A few more bits and bobs from the matte painting circles. The images below show what a radical change can be made to a scene with a matte painting. This was quite a complex painting to do as a number of elements have been constructed from the ground up. This means taking still images of walls and textures to make buildings, and removing elements from the frame that don’t fit with the scene.

To create a sense of depth a foreground element has been added, and the wall extended with smoke billowing in the background, to give more movement to the scene. Again the nonexistent sky in the original shot has been replaced.

This shot follows on from the previous matte painting post where Alice has entered the bases perimeter, now making her way into the labyrinth.

As you can see by the comparison a lot of work has been done to grade and replace elements on the original shot to give you this final scene. This is the most complex static matte painting in Casimir Effect so far.

We’re squeezing things out slowly and things are moving forward. I have been working on some matte paintings, for the opening scenes. A matte painting is a static or animated image which has been painted or constructed from photographic elements and parts of the frame, to replaces a backdrop. These have always been part of special effects through the ages.

Here is a sample from one of the early scenes in Casimir Effect, the first image is the original plate from the footage and the second is the final matte painting composited together.

As you can see the sky has been replaced with something that is more dynamic and interesting. Also the log and signpost have been replaced in favour for the wall of the SPATZ facility.  The image has been graded to add more dynamic range. This has been done with two plates one light and one dark to make sure all the detail has been retained. Then some final tweaks for effect.

The wall was a challenge as it had to be constructed from still photographs of the Coal Exchange in Cardiff. I went down and took a lot of images of the walls and concrete in the area. Then constructed this wall and graded it to match the rest of the image. Once this was complete a door needed to be added, and as this is a military facility on a small island it needed to reflect that. So I dug out an old rusted bulkhead door frame and added that in.

I toyed with the idea of adding something in the background behind the wall but nothing seemed to work, so I abandoned that idea.  Also to make things harder this needed to be built at 4.5k to match the film footage and with many photographic layers it takes its toll on my computer. I suspect I may need to upgrade soon.

I have a few more matte paintings which I will upload over the next few weeks.

Other News

Just a quick snippet, well more than a teaser. I have been negotiating something interesting over the last weeks. Hopefully I can soon make an announcement, so keep your eyes peeled.

It such a pity that you can’t yell ‘It’s a wrap!” and magically have a finished movie; post-production, editing and special effects is all yet to come. Then festivals, sales and hopefully distribution and even more panic.

We finally managed to escape to confines of the Coal Exchange, so all our lovely sets are now plain and magnolia again. It seemed to take forever to clear all the costumes, props and general debris from the place, but finally it is all done.

We have already started to sell off some of the props and costumes from the film, so please continue to support Casimir Effect by visiting our eBay page. We will be adding new auctions weekly, so keep your eyes peeled, as all the money goes back into the film to get through post and marketing.

We will also soon have some more exclusive prints, which are stills from the film We will select another limited edition five images of Gareth and auction 15 of each off via eBay, and have other stills available to buy through the store. The continuing fundraising will see us through post-production, so we can maintain a high standard and also help to cover some of the costs for conventions and festivals.

Casimir Effect will still be attending Wales Comic Con in Wrexham this weekend (25th April), though sadly Gareth David-Lloyd is trapped in Australia due to Volcano. To make up for it, we will be showing some very brief and very roughly edited clips from Casimir Effect, nothing to spoilery I promise! So come along and help support us and Wales Comic Con, as conventions like this will give you opportunities in the future to see Gareth and other stars and get exclusive items.

So we are still busy, busy and editing is currently underway. For a more up to date please follow Casimirfilm on Twitter. Gabriel Tweets when he should be editing, but at least he gets it done. We’re not sure how much we will have edited for Wales Comic Con, but will have a few minutes to show.

In other news, we have given a nod to the development of a Making of/Behind the scenes book for Casimir Effect. So we will keep on top of this and see where it goes hopefully we can get a high quality end product out that will give those who have been following us all along some more insight into everything we have done.

We are also looking at sales agents at the moment, so that after the festivals we can get DVD and other things released. We have also been contacted by a French film festival with regards to showing Casimir Effect.

Thanks once again for your support so far with this film, it has been amazing!

So Casimir Effect wrapped last weekend! We got all the scenes filmed and managed to just about stay on schedule! It was hectic, crazy, tiring but altogether fabulous! The cast and crew were all amazing and we could never thank them enough for all their incredible hard work.

We seemed to have somehow picked two of the coldest locations to film in, our main location the Coal Exchange was spectacular and perfect for Casimir Effect as mainly derelict. We took over a whole corridor and set of rooms, half of it painted up as sets, the rest taken over by Art, Costume and Make-up, Lighting, Camera and Grip equipment, as well as a Green room.

Each day up to 40 people came on location to work for us, the days were long, but the footage made it all worth it. Film making can be a very slow process but due to budget and time constraints we had to keep the whole show moving forward at breakneck speed, at times this was impossible but in the end it all got done.

Once again I would like to thank everyone who worked on Casimir Effect and all those who supported us during fundraising, we really wouldn’t have anything without you!

We have uploaded a handful more stills from the film, to keep you all interested, also we have started to auction of a few items of set dressing and Props, each of which comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. We will start putting more items and costume on the site in the next few days.

We are starting the long road of post-production, the editing, special effects and colour grading. So far we are only 4 days into rendering offline versions of the footage the massive (2TB) files down to an editable size! The deadline to get everything done by is December, so we can submit to Cannes.

Now onto Post-production

Day 2 of filming is over only 10 more days to go. Things were a little hectic to start with but now everything is getting buttery. We’re getting some great shots and the rushes are looking fantastic. I’ll try to clear some stills this weekend, then you can see the progress so far.

Today’s shoot was good we had a few issues with external sound beyond our control, but we worked around them. Though the pigeons were annoying. The last scene of the day is the money shot, it just looks so stunning, it looks amazing. I want to get a still from this cleared ASAP.

Our crew have been fantastic, and I would love to give them all a hug, but it might get a bit weird. You’re doing stellar work peeps, keep it up Casimir Effect needs you and everyone’s contribution no matter how small is going to make this film great.

I would also like to thank all those who have followed helped so far, but the road is a long one and anything can happen in the next 10 days. Then we have to work on editing and marketing. Our budget goal has been reached and we need to push for that last part to keep the production running.

Second Budget Goal £10,000 GBP / £10,000 GBP 15th March 2010 (On Schedule)

We are keeping the anti noodle fund running, as we have 10 days of filming left and anything can happen. So this is a good chance to make your donations count.