(Lengthy) Post Production Report #8 - VAs hired, finalizing lighting and environment, financial plans (Patreon)
Content
Things are shaping up nicely :)
I have a lot to report this week, so I'm gonna catagorize this post a little:
1. Lighting and environmental progress
SFM-Lighting
Vegas color correction
My idea with the red SFM-lighting is to underline the constant exposure of the red demon on Ayane during the whole scenario.
When I played around with the color curves on Sony Vegas, I realized that those settings contribute more to the atmosphere of the rainy environment and it just took me few clicks, so I am probably gonna stick to the Vegas settings.
Trying to make the environment look wet was a pain in the ass but it turned out nicely,
in my opinion. I'll build the environment myself in the future to apply the exact settings I want for all the objects.
Thankfully, the rain effect isn't disturbing the action at all and will make all the sex scenes way more interesting. I'm certain that the audiovisuals will turn out nice :)
2. All VAs are hired! But how long will it take?
Ayane Voice lines samples (no actual lines from DM!)
So I hired all the VAs to receive 7 freaking voice overs at the end and the absolute latest delivery is the 21.12.2020. I really really hope it won't take that long but I have to respect that since the VAs have other projects as well and DM is quite the lengthy motherfucker.
In the meantime, I am going to complete the lighting and contact my sound designer if he can do some preparatory work until the VAs are finished to guarantee a smooth shift.
In case I completely finished the post production and all the audios are still in the making, I'll start doing a poll if you want me work on DM Episode 2 or Gadabout Episode 2 for the next release. If you choose DM, I'll begin to work on the script for it.
3. Finances and their influence on future projects
Remember when I started with the financial goal of ~1000$ to pay all the expenses for
Gadabout 2 and wanted DM to be a cheap short movie as transitional solution until the goal is reached? We all know how that turned out :) Gadabout is NOTHING compared to DM when it comes to expenses.
The VAs will cost around 1300$ and I am estimating that the sound designer will take up to 3-4k. The VAs cost that much because of the sheer amount of lines I provide. Momiji alone has 400+ words on her own.
Don't get me wrong: I am not complaining about the prizes or that your support isn't enough, I absolutely knew that this will be one expensive ride and I am absolutely willing to take risks because I am convinced that you have to take those in order to make a difference in that area and I think DM will pay off.
And I want to say that I absolutely loved doing this project in all it's complexity.
However, in case those rather costly projects don't pay off at the end, I consider following options for the future:
1. I will check any sound library beforehand and learn everything I can to do the sound
designs myself. Sound designers should only help me in very specific instances to
drastically reduce the costs. I'd rather let a experienced sound designer do all the
work since the audio of a movie contribute 70% to the experience but if it doesn't
work out financially, I'll do it myself.
2. This option will happen, fiancially successfull or not: I'll be more considering when it
comes to the number of characters for any future episodic content.
I would love to give every character their fair amount of screen time and really take
my time to give them a personality. So I'd rather do more episodes that give less
characters more screen time than doing like 2-3 episodes which a bunch of
characters and having a complete cluster fuck of a movie series.
If I notice, that the series pays off, I always can make a "final episode" of a series
where all characters come together for a final showdown or something :)
3. Doing any future projects in parts with completed audio to provide more frequent
content and give anyone more incentives to support me for a longer period of time.
It also reduces my stress level considerably and provides energy reserves for me to
do the sound design e.g.
4. Doing shorter (for real this time) projects as transitional solution in case things don't
pay off AT ALL and thus reducing the voice lines, moaning and sound design to
minimum.
I want to point out that I am eternally grateful that all of you keep supporting to this day. Considering and planning out the financial aspects doesn't mean that your support isn't enough for me. You're the ones who make it happen. I want to make that very clear.
<3
PD