The Making of Year One

Compositing break down

2006-11-16T03:35:00.000-08:00

Final compositing stages

2006-10-13T06:19:00.000-07:00

I posted a short clip on YouTube. Here it is for your viewing.

Rendering...

2006-06-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

Prison sequence

2006-06-19T09:49:00.000-07:00

I'm currently finishing the prison sequence. The look is finally locked.

Neopolis

2006-06-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

Working hard to meet deadlines...

2006-04-10T02:57:00.000-07:00

Olof Stierna was my First Assistant Director during the shoot. Now he's transformed into an overall compositing workhorse here at the small office we've set up to finish the post on the film. We'll be moving into a bigger office in a month where we'll have the opportunity to shoot a few inserts and what would be typical second unit shots.

Olof started as a skilled Photoshop artist way back when.

You can see my editing setup in the foreground. Yes. It's 720p HD on a laptop running Premiere Pro 2.0.

24"

2006-02-20T02:31:00.000-08:00

I recently switched my old monitor to a 24" 1920x1200 flat monitor. It's extremely sharp and has 1000:1 contrast with rich blacks. How did I ever do without it? I love gadgets.

Compositing simplyfied

2006-02-20T02:21:00.000-08:00

This is a simple visual layout of the compositing process. It's the last few steps in a long line of events that happens between the shot is planned out - through its execution - and the post processing.

CG tools

2006-02-20T02:15:00.000-08:00

I believe in using "low end" CG tools. So much has happened in that field in the last three years. 3D tools used to be very expensive - but the tools that are available today are extremely advanced. Cheaper tools means more power to the independent film community. We use off the shelf software all the way. This enables us to work fast and render fast. Speed is essential if you want to stay creative.

Teleimmersion

2006-02-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

Here's a very interesting article on Teleimmersion. It's one of the important themes in YEAR ONE. The story deals with combat simulation Teleimmersion as I perceived it would develop back in the late 80's when I was into everything AI related. I still believe they way we're showing it in the film is how it will actually develop.

VFX breakdown

2006-02-18T01:36:00.000-08:00

YEAR ONE has over 90 minutes of visual effects. Well over 1 500 VFX shots. 145 500 frames of match moving. And it's all done using state of the art technology on regular desktop PC's. The final film will be released in High Definition (1080p) for theatrical screenings and HD-DVD.

Compositing

2006-02-17T15:30:00.000-08:00

These are only draft composits.

Kick off!

2006-02-17T11:47:00.000-08:00

This is it. This will be your source of insight into the production of YEAR ONE - the first SciFi Epic to ever come out of Sweden. We're a very small group of creatives that have been working on and of to realize my vision (Hey, I'm the director!) of the world of YEAR ONE. I had the vision for the first time thirteen years ago when I wrote the first draft of the story. Back then we where close to getting it produced but putting together the financing for such a huge project proved to be impossible. Enter the digital era. I was running my own production company doing promos and visual effects and one day I decided it was time to put all these new tools to the test. The result will gradually be displayed on this blog.

Stay alive,
Martin Munthe