FlorestaVermelha

Project name: Floresta Vermelha (Red Forest)

Objectives

The Red Forest project aims at shooting a short film using original soundtrack and original screenplay. The intention is to shoot using the standards of digital cinema of at least 2k resolution (but hopefully CIMAX) and RAW recording. To get there, we aim to shoot it with Elphel, use only free software and document on the process.

General planning

The general schedule planning for the project can be better previewed in this link. You should notice that there is a somewhat large period before the actual shooting takes place. This period is dedicated to research and documentation on the process, especially about everything that relates to the use of the camera for the shooting. Such uses include:

- how to set up the camera;
- how to set up and how to decide which lenses to use (is there a need for a mini35 adaptor?);
- how to do the recording using the in-development programs (ElphelVision, DNG Converter) and therefore trying to give some feedback and interface on their developments;
- how to preview the recorded video (on VLC, MPLayer);
- how to record sound with the camera or using external devices;
- how to edit it and how to do the image post-production to it.

There is already a lot of documentation about these steps spread throughout the wiki, but gathering them, testing them and developing over them in a production environment and in a blog that reflects this environment may be of good use to anyone interested in the Apertus project or in the Elephel camera.

The idea is to make this documentation easily accessible to anyone. What can be expected are timely updates on the blog created for the project and especial reports with the conclusions of these steps researches – you could see those as articles that would put all the drafts from the blog together.

Due to sponsorship issues, it is yet to be decided whether the blog for the project will be in English or in Portuguese, but since the Apertus community communicates mainly in English, the especial reports are bound to be in that language. Depending on their interest to the Portuguese-speaking public and on the time we may have, they may also be translated to Portuguese. Examples on how these articles would be can be found here and here.]

Once we have the technical part we will depend upon solved, we should hopefully arrive at the shooting point confident on the gear we are using and concentrate solely on language.

It must be pondered that how we are going to shoot depends on the results we may or may not have achieved on financing the movie. Basically, we should consider something between all-voluntary work and a complete professional environment, with everyone getting paid and with more time to dedicate to the movie. We have to be prepared to both scenarios.

Editing, post editing and everything else that relates to the movie (except, possibly already recorded soundtrack) will be done using free software.

Workshops

To help drawing attention to the project and to help financing at least some of the basic structure, we consider running some production workshops to talk about the movie and the production process to anyone who might be interested, but with especial attention to the linux community. Those workshops will be technical-based and, without being too optimistic, there is good chance of finding partners to them.

About the movie and the screenplay

The movie will be Portuguese-spoken. The screenplay, written in Celtix (GPL), focus on inside environments so that we have better control over scenario and shooting situations. Since the script is simple, we may consider asking someone to write an alternative screenplay while at research phase, but it must be noted that the existent one was written simple due to the nature of the project. It would be dramatic to discover we would have to shoot a scene without means of doing so.

Once finished, the movie will be available online. It must be said that all the documentation for the project will be under open licenses as stated in the agreement. The movie, however, is bound to a complex mixture of copyrights and will probably be released under a Creative Commons license. If everything goes fine, we should be able to write some press releases and distribute a few copies of the final version to the media in DVD format.