UNDERFIRE Trivia

In case any of you out there want to know more about the UNDERFIRE series so far, here ya go.

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but I've been lazy. Realize that all the trivia only applies to the UNDERFIRE series, not any other videos from Theorem 42.

UNDERFIRE SERIES

• Ryan, Brandon, and Henry have been in every UNDERFIRE video to date.
• The sound effect for the Maverick/Revolver has been the same in every video, the Counter-Strike: Source Desert Eagle sound.
• Each video ends in the same spot.
• During filming, we have always been questioned by neighbors about our shenanigans.
• The inspiration of the series was Call of Duty 4 and Team Fortress 2.

UNDERFIRE

• This is the only video so far that only stars 3 people.
• This is the only video with subtitles.
• This is the only video that ends with everyone alive.
• This is the only video that has a "happy ending"
• When Ryan and Brandon are facing off, Ryan hides behind some stairs. After Brandon is ambushed by Henry, the stairs that Ryan is hiding behind changes. This is because when we were filming, the person who lived there came out, and we didn't want to be confronted.
• The Wilhelm Scream can be heard.
• This is the only video that a Portal song appears, 5000 Degrees Kelvin.
• This is the first video that Adobe After Effects was used in a Theorem 42 video, for the title.
• The primary color for this video is red for the sunniness and the high energy.

UNDERFIRE Deathmatch

• This is the video in which William makes his Theorem 42 debut.
• The video was actually filmed in the rain, thought the rain was intermittent, so sometimes it shows up, sometimes it doesn't.
• Henry dies in a similar fashion in the beginning as the first video; Ryan headshots him when he peeks over a bush.
• When Henry kills Ryan with the shotgun and runs away, you can see William sitting on the stairs in the background.
• This is the only video that a Team Fortress 2 song appears, Faster than a Speeding Bullet.
• The title retains the quick word glimmer as in the first video, but more advanced.
• This is the first video to have limited lives. Though it is not directly stated, once Ryan kills Brandon for the last time, he does not respawn.
• Though not directly contributing to the video, in the first 5 minutes of filming, we were yelled at by a woman for being too loud outside.
• The primary color for this video is blue for the gloominess of the rain.

UNDERFIRE War

• This is the video in which Matt makes his Theorem 42 debut.
• This is the first video that songs from the Half-Life 2 episodes appear.
• This is the first Theorem 42 video to have a trailer.
• This is the first video to include blood effects.
• This is the first video to feature team deathmatch.
• This is the first video to feature full length dialogue.
• Ryan and Henry wear black shirts, while Matt and Julien wear white shirts.
• Brandon only makes a small cameo here, for the sake of being in the video, and also to reference to the previous videos.
• It appears that Ryan, Henry, and Brandon made a truce of some sort and formed a team.
• In this video, there is a better implication of limited lives, as an example of Brandon.
• The real reason why it was raining at the end was because we filmed the ending on a separate day, and it was raining that day.
• The symbol on Ryan's shirt is of Portal.
• The title also retains the word glimmer from the first video.
• The primary color for this video is yellow, for the high energy and the high speed action.
• Team Tigers was the result of a discussion on current issues. The name of that team came from the discussion of Tiger Woods.
• The only person whose name is not mentioned is Henry.
• During the machine gun scene, a neighbor came out and confronted us.
• When Ryan's respawn is shown, an old Half-Life song plays. This is the same song we used for Ryan's respawn in UNDERFIRE.
• The silencer on Julien's rifle toward the end of the video is on crooked. The silencer was made from the core of a toilet paper roll and black electrical tape.
  

Video Production Improvements

BREAKING POINT has been a serious step forward in my video production skills. Overall, the video doesn't look like it was filmed by a 15 year old and a 12 year old. It looks, in some parts, like a professional video (I might be a bit biased but whatever).

A lot of the angles in the video were inspired by Slumdog Millionaire. That movie had so many amazing angles and action shots, that I just had to implement some of them. The frame was sometimes not level with the ground, but that adds to the edginess of the shot. Also, a lot of zoomed closeups were used, and it created a better sense of suspense. Overall, the zooming and crooked frame effects definitely worked toward a better video.

Editing was different this time around. Unlike UNDERFIRE Deathmatch, I added the muzzle flashes before I placed them into the timeline. This gave me a better sense of what I was working with, and ultimately gave me more control over where the sounds go and how fast I was supposedly shooting.

I finally figured out a shortcut to color correcting a billion scenes at once also. Saved me an hour of work :D

The muzzle flashes from my "assault rifle" were custom made in Photoshop. I created these after I completed UNDERFIRE Deathmatch because I was unhappy with how the flashes looked in the end. They were about the best I could do manually, but I think they looked pretty decent. Ryan's rifle flashes were from the internet. I gave him different ones to make more of a contrast between the 2 different shots, but you probably didn't realize it :D

Workflow was definitely slow on this particular video because of all the file rendering I had to do. But, on the contrary, I did learn many things about HD video. HD is definitely nice, and makes the videos look very clean, but to go through all that work isn't quite worth it in my opinion. I'm not a professional, so I don't have all the equipment or the right computer. Standard definition would work just as well with me.

BREAKING POINT was a big learning video, and definitely helped me step up my video production skills. Hopefully my next video will implement these new skills. I'll have to show my friends first though.

UNDERFIRE Deathmatch

UNDERFIRE Deathmatch

UNDERFIRE Deathmatch is up on Youtube! Please watch it people, it took me forever to edit it!

This post is just to announce the new video upload. It's been a while since I uploaded something. But here's the new video!

Here's the link:

UNDERFIRE Deathmatch

Home Again!

I stayed home again today.

Last night at around 1 my mom took my temperature. I had a 102 fever. So she gave me some water, some motrin and another blanket and went back to bed. After a while of lying under the blankets, I began feeling uncomfortably warm. I took off the top blanket. Then, a bit later, I began feeling warm still under my normal blanket. Took that off too. I was sleeping under nothing, hoping maybe this might lower my fever.

My illness has made me very restless. I couldn't find a comfortable position to sleep in. I'd lie in one position, and my legs would feel uncomfortable. I'd try another, then my hands felt uncomfortable. I'd try another, and my back would feel uncomfortable. This went on for about two hours or so, in the middle of the night. I even tried sleeping on my brother's bed. Finally, after a total of three hours of twisting and turning, I fell asleep, at 4 a.m. I woke up at 6:30 hoping maybe I'm well enough to go to school. I get up and I'm cold and really sleepy. Finally I decide I should take one more day off. I wasn't ready to go to school with a possibility of a fever and five hours of sleep.

I watched the Today Show with my mom till about 9. I started to get really sleepy. Finally, I could take it no more, and thus I fell asleep again. The next thing I know, it's 1 o'clock. I caught up on my sleep.

I ate lunch, noodle soup and a yogurt. Then I popped on my computer and began Photoshopping the picture that Henry didn't like. Well I decided to try out something I learned on a website, and apply it to the picture. I changed Henry and William's poses also. This is how it looks:


It's the Bourne Ultimatum effect! I think it looks really neat. Learned some new photoshop techniques, like how to use an adjustment layer. I'm very proud! And I hope Henry likes this better. Next time, however, I'd like to take a group photo instead of taking close-ups from the video. That way it'll look better.

By the way, William generally looks like that the entire video.

Have a good rest of the day people!

Motion Tracking Sucks and the "Bitch" Scene

There are a few points in the video when certain no-no things show up: 2 license plates and an address. I had to cover these bitches up, but how to do so with a shaky camera?

Motion Tracking.

One would think that finding 2 isolated points in the scene should be no problem. But damn, it has to be the most frustrating thing I've ever done. The points would never stay in place, and they would go totally friki-tiki on me, so eventually I gave up. I did, however, manage to get it on one of the censor scenes and it worked like an angel. But the other times, not so much. So I decided to do the other ones manually. They don't look quite as good but they're okay. I really don't care.

There's this one scene in the video where Henry backs up against a wall and shoots to ward off Ryan around the corner. Then Ryan takes his gun and blindly sprays Henry dead. This was the most annoying scene to film, and also to edit. The filming I did while it was raining, with the camera in one hand, and an umbrella in the other. Took a few tries. Well, to make the muzzle flashes appear behind the gun, I had to basically outline Henry and his gun so that it was a separate cutout so that the flash could appear behind it. Now, I had to do this basically every single frame when he fires and when he's shot. This was a bitch to do because there were quite a lot of frames to edit, over 50 I'm estimating. Then, when Ryan starts shooting, Henry is half covering Ryan's muzzle flash. So I had to make a separate mask (outline) for that. Then, Henry's arm and gun go flying in front of the flash. I did a mask for that also. And then, to top it all off, Henry's foot flies up in front of the muzzle flash. New mask, what joy. Well, I edited this frame by frame, and overall took about four hours to do, just this 19 second sequence. What a bitch, hence the name, the "Bitch" scene.

Dunno if you understand me but oh well.

Well the video is actually done, but I won't post it until Monday because I'm that lazy. It's also my birthday today, AND I did edit, direct, film and act in the damn thing, so I should be able to do whatever the hell I want. So there.

Haha yeah it's my birthday today. I didn't make a huge deal about it at school, and I'm glad I didn't. Only one of my friends knew it was my birthday today. I told a few people and they didn't act too different anyway, so it's all good. Though, today was a good day overall.

That is my post for today. Haven't posted all week because of the video, but since it's done I'm free again. I'm so glad it's done; editing is very tedious and frustrating sometimes. I'm planning on NOT doing a project like this anytime soon, but I will have to EVENTUALLY. It's gotta come sometime....

See yaz on the flip side, yo.

Muzzle Flashes!

YES, finally I got you good people pictures of the flashes that are gonna be in UNDERFIRE 2. I spent all day working with it (taking a 2 hour break in between to play some games) and then some more working on it, and I think they look pretty good! I got you a couple of snapshots of what I have now.


This is the front view of it. I had it octagonal shaped before, and then I was messing with some effects and I got this "Sharpen Edges" effect, and now it looks like this. Looks pretty fiery. I think it's pretty good.


I know that you can't see all of it, but you get an idea of what it's supposed to look like. As you can see, it's quite large. I had some points poking out of the side before, and then I tried the "Sharpen Edges" effect on it, and I reduced the whole thing to a teardrop shape. I'm debating still whether or not the white is too small, but it's only because Henry's sorta picky. Oh well. I'm getting really excited for this video.

You might not be able to see it, but around each flash is a glow. Another special effect! Yes, it glows! I know, it makes it look more awesome, even though it appears for about 3 frames. Oh yes, I also used keyframed opacity on the flashes. In the previous UNDERFIRE, I simply put the flashes on for 1 frame with no spinning or variation. It looked good at the time, but it needed some life. I have it set now so that when the flash appears, it will fade out quickly in a matter of only a few frames. It makes it look more realistic, and it just looks cool this way. Woot. And, like last time, Gaussian Blur is used on the flashes to make it look "flashier."

Yup, so that's my update on the video, now I gotta do the rest and those really hard ones that I don't want to explain right now.

On a less important note [for you]: My ear is plugged again. But this is just more than a plugged up ear. It SWITCHED EARS. Yeah, my OTHER ear is plugged up now, it's really messed up. And since I took the motrin, I've been losing some feeling in my head and things have started to spin slowly. It's like being drunk, huhuhuhuh.

Yeahh, tomorrow's Sunday, I'll be editing in the morning and I'll be out later in the afternoon. Talk to you later, good people.

It's Friday

Well, as you can tell, today is Friday, and the video is NOT done, haha. Well hey, it will be done by next week. I figured out a new way to put in the special effects.

Today was pretty good I'd say. I hung out with friends, and swimming was pretty fun because we did some wacky strokes that were pretty much funny. Other than me being sick for one of the days, the week wasn't terrible; I'd say that most things went pretty smoothly overall.

Oh hey that reminds me, I have to turn in a homework assignment online now. Hahahaha crap.

Well today when I got home I made the uber fancy title for the video. I think it looks pretty damn fancy, if I do say so myself. A fade in, a lens flare, and BLUE WRITING. Pretty cool.

I figured out how to use the Adobe Dynamic Link for the editing. It should go by pretty fast now. It shall be done by next Friday, for sure.

Short post, but really, I had nothing much to say. My life overall is pretty monotonous, especially school. Everything is done roughly on routine: I go here today, there tomorrow, and etc. Nothing really happens unless I plan something, which I don't usually. It's okay, I got other things to think about than life variety. S'all good.

Tomorrow I have a piano theory test. I really hate theory I'd say, but it's sometimes useful. Because of it, I know why some chords are named this and why others are named that, and how some of those ornaments are played. But honestly, I think I could have done without it. I was able to play them before, doesn't mean I have to know what I'm playing.

I'm still a bit sick. My throat is pretty sore, I had a mild headache throughout the day, and now one of my ears is plugged up. The ear thing really baffles me. I took off my headphones during TF2 and it was plugged up. I was WTFing in my mind, because I knew that this would annoy me to kingdom come till it goes away. I want it to go away now. I've had it for about 2 hours and it's still annoying. I think it might be because I had some pool water in my ear. The reason doesn't really interest me; I just want it GONE.

Woot, Sunday is the first day of March! I like March for some reason. Anyone wanna guess why? :D

Lol, jk.

Well I'm off to edit while drinking my honey-lemon tea. Sweet dreams peoplezzzzzz.

UNDERFIRE 2 Update and Why I Haven't Posted in a While

Okay, I haven't been posting in a while, but I have good reason for it.

Monday I got home from school expecting a nice while at home editing or piano or something productive. 15 minutes after I get home, we leave for karate. I was like "WHAT THE HELL!!" but my mom made me go anyway.

I waited for an hour, then I trained with my friend (the one that reminds me of Matt Damon). It was an okay class, and it reminded me how wimpy I am (my friend was able to do pushups twice as fastas the rest of the class). It was fun I guess, but I didn't get home till 9, and at that point, I didn't feel like posting.

Tuesday: I got home feeling really shitty. I had a headache and a sore throat, and I was in a really pissy mood. Thus, I went to bed early after doing homework.

This is where the fail happens:

I woke up this morning with a 100 degree fever and a headache that made me want to fall sideways everytime I step. I wanted to go to school to take the quizzes (but mostly to see my friends), but I ended up staying home. I spent about 3 hours watching TV, then I edited for about 1 hour, and then I took a 3 and a half hour nap. And thus, I am here. It's been a pretty boring day I suppose.

By the way, I dreamt that I was Jenny the Teenage Robot and my parts were regenetitive. It was interesting to say the least...

Anyway, the main point to this post is to update you on how I'm doing in UNDERFIRE 2. I'm actually almost done, and I'm hoping to get it finished by Friday. I'll go into some detail of what major things I've been doing.

I composed all the tracks in order as I wanted them. That took about 45 minutes I guess. Then I went into COLOR CORRECTING MODE, which took me a surprising hour to finish.

This is what the color correcting did:



With the color correcting in place, the whole video looks more overcast, dreary and wet, thus creating the atmosphere that was our goal. Without the color correcting, it just looks wet on the ground. The slight tint of blue helped make it more realistic I guess.

I edited the audio for some of the clips because there were sounds in the background that were distracting/not supposed to be there. Didn't take too long. Then I added all the sound effects. I used sound effects from Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2. Most of them sound pretty good with their respective guns. Then the music. Most music is from HL2, and there is one TF2 song at the beginning.

And now, I'm adding muzzle flashes. There aren't many different clips I need them from, but a lot of it is of Ryan spraying his gun. It looks okay, but damn, annoying.

Also, at the request of Henry, I've made a new decal for the gun flashes. I guess it does actually look better, much thanks to After Effects!

But I've got a bit of a bug with it right now, so I can't show a pic. Sorry.

Well I'll update later. Peace out.

Filming - Underfire II

Today, we filmed UNDERFIRE II. We had a new person fighting with us, and we had a few new weapons. The best part: it was raining.

We had more fights and slightly longer scenes. Some pretty cool shots were made, and a few references to the original video were made, such as the beginning sequence. We moved around a lot between the scenes, and often we changed settings very randomly. It's okay though, no one knows my neighborhood too well anyway.

Not even 5 minutes into our filming, an old lady comes out of her house and starts yelling at us for being too loud. We were sorta stunned that she actually came outside to yell at us, but after we changed settings we started laughing about it. Partway through another scene a kid starts watching us through some blinds. We say hi and the kid waves back. Few minutes later, another kid appears beside the first kid and watches us too. Few more minutes later, another kid appears beside the kid who appeared beside the first kid. It was pretty funny because William (the new guy) had to collapse on their doorsteps a few times. I think they were laughing. When we left that part, we waved goodbye and had a few good laughs about it.

Everything else was pretty much just filming. Nothing too exciting, but for us the whole thing was a blast. Filming took about 4 hours, with about 20 minutes of footage. We carted around about 10 NERF guns in a garbage bag, a camera and an umbrella. Good day. I'll start editing tomorrow, and I'll update when I can/want to.

Yup, post later.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention something. Henry stepped in dog poop too. It was amusing watching him freak out. Hehehe.

Productive Thinking

It's a long weekend this weekend, thanks to President's Day. All the more reason to celebrate and relax with or without friends. I started my weekend after school yesterday by going for lunch with my friends. And today, so far I've just been playing video games. My sad, sad life.

But I haven't gone without thinking productively. This weekend marks the filming of UNDERFIRE 2. I've been thinking of some things I want to implement in the video for effect. For one, there's a chance it will rain that day, so, hoping for the best, I want it to rain. I'm thinking rain will make the whole video throughout more dark and suspenseful, without giving up a lot of the quality. Last time the footage was so bright and innocent that it didn't seem like the right atmosphere for a firefight. I had to color correct the entire thing for it to look slightly edgier.

Another thing I'm wondering about is how to make the muzzle flashes. The ones in the movies are a large, circular shaped flashes of white and yellow. But the ones I made last time were more "realistic" in terms of how it was blurred and colored. I don't really think it matters, but I was thinking about it pretty deeply for about an hour. It probably doesn't make a huge deal.

Overall, this sequel will be in a sense the same, but in another sense, different. The battle scenes are going to be more dynamic and intense, with some more violent kills and actions. There will be a lot more story-telling instead of just 4 guys running around killing each other with NERF guns. It will be more interesting to watch. Toward the end of the video last time, it was shown in a way that the fighting was getting tougher and slightly more intense. I want it more intense this time. I want more interesting scenes, more facial shots, better angles, better fights, I want it better overall.

Oh yeah, another thing we need is a better ending. The last ending honestly sucked. It's the only thing I haven't thought up yet. So any suggestions are welcome.

3 more days to plan and think about stuff. I hope that's enough time.

And screw homework. I don't need Algebra 2 anyway.