 500 million who make it through, what would they look like? They’d be idea rich, martial artists, pragmatic, capable and robust. They’d be walking wild and historians. I don’t rightly know but I feel a bigger dream here, perhaps unprecedented. In Almonds shorthand, badass vegetarians with open source encryption.

Daughter of God is a narrative short originally shot in 2006, now moving steadily through VFX towards a completion by summer of 2012. Though roto artists will be repairing some continuity and production gaffs, we are mostly adding additional story elements to flesh out the DOG universe.

Requirements
x

Communication

• Be able to communicate clearly in English and follow direction. Please read and deliver everything requested below to be considered for the roto team.

• Have a text-able cell phone number (preferred) or Skype account.

• When emailing, always include DOG VFX in the subject heading. Texting or calling with questions is fine too.

• Always ask for clarification if instructions are not clear.

Work sample

• Link to your demo reel with roto specific examples that include before and after shots. Alternately you can execute a sample shot from the project, save these files.

Roto work sample AE 5.5 (.aep)
or
Roto work sample AE 5.0 (.aep)
and
Roto work sample footage (.mov)
Roto work sample example (.png)

Identity

• Send a recent well lit and in focus picture of yourself at your workstation – this is a sweatshop prevention strategy and not optional.
• Scan your valid state or national ID card, picture preferred (eg drivers license, student ID, etc.)
• Include a national tax ID number (eg USA SS number or similar)

Agreements

Print, sign and return both via email.

• Contractor
• NDA (link)

Project Details
x

Workflow

Our workflow requires a vector based deliverable that can be imported into After Effects 5.5, Silhouette or Mocha offer this functionality.

Nuke can’t export vector based roto splines without custom extensions. Raster based targa or tiffs are not a valid deliverable. Nuke contractors should only apply if they have a proven vector based roto shape export workflow.

Compensation

Payment is made through PayPal.com, once roto results are delivered and verified. Officially it’s net 7, though payment usually takes no longer than 2-3 days.

Bidding

Contractors who provide all the required documentation and are approved will be emailed the active list of tasks to bid on with a description and duration in frames and the login for the project FTP site. Download the appropriate Quicktime .movs (DVCPROHD, Windows platforms may need QT extensions to view) and the task_distribution.aep reference file.

We’re working with AE 5.5. Check to be sure your results will import into AE. Ideally, email / upload the results in an .aep file with masks on a solid layer over the target footage layer.  DO NOT include footage, just the AE file. Alternately, email / upload the vector export.

Credits

All artists will be included in the credits after the project is finished.

Wow! In assembling the definitive essentials, I am finding more bits of fat to trim away… incredible!

Beyond essentials, if we do flashbacks perhaps Uncle Joe could be making Christina tea when she comes in with the PKD book. Here’s your tea Christi… then cut to CU of him reading.

05/06

The edit has settled. I may yet be surprised but I believe DOG has achieved optimal editorial svelte.

Last Sunday I was preparing to launch the next wave of contractor tasks, today I think I’m finally ready.  After finding more ways to trim both acts, I re-exported all the reference movies, rebuilt the AE task comps, created sample images and then rebuilt the projection spreadsheet. It’s still predicting a wad of work ahead, but the calculations are still sloppy.

Duplicated work is not taken into account, eg the same change is needed over several shots. Once the solution is created in one shot, the associated layers can be duplicated as needed.

Percentage = the duration of the change / the total duration of the shot. If keywords could be searched in the task description, then the spreadsheet could adjust all duplicated percentages. For 5 duplicate tasks, the percentage would be 20% for each task. Another approach would be to find the first iteration of the task and then make the percentages for all the duplicates 0%.

A wider spread for the complexity value is needed. In the above scenario, even if all duplicate percentages were set to 0% via scripts or macros, the percentage for the first duplicate task ought to be valid. A very simple change happening over the entire shot would always be 100% but this tends to skew the completion calculation to the high end, especially for long shots. Rather than kludge the design and try and lower the percentage, having a value for negligible complexity would be good, maybe 1-5 rather than 1-3. 1 and 5 would be extreme values and rarely used, except in such special case scenarios. The base hours per second could then be lowered so that a future complexity value of 2 is equal to 1, so maybe 1 through 5 would be correspond to .1x, 1x, 2x, 4x and 8x.

Recent trimming of both acts is not yet reflected except for the tasks being contracted.

I’ve added some tasks like rotating skewed compositions in Act 2 and roto welds as discussed on April 21. Though this has added to the completion time, I’d guess the current estimate is 30% too high. I’d like to add the macro functionality described, but I don’t want to get sidetracked refining the projection tool. There’s likely another 5 weeks left for Essentials. When Essentials are complete and assembled, I’ll look into beefing up the spreadsheet before making a final decision about implementing the rest of the project.

I’m leaning toward doing the boxes and red hallway, but it’s very valuable to work within the limits defined by Essentials, especially since I’ve sliced out such major chunks as the flashbacks, changing sequence and surveillance.

So here’s an excerpt of the projection with color coding. Light and dark purple represent tasks that I plan on doing, pink and orange are ready for contractor bids, green is completed or no change, white is non essentials and dark grey is an act divider.

Welcome back to the DOG progress report. Editorial on the first and second act is (dare I say it?) done.  There are some weld edits which require a deeper investment, but after an preliminary test on one of the most complicated – task 68-69 or “I gotta find a boyfriend?” – welding is feasible if applied sparingly. I am ready to reissue the entire project for bidding on the roto. I am clearer this time around regarding what I need to identify artists -  2 or 3 test shots for prospective artists to prove their competency, new movie files, AE reference comps with task numbers, contractor and NDA agreements. I can ask Innes to generate the NDA and repopulate the FTP site today so that he crew at Trace can get back online Monday. Then by Tuesday I should be able to put the call out for new artists. Trace is pretty decent but I’d feel more comfortable if I had more than one basket for my lovely eggs.

Essentials is now more aggressively defined, opening with bricks and broadcasts, flowing into FUDIP theme song, Act 1, Act 2, credits and 3 Joe epilogue. Essential repairs and continuity are included – dead bird poster, blown out window, etc. Tunnel, flashbacks, changing sequence, surveillance, boxes, red hallway – all gone. This is not the dream DOG but it’s a manageable objective to achieve by May – with help. If the Essential structure is executed with aplomb then deeper explorations of story will be easy to bolt on after.

So there’s the day in a nutshell. Onward!

My first foray into tuning was way back, during an early pass at Gerry’s shots during the ‘chinese animal signs’ riff. We see Gerry facing camera frame right and Christina over the shoulder frame left. In some spots she was moving too much, so I split the screen using a garbage mat and replaced her with a calmer version from a different take.

A bolder approach was in making imperceptible jump cuts on Gerry’s CU, “You move so quick…”, snipping pauses where his facial expression and position we’re very close. One jump was subliminally problematic and I returned to it during the latest pass. The in and out don’t quite match. Based on my knowledge of roto, I can isolate an edge frame, rotate it against a clean plate of the background and weld the jump together.

With this insight, I tackled the Phil Dick delivery. In this shot Christina faces camera and Gerry is delivering from profile to over the shoulder. I wanted tighter integration between their interactions – her speaking, him turning and giving his line, her turning and giving her line, then tight pacing for the delivery of his lines matched to her changing reactions. It’s a lock down with lots of room between him and her, so it’s an easy split. I could handle most of his tuning with subtle jumps, which could be tuned with roto welds.

I’m proposing a radical series of welds for her head turn. When she says, “It’s god”, we cut from a wide shot of them both to a mid of C full and CU of G in profile. There’s a lovely match of her in both shots, but then she does a weird hesitation when she turns her head that screws up the tuning. I could forgo the match and cut to her later in her head turn, but then I loose my lovely match and it’s not quite as convincing. The plan is to use the best frames from her head turn and throw out the rest, creating a smooth head turn out of non contiguous frames. This will require a trip into AE  for sure.

Once the roto team is cranking again and the roto weld technique is proven, I’ll shine my editorial light on act 1. It’s a little backwards, we’ve already rotoed several shots from act 1, but I know it could be tighter still and am itching to got there. I can refocus the team on material for act 2 in the interim. I’ll take a gander at 1 today and see if the remaining dead bird shots can be completed, be good to have one meta-task done.

What’s the point of all this tuning with imperceptible jump cuts and roto welding? First inventing new terminology is super fun. Second, I can bring out the latent power of the moment. Where direction or acting falls apart, editorial can be a method of repair. Cutting full frame is powerful and cutting split frames even more so. Actors can be more tightly integrated, brought into a new time space and the scene re-performed. This approach can make up for inexperience on set. If the roto weld can be perfected, I’ll have significantly advanced my craft in the process of birthing DOG.

Keeping the genders separate for a couple of tests is worthy because I wouldn’t want female feedback suppressed by negative male reactions. I don’t know why Faisal was so adamant about cutting away Christina – She was working for me then and even more so now that I’ve chipped off the dross. I suspect she rubbed him the wrong way not because of Carmen’s lack of experience as an actor (or my lack of experience as a director) but because the character of Christina might make some guys really uncomfortable. Faisal kept going on and on about minimizing her, she made him itch in a place he couldn’t scratch, perhaps the root cause of our producer debacle.

Whether Christina actually has life and power for anyone else but me can only be discovered through rigorous testing. I’m guessing Christina will be vindicated.

If Faisal is right and Christina is just a poorly conceived and realized presence then DOG is dead – it’s pointless to minimize my main character, the spine of the narrative. The position he seemed to be taking was one of salvage, ‘there’s some good stuff here in spite of your terrible actress so make that work’. Basically – abandon my vision.

If I am right then there’s several important lessons… 1) if Christina triggers intense reactions it’s cause she’s working as a character, 2) I can trust my vision even in the face of scary critique 3) I’m destined to wrangle with some people even though I love them, not *because* I do. Come to think of it, this could be the explanation of why I lost Peterson, huh. I’m reminded of Box, when that guy got up in the middle of our performance and started calling my character an asshole. Wow, that rocked. Maybe that’s exactly what’s happening here.

Now I’m really excited to find out.

The start should be at least intrigue, if not rivet. In Version 1.0 2012 we’ve got the skeletons and a ruined nuke waste storage facility. A shocking trippy start if we can pull it off motion graphically, (don’t forget the fluttering prop rental tag). Otherwise, we start all bucolic and pretty with the happy nature reclaiming. The montage is perky with shortwave radio broadcasts shifting into a percussive music video and character intro /  pairing.

The pace then calms a bit with Christina sitting in her chair, popping packing bubbles. The phone rings, uncle joe, flashback and then… you’re dead. What? (rising, scary) Amps up to the climax of her opening the door, eek! Yep it’s uncle joe after all (down, relief) but up to his old tricks of course, (up again). Can I come in, and he does.

Anticipation, what the heck is going on? If this is indeed her dead uncle, why isn’t she freaked? There’s something going on here. An angel or what? (rising, curious) You are going to give birth to the daughter of god. (peak, surprise) Really? (falling, nonplussed).

He’s sticking with this scenario, she shuts the door (rising, worried). Negotiations, “there he is”, “down the hall”, “unprotected orgasm”. Ups and downs until, “now?!”

Down and rest for the changing sequence, a trippy intermission back story break. Slight titillation, physical humor all mixed up.

Door, bird poster, crash of glass, “fuck!” (up, excitement / scary). Door opens, (up mystery / scary). Sent by god to fuck you almost climax hold and he says, “c’mon in”, (peak, funny). Banter, ups and downs – “rabbit, dog”, dead bird, “awkward and foolish”. “Getting back to the fucking thing” (rising, excitement) “I don’t know if I can” (drop, let down). She tries to convince and generally the energy is panicky, he’s less and less with the program. She’s flailing. “Why me?”

She gets quiet and wanders about, introspective seeking. For his part he is quiet. Then books, “it’s god”. (rising, risky). His reaction could be negative (rising, anger) but wait he’s making tea… (lowering, relax)

ups and downs, think i could love you too (rising, risky) i like your style (down, relief)

This analysis has been a long time coming. I’ve been focused on just getting a cut that functions, (dealing with snafus like loosing the CU angle in the later third of Christina’s cabin), climbing the learning curve, and reveling in VFX necromancy. Now I am more aware of rhythm – energy peaks and valleys, fast and slow pacing, and ranging across the emotional spectrum. These are my terms, I’m sure this is just rediscovering the wheel and that there are established formulas.

I’d like to articulate my own formula, before studying up on others. There ought to be an overall trend of increasing momentum, an automatic result if the story flows and is engaging. Flow means situations connect via some consistent paradigm, (think world design) and engaging means each moment offers some tricksy emotional conundrum. Then there’s the rhythms – the heartbeat and breathing. Sometimes we’re running, other times were sleeping. A melange of feelings and awareness, not just contrast, (no light without shadow) but the blending of emotion, a little laughter mixed with makery delight and weary ache from riding too long in a cramped control pod. The limping of lost love towards a destiny of death.

Rather than attempt to impose form, the story has an inherent geometry, like the David trapped in marble. I can map out what each moment could be, I can ask where a contrast is suggested and how moments rely on some set-up. I am ready to find the essence of each moment and allow absolute revelation of same.

Boiling is down… based on the teenager test, I’m ready to tighten *everything*. I also realize that kids don’t have the life experience to get the nuance, it’s life experience and occasionally art that introduces nuance. As long as the back story and the world is consistent we’re good. I like the texture that comes from revealing tangential details, but I want to be sure the essential revelations that underpin the actions of the characters stand out.

My notes via iPhone

“What kind of accent is that?”

Cabin door creak over the top, one of them liked a lot.

Is that you, no a guy who looks like me, crazy right?

Cam – she see a CU first? (?)

Come in – laugh

Bird on table, Cameron – Whaaat?!

Why me? Yawns and slightly restless

Divine Invasion, Valis… Cameron – What did he say?

Act II, lots of pauses, perhaps to much fat…

Transciption

D – What do think is going on?

C – (something about low population) everybody will think they are (going to have) god’s child and they’ll have lots of people to repopulate the earth.

D – Great

M – Is that what it is?

D – I will tell you but I want to hear what you think

M – ok so I think the Joe guy isn’t necessarily an angel

C – might be a demon pretending to be an angel

M – but I don’t know what he is

C – he could be an alien.

M – there’s a suspicion that he’s not really an angel

C – why do angels need phones, don’t they have magic inter-planal energies floating around? Or maybe he’s a messed up guy

M – then also that so originally the beginning it was showing some of the end of what was going to happen so the guy went there cause I don’t it just came in with the asian guys and ended with the asian guys and I don’t know what that’s all about

D – fine

M – but with them (G and C?) it was just getting them to make a baby that was called the daughter of god and so yeah that’s basically what I got

D – so you’re a little confused by it, does it leave you with feeling of frustration or curiosity or annoyance, how’s it leave you?

C – it leaves me slightly confused

M – I’m just kind of like… Ooookaaay

C – If he really is going around to different people he should say like hello, this is your uncle bernard, because not everyone has an uncle joe. maybe he’s just warping their minds to make them think that there was an uncle joe.

D – right right, ok cool cool

C – what’s the real

M – I just don’t… I just think… if he is an angel he is not really uncle joe

D – would you like to know what he is?

C – ok

D- I’m asking, if you could as an audience member would you like to know more specifically what the fuck this guy is? this being this thing

M – (excited) yeah especially after the ending with him all over the place

D+M – what?!

D – yep

M – yeah, ok what the heck is going on, why is he standing on a train that’s about to fall off a cliff, he’s standing on the edge of it why? there’s nobody in there obviously.

C – well he’s talking on the phone

D – this is good, this is a really good point. what else? pacing, too fast too slow?

C -  I thought it was nice in the beginning but then it kinda got slow in the middle, didn’t seem like there was a whole lot of comedy

D – didn’t really fly for you because the pacing was whatever

C – well the beginning was ok, but if it moved along

D – when you say the beginning when did it really start to drag for you?

C – like after she was undressing, and then there just in there, and there just walking and talking, it seems kinda

M -same thing, as soon as she started talking to the guy in the room

D – the energy level went down

M – then it went down and stayed at the pace, and then it just sort of ended

D – yep, gotcha, ok. um what else. do you like any of the characters more than others

C – well there only three characters

D – that’s right

C – well I have to know what uncle joe is first before i decide

D – any of the characters appeal to you or particularly didn’t appeal to you?

M – the chick was annoying to me

C – her accent was confusing at first

M – it seemed like she was talking like a little kid almost

D – mmmm

C – like she was trying to seduce him with her female high pitched voice

M – at first i was confused maybe i was thinking in my mind ok so is it maybe how long has this been afterwards (the apocalypse) is there a point in which that because people are not able to have education in a sense their age is behind

D – mhmm

M – so maybe that’s what’s happening, but he’s not that much older than her, and he’s doing fine. so that’s kinda confusing on top of that scenario that I was thinking about…

D – that’s great, once the beans are spilled we can never go back, what else do you have to say, was there any particular parts that you thought were good?

M – I like the montage shots a lot, at the beginning and at the end (?), I don’t really understand what the whole asian guys and then… I like how she’s kinda like, let’s do this and he’s like, uh…

C – you don’t even have to go for an R rating because you’re using the f-word in the sexual sense

M – she’s kinda like let’s do this, he’s like you’re joking, blaa we’ll see what happens and it kinda goes on from there

D – meaning what, that you like that she was into it and he was kinda resistant?

M – i like that he was kinda like, at first i was like… the one thing that kinda bothered me was he’s like – come in.

C – I thought he was going to close the door

M – but then so he hasn’t seen a girl, like in forever so it kinda made me understand that, then he was just like, you’re playing a joke on me kinda thing…

D – and then he figures out that she’s actually serious

M – from the books somehow which I don’t understand

D  – you totally didn’t get the book thing

M – no

D – got it

M – the only thing I could understand maybe, is that the angel dude came to him first an told him about the book author being a favorite kinda thing and that someone would come to you that also likes the book that you have to do what they say.

D – right

M – maybe… there’s some kind of connection with the book

C – the books covers seemed kinda of 80s-ish so maybe they are old 80s religious books

D – nice, ok. trying to think if there’s anything else, uncle joe, gerry christina… anything else, anything you guys can think of

C – if there was more music, in the beginning and stuff and then at the end there’s not, seems kinda inconsistent. some background-y music

D – during their actual dialogue you mean?

C – yeah, some soft stuff that kinda conveyed the emotional magic you want the audience to experience

D – anything else

M – when I first get into this the only reason i know it’s post apocalyptic is because you talked about it being post apocalyptic

C – yeah, yeah

M – if you listen carefully enough to that (radio broadcasts?) and then I’m still asking myself, ok well it doesn’t seem like it’s that bad, is it supposed to be worse than what I think it is, because to me it sounds like pretty much people went from living in houses to living in boats. they still go off the boats

C – they still have electricity

M – they still have electricity, there’s still these laptops, blaa, blaa, blaa and there’s some phone thing that really isn’t necessarily a phone

C -it’s an iRock

M – if they have like that iRock thing an it’s not just the angels then how do they have something that we don’t have?

C – the truth is, it’s all a dream. you can end any movie that way, oh, it’s all a dream

D – what would you like to have revealed to you first?

C – everything

M – the asians

D – the asians, ok. uncle joe is a spook. when the apocalypse happens the main people of the government go underground and run things as much as they can from secret installations that you don’t know where they are

M – ok

D – uncle joe is a spook and he has a home office where other spooks hang out with him

C – as in ghost or as in CIA spook?

D – spy. you guys hear rumors of this and that technology blaa blaa but already what spooks have is far beyond what we can imagine as far as surveillance stuff goes

M – truthfully or are you talking about in this?

C – truthfully

D – truthfully

M – oh yeah yeah

D – uncle joe is basically an extension of that current trend. how spookiness, spy stuff is getting to be much more integrated into society

C – they probably had all this stuff back in the 90s

D – uncle joe is a regular guy with a little bit of augmentation, technologically. you guys ever hear of men who stare at goats? it’s a story about how the army was trying to develop soldiers with super powers, being able to remote view, walk through walls, blaa blaa blaa, well uncle joe has a little iRock that has technologically enabled super powers. he can surveil anyone who is on his surveillance list

M – and he can also make them think things

C – so even if you don’t have cameras you can

D – they are little nano cameras

C – it can measure the energy disturbance

M – no

D – the technology in this is slightly ahead of this but it’s not way out there, it’s not like portal guns and shit like that. Miniature cameras that are like dust and the people that he’s been interacting with have been on his list for awhile. all these people are part of an ongoing project he’s been working on. so there’s surveillance up the whazoo on these people AND in his office, even his fellow spooks, he’s watching. because it’s all part of this larger project. so when you see the japanese guy and the other guy, they are interacting because joe is just checking back in the office to make sure that things aren’t getting out of hand and the people who are there are following his plan as well.

M – see i would never get the whole underground government thing

D – that’s ok because we haven’t gotten the story completely told yet. we can take that part of the story and just lop it off and let uncle joe be whoever you want him to be. Talking about essentials, what’s essential to this project. The whole part where you see the guy with the Irock in the tunnel, who is that?

M – it’s the uncle joe guy

D – exactly, it’s uncle joe. he’s in some installation defunct or otherwise. that whole chunk where you see uncle joe gets on the bicycle blaa blaa, we can lop that off the movie and just throw it away. it’s back story. it’s sets up things but it doesn’t have to even be there. we can start the movie from…

C – I think if you want to do the CIA thing take out the japanese guys and find some other way of conveying that cause it’s just like oh random japanese guys, have something that means that your not sure if he’s actually an angel or if he’s a…

D – he turns this on and here’s these guys. the whole point of the home office…here’s their banter what’s their banter? did you read this… nice suit but your penis is small, oh you want to compare penis? typical office banter. that’s all you get out of that. there’s these two guys, there in an office someplace, what’s that about?

(a framed picture of uncle joe on the wall? – like in government offices, Joseph Basmati: Uncle, Operations Supervisor)

D – looking forward in the future, were going to meet this character, we’re going to meet this character, he’s just doing his surveillance stuff, ok I’m done with my surveillance and he puts it away but leaves the radio on, cause he’s listening to the radio. what we set up here is this thing in the beginning with this place, it has nothing yet to really make it jump out but this is a nuclear waste storage site, that’s what the sign says… and look there are skeletons out in front of it, would you want to go there? No.

C – Maybe you could…

D -Hang on. The point of this facility is that it’s a huge facade. it’s a fake. it’s not really a nuclear storage facility, those skeletons, maybe they are made out of styrofoam. the point is this looks really like carnage and bad shit happened here.

C – don’t come

D – yeah, don’t come near this place, nuclear waste what could be worse than that big skull and crossbones and inside is this guy hanging out. inside you might see signs, as you are going up the tunnel secure facility have a nice day whatever just to give people more of an idea that he’s actually in a place that’s actually a hidey hole for these spooky people. how we relate this story is not all that important because we can loose this whole chunk of the story.

C – can you explain why he’s going to… is it just her or more people and why he is telling them he is going to have the daughter of god?

D – how traditionally religious are you guys

M – i’m christian

D – you go to church, strong believer, open minded?

M – i’m somewhat open minded

D – this is a very challenging movie for people who are christian. i’m having fun with christianity, having fun with taoism

M – I don’t even know what that is

D – it’s a chinese philosophy, I was raised a catholic so i’m having fun with my own upbringing, playing around that. The question was why is he going out to those other places? You had a good point those places were obviously empty the cabin, the cave and the caboose at the end – that is a problem an after effects fix. there needs to be a clothesline with clothes, there needs to be a lamp burning in the window of the cabin, there needs to be some signs of life around these places because these are other places that people are living.

M – yeah see we don’t…

D – we don’t know that and that has to be fixed. if that stays in there, we have to see that those are places that people actually live. we know people live in boats. the answer is… he is going to these other places because there are other people as part of this project. maybe christina is going to bring the daughter of god back onto the planet, maybe that what she IS going to do. even though he’s a spook, maybe there is some kind of strange supernatural hookup that he actually has, he’s still a man, maybe there’s something involved that he’s doing…

M- you could even get to the point…

C – maybe god has the actual cellular device network with all his angels and he tried to tell them something and he accidentally contacted him and instead of killing him with a bolt of lightning he just said ok….

D – who is melchior, he was actually one of the three wisemen who comes to see the baby jesus in the manger in nazareth. what he’s basically saying is I’m an initiator of a process. earth is pretty messed up at this point, maybe it’s part of a plan to make it so messed up and he’s trying to undo that plan. this is a lot to talk about real quick the devil has a plan to isolate the earth from god and create havoc, horrible things on earth. uncle joe could be an agent of god and he’s trying to smuggle god’s daughter back on the planet

M – you could even say why is he spying on kinda thing.

D – ultimately what he is doing is he is smuggling god back on the planet, and this projects been going on for a long time. He’s known Christina since she was a child, the beginning part where I want to read this book uncle joe, that’s a little girl who is blonde who is talking to uncle joe, same guy and she’s like read me this book and the book is philip k dick. the books at the end are philip k dick. the reason you didn’t pick up on the books at the end is because the placeholders at the beginning don’t show you the title Philip… K… Dick…

M – he says philip k dick and I saw the PKD  so I got that part

D – uncle joe is introducing the philip K dick…

C – ok

D – …meme to her when she is very young, and then later on when she opens the drawer, cause Gerry is going to be another Philip K Dick fan, she is going to see there’s a connection there, he’s setting up all these weird connections. The reason he’s going to those other cabins and places at the end, is he’s creating decoys. the daughter of god is coming, the bad guys know that they are going to try and find her and kill her so he’s creating these decoy people in different places so that the actual daughter of god can sneak under the radar. makes sense sorta?

C – ok

M – now it makes sense

D – still a lot of confusion, what the fuck is going on. it’s a strange story to tell, it could just be this sequence between this crazy angel guy and this man and this woman it’s a little mysterious but it’s kinda funny and kooky if the pacing can be fixed. i like the back story I’d like to try and tell the whole story if possible and at this point it’s almost all motion graphics. signage, weird little things that are stuck in places… the dead bird did you get what that was about?

C – there was the sign that said don’t… is it some kind of chinese thing maybe?

D – there was a sign that said dead birds carry contagion and he’s got a dead bird. what does that tell you about him?

M – he’s going to die

D – yah. he already knows that he’s going to die, he’s on his way out. what is his deal, there’s a whole story about him

C – maybe do the whole CIA spook thing, maybe you some animals, there is something weird about them, you see some flash of red in their eyes their not animals their actually little robots things used to spy on people

M – is he a robot

D – very good

M – cause there was some electrical noise when he was moving

D – there may be somethings that doesn’t need to go into, is he a robot or is he a person?

M – doesn’t matter

D – doesn’t matter, he’s an agent of the divine.

M – i would never guess that he was an agent of the divine

D – the saying angels come in brown paper wrappings, if I walked down the street and see an angel, that angel might be a bum. a trope of every story, the angels are bums laa laa. Uncle Joe’s kinda smarmy, you not even sur if he is going to seduce the girl in the beginning. What is he?

C – I thought he was going to say, God has sent me…

D – yep exactly, i want people to be a little uncomfortable with him. he supposed to be -  eew. He’s really well disguised, he’s an agent of the divine. you have no idea that he is unless you really pay attention and we can tell the story properly

C – off topic, called Mercury falls, rises religious apocalypse, heaven and hell, beaurocracy. picks some fat over weight gamer kid to be the anti-christ etc.

D – we can talk more about the story and which points are the most important to realize

M – agent of the divine

D – I’d like to leave them questioning at the end, we have to get some things across those places have to be occupied, we have to think of him going to other places and contacting other people.

C – this is your uncle joe it implies that all the other people he’s going to

D – he’s uncle joe to all those other people too

C – then is he in multiple places at once, is he going to those people and pretending

D – i can leave that to the imagination of the audience. it’s not actually important whether they think he has super powers or not

Tasks / Team = Duration

Each task describes a specific change to some shot, a shot defined as the IN point to OUT point of any edit. A shot may have several tasks associated with it, but each task refers to only one shot. A series of tasks may be related by continuity, but each task always refers to just one shot.

Tasks have a duration and a level of complexity. Though different contractors work at different speeds, the average amount of time required to complete 1 second of change can eventually be calculated. Originally I guessed this value to be .5 hours for 1 second of change.

I’ve completed 8 seconds of roto on shot 42, which took about 15 hours. This works out to be about about 2 hours of work for 1 second of change, 4 times greater than my initial guess. However, scene 42 has the highest complexity value – 3. The predicted time at .5 hours / second for shot 42 was nearly 12 hours, so that’s not to far off. Using shot 42 for calibration, the average hours / second is .64. So my initial guess was workable.

Currently I have no active contractors! Finishing the Essentials on my own would take about 200 days. I can afford to bring on 3 more contractors at $13/hour (Trace rates). Assuming that the three are at least as fast as I am, the current calculations predict that Essentials could be complete in under 3 months.

I’m counting on at least a 50% acceleration in this prediction based on 1) interns eventually contributing, 2) a tighter edit, 3) my own increased productivity, 4) new contractors being significantly faster than I currently am, 5) a miracle.

I’ll think about linking my measured productivity more tightly to the tasks remaining and how I can continuously update the predicted completion as contractors come aboard.