Space Specks Production Status

PRODUCTION STATUS:

3/26 - Thommy is almost finished texturing the Rafi ship, see below. Doesn't it look incredible! I love the glass areas, they really give you a good feel for the size of the ship. GREAT job Thommy!

3/25 - Below left are a space station and ship Horace did for the Morgan scenes. Looks good, Horace! Below right is the final render of the Rafi Bridge by Don. The green area will be a starfield. Looks fantastic, Don!

3/16 - We are nearing completion of Scene 11, which includes an Admiral Morgan scene by Ryan (upper left). It's looking really good! I think we're planning to have the space station spin and maybe a space ship moving in the bacground. Upper right is a new version of the Rafi bridge by Don. We can do much better chroma keys, these are just tests to judge composition, sizes, and placement of objects. The bottom two pictures are the Rafi ship by Thommy. He's now in the texturing stage and has only textured the back half. Needless to say, this stuff looks really, really good! Also, here's a little scene by John Bailey.

3/11 - I've started the Sound Designer page. Click here to learn more about these talented individuals. Top left we see something that Don and Mark have come up with to solve the elevator problems (looking like an elevator and having motion). It looks FANTASTICO! The lights on either side will move to simulate motion. Plus the sound designers will make an elevator motion sound. Top right is the New Speck Bridge by John. Talk about incredible! This is the final version. Bottom left is Don's first Rafi Bridge. Great start, Don! Bottom right is a sample by Ryan of the scene that will play during the opening credits. Ryan also came up with a transition effect that looks really cool! At this time, I'm still projecting a July 1, 2002 completion date, however, it has come to my attention that Men In Black II will be released July 3 (the Wednesday before the 4th of July). Consequently, I may push back the release date (i.e., the date I rent the theater, if I do it) to July 12 or 13. It is also possible I could move it forward to June 28 or 29, but I would say that is unlikely at this time.

3/10 - Sorry I haven't been posting many pictures lately but my team is keeping me extremely busy. We are to the point where a lot of the stuff we are testing and exchanging consists of video files which collectively, take up huge amounts of disk space. Since my site is limited to 50 MB, I must be stringent with what I post. Below, top left is the first cut at the New Speck Bridge by John. Looks great! Top right are several models that Horace is working on, a ship and a space station. The middle two are more pictures by Horace. Looking good, Horace! Bottom left is the final render of the communications by Mark. Doesn't it look FANTASTIC! (It's also a long range spy satellite). And finally, bottom right are some sketches I did of what I think the Challenger will look like.

I forgot to mention that we have two new animators, Horace Cheung and David Icely. I will post information about them as soon as I get it. Horace is 32 (I think) lives in Hong Kong, has a BS in Computer Science, Masters in IT, and has taken many advertising and marketing courses. At 22, David is the youngest member of the animation team, and is currently going to college in Arizona. He is taking an exceptionally heavy course load, and at least one of those courses is computer animation.

We have three sound designers working on the project now. I will add a sounger designer page to the site just as soon as I get some free time (I don't have pictures of them yet anyway). Mike Berg lives in Utah and he is a lead sound designer for Acclaim Entertainment. Mike is also the lead sound designer on this movie. :-) He will be doing everything from dialog to special effects (sfx) creation and coordinating the efforts of the other sound designers. Bob Bailey is from Texas and he is a proficient and prolific sfx designer, his web site is here. Ken Nelson is from Canada, and he has extensive experience in the production of live sound. Again, I'll try to pry some more information and pictures out of these guys and post it later.

3/4 - Lots of activity over the weekend. I am seriously considering renting a local movie theater for a one night stand in July 2002. I'm trying to get prices now to see if it's remotely possible. I would have to sell tickets for about $10 I think (cast, crew, and production staff would be free of course) so I don't lose my shirt. The tough part is trying to guess how many people would be interested in attending, so if you think you would like to attend, please send me an email. I've contacted two local Star Trek fan clubs so maybe there's some interest there. I still intend on submitting the completed movie to film festivals and try to get a Distributor to pick up the cost to convert to 35 mm.

Some people have asked how the editing is done so I thought I'd put up the picture below. This is the RaptorVideo interface. The controls on the left show me the time code for the captured videos. The controls on the right show me the time code of the tape in the camcorder. I can control all camcorder operations from this interface so it makes it real easy. The black area is where the video plays (I also have a separate 14" monitor I use sometimes).

I have some videos to post but I have to convert them to mpg. Don finished the Glover engineering scene and it looks TERRIFIC! Just click here.

For the Status for February 2002, click here.

For the Status for January 2002, click here.

For the Status from November 1 through December 31, 2001, click here.

For the Status from September 20 through October 31, 2001, click here.

For the Status from June 2001 through September 19, 2001, click here.