Reign Of Blood (shortfilm) at DVinfo.net

Ulrik [fC] · May 9th, 2007, 05:23 AM

hey there,

I just finished my most recent shortfilm: REIGN OF BLOOD.

Its some vampire-martialarts-horror shortfilm.

It was shot with the standard Canon XL1s without any extras except some widelense adapter. I didnt use any lights, but I tried to use the natural light in a way that it looks like I did use lights ;).
All the shots are handheld, no steadicam was used.

For post-production I used Adobe Premiere and After Effects. Some extra 3d fx were done with 3ds max.

The team was the guys you see infronta of the camera and me behind the camera.

Here the link to the page:
http://www.german-kungfu.com/index.p...=MovDet&mid=25

alternative download:
http://www.berlin-pk.com/flatcoin/fC...ignOfBlood.avi

Have Fun and let me know what you think - Thanks :)
Take Care
Ulrik

Walter J Walsh · May 9th, 2007, 01:06 PM

Ulrik,

When I read you didn't set up any lights; using what was already there. And that all the shots were hand held I thought I was going to see something very crude and amateurish. But I was pleasantly surprised. Nice work. Your camera work was great.

The stunts and fight sequences were terrific. The special effects were also well done. I liked the Blade / Buffy flaming were they were staked.

The only thing that I was a little bothered by was don’t vampires have a small problem with daylight? :)

Matt Ramphal · May 9th, 2007, 02:02 PM

Amazing camerawork. How long did it take you shoot all of that footage with one camera? The editing is so smooth for the amount of stunts pulled off.

Nice job!

Cole McDonald · May 9th, 2007, 04:54 PM

nicely done...good use of the ambient light! good fx too. Awesome fight choreography.

Jeremy Hughes · May 9th, 2007, 11:37 PM

That was fantastic! Like Walter said, I was pleasantly surprised. Man, a couple of those vampires wasting away off the crates had better effects a couple times I thought movement-wise than in the Blade flicks. Slick camerawork and nice job on the edit - good use of wide and CUs.

Ulrik [fC] · May 10th, 2007, 02:19 AM

Thanks guys !

"How long did it take you shoot all of that footage with one camera? "

For the whole short we needed three days and about 7-8hours per day, that included preparing and testing the stunts, making the setdesign (putting blood at the walls, building the coffin etc.) .. we are all good friends, worked several times together and all the guys are professional stuntmen, thats why I said what I wanted stuntwise, they tested it and I was shooting other stuff in the same time to not waste time.

Shooting fightscenes with one camera is actually faster than doing it with two .. at least from my experience .. because the hits look for real only from one (sometimes two) angles and if you use two or more cameras you have to be really carefull to not have the other camera in frame, with that you need more time etc. .. with one camera you have more freedom of movement. (I am only talking about fightscenes .. stuff like explosions, carcrashes etc, should be done with more cameras ;) )

"When I read you didn't set up any lights; using what was already there. And that all the shots were hand held I thought I was going to see something very crude and amateurish."

I actually thought that people will think that, because that is something I heard my whole life (as filmmaker), that it is impossible to make good (big) looking films without spending a lot of money for lights, dollys, steadicam etc. .. Don't get me wrong, I love all that stuff and I know that with lights the short could have look better, but if I only have 3 days for shooting and no money I search for other ways to let the short not look cheap :). Glad you checked it out anyway !

And about vampires and daytime .. well some are different ;) .. hahaha .. but its funny, because I thought that people would complain about that first, but I already showed it to a lot people and you are the first that mentioned it. Of coz you are right !

Thanks again for the nice words !

Take Care
Ulrik

Kyle Ross · May 10th, 2007, 10:25 AM

Wow, all I can say is amazing! As it was said, a lot of the death scenes in the warehouse area were really, really well done (especially the vampire who dies while rolling off the flats). I also thought the girl Vampire dragging the dead guy she decapitated into the room was a nice touch.

Can't think of anything I'd change... for the credits, were they influenced a bit by Dawn of the Dead? Kinda reminded me of their credits :D

Good job!

Mike Horrigan · May 10th, 2007, 01:59 PM

This was REALLY good! The camera work was exceptional, very "movie" like.

The stunt choreography was excellent!

How did you pull off the fiery disintegration effect?

Did you use AE for that?

If so you have to tell me your secret! :)

Nice work!

Mike

Ulrik [fC] · May 11th, 2007, 09:24 AM

@Kyle Ross .. actually both scenes you mentioned were inspired by work of Zack Snyder .. usually I use outtakes for the credits, but I thought that this would destroy the atmosphere, thats why I did this like "DotD" homage and the slow motion scene with the female vampire came into my mind after I watched "300" ( I loved the extense use of slow-motion in the movie and had to do some slow-mo shots too ).

@Mike Horrigan I used 3ds max in combination with After Effects

vampire-dusting .. what I did:

- first of all the cameramatching is the most important thing, means creating in 3ds max a camera which moves like my cameramovement in reality.

- next I used a skeleton I downloaded from the net and animated it just like the stuntman who did some fall

- as soon as the movement matched the movement of the stuntman I used the skeleton as particle generator

- I only used white particles of various sizes, those clips of the skeleton generating particles were imported into After Effects

- in AFX I blured them, put various colorlayers over the particle clips

- only thing missing now is a simple fade from the clip with the fall to a clean plate clip, means the same cameramovement without the stuntman .. and over the "fadeclip" you put all the particle layers and the dusting fx is done.

quite simple in theory, big pain in reality .. ;)

Hope that helps .. and thanks for the nice words !

take care everybody
Ulrik

Mikko Lopponen · May 13th, 2007, 06:03 AM

Hi Ulrik, this is Maarek from the stuntpeople forums.

Great job, as always!

I liked the rhythm of the whole piece. Only thing didn't necessarily work for me was how the first vampire fight began. The fight was good, but it began kind of abruptly.

Everything else was top notch. Looking forward for more. I've showed your piece around and people have been generally impressed. I'm going to take some pointers on how you guys execute your fight sequences.

I really like the fact how people with more skills can make better stuff than professional people with more money and equipment. It just cheers me up :) I can't wait to see what you guys come up with when you get some funding.

Marcus Marchesseault · May 14th, 2007, 06:22 PM

Great video. It looks like the extended trailer for a movie I might like to see. It did not look amateurish in any way and that is not so easy without a lighting crew and camera rigs. I would never have guessed handheld with no lighting crew for this one. I also liked the martial arts. I've grown tired of the over-stylized martial arts that would never work in a real fight. I don't mind a bit of creative license, but I like when some of the hits look real and have physical consequences to the participants. I hate when two guys hit each other 657 times and don't even get tired or bruised. Straight fights with a few extra falls is a refreshing change.

I think the big question should be: How did you match camera moves for the FX when you did everything handheld? You needed camera matching for the clean plate and for the skeleton model yet you didn't use a tracking camera rig or any static tripod shots.

Ulrik [fC] · May 15th, 2007, 12:54 AM

Somewhen soon I will make some "making of" clip, because a lot of people ask the same question like you.

But to give you a short answere:

the cameramovement is animated frame by frame in 3ds max .. the particle-fx are never shown for more than 50 frames .. most of the time 20-30frames .. so what I basiclly did was to match the camera for eachframe.

The Cleanplates were done like that: I did shot the stunt, afterwards everybody had to move out of frame and I simply tried to copy the movement.
Don't worry I never ever made it to make the same move twice, but its was always good enough to fade between the two camerashots .. sometimes I didn't even fade the whole scene, but only masked out the area where the stuntman was and replaced it with the cleanplate.
If you would watch those transistion without the "dusting-fx" you would call me stupid, because you can see the transistion clearly, but with all the particles in frame nobody sees it :).

Hope that helps
Ulrik

Sean J. Manning · May 24th, 2007, 01:08 AM

Holy crap. this is insanely good.

you really need to create a making of dvd and talk about how you did everything and your special effects.

are you familiar with the 'broken short'. you can probably make atleast 25,000 USD in dvds if you do that. i would definitely buy 1!

Jacob Sundt · May 24th, 2007, 02:56 AM

Wow. Really well done. I've just got into this whole movie making thing (documentaries tho) and the level of professionalism in this piece was amazing. You clearly work in the biz in some capacity and have considerable talent/experience.

Only criticism I'd bring up, which nobody else seemed to mention, would be costuming. It's minor but I love solid costumes especially in a 'style' piece such as yours. I just thought the costumes looked a little too plain for how stylized the characters and post production seemed to be.

Sean J. Manning · May 24th, 2007, 04:48 AM

yeah, the customes couldve been better. i even noticed the Hero's backpack looked unrealistic, and I think I saw a label.

May 9th, 2007, 05:23 AM	#1
Ulrik [fC] Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 28	Reign Of Blood (shortfilm) hey there, I just finished my most recent shortfilm: REIGN OF BLOOD. Its some vampire-martialarts-horror shortfilm. It was shot with the standard Canon XL1s without any extras except some widelense adapter. I didnt use any lights, but I tried to use the natural light in a way that it looks like I did use lights ;). All the shots are handheld, no steadicam was used. For post-production I used Adobe Premiere and After Effects. Some extra 3d fx were done with 3ds max. The team was the guys you see infronta of the camera and me behind the camera. Here the link to the page: http://www.german-kungfu.com/index.p...=MovDet&mid=25 alternative download: http://www.berlin-pk.com/flatcoin/fC...ignOfBlood.avi Have Fun and let me know what you think - Thanks :) Take Care Ulrik

May 9th, 2007, 04:54 PM	#4
Cole McDonald Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Sauk Rapids, MN, USA Posts: 1,675	nicely done...good use of the ambient light! good fx too. Awesome fight choreography. __________________ Web Youtube Facebook

May 9th, 2007, 11:37 PM	#5
Jeremy Hughes Major Player Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Columbus, Ohio Posts: 276 Images: 2	That was fantastic! Like Walter said, I was pleasantly surprised. Man, a couple of those vampires wasting away off the crates had better effects a couple times I thought movement-wise than in the Blade flicks. Slick camerawork and nice job on the edit - good use of wide and CUs. __________________ www.elevate-m.com filmvideostuff.blogspot.com

May 10th, 2007, 01:59 PM	#8
Mike Horrigan Major Player Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Ottawa Canada Posts: 755	This was REALLY good! The camera work was exceptional, very "movie" like. The stunt choreography was excellent! How did you pull off the fiery disintegration effect? Did you use AE for that? If so you have to tell me your secret! :) Nice work! Mike __________________ My short films... The Interview & Calls From The Führerbunker

May 9th, 2007, 01:06 PM	#2
Walter J Walsh Regular Crew Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Frankfort, IL Posts: 28	Ulrik, When I read you didn't set up any lights; using what was already there. And that all the shots were hand held I thought I was going to see something very crude and amateurish. But I was pleasantly surprised. Nice work. Your camera work was great. The stunts and fight sequences were terrific. The special effects were also well done. I liked the Blade / Buffy flaming were they were staked. The only thing that I was a little bothered by was don’t vampires have a small problem with daylight? :)

May 9th, 2007, 02:02 PM	#3
Matt Ramphal Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Toronto Posts: 27	Amazing camerawork. How long did it take you shoot all of that footage with one camera? The editing is so smooth for the amount of stunts pulled off. Nice job!

May 10th, 2007, 02:19 AM	#6
Ulrik [fC] Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 28	Thanks guys ! "How long did it take you shoot all of that footage with one camera? " For the whole short we needed three days and about 7-8hours per day, that included preparing and testing the stunts, making the setdesign (putting blood at the walls, building the coffin etc.) .. we are all good friends, worked several times together and all the guys are professional stuntmen, thats why I said what I wanted stuntwise, they tested it and I was shooting other stuff in the same time to not waste time. Shooting fightscenes with one camera is actually faster than doing it with two .. at least from my experience .. because the hits look for real only from one (sometimes two) angles and if you use two or more cameras you have to be really carefull to not have the other camera in frame, with that you need more time etc. .. with one camera you have more freedom of movement. (I am only talking about fightscenes .. stuff like explosions, carcrashes etc, should be done with more cameras ;) ) "When I read you didn't set up any lights; using what was already there. And that all the shots were hand held I thought I was going to see something very crude and amateurish." I actually thought that people will think that, because that is something I heard my whole life (as filmmaker), that it is impossible to make good (big) looking films without spending a lot of money for lights, dollys, steadicam etc. .. Don't get me wrong, I love all that stuff and I know that with lights the short could have look better, but if I only have 3 days for shooting and no money I search for other ways to let the short not look cheap :). Glad you checked it out anyway ! And about vampires and daytime .. well some are different ;) .. hahaha .. but its funny, because I thought that people would complain about that first, but I already showed it to a lot people and you are the first that mentioned it. Of coz you are right ! Thanks again for the nice words ! Take Care Ulrik

May 10th, 2007, 10:25 AM	#7
Kyle Ross Regular Crew Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Surrey, British Columbia Posts: 48	Wow, all I can say is amazing! As it was said, a lot of the death scenes in the warehouse area were really, really well done (especially the vampire who dies while rolling off the flats). I also thought the girl Vampire dragging the dead guy she decapitated into the room was a nice touch. Can't think of anything I'd change... for the credits, were they influenced a bit by Dawn of the Dead? Kinda reminded me of their credits :D Good job!

May 11th, 2007, 09:24 AM	#9
Ulrik [fC] Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 28	@Kyle Ross .. actually both scenes you mentioned were inspired by work of Zack Snyder .. usually I use outtakes for the credits, but I thought that this would destroy the atmosphere, thats why I did this like "DotD" homage and the slow motion scene with the female vampire came into my mind after I watched "300" ( I loved the extense use of slow-motion in the movie and had to do some slow-mo shots too ). @Mike Horrigan I used 3ds max in combination with After Effects vampire-dusting .. what I did: - first of all the cameramatching is the most important thing, means creating in 3ds max a camera which moves like my cameramovement in reality. - next I used a skeleton I downloaded from the net and animated it just like the stuntman who did some fall - as soon as the movement matched the movement of the stuntman I used the skeleton as particle generator - I only used white particles of various sizes, those clips of the skeleton generating particles were imported into After Effects - in AFX I blured them, put various colorlayers over the particle clips - only thing missing now is a simple fade from the clip with the fall to a clean plate clip, means the same cameramovement without the stuntman .. and over the "fadeclip" you put all the particle layers and the dusting fx is done. quite simple in theory, big pain in reality .. ;) Hope that helps .. and thanks for the nice words ! take care everybody Ulrik

May 13th, 2007, 06:03 AM	#10
Mikko Lopponen Major Player Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 393	Hi Ulrik, this is Maarek from the stuntpeople forums. Great job, as always! I liked the rhythm of the whole piece. Only thing didn't necessarily work for me was how the first vampire fight began. The fight was good, but it began kind of abruptly. Everything else was top notch. Looking forward for more. I've showed your piece around and people have been generally impressed. I'm going to take some pointers on how you guys execute your fight sequences. I really like the fact how people with more skills can make better stuff than professional people with more money and equipment. It just cheers me up :) I can't wait to see what you guys come up with when you get some funding.

May 14th, 2007, 06:22 PM	#11
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	Great video. It looks like the extended trailer for a movie I might like to see. It did not look amateurish in any way and that is not so easy without a lighting crew and camera rigs. I would never have guessed handheld with no lighting crew for this one. I also liked the martial arts. I've grown tired of the over-stylized martial arts that would never work in a real fight. I don't mind a bit of creative license, but I like when some of the hits look real and have physical consequences to the participants. I hate when two guys hit each other 657 times and don't even get tired or bruised. Straight fights with a few extra falls is a refreshing change. I think the big question should be: How did you match camera moves for the FX when you did everything handheld? You needed camera matching for the clean plate and for the skeleton model yet you didn't use a tracking camera rig or any static tripod shots.

May 15th, 2007, 12:54 AM	#12
Ulrik [fC] Regular Crew Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 28	Somewhen soon I will make some "making of" clip, because a lot of people ask the same question like you. But to give you a short answere: the cameramovement is animated frame by frame in 3ds max .. the particle-fx are never shown for more than 50 frames .. most of the time 20-30frames .. so what I basiclly did was to match the camera for eachframe. The Cleanplates were done like that: I did shot the stunt, afterwards everybody had to move out of frame and I simply tried to copy the movement. Don't worry I never ever made it to make the same move twice, but its was always good enough to fade between the two camerashots .. sometimes I didn't even fade the whole scene, but only masked out the area where the stuntman was and replaced it with the cleanplate. If you would watch those transistion without the "dusting-fx" you would call me stupid, because you can see the transistion clearly, but with all the particles in frame nobody sees it :). Hope that helps Ulrik

May 24th, 2007, 01:08 AM	#13
Sean J. Manning Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Bangkok Thailand Posts: 35	Holy crap. this is insanely good. you really need to create a making of dvd and talk about how you did everything and your special effects. are you familiar with the 'broken short'. you can probably make atleast 25,000 USD in dvds if you do that. i would definitely buy 1!

May 24th, 2007, 02:56 AM	#14
Jacob Sundt New Boot Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 10	Wow. Really well done. I've just got into this whole movie making thing (documentaries tho) and the level of professionalism in this piece was amazing. You clearly work in the biz in some capacity and have considerable talent/experience. Only criticism I'd bring up, which nobody else seemed to mention, would be costuming. It's minor but I love solid costumes especially in a 'style' piece such as yours. I just thought the costumes looked a little too plain for how stylized the characters and post production seemed to be.

May 24th, 2007, 04:48 AM	#15
Sean J. Manning Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Bangkok Thailand Posts: 35	yeah, the customes couldve been better. i even noticed the Hero's backpack looked unrealistic, and I think I saw a label.