Hellboy Animated

Liz Should Be Greener

Steffie Lucchesi, post production assistant, snapped this picture of the online session with her cell phone.  That's Rob Weaver, the head of Post Production at FilmRoman, checking the picture.  I was in a similar room last night for the color balancing session.

Much of post production happens in the dark with experts of every kind staring at TV monitors.  But last night was the first time I watched it in High Definition.  Whoa.  I never thought HD would make a difference in animation.  Sure in CG but in 2D cel animation?  There's not a lot of subtlety.  But scenes had more depth, especially shots that played with the focus.  I was impressed.  As soon as those sets stop costing a billion dollars and burning out five minutes after you get it home -- I'm gettin' one!  Okay, that's a little harsh.

Anyway, the picture looked beautiful.  What is color balancing?  It's basically making the color consistent throughout a sequence.  This is especially important in live action because natural light constantly changes and live action films the same scene from different angles at slightly different times.  When you edit them together, the light changes from shot to shot and can be really distracting.

When that happens in animation it usually means that someone screwed up.  There's a sequence that has Abe and Liz on a small, rocky island in the rain.  The color keys for the sequence gave Liz's skin a cyan cast due to the storm clouds and mist.  We never noticed it in the editing room but there were clearly scenes where a different color model was used.  She looked brighter.  She looked fine in the scene but didn't match the scenes around her.  So Ralph, the engineer at Fotokem, isolated her skin and adjusted it.

The same was done with several Hellboy scenes as he ran in and out of fog in a cemetery.  Would you have noticed the mistakes?  Doubtful, but it's a matter of quality control and taking the time to make things right.  There was that one sequence, at the crossroads at midnight, that I was afraid was too dark.  It's still dark but we were able to bring up the luminance of Hellboy's skin which fixed most of the scenes.  It's not like you won't know which guy is Hellboy and, hey, it's a spooky movie.  You should be watching in the dark!

And Monday, the Mix!  -- Tad

The Picture Part is Done

We've cut in the last retake and the film is being "onlined" even as I type.  That has nothing to do with the internet.  It's the process of putting the final video into the format that will be needed for the sound mix and ultimate delivery.

Tomorrow I'll work with a video engineer to color balance anything I think should be changed.  There is only one
sequence that I feel I need to mess with.

It's just too darn dark.  I'm the one that pushed the picture so dark, but I think I overdid it.  When it gets to the point to where you can't see the seven foot tall red guy, a producer has second thoughts.

Chris Drake actually got some sleep last night!  There was such a huge mountain of sound fx to blend into a workable form that Audio Circus was able to give him another two days that he desperately needed.

This movie is not going to have your normal TV mix.  You have from now until February 6 to buy yourself some sort of multiple speaker theater system for your TV.  It will have a 6.1 mix that will have sound swooping all over the place - not that we've done it yet but I have notes.  This does not have a rushed, off the shelf feeling to the sound.

Well... actually the guys are rushing like mad but only because they're doing so much for this movie.

Early next week will be the final sound mix.  The end of my creative participation in Sword of Storms, after that the technical wizards do what they must to nail this thing down and send it to Cartoon Network in Atlanta.

Actually, I'm wrong.  Although the premiere will be letterboxed, we need to provide a Pan and Scan version.  And Mike Mignola and I have to record our commentary.  So I guess there's lots to do.  Later! -- Tad

All images © 2006 Starz Media and Revolution Studios Distribution.

Tiny Giants

Feast or Famine when it comes to updates, huh?.  Enjoy the feast for what it's worth.  Now go to Gentle Giant ltd. to learn more about the Hellboy Animated line of "Bust-ups" and the amazing work this place does.

What excites me about these figures is not just how detailed they are, especially Hellboy vs. the Bat-god, but that they are so affordable.  They're only around six American dollars.  Yes, they're tiny but really well done.  The skeleton is something you get a piece at a time as you buy the other figures.

Gentle Giant is also known for their scanning facilities.  In fact, Doug Jones was scanned by them the day after he did his ADR with us.  They also do giant sculptures for conventions; their Ray Harryhausen Medusa made a big splash at San Diego Comic Con.  They'll also be putting out a Hellboy action figure which was on display at San Diego too.  The company is packed with talented artists and a joy to work with.

I have no clue on when these guys will be available.  I'm sure the info will be on their website if it isn't already.  Meanwhile, send me your t-shirt photos! -- Tad

Visiting Lovecraft

I forgot to post that I'll be in Portland, Oregon, for
the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival.   Film festival is in the Hollywood theater and runs from Oct. 6 through Oct. 8.  I'll be presenting, at the least, the opening sequence that we showed in San Diego and possible another sequence.  We are scheduled to finish the movie Oct. 6 so I don't know if I'll be able to get a disk burned before I take off.  And of course I'll be there to take questions and give answers so if you're in the area at all, check out the festival!  Look for me on Sunday's schedule.  Dark Horse Comics is one of the sponsors and my participation is the result of the efforts of the lovely and talented DHC editor, Shawna Gore.  I hope to see you there.

Sounds Like Chicken

I spent this afternoon in a small room with big speakers, a fuzzy picture and green tea.  The winnowing of sound effects has begun at Audio Circus.

Actually, there was not much winnowing.  Sound post and mixing has changed even in the last ten years.  Used to be that I'd spend this time culling sounds because the sound designers would reduce the number of tracks by combining sounds. A giant's footstep may be a combination of an elephant's foot, a bass drum, something squishy and a crackle.  That would be decided at this stage so that on the mixing stage it would only take up a single track.  But that meant that the only change that could be made would be a volume setting.

Now more than a hundred tracks are used so there's no decisions made that can't be modified at the mix if necessary.  So today we went through the movie taking out anything that I didn't like.  For instance, one of the demons is "Lightning" so there are lots of electrical blasts and efx.  But many electrical sounds have a buzz to them that sounds like technology to my ear.  I wanted Lightning more organic so we cut out lots of buzz.

I also talked about what I thought was missing or the various sounds made by a single monster beyond a roar.  I also talked about treating certain actions as paranormal events as opposed to "real world" effects.  Everything was sound good.  It's astounding how much work the guys are putting into it...and how much more they have to do before Monday!  The guys will be working all weekend to be ready for the pre-mix next week.  Send them good thoughts! -- Tad

More AyeDeeArrrrr....

I'm on allergy medicine and that's about as piratey as I'm going to get on this, Talk Like a Pirate Day 2006.  But as you can see I had a comely wench on my arm yesterday.  I usually don't take pictures with people I work with.  I started my career with seven or eight of the Disney "Nine Old Men" and never had them sign my Art of Disney book.  It feels weird to me to ask for an autograph of someone I work with and that includes the actors I've recorded over the years.  Of course, I have pals with tons of cool autographs and pics and I don't.  I have memories but with my brain how long are those going to last?

And, believe it or not, I didn't get a picture just  because Selma Blair is drop dead gorgeous.  I had brought my camera to get pictures of the ADR session for the blog and realized I hadn't taken any as Selma was about to leave so I had someone snap this.  But just about every other picture that I did take came out blurry so sorry Ron fans, no new pics here.

Recording went well despite the fact that we had a plague of cameras there.  There were at least three, maybe four, video cameraman documenting the session for the DVD.  They also interviewed the actors against a green screen that they set up in a tiny waiting room.  They had a camera covering me so they have a thrilling four or five hours of me staring at a video screen, checking for lip sync.  There's a video extra you can't live without.  The actors were filmed constantly too.  I looked up once while Ron was acting out being caught in a giant spider web and saw him making a truly terrifying face.  I'm sure they'll be using that on the DVD but, wow, can he looks scary!

Unfortunately, the schedules of the actors didn't overlap so there were no happy reunions caught on tape.  Selma and Ron are looking forward to getting started on Hellboy 2 with Guillermo.  Phil Lamarr just had to replace some temp lines we had added for a pilot and Junior BPRD Agent.  He's such a huge comic fan that I thought he could give a different perspective on acting in comic based animation.  Hope his interview went well.  Peri Gilpin was a delight to work as she adjusted her lines on Kate Corrigan.  She said the fun of doing animation like Final Fantasy is that she can be cast in a role that she wouldn't normally be considered for, but she really identifies with Kate and feels that it's a role she would have a shot at even in a live action movie.  Guess that's moot, since GdT has no plans for Ms. Corrigan in his movies.  I really appreciate that fans reacted positively when they heard about the casting of Peri for Kate.

On other fronts we don't have the time to get this movie done by the agreed date but I guess we'll do it anyway. That's called "television."  If we weren't trying to jam every bit of quality into it, it wouldn't be a problem.  Cartoon Network gave us a bit of a reprieve when they said they would broadcast the premiere letterboxed as I wanted, thereby giving us a little more time to do a "pan and scanned" full screen version.  Make sure you watch the premiere! Musically, Christopher Drake is practically killing himself to give the score a big screen feel.  In a "good news, bad news" sort of way, Guillermo used his clout over the weekend to get us permission to use the Hellboy theme from his movie.  Unfortunately, that means Chris will have to go back and redo some already magnificent music cues but we hope the fans will get some sort of primal charge at hearing the Hellboy theme at certain key points.  Otis and friends at Audio Circus are completely overwhelmed by the sheer tonnage of sound effect they're trying to squeeze in.  I'll be spending time with them tomorrow, hearing the fx track for the entire movie for the first time.

It's all craziness right now but it's weird to think that by the time you see the results of our efforts, we'll be so deep in Hellboy: Blood and Iron that we'll be lucky if we remember that  it's on!  -- Tad

And All He Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt

Considering that I worked for Disney for 29 years, my son picked the appropriate attire when he rode Splash Mountain. (The guys on the Jungle Cruise were also excited.) He's doing his part to advertise his dad's little project.

But hey, we gave away about 2000 shirts at San Diego and Wizard World Chicago (including the shirts that were meant for the crew!) so who's got 'em? Send me photo of you and your shirt in a public place. tstones at filmroman.com
The big red guy is always in style. -- Tad

ADRing DOUG

My throat's a little raw because I just came back from doing some random zombie sound fx.  One of my better vocal performances.  It's better that it's my throat that gets torn up rather than one of our actors'.  We tacked that little bit of business onto the ADR session with the Abe Sapien of two worlds, Doug Jones.

ADR, Automated Dialogue Replacement, is a system for dubbing.  The recording engineer pinpoints the frame where a mouth starts moving.  The program then adds three beats.  The actor starts performing on the fourth beat, the one that isn't there.

Some people are great at ADR, others can never get the timing.  In this era of digital recording, performances can be compressed, stretched and edited but things sure go faster when the actor can hit his audio mark.

Doug is great at ADR.  It can be tricky because you can't just perform.  You have to perform within the existing timing and lip flaps.  Today Doug replaced two sequences that were recorded by our David Hyde Pierce sound alike.  What was great was hearing Abe gain personality.  When he's surrounded by attacking mummies with rusty scythes Abe just doesn't call out to Liz, he has attitude!  He's actually a little harsh about her reluctance to unleash her literal firepower.  And it actually boosted the humor element of the scene.

When Abe tells a new agent that he's just made "the newbie face" you hear the extra teasing in his voice.  It's hard to explain without playing actual clips but because Doug was not hindered by trying to imitate another actor, he could concentrate more on his performance to the benefit of Mr. Sapien.

Ironically, the stuff that took the longest today one syllable reactions that had to match up with existing dialogue.  But it's always a good day when ADR brings more humor, drama and character to the movie and Doug managed all that today.

Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Peri Gilpin and Phil Lamarr are coming in Monday for their ADR sessions.  They'll also be interviewed for the DVD.  Doug escaped that today because he did an extra long interview already. 

We could see footage from Blood and Iron as early as tomorrow!  Overlapping productions are exciting but certainly stretch the definition of "fun."  It's crazy. -- Tad

LOCKED!

Tons of retakes remain but the timing of the movie is locked.  Well, actually there's a short prologue and credit sequence that the computer department will be adding but I'd say we'll end up between 75 and 76 minutes without the end credits.

The timing of the main picture shouldn't change from here on out. Chris Drake is now scoring music to the exact frame.  The guys at Audio Circus are deciding how long the sound of a zombie head exploding should be.  Does it last as long as the visual or are the last wisps of zombie dust silent?

Meanwhile, the visuals are tweaked.  Shake fx can be added in Final Cut along with blur fx and of course retakes are cut in as they come in.

It's about six weeks until the premiere on Cartoon Network.  There's a lot of interest from other countries.  It's not out of the question that at least one English speaking country (that is, a country that can air the movie without it being dubbed) could also air it before Halloween.  Let's hope.

Mipcom Jr. (just Google it) is coming up soon where broadcasters from around the world will be buying it for their markets.  So think good thoughts and maybe it'll show up on your TV wherever you are. -- Tad

Back From Canada, eh?

I thought that both Mike's panel and the one we did together on Sunday went very well.  I hope those that attended them thought so too.  The questions were good, not the standard stuff and I think it's clear that Mike and I don't take ourselves too seriously so you can ask just about anything.  Look around the net and you'll see some coverage like here  at Comics Continuum, certainly a site worth stopping by once a day, and a little more here.  Newsarama.com also had a nice article.

I landed Friday at around 6pm and was surprised to find the con open til 9 o'clock.  My first job was to be interviewed by Space TV.  The producer doing the interviewing was Mark Askwith, who REALLY knows his comics.  He used to managed The Silver Snail comic shop in Toronto and has known Mike for a couple of decades.  Mike did and interview with him too but turned down a chance to be interviewed by a puppet, I'm guessing for Puppet Television.com.  I have no shame so I would've talked to a puppet but instead was interviewed by the absolutely stunning Amanda Lorenza who runs the site.  Fine by me!  Check their site for Fan Expo interviews coming soon.  The people from Rue Morgue Magazine hosted the Festival of Fear and made me feel welcome -- which is nice if you want to be welcomed by a booth filled with vampires and the rotting undead.  Seriously, a dedicated, professional group of people who haven't lost their fan enthusiasm for horror.

So that's a quick recap.  Hit those comic news sites for the actual Hellboy content.  Not everything is quoted completely accurately, for instance the Cartoon Network broadcast of Hellboy: Blood and Iron hasn't been set yet but it'll probably be late January/early February.  But you get the gist.  I met lots of folks who read the blog, thanks for saying, "Hi."   I met some animation creators who are starting the development of an original animated show at a Canadian studio this week.  Good luck, guys!  I met fans putting out their own comics BEFORE they graduate art school - that's the way to do it.  I admire how you have your act together.

So much for fun.  There's I chance I'll be back in Canada for Anime Expo North, we'll see.  But today it's back to editing.  All the Take Ones are in!  That's the whole movie!  I should be locking it this week.  See ya! -- Tad