The WC4 'Price Of Freedom' Movie Project

RScullion, Thank you. I have read your feedback and I think there's some great ideas there :). I'm getting some positive results with the new animated stuff, although it's still lacking the exciting feel that Grimreaper's video has. So still work in progress there. I think you're right about having less but longer Mission stuff (less is more right?), infact the mission count at the moment is 20! Which is obviously too much. I have all the DVD videos that I may need ripped and renamed. I'm hoping now their organised I will be able to cut more footage without getting confused and screwing up the story.

Now that I have the animation software I'm thinking that I could create transitional scenes in there. Such as exteriror shots of the Lexington, Intrepid etc. Since I can shoot them from different angles so they don't seem repetative. I thought the fades used in Star Wars were a little over dramatic and transitions in a serious movie should always be subtle in my opinion. Still I'm going to experiment with this, as the good old regular Crossfade gets a little old.

For all intense and purposes I believe I have fixed the plot hole with Pliers finding the flash pak. After Catscratch needs saving there's a mission where Bearcats are defecting and during the process they raid a shipyard. This also incorporates the scene where Pliers shows Blair the new fighters. Now the movie length is still a bit of a grey area, some people said they wouldn't mind a long movie since it has a lot of footage, other people don't want to sit and watch a film for 3 hours.

So as a compramise I would aim for 2 and a half hours, perhaps a bit less. Hopefully that will promote flow without disappointed fans of the game. I'm still animating the first mission so I guess I should decide which missions will definately be included first. I don't plan on making another 'Deleted Scenes' video so extra unused missions aren't really of any benifit.

If anyone else has seen the film and has ideas please post them here. I'm not all that good at decisions so help is welcome.
 
Glad to see this project is still alive and well.

If you need help on decision-making Queeg, well... look at it this way: this is your little project, so you decide what you want to do, I'm sure it'll be great anyways. I could never criticize such hard work others put their free time in. There will always be people who don't like this or that but that's their problem, isn't it? As long as you're happy with your choices, it's all that matters.

Now, to help you just a tad: Cutting from the 3 hour long movie isn't a bad idea at all... I loved it all the way through though I admit there are some sections that were only effective in game form, because some missions only exist for the sake of fighting through waves of fighters and the occasional capital ship. They aren't really great if you're just watching it happen instead of actually playing it. I would have to agree a 2h30 movie is a very good thing. But try to eliminate any generic combat scenes, hell if you've seen one, you've seen 'em all... Only keep those vital to the plot or that come before or after an important cutscene.

For me vital plot points would be: anything that involves Tolwyn, the Kilrathi, the power blackout, the infected planet and the scenes that center around the major characters (Eisen, Maniac, Vagabond, Paulsen, Seether), everything else should be looked if it serves the storyline at all.

So, if you decide to revise your existing cut in any way, I hope these pointers can help you. Cheers.
 
well I believe with some clever editing I can merge the first mission with the hostage mission (where Eisen says Tail some pirates, then after following them dub in Eisen's briefing for the hostage extraction as if he were sending him another message). This means I could remove some footage of what would be in-between possibly.

Darkelf, I'm glad you're still watching this thread. esepcially as you saw the first two movie attempts. I think we've established now that a lot of missions sequences need to go, and the important ones need to be longer. With the new modeling stuff I want it to blend in with the original CGI, so it isn't too obvious that it's new stuff.

Perhaps it will help if I type out which missions that I have planned so far and maybe it will help see what can be eliminated. Ones with Brackets are possible to remove, Here goes:

Mission 1 - Escort Transport, Defend Comm Station and Rescue Hostage

Mission 2 - Hijack Spacelab (Briefing video is linked to the story as Eisen has been reassigned)

Mission 3 - Defect Confed with Eisen

Mission 4 - Destroy Lexington

Mission 5 - Get Comm Data using M.I.P's

Mission 6 - Rescue Kilrathi

Mission 7 - Escort Kilrathi Home

Mission 8 - Search and Destroy in Palius, discover jamming cause

Mission 9 - Destroy Jamming Ship

Mission 10 - Shut Down Supply Line, go after Catscratch

Mission 11 - Defend Defecting Bearcats and Raid Shipyard

Mission 12 - Escort Blair to Axius system, discover Black Lance

Mission 13 - Slip past Ella Superbase (could be possible to edit out, has little effect on story unless you actually use the flashpak on it!)

Mission 14 - Destroy the Versuvius

Mission 15 - Showdown with Seether

Mission 16 - Fly to Earth, Destroy Starbase on the way (Could be replaced with a few simple flying through space and down to Earth clips)

So I managed to eliminate 4 already, so I'm wondering if 16 is still too much (especially as I'm not counting the missions which already have CGI, e.g. Bioweapon planet, Assistance in Circe)

Thanks for posting your thoughts Darkelf :), I know I have to make the decisions but hearing what others think helps me decide.
 
Queeg said:
well I believe with some clever editing I can merge the first mission with the hostage mission (where Eisen says Tail some pirates, then after following them dub in Eisen's briefing for the hostage extraction as if he were sending him another message). This means I could remove some footage of what would be in-between possibly.

Darkelf, I'm glad you're still watching this thread. esepcially as you saw the first two movie attempts. I think we've established now that a lot of missions sequences need to go, and the important ones need to be longer. With the new modeling stuff I want it to blend in with the original CGI, so it isn't too obvious that it's new stuff.

Perhaps it will help if I type out which missions that I have planned so far and maybe it will help see what can be eliminated. Ones with Brackets are possible to remove, Here goes:

Mission 1 - Escort Transport, Defend Comm Station and Rescue Hostage

Mission 2 - Hijack Spacelab (Briefing video is linked to the story as Eisen has been reassigned)

Mission 3 - Defect Confed with Eisen

Mission 4 - Destroy Lexington

Mission 5 - Get Comm Data using M.I.P's

Mission 6 - Rescue Kilrathi

Mission 7 - Escort Kilrathi Home

Mission 8 - Search and Destroy in Palius, discover jamming cause

Mission 9 - Destroy Jamming Ship

Mission 10 - Shut Down Supply Line, go after Catscratch

Mission 11 - Defend Defecting Bearcats and Raid Shipyard

Mission 12 - Escort Blair to Axius system, discover Black Lance

Mission 13 - Slip past Ella Superbase (could be possible to edit out, has little effect on story unless you actually use the flashpak on it!)

Mission 14 - Destroy the Versuvius

Mission 15 - Showdown with Seether

Mission 16 - Fly to Earth, Destroy Starbase on the way (Could be replaced with a few simple flying through space and down to Earth clips)

So I managed to eliminate 4 already, so I'm wondering if 16 is still too much (especially as I'm not counting the missions which already have CGI, e.g. Bioweapon planet, Assistance in Circe)

Thanks for posting your thoughts Darkelf :), I know I have to make the decisions but hearing what others think helps me decide.
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You can probably skip the first two pirate missions all together. If you tack finding the burnt out transport to another mission, possibly one in the tyr sysytem you can bypass hellespont all together. The escort mission after paulson takes over is probably essential but there's no reason to keep the space lab mission.. One of my more controversial decisions is that you can probably drop speradon/circe completely and save the catscratch satelite mission for the end of another mission series without losing any essential dramatic material. was that

I'd like to propose something Queeg. While I would love to get around to finishing my own cut, I'm not sure multiple projects are necessary. I intend to post my whole edit with placeholder cards for incomplete mission sequences. That way you can clean whatever ideas you want from it. Pretty much the only thing not completed are the missions which I, at one point, did have most of them done but am still kicking myself for not having those backed up when my harddrive failed. I rebuilt probably a quarter to a third but found my hardware was getting unreliable and that I was getting pickier. And lately I have been pretty busy with many things of my own fault. So if you're interested I propose a merger of sorts. Everyone will still be able to see my edits on their own though somewhat incomplete but you'll be able to take whatever ideas you will for your own.

Note though that some scenes were heavily edited to make room for shifting scenes and merging briefings and missions. So I invite you to ask me about specific sequences as well. There were a few parts that might have changed once I incorporated the mission scenes, but most of the video sequences were final with the exception of some of the ones surrounding the final showdowns as they really needed the action to edit properly.
 
On that note AD, I would love to merge as well, but only if you guys want that cockpit overlay I did in your missions, we could possibly work something out, I, like AD, am sort of busy at the moment, but if you're up for it, I'd love to apply my after effects skills to the greatest WC fan movie project ever. :D
 
AD said:
You can probably skip the first two pirate missions all together. If you tack finding the burnt out transport to another mission, possibly one in the tyr sysytem you can bypass hellespont all together. The escort mission after paulson takes over is probably essential but there's no reason to keep the space lab mission.. One of my more controversial decisions is that you can probably drop speradon/circe completely and save the catscratch satelite mission for the end of another mission series without losing any essential dramatic material. was that

I'd like to propose something Queeg. While I would love to get around to finishing my own cut, I'm not sure multiple projects are necessary. I intend to post my whole edit with placeholder cards for incomplete mission sequences. That way you can clean whatever ideas you want from it. Pretty much the only thing not completed are the missions which I, at one point, did have most of them done but am still kicking myself for not having those backed up when my harddrive failed. I rebuilt probably a quarter to a third but found my hardware was getting unreliable and that I was getting pickier. And lately I have been pretty busy with many things of my own fault. So if you're interested I propose a merger of sorts. Everyone will still be able to see my edits on their own though somewhat incomplete but you'll be able to take whatever ideas you will for your own.

Note though that some scenes were heavily edited to make room for shifting scenes and merging briefings and missions. So I invite you to ask me about specific sequences as well. There were a few parts that might have changed once I incorporated the mission scenes, but most of the video sequences were final with the exception of some of the ones surrounding the final showdowns as they really needed the action to edit properly.
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So what about starting off with the hostage mission, since this is referenced in conversations with Eisen and Maniac. I'll add all the movie clips in the project first and then estimate how long the missions will be, and get a better idea length wise.

AD I would love to see your cut of the film, although it seems a shame you couldn't finish it. I watched your samples and it looked very promising.
Thank you though, I would be more than happy to 'Borrow' some ideas if don't mind :).

Mousey333 said:
On that note AD, I would love to merge as well, but only if you guys want that cockpit overlay I did in your missions, we could possibly work something out, I, like AD, am sort of busy at the moment, but if you're up for it, I'd love to apply my after effects skills to the greatest WC fan movie project ever.
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Yes! I actually tried to do something similar, although never got the hang of adobe after effects. You took parts of the Shuttle video and mixed it with the games cockpit if I remember right. I have been struggling with trying to improve the cockpit stuff. If you like you can help me with that :), it would be greatly appreciated.

This is good stuff, three heads are better than one after all. You both would get credited for your work of course. Perhaps we should go on IRC or something and make plans.

Cheers folks.
 
Queeg said:
So what about starting off with the hostage mission, since this is referenced in conversations with Eisen and Maniac. I'll add all the movie clips in the project first and then estimate how long the missions will be, and get a better idea length wise.
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You don't need the maniac/blair duel but seeing the orlando depot taken out is pretty essential to the story and is referenced countless times thereafter. I think one of the samples I made may or may not be up but at one point I had posted the first 20 to 40 minutes up. From there I think I pretty much jumped straight to the hostage rescue, melding various briefings together to make it make sense. Some scenes needed shifting to account for extraneous dialogue etc. Hopefully I'll process the whole of what I have so that I can put it up either tonight or tomorrow.

I hadn't intended on doing 5.1 audio so you may just want to try and reproduce the edits if you want to use something specific. In which case i'd be able to explain exactly what is from where. Though depending on your needs I might be able to reproduce them individually with virtual dub myself now that I'm getting proficient with it, and send you stuff as need be. Some scenes I did as little as remove a line or two of dialogue whereas others are more complicated.

AD I would love to see your cut of the film, although it seems a shame you couldn't finish it. I watched your samples and it looked very promising.
Thank you though, I would be more than happy to 'Borrow' some ideas if don't mind :)...

...Perhaps we should go on IRC or something and make plans.
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I really would love to find time to do it, and maybe I will someday. I usually leave my PC idling in IRC so if I'm not at work, out, or sleeping I should see anything you say if you /msg me.
 
Mousey333 said:
On that note AD, I would love to merge as well, but only if you guys want that cockpit overlay I did in your missions, we could possibly work something out, I, like AD, am sort of busy at the moment, but if you're up for it, I'd love to apply my after effects skills to the greatest WC fan movie project ever. :D
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That actually seems reasonable. The effect doesn't need to be on every part of a mission scene, but If we get a finalize mission video it would certainly be worth looking into applying that kind of effect to at least the in-cockpit portions of the videos. Queeg or I could final a shot and send it to you to apply the effects to whichever portions it's needed.

I know they're not as "real" looking but have you considered trying using the cockpit overlays from WC3? Also you might be able to get a reasonable cockpit shot from out of a hellcat from the intro video as well as possibly a dragon (lance?) though maybe they move too much to be usable, though it might be interesting.

On another note, I have recently extracted all the comms from WC3 PSX and should be able to do the same for WC4.. those audio files might come in handy. Plus HCl is working on the geting a converter for the full color comm videos that go with the audio files and is making good progress. It might not be as dificult as it sounds to script something into WCSAGAs engine or something and "record" custom mission videos that way. But we'd have to petition some modders for that I guess as I know nothing about editing freespace.
 
AD said:
You don't need the maniac/blair duel but seeing the orlando depot taken out is pretty essential to the story and is referenced countless times thereafter. I think one of the samples I made may or may not be up but at one point I had posted the first 20 to 40 minutes up. From there I think I pretty much jumped straight to the hostage rescue, melding various briefings together to make it make sense. Some scenes needed shifting to account for extraneous dialogue etc. Hopefully I'll process the whole of what I have so that I can put it up either tonight or tomorrow.

I hadn't intended on doing 5.1 audio so you may just want to try and reproduce the edits if you want to use something specific. In which case i'd be able to explain exactly what is from where. Though depending on your needs I might be able to reproduce them individually with virtual dub myself now that I'm getting proficient with it, and send you stuff as need be. Some scenes I did as little as remove a line or two of dialogue whereas others are more complicated.



I really would love to find time to do it, and maybe I will someday. I usually leave my PC idling in IRC so if I'm not at work, out, or sleeping I should see anything you say if you /msg me.
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Yeah I may have been too vague, I haven't removed the Orlando Depot scene.

I don't count the Orlando Depot as a mission since I removed the Maniac and Blair dogfight, I just put in a few clips of flying through space and then seeing the depot about to explode.

Anyway my PC is on 24/7 too so we can just send messages back and forth on IRC and discuss in detail there :).
 
Mission Scenes

Queeg,

Sounds like you guys could make some real progress on this if you pool your efforts. I had a few thoughts about the mission list you posted:

Mission 15 - Showdown with Seether

This mission could actually go. Last time you see Seether, Tolwyn leaves him on the bridge of the Vesuvius. By blowing up the Vesuvius you kill him.

Mission 16 - Fly to Earth, Destroy Starbase on the way (Could be replaced with a few simple flying through space and down to Earth clips)

I agree. The only reason the viewer has for thinking that it'll be a problem is that he is told so in the briefing. Just cut it where Eisen tells him he'll have to go down himself and there's no need for a mission here.

Mission 13 - Slip past Ella Superbase (could be possible to edit out, has little effect on story unless you actually use the flashpak on it!)

Absolutely. This doesn't really work in the current edit anyway. You hear how difficult a fight it will be and then it just skips straight past it. There's the big finale with the Vesuvius coming up, it doesn't need anything here.

Mission 2 - Hijack Spacelab (Briefing video is linked to the story as Eisen has been reassigned)

I think you could actually cut this to avoid the mission. The briefing is actually split in two. There's the first part where you find out that Eisen is re-assigned and then the second where the mission goes ahead. At the end of the first part it actually looks like they're walking off. I think you could cut (fade) it here and then skip to something else. It would doubly work as the next scene is one of the few without Blair, so you could believe that they are discussing an upcoming mission while Maniac is at the bar and then Blair comes in later. It's only from playing the game that you assume every time Blair enters the briefing room he goes out flying.

Really looking forward to seeing the next version.

Richard
 
RScullion said:
Mission 15 - Showdown with Seether

This mission could actually go. Last time you see Seether, Tolwyn leaves him on the bridge of the Vesuvius. By blowing up the Vesuvius you kill him.
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This could work if Seether's line is cut:

Tolwyn: I think it’s time to take care of the Colonel.
Seether: With pleasure.

Otherwise the implication is that Tolwyn is suggesting to Seether that he should take the fight to Blair personally (which, of course, he is). IIRC, Seether is wearing a flight suit in that scene, and not a uniform which is perhaps more suited to a bridge officer, but there's not much you can do about that, I suppose.
 
I checked out your sample. I like your use of the life pod screen for the fighter cockpit.

As for animating the backgrounds, the programs I've used have allowed for an environment map to be applied. You can set it up like a skybox from a game with a little work. When you render the animation, the background will move as the camera moves. It will also help to reduce the matting effect you're getting with those really black shadows during your station shot. You could check the program's documentation to see what it says about setting up an environment map. Just make sure it's a high-res, seamless texture, otherwise it'll look funky.
 
RScullion said:
Mission 15 - Showdown with Seether

This mission could actually go. Last time you see Seether, Tolwyn leaves him on the bridge of the Vesuvius. By blowing up the Vesuvius you kill him.

Mission 16 - Fly to Earth, Destroy Starbase on the way (Could be replaced with a few simple flying through space and down to Earth clips)

I agree. The only reason the viewer has for thinking that it'll be a problem is that he is told so in the briefing. Just cut it where Eisen tells him he'll have to go down himself and there's no need for a mission here.

Mission 13 - Slip past Ella Superbase (could be possible to edit out, has little effect on story unless you actually use the flashpak on it!)

Absolutely. This doesn't really work in the current edit anyway. You hear how difficult a fight it will be and then it just skips straight past it. There's the big finale with the Vesuvius coming up, it doesn't need anything here.

Mission 2 - Hijack Spacelab (Briefing video is linked to the story as Eisen has been reassigned)

I think you could actually cut this to avoid the mission. The briefing is actually split in two. There's the first part where you find out that Eisen is re-assigned and then the second where the mission goes ahead. At the end of the first part it actually looks like they're walking off. I think you could cut (fade) it here and then skip to something else. It would doubly work as the next scene is one of the few without Blair, so you could believe that they are discussing an upcoming mission while Maniac is at the bar and then Blair comes in later. It's only from playing the game that you assume every time Blair enters the briefing room he goes out flying.

Really looking forward to seeing the next version.

Richard
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Regarding the spacelab briefing, it's possible to marry the part about eisen to the next briefing.. I've done so in the past. So you can eliminate a briefing there.

I don't really remember what I did with the Ella starbase, I'm working on cleaning up what I have though so that I can post it for Queeg (and all interested Parties) but it seems like it might be possible to drop.

I'm not sure I would drop the seether fight though. That just doesn't make sense even if it's possible. THe Whole game tries hard to set him up as some kind of evil and amazing pilot that rivals or even bests Blair in piloting ability. He directly mentions blair when destroying the Orlando depot even, almost as challenge. So in a movie world the story all but demands a showdown. Here, seether is this amazing pilot that is evil and he goes down with the ship? It's almost more important than the Vesuvius knockdown.
 
AD, I know what you mean about dropping Seether from a plot point of view, but it would take quite an animation job to do this fight justice and I'm not sure the film needs it. Just my 10 cents though.
 
I really don't want to cut the Seether fight, if done right it could be very exciting and I think it's quite essential to the plot (during the assembley Blair very sternly says "He is Dead" and Tolwyn seems quite shocked, he would know if Seether was still on the Versuvius when he escaped).

I've added all the DVD content into the project file and after some cuts it's down to 2 hours and 22 minutes. This is without credits so there's probably more un-needed footage that needs to go.

Now regarding the Spacelab mission, I would like to include this as it is referenced again in the assembley. The Ella Superbase mission has been edited out and it seems to flow just fine without it.

Well there's plenty of time to change things down the line. What about Mission 8 when they look for the jamming device? I was thinking of just putting in a clip of them picking up the ejecting pilot and then interrogating him.
 
Queeg said:
Now regarding the Spacelab mission, I would like to include this as it is referenced again in the assembley.
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That's one of those choices that end in Blair being executed though. It, as tolwyn points out, isn't a good argument against following orders. you do not need sc_3510k in the end. I recommend dropping that as well as the spacelab.
 
AD said:
That's one of those choices that end in Blair being executed though. It, as tolwyn points out, isn't a good argument against following orders. you do not need sc_3510k in the end. I recommend dropping that as well as the spacelab.
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But that would only leave 1 mission on the Lexington before defecting to the borderworlds...
 
Queeg said:
But that would only leave 1 mission on the Lexington before defecting to the borderworlds...
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well, I would have the transport escort/attack in the masa system over the space lab. But I guess it could go either way. Realistically, though, why would confed need a borderworlds spacelab in the first place? It certainly isn't for developing the flashpak, and work on the genselect weapon seemed to be happening in axius.

Yes, in some ways it makes sense given what we have to work with to use the space lab mission but I preffer how the transport mission makes Confed seem like aggressors. and then Having catscratches "is that how wars start" conversation after is a nice touch.
 
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