I was SUPER out of it when I recorded this (I didn’t realize how out of it till later in the day, when I tried to interact with actual people), but I think that lends it a certain something (lack of coherent thought). Naw, I kid. Check it out.

Read this after you watch the video:

So, I didn’t push this technique nearly as far as I could have. I stuck basically with using the image itself as the displacement map—but if you have an actual depth map? Whew! The options are limitless (hyperbole alert!)! If you have a still render of a ship in flight, and also the depth map, you can displace the ship render so that it looks 3d! Meaning you can do a 2.5d compositing deal and actually have a bit of perspective shift on the layers! It’s amazing how little perspective shift it takes to suddenly make something look 3d, and our brains are totally hardwired to be super-sensitive to those changes, meaning even if folks can’t put their finger on why, the shot will still feel a lot more realistic. I didn’t get into this in the tutorial really, because all of the really cool shots I’ve done that for are in the finale of the film (which is still a secret, actually!). But maybe I’ll put together another little something sometime.

Hope this helps someone!

Ian

Ian Hubert | Writer Director

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On behalf of Nathan, Ian, the cast and crew, and myself, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support of Project London. We aren’t going to let the fact that we didn’t achieve our fundraising goal slow us down. We are going to press on and finish Project London as quickly as we can.

Have no fear, all the perks will be honored. Have no fear, we will find a way to finish the sound track and the color correction. People have come forward, and are coming forward with ideas and solutions to help us reach our goal.

You can count on us to continue to provide updates from www.projectlondonmovie.com and Facebook. We expect to provide you with some very good news in just a few weeks. Thank you so much for your faith and belief in our project, and your willingness to help us across the finish line. We look forward to sharing that great moment with you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Phil McCoy, Executive Producer
on behalf of Ian Hubert (left), Writer Director, and Nathan McCoy (far right), also Executive Producer and Phil McCoy (middle).

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We’re sharing this bit of the song with you now in hopes that it will inspire you to help us finish the movie. We have two major hurdles to overcome—color correction and sound design and mixing. Our IndieGoGo.com campaign is almost over and we haven’t hit our goal by a long shot. That said, we are undaunted. We will press on and we sure hope you will help us with a donation and/or sharing links to the campaign everywhere on Facebook and Twitter.

Point people here to check out the campaign: http://www.indiegogo.com/Project-London

Thank you!

And for those of you who stumble upon this post, Project London is an independently produced, science-fiction, action-adventure, effects movie. Made by Volunteers! Almost no Budget! Blender open-source 3D Software used to create animated elements! 774 Visual Effects!

Who is Anton Urban? Why is he introducing the premiere of Half Acre Day’s new song? These are valid questions that deserve answers. Anton has supported Project London from the beginning, when it was just a teensy little germ of an idea. He’s been a sounding board for ideas, he plays a bit part (that still may be cut), and he helped us with the connective story tissue between Project Manhattan (the prequel novella) and the movie. Also very significant, Anton introduced us to Half Acre Day. So it’s only appropriate that he introduces the premiere of Pythagoras Switch.

Cheers,

Phil McCoy, Executive Producer
on behalf of Ian Hubert (left), Writer Director, and Nathan McCoy (far right), also Executive Producer and Phil McCoy (middle).

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You can help us finish Project London by making a contribution and/or sharing this video and our campaign: http://igg.me/p/44521?a=265711&i=shlk

Thank you!

Project London is an independently produced, science-fiction, action-adventure, effects movie. Made by Volunteers! Almost no Budget! Blender open-source 3D Software used to create animated elements! 774 Visual Effects!

Join the revolution! There’s only one source for information about Project London. The Official Project London Website: http://projectlondonmovie.com/

Spiral Productions: http://spiralproductions.com/
Learn more about Blender: http://blender.org/
Project London on Facebook: http://facebook.com/ProjectLondon/​
Project London on Twitter: http://twitter.com/​ProjectLondon/

How old are you and why?
According to previously mentioned Drivers License, and other nomenclature, I was born on January 20, 1962. So, if my abacus skills are correct, thats (clink clink clink…. clink) 49 years old. I am as old as the Space Needle.

What got you started in film work?
Project London got me started!

What are you working on in the movie?
I’ve done a little foley, some ambiance sounds, some exosuit foot stomping

What are your favorite movies?
There are so many so instead of singling out, I’ll generalize…. I like quirky comedy (think Monty Python), I like cerebral sci-fi (anyone seen Primer?), any good animated movie with witty, funny voice personalities (Disney, Pixar), Stephen King type story lines, and slews of the classics from all genres (think Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Forrest Gump, Outlaw Jose Wales, Ten Commandments, etc, etc, ect……)

What would your mom say about Project London, the movie?
You’d have to know my Mom to fully appreciate this but she’d say something like, “that’s a very nice movie dear, don’t hurt yourself”

What super power would you choose and why?
The Potential wouldn’t be bad…. then I could change the channel on the TV when I loose the remote in the couch. Oh, and I could destroy planets….

What super power do you actually have?
I’m extremely gifted at loosing the TV remote in the couch.

What are your favorite bands and/or albums?
I like all sorts of Classic Rock, leaning on the harder stuff (Led Zep, Black Sabbath, old Van Halen, Bad Co., – think “Dazed and Confused” soundtrack. Also I REALLY like bands like Pink Floyd, Dream Theater, Rush , Yes, – progressive/art rock. Anyone heard of Spock’s Beard (check the song, Gibberish)?

If there were tigers roaming the streets and you had to defend yourself, what weapon would you choose?
Like Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters, I’d have to go with “an unlicensed Positron Collider strapped to my back” (by the way, I liked Ghostbusters too)

What would you like to tell us about yourself that we didn’t ask?
I try to live life by the sage words of George Carlin in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure: “Be excellent to each other, and….. party on dudes!”

What question are you glad we didn’t ask?
Don’t ask me why I think blowing up planets would be cool.

Soren Laulainen is a good friend and has been one of the most helpful minds in regards to post for Project London. We did our second re-shoot and completely reworked the beginning because of him, and the film is massively more solid for it. He has the amazing ability to see a story, take it apart in his mind, and put it back together in a more powerful way—which made him amazing at editing the trailer. I don’t know if we asked him to make it, or if he offered, but the end result is pretty darn cool. Even moreso if you’ve seen the film, and know how much he’s recontextualizing the lines and shots to emphasize points.

I like the two-fold approach; the slow beginning with a bit of setting the scene, then BAM! halfway through—actually very similar to the structure of the film as well.

And did I mention that he wrote the music?

Paul Miller came up with the sound design for the whole thing, though—no small feat! Since the film shows a little of everything, that means he had to come up with sound design for almost everything as well, and that’s a lot of wonky stuff to try to come up with. I think the end result flows great, and mixes wonderfully (just listen to that wonky stuff going on under the titles at the beginning! Just great!)

So anyways, definitely check out the trailer. We have a bit of weird grading on there, but that’s why grading is a major box on the to-do list!

The Blender Rigs are still available! If you haven’t checked them out, they’re pretty darn fun to mess around with, and you can use them for all your projects. OH! And we have a link up for a bunch more models as well, made by Paul Spooner! Paul made a lot of the best models in the film, so definitely check em out .

So yeah! Definitely check out the trailer, and the indiegogo campaign is still going strong, so definitely swing by and check that out as well!

Thanks!

Ian Hubert
Writer Director

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Links to cool stuff:

Project London: Official Trailer
Official Project London Merchandise
Project London Blender Rigs

Thanks for your help!

Sincerely,

Phil McCoy, Executive Producer
on behalf of Ian Hubert (left), Writer Director, and Nathan McCoy (far right), also Executive Producer and Phil McCoy (middle).

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These are some sweet models, worked on and made by some of the best Blender Artists I know. Paul Spooner, Nathan Vegdahl, Nathan Taylor, and Dolf Veenvliet. And I did some too.

Blender’s this great open source thing, which I learned via the helpfulness of friends, googling around for free advice, folks helping me on forums, and reverse engineering set-ups folks released, and to take all of that goodwill and turn it into something soley private and commercial—while it’s great that it’s possible (mostly…)—felt a little off. And while a hope is that this may also serve to throw us back up on a few more folk’s radar before we do the big release, it’s also just super fun.

Heeeyyyyeah- speakinuhwhich… how is that big release going? It’s close! Closer than ever before! I don’t want to say that we ran out of steam for a while, because we didn’t, not really, but reach into your pockets so far before you realize the bottom’s fallen out, and where are you gonna put your keys, and you need to buy new pants but you’re too broke. And you go, “Well I wanna finish this movie” but there’s another voice in the back of your head that goes, “paaaaaaaants.” And eventually you have to heed the pants, and that’s why we’ve started up a big ol’ indiegogo campaign, full of cool perks and videos and stuff. So check it out! Maybe pass it around! Give us all your money!

Oh yeah, and for those of you who haven’t heard, we’ve definitely finally released an actual honest-to-goodness trailer! Bam!

Peace!

Ian Hubert
Writer Director

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We are now within two weeks (or so) of launching a fund raising campaign on Indiegogo.com. We have set a fund raising target and identified a large collection of very cool perks for contributors. On the Indiegogo.com site, you’ll be able to buy posters, producer credits, dinner with the director, and more. On the Project London website, you’ll be able to contribute directly via PayPal and/or pickup author autographed 1st Editions of Project Manhattan and the Graphic Novel.

You might be wondering why, after so much time, we are launching a fundraising campaign. Good question. We didn’t realize how arduous and difficult it really is to make a feature length, sci-fi actioner. Now that we are close to the end, the last stretch to finish seems to be the most difficult in terms of volunteer time and real progress toward completion. We’ve faced all of our challenges and have overcome them, but now the main obstacle we face is that the producers can no longer reach into their own pockets to keep the movie going.

So what’s left to do? We need to finish the soundtrack and mix it. And we need to complete color correction. These two very important items are critical to helping audiences believe in the world of Project London. For many of you who already believe in this world, we are very grateful and hope you will help us spread the word when we launch the campaign. Stay tuned!

Cheers,

Phil McCoy, Executive Producer
on behalf of Ian Hubert (left), Writer Director, and Nathan McCoy (far right), also Executive Producer and Phil McCoy (middle).

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Use this address to see the Sneak Peek Scene: http://ning.it/qY9H81

We are very close to finishing Project London. We need to find funding to finish two significant items, the soundtrack and color correction. We are so close! We appreciate your help and support getting across the finish line. Thank you!

Stay tuned for an expanded fund raising campaign featuring a fabulous collection of premium items. We are looking to possibly host the campaign at Kickstarter.com and/or IndieGoGo.com. We may also just try fund raising ourselves, directly from this website. We’ll make an announcement as soon as we’re ready to launch the campaign.

Again, thanks for your continued support!

Sincerely,

Phil McCoy, Executive Producer
on behalf of Phil McCoy (left), and Nathan McCoy (right) also Executive Producer

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