A digital playground in my studio

"Having fun" with the tiresome work of rotoscopy. In this final stage of post-production for "Gloria del Pacifico", chose what scenes needed digital touch-ups and composite work and so far its around 120!!

Started two weeks ago with all the battle scenes digital composites and rotoscopy and its such a pain in the butt for its complexity (CG explosions that match the original ones on camera, bullet trails, sound effects, wire removal, sky replacement, color-grading, etc). My Wacom drawing tablet comes in handy for this fine-detailed job as precision needs to be of a surgical manner.

Also, I'm very happy that technology has progressed quite a bit since starting this film a few years ago as many things I envisioned originally had to be toned down in order to make them "filmable" with the logictics I had. Now, I'm pushing all my savvyness forward with digital compositions and things.

Since April been in this editing process and its now a month so far that I have a sidekick helping with it and things seems to move along faster. With working hours from 10am until midnight, its still a matter of a couple of months from today that the film will be complete. Meetings with sponsors are coming along all these weeks and I'm putting all my brain and emotions into this.

Now back to work.

Morro de Arica digital composite

Mmm....Inspiration....

Editing days -as many in the field would know- are quite time-demanding and concentration-packed. It even gets to a point where I lose track of time and space and without noticing, it is already evening. Pulling aproximately 14 hours non-stop (only to eat and stretch) is rewarding when results start to pay off. Difficult scenes like the Heroes Oath or Bolognesi's Answer are past now and the inmiment ending battle scenes for "Gloria del Pacifico" are closer.

Sometimes, even though it is a post-production job (I'm in the editing stage yet), one day or two I devote to some elaborate digital montage or compositions to know if the things filmed prior-hand will look as planned, like this one here for example.

Chilean Sargeant Major De la Cruz Salvo was ordered by general Baquedano to blast peruvian fortresses far away at the morro with his artillery from a hill afar. The original footage (shot back in December 2011...wow, almost 2 years from now!) was filmed at the top of the Morro Solar facing the sea toward the Chira beach. Waited for the time that would somewhat match the correct time this event happened for real. As you can see from a still capture of the orginal footage, far below theres a long strip of beachland and a flat surface inland and a small strip of hills that enter a bit into the sea. That natural beach curve resembles nicely the real Arica bay and that hill afar is where the actual Morro de Arica would be, so the task was to put behind the actors and far away, the morro, the town-city of Arica, the train station and railroad track near the beach and the Manco Capac monitor ship floating in the bay with natural reflections in the water.

Being a moving shot, the camera rises to reveal more of the city below and see an actor enter the frame obscuring the morro afar. Got myself some pictures of the morro I had taken last year when in Arica from atypical angles I'd need for the film scenes, the rest would need to be taken from pics found online of other mountanius formation and shape them/blend them in Photoshop and import them into my digital video compositor. Some frame-by-frame rotoscopy had to be made in order to separate the actors and soldiers into layers from far away objects. The Manco Capac ship is a picture taken of the miniature I had made some time ago for other scenes near the end. Being a far away object and in the sea, motion was not needed so just a picture would do the job. Only thing was to just match the angle of view and lighting. Far below, the city was made in a 3D program and the peruvian fortresses of Ciudadela and Este were also done with some sand-bag trench pictures together with pics of my cannons and put together afar with the flag and pole. At the top of the morro afar, the big Vavasseur and More's battery together with the big peruvian flag. Motion track the footage, color correct it and apply some digital fog in the background and the shot is ready to rock n' roll!!

The original footage shot at the Morro Solar here back in 2011. Lots to rotoscopy and form the layers.

Layer compositing.

Peruvian flags composited to be placed atop the morro.

Pictures of the cannons made for the film.

3D city of old Arica to be placed below.

Final touches and color correction.

The final shot: screen capture of the final digital composite 2 days later.

 Now....off to sleep and continue editing the film tomorrow. Just a happy moment of a task achieved. :)

Casa de la Respuesta scenes

Finally back from location. Real Felipe's fortress is such and awesome place and the Casa de la Respuesta replica is like na oasis to me in Lima. Thank God there was one built for I remember thinking back in 2010 how was I gonna do to film the front of Bolognesi's headquarters as there's no similar home in Lima as far as I know. So...it is heaven sent.

No major dilemmas were faced just things here and there that weren't such an issue. The first night, the crew wanted a late-night tour inside two of the most "haunted" wings in the fortress: the King and Queen's towers. Talked with the person in charge and was kind enough to let us all in. So far, the only place that has been a location for us supposed to be haunted is this one. We spent like and hour or more but nothing happened. Nor did I hear or felt anything spooky. Nobody did. I think we were simply too many people and the experience is felt stronger when you are just alone in there or just two people. I don't know. Just a wild guess. At least, when filming at the top of the Morro Solar, some of the crew saw some human figures dressed up as war soldiers from the era I'm filming of. Well, that place was a battle field (outskirts of it) and when scavenging and removing soil to built trenches we found many old bullets and uniform buttons. Never saw anything myself but some did. It would have been an interesting thing to experience.

The big chroma key green screen we built proved handy for some scenes and I'll have to do a lot of rotoscoping and matte painting for there are many modern buildings surrounding the replica. Made sure to made static shots and some pans were done having anchor points in the far background for motion trackers in post to work with.

Now, off to our next location: deserts south of Lima!