iClone Filmmakers - Collaborative Feature Film?

iClone Filmmakers - Collaborative Feature Film?

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https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic465498.aspx

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By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

Hello Everyone,
It seems like there are a lot of experienced and talented artists here. Could we pull a production crew together from the community to produce a feature length film?
I am wondering whether working collaboratively on a single product might boost the quality enough to submit to major film festivals or possibly to sell to streaming platforms.
I have a feature length script ready for production. Alternatively, we could produce someone else's script, or create our own story. If there is interest, I anticipate moving forward at the end of this year. The goal would be to complete production in 2021.

If you are interested, please respond with:

your vision for a collaborative feature film (e.g. genre, story, style, production values)
the productions roles you'd be interested in (e.g. character creation, animation, cinematography, rendering/composite, voice acting, writing, sound, lighting, special effects)

Hope to be able to work with some of you on a new project,
Nathan

By Data Juggler - 4 Years Ago

I have a book that didn't sell and I got mad at Amazon and pulled it.

I would need to convert a 15 hour audio book to a 2 hour movie, but I still like my one novel published (under a pseudonym so I can get a job. Should have chosen a better name).

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/6ba2222e-6ff2-4880-a14d-2225.png

Back Cover

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/0b819ca6-5805-4913-bcf8-53f0.jpg

The one thing I have noticed about writing, and writing for animation is I find myself thinking 'can I animate this' when writing for IClone.

What's your script about?

By ckalan1 - 4 Years Ago

I need help with a feature-length project. I have been working on it for many years now. The script is done. The voice actors are already recorded. Many of the assets for the project have been created. It is called CLICS. If you would like to see the intro where the credits will run let me know and I will send you a demo.
I built a website to coordinate the project it is not up right now. Years ago I worked on a huge project with filmmakers all over North America - it is a lot of work.
I would like people to collaborate on this project.

By Data Juggler - 4 Years Ago

Sure send me the link or intro and / tell me what its about.

With teams focusing on specific sections it seems like it would be a lot easier.

By General Picture Animation - 4 Years Ago

Instead of embarking on a feature-length film, why don't you earn your wings with an animated short.
You can tell an awful LOT of story in 5 minutes, if you know what you're doing.
Quality, not quantity.

By AutoDidact - 4 Years Ago

Even if people are working remotely

and the film is to be rendered all in Iclone, who will actually render the final deliverables?.

If you try to have separate teams render parts of the film on their home systems, how will you get consistant lighting/colorgrade/general look?

and who will be responsible for the purchase of identical content that would need to shared by the teams who will render the finals??

Quality Standards for those doing the actual animation will have to be consistent which will be quite a challenge if some animators have PN/mocap suits and Iphone face capture.

while others are stringing together canned motion clips

and using the basic audio script system for lipsync.

Collabrative projects live & Die( mostly die) by the mangerial experience & skill of the PROJECT MANAGER, not by just having some "cool ideas" for a movie.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@Data Juggler, your story sounds wild. My state just legalized recreational mj.
I was thinking if several people have stories, we all read and vote on one to produce.
I know what you mean about imagining animations as you write.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@ckalan1 that's great you have a script ready to produce. I am thinking of what would be most marketable and also easiest to produce collaboratively. So, I imagined whoever joins us submitting whatever scripts they have and the group voting on one to produce.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@hicksight, thanks for weighing in. Not a big fan of shorts, nor the market for them.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@AutoDidact, all excellent points. (Are you volunteering as PM?)
Obviously, we'd have to QC renders, and complete post on a single machine. Same for sound, probably.
We can have some control over animation via shot blocking. And those with comparable equipment can take comparable assignments.

By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago

well I just came up with an insanely ridiculous idea that would make lotsa noise...

recently the Show Series - Supernatural just came to an end after 15 years, throughout the story the main characters must have died and come back to life like 5 times, part of the fun was the shows' ridiculous larger than life but smaller than smartphone interpretations of real life mythical lore and it was just flat out pure comedy, rebooting the series would be an easy story line.....so I was thinking, how funny would it not only be to reboot the series as an animation, but bring every story and character from tv and film we ever loved to make cameos in the episode... like batman hooks up with Dr Who and goes to heaven to get sam and dean but during the rescue they get beamed up into the USS Enterprise where they meet robbie the robot, and get jumped by the girl from kill bill who was recruited by the queen of hell who has the hulk as a bodyguard i mean really try and get as many cease and desists possible in one episode and tell it like a 5 year old would in the narration! w00t

anyway, it was a thought that made me laugh! thought I'd share. Tongue

By thebiz.movies - 4 Years Ago

Having one collaborative project where you try to get lots of people to agree to work towards a single goal from scratch seems like a very difficult idea.

However, creating a space where folks could meet to discuss projects collaboratively could be rewarding and fun especially now that more folks have experience in virtual environments. Perhaps someone could set up a zoom meeting where two or three directors could present their ideas (elevator pitch, screenies, WIPs, whatever) and then maybe open up the floor for discussion to get feedback, ideas, potential collaborators or whatnot. Something more akin to a support group perhaps with the added plus that people may be more willing to work with someone they have more personal contact with before they agree to jump in.

Maybe its a monthly Iclone directors discussion group. I wonder what kind of response that would get. I would be intrigued to both present and listen...

By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago

it may not be as hard as you think, the idea is to make it fun and allow everyone to add their 2 cents.

Long ago in the very early days of online gaming, Role Play was a big thing, the games themselves were so 8 bit and simple, that the players made up for it with imagination and Roleplay stories. We'd all Roleplay a character, and make a big fuss of every little event that happened, make websites, posts on forums, blogs, Roleplay in game and gossip about big events etc.

Well I was thinking, the same concept would work for film making, where you create this imaginary world ....and everyone tells their stories baseed on the rules of this world, as the story evolves, every player can play off of another players story line like a haiku but with video. Over time with enough stories and clips, someone can just randomly edit various parts of different stories to make one saga. Kind of like what yall did with pinhead, but instead of one character, a whole fantasy world with D&D rules, tell any story you want as long as it falls within the rules agreed uponl.

By General Picture Animation - 4 Years Ago

Yeah, I realized it was ridiculous to make a suggestion, but the forum doesn't support deleting one's comment.

By thedirector1974 - 4 Years Ago

Dear Nathan,

you are not the first one sugesting a colaboration between iCloners and you won't be the last one. It's a nice idea and a comforting thought to achieve something by joining the forces.
If you have a fun project and everyone is allowed to add their 2 cents in their onw pace and and within their comfort zone, you may get a result - someday.

But you want to do a feature length movie which can be shown at film festivals. So you aiming for a higher quality, right? Let me ask one thing. Have you any idea what it means to produce a feature length animated movie? I don't think so. You want to be finished in 2021. This isn't possible even if everyone is helping you constantly.

I have a little story for you about colaboration. I do iClone movies since 2012 and sometimes people approach me, offering their help, if I need any. During the production of my latest iClone movie "ALIEN - The Message" I remembered this and I asked around if there is somone who could hepl me with the 70´s style computer animations. One person were glad to help me out with this and I was happy not to do this by myself. Two weeks later I got previews and it was basically done with animations you can find on youtube. That wasn't the look I was aiming for, so I wrote an email and explained in detail what look I was aiming for. He never answered and so I had to do all those animation at the end.

You know. If you want to do a real feature length production with an artistic concept, you can't do it this way. Someone has to call the shots and no one will help you with this, if you push them out of there comfort zone. If you pay for the work, that's a whole other thing ...

Greetings, Direx

By Angel Alonso - 4 Years Ago

Valuing your idea very positively. Without a doubt, the effort can be shared between several artists.

But I think you have to be realistic. The difficult thing is not to do a project. The really difficult thing is to have the contacts and the adequate structure so that the finished project reaches the professional distribution and marketing channels.

I have more than 30 years in the professional animation sector and I have seen many projects that after being carried out remain in a drawer without being able to have a proper exploitation.

I know what I'm talking about, it is a complicated path that must be taken into account as much as making the film ... (I would almost say that one must take more into account than making the film).

I think you have to be aware that this is the real barrier to overcome.

That said, cheer to go forward. Work always has a reward.

Best to all...

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@thebiz.movies, at the very least, we should start a monthly zoom for iclone filmmakers - 1st one in January 2021. Excellent idea

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@planetstardragon, love your idea of the story world. That's actually the formula for a series, which might be more reasonable, as @hicksight pointed out. I'd be interested in rolling with that.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@hicksight, not ridiculous at all. In fact, you touched on quality and required effort. @planetstardragon's idea for a series of stories is closer to a short and marketable. Please, keep contributing to the discussion.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@Direx, I enjoyed your film. I, personally, have not completed a feature length film, yet I've been working on one for the last year, so I do have some idea. In fact, it was the same motivation you mentioned that inspired me to post the call for collaboration.

If I had not spent the last decade running collaborative projects, and managing a small software shop, I might not feel confident that several filmmakers could accomplish more in a stipulated timeframe what a single filmmaker could not. If one year is not realistic for a group of filmmakers to produce a feature, what do you feel would be a realistic timeframe?

Collaboration and teamwork require immense effort, yet so many of the successes we hear about begin just like this - a group of people competent on their own, decide to pool effort toward a specific goal. And they produce something that none of them would have imagined on their own.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@ATOOM, I agree with you completely. Without a clear goal for distribution right from the inception, we would be making a YouTube video for friends to see. In fact, distribution should guide which story we eventually decide on producing, as well as format, genre, etc. We'd welcome your experience in any discussion.

By r78zj99 - 4 Years Ago

Hi everybody

the idea sounds great at first until you start reading the news on fall outs with a consortium of people, who signed agreement!

on who should have what

so, may encourage, disappointment and anger on who should have the credit.

fist fights may take place.

so, make a wise choice and sent your work on the showcase area, please

if any of you are of any good then contact each other.

and fill in the legal requirements.

from Alan

good luck to all

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@Alan, excellent point about the legal aspects of collaboration. These are important to establish at the outset so that there is a process in place for reconciling disputes. I know I have done this in businesses I have started with partners. The businesses began friendly, but sure enough, we needed the legal framework by the end of the enterprise. Yet, having it in place enabled us all to remain friends and resolve conflicts to everyone's satisfaction.

As far as talent level, we also establish quality standards at the outset. Then we assign tasks based on ability to meet these standards. Quality control throughout the project is critical. One of the benefits of working collaboratively is the potential for learning new skills and for improving existing skills.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

So, how would we actually create a collaborative film/series for distribution to streaming platforms and entry in film festivals?
Here is what I envision for getting started. Free collaborative tools exist to accomplish most of these items.

Pre-production:

Meet to establish purpose, scope and timeframe of project. Draw up project plan, including preliminary schedule and anticipated costs.
Meet to establish business plan, legal entity (production company), and ownership. Draw up business plan, including budget and where to establish legal entity.
Meet to determine project product; format (feature or series pilot), genre, and final product specifications, based on streaming platform and film festival specs. Create Production site.
Meet to conduct work breakdown, including milestones and timeframes. Determine participant roles and assignments.
Meet to update and finalize production schedule, based on available personnel and resources.

Following Pre-production, we would need to complete Production, Post-Production and Distribution.
I anticipate Production burning the most hours.

Your feedback welcome,
Nathan

By 4413Media - 4 Years Ago

There has been collaborations in the past, but they're usually short projects like the 48 hour film festival. There was one major project in another community that revolved around a grind house short collage. It's an option to consider, make a series of shorts that revolve around a central theme or genre.

By r78zj99 - 4 Years Ago

thank you, ultimativity & all

I am very glad and please

to help our team efforts without too many conflicts.

from Alan

for those who are ambitious you make your mark now or sometime in the future

we all have to start somewhere, I am still learning and also correcting my mistakes.

By animagic - 4 Years Ago

The project approach is probably the only way to pull something like a feature-length film off with multiple collaborators.

For me personally that would also be the problem.

I have worked on software projects as well, developed project plans with milestones, etc. I retired from that for a reason, to get away from it and have fun doing animation.

The hardest part, I think, is to keep you collaborators motivated, especially for a long-term project. That's why the idea of doing shorts first makes sense, as it will help to streamline the process.

Also, shorts are not to be dismissed. If you are looking for financing, a short can be a good calling card.

By r78zj99 - 4 Years Ago

I agree with you animagic

looking the history of animation from the likes of Walt Disney back then a minimum of 2 years or greater was required.

so, short animation may get you notice.

for that bit of short animation long term requires dedication and cooperation.

for you to reach your target or theirs

the simple message here is be your own boss or be somebody else's employee.

from Alan

p.s. if it is fun for you continue or not have a rethink

By r78zj99 - 4 Years Ago

By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago

keep it fun, minecraft became a movie because it was fun and had a big following, Hollywood doesn't take chances anymore, the industry pays for people with a following.

I've seen the business model over and over, from bands like https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/ned-flanders-metal-band-okilly-dokilly-the-simpsons-819321/
who started as a gag band for fun and now became a staple to the simpsons ......to Facebook which started as no income fun, and ended up as a billionaire global spy network Blink

as I'm reading this thread, and watching all the "technical administrative aspects", - it's starting to not look fun, further, someone always gets the short end of the stick, no matter how you make this work. it's the nature of the business lol.......at least if you keep it fun, they get to go home with that w00t

Do something fun, grow a following / culture - then figure out how to monetize it when you have all eyes on you. Any big plans beyond that is a .02 cent royalty check distributed 2x a year. and when you deposit it, you'll be saying "The important thing is we had fun!" anyways - Get the artists involved in such a project, a fan base with a big following, that fan base will be worth more than the movie itself. forget hollywood, grow a fan base as a community. grow from there, the fan base will tell you what they will pay for.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@BenjaminTuttle, sure. if the shorts were all in the same story world, I could see that approach for a series.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@animagic, no doubt shorts can create buzz and perhaps even deals. My problem with 'getting noticed' is even if you get financing, you are back to square one, making a film. At this stage of my life, I would rather invest time in a marketable product from the start. For me, having a clear goal and project plan are what motivate collaborators to invest their time.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@planetstardragon, great examples of collaboration growing an organic following. For me, fun is actually producing a marketable product. Otherwise, it becomes a circle jerk with collaborators showing off their skills to each other, but making limited progress on delivering a marketable product.

By planetstardragon - 4 Years Ago

the thing with creating a "marketable product" is that it requires lots of marketing money., thus a risk ....in the fun model , you create a hit product first, and the people that become fans become your word of mouth salesmen. Cold starting a random project, is like trying to make a pop star over night with just ads.....with the advent of the internet, a clever business is to have your marketing ads generate income, rather than going all out of pocket for a product no one knows.

you will get more youtube views from tutorials, behind the scenes and the making of generating ad money than the money you'd spend trying to make everyone aware of 1 movie they never heard of before. - that style marketing is old brick and mortar pre internet. - people need a story and a cast they can fall in love with, then they will pay to keep it going because it feels good. - unless you have like warner brothers marketing money, then you create feel good products and marketing , and advertise it so much people will wonder how they fell in love with something they never liked to begin with. this is why popular music sucks and all movies are the same. it's corporate training by marketing.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@planetstardragon, I get what you are saying and there is no reason both can't work. Right now the approach you are describing is what new authors (myself included) are using to market their books, instead of hoping some publisher will "notice" us.

Sharing the writing process and interacting with them is crucial to selling books. I don't have to write a formulaic novel to please a publisher's marketing stats of what the audience expects. However, I do have to use my writing skills to develop a product that delivers the experience my fans are looking for and counting on. That experience, as well as interacting with the author and contributing their ideas, drawings and book related memes on the book site are all fun.

Nothing in what I am proposing precludes that sort of community - either with the fans or with the collaborators.
The challenge in developing a fan base is in creating a space where they can contribute; i.e. do something. There are millions of Meetups, Discords, Zooms, YT channels, Slacks, & SubReddits, that are supposed to be fun, but they falter because there is no focus or inspiring activity. People show up, find a bunch of people there, BS ing and little else. The ones that people come back to and contribute to are those that have defined purpose and process (which is basically, culture). That way they don't feel like they are wasting their time.
Look at the TikTok Step Chicken cult; they were bored until this chick stepped up and gave them a purpose (swarming other channels). They're having fun.

We could do the same. Like a series where, for various individual reasons, people refuse to stop wearing masks. In fact, they create increasingly elaborate masks to convey their personal identities. The collaborators could have fun inventing characters and stories. Fans could design their own masks or suggest new characters or create fan art of their favorite characters. But that sort of fun begins with an infrastructure and a hard goal, imo.

By Alien Maniac - 4 Years Ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPOzZbUSKFs&feature=youtu.be

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Options : History : Feedback : Donate

By Auroratrek - 4 Years Ago

ultimativity (12/8/2020)

your vision for a collaborative feature film (e.g. genre, story, style, production values)
the productions roles you'd be interested in (e.g. character creation, animation, cinematography, rendering/composite, voice acting, writing, sound, lighting, special effects)

Hope to be able to work with some of you on a new project,
Nathan

I'm a little late to the party here, but I was curious if you had a commercial example of the quality you think would be possible using iClone, etc.?

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@Auroratrek

Great suggestion. I actually do not have any examples at this point. I will try to create a scene and post to my YT channel.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@Space Rider, clever idea. Lots of ways to go with that.

By AutoDidact - 4 Years Ago

After I finally upgraded from Iclone 6.5 pipeline to iclone 7,last spring ,I made an honest attempt to move all of my rendering to iclone ,for convienience sake, after the punishsingly complex Iclone /3DX /Daz studio/Maxon Cinema4D Pipeline used to make "Galactus Rising"

I just could not get used to the Idea the not having even

basic screen space reflections or motion blur being a sci-fi enthusiast.

I ultimately Migrated to Blender for a much more streamlined FBX pipeline with Iclone 7 /CC3 to Blender 2.92.

Iclone 8 looks alot better in terms of environmental rendering effects and may be a better choice for more cinematic quality

productions for those rendering exclusively in iclone.

By ultimativity - 4 Years Ago

@AutoDidact I watched the Blender thread (we don't need UE ) with a lot of interest. My next project will be futuristic, more like sci-fi. So, I am going to need a more robust environment and effects than what I am seeing in iclone7. We'll see how iclone8 shakes out. I would still be concerned about the quality of the human skin inside blender.

By AutoDidact - 4 Years Ago

In Blender you can plug the Diffuse and Micro normal maps

and SSS scatter masks ,from the digitlal human shaders,

into the princpled BSDF

and get some pretty decent results in EEVEE

Like this Middle aged Military officer.

https://forum.reallusion.com/uploads/images/c7fe1d90-4670-41c9-aff8-a4d4.jpg

And of course once in Blender you can create/add your own hair & beards.

By Capemedia - 4 Years Ago

Are we here again?

This has been discussed so many times over the years I think I've lost count. I remember being actively involved in a project many years ago and I even offered to pay people for their help. Guess what nothing came of it. The problem is that we are mainly independent people, from all over the world, with different cultures and work ethics. Yes I have collaborated in my work life with a huge team from all over the place, the difference was everyone was paid a salary.
The only way this could work is for you to pay people for their time and that is not cheap. What do professional animators get £17 an hour and they can do about 4 to 5 seconds per week?
It's an expensive gig!
For volunteers what's in for them? People need a spark a reason to get involved in something? And that in itself is a problem, is it money, fame, clicks, what?

I hope you get what you want and I'll be at the front waiting for the output, but to get involved... that's a whole different story!