01/06/2007 by Stiglic Dragan.

Frankly, I never thought that working on games cab be so motivating. Latest gig is so much more than usuall game cinematics: Beside doing a previs for cinematic scenes it’s also about being involved in co-creation of an on-line SF multi-levels game.

Apart from normal previs process that usually aimes to simply get to the best visuals, this work requires thoruough exploration of all interactive sides of the game, as well. Previs is used to to predict/playout all possible outcomes of player’s actions and design respective visuals. Since our “weapon of choice” for this project is Anark, we’re actually having realtime compositing and VFX in cinema-style visuals, wired up with near-complete gaming experience. In this case - prototyping is really the name of the game : )

What we have rolling now goes well beyond classic Michinima realtime previs-quality movies, but also beyond classic garage gaming. This project provides an amazing feeling, as we’re able to quickly sketch-out game with most of it’s components, and have it’s both visual and interactive qualities on very high level in the extremely short amount of time.

It becomes clear how future might bring out new generation of film/game makers. All-round-creators that will be able to work in each and every stage of the production, and author complete game/cinema title - in a garage… surely… “With a little help from my friends” : )

There’s no doubt’s that there’s a new cinema/games killer-combo coming our way in the future… Realtime pleyout of cinema-style content will become imperative, since players/audience will want things that thay want, when they want it, and the way they want it… it will be all “right here - right now”…  No rendering please…

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05/03/2007 by Stiglic Dragan.

Few days ago I have seen The Departed - an Oscar winning film directed by Martin Scorsese. It had really very high level of maturity, and it seemed to me that it has almost perfect story structure. I haven’t seen so well knitted storyline since The Usual Suspects.

Only few days later - I have lerned that the film is actually a re-work of Infernal Affairs, a Japanese produced movie, created few years ago. Well, that explains few things : ) I Wonder how amazing it was for Martin to watch and analyze Infernal Affairs while building his own movie. In a weird way - we can assume that Infernal Affears was actually some kind of previs (or more likely superprevis : ) for The Departed.

Now - estethic question remains: If The Departed won an oscar - should it be shared with authors of the seminal work - Infernal Affairs? I would say: yes. If a movie has main key value that originally belonged to previous work - It is very questionable to award only what is another “performance” of the same “composition”.

Just like in movies, similar phenomenon currently rules in music: There is a practice of western popular culture industry to give more credits to performers (singers, directors, producers) rather then to creators (music composers, scriptwriters). Reasons are logical: first group is more popular, and… it’s simply closer to the money!

How many actor’s names you remember? How many directors? And how many scriptwriters you can name? It’s logical why it is like it is, but to the creators of artistic seed of all these masterpieces - it’s not really doing much of a justice….

Mozzart was lucky he was born before western industry was formed… if he worked in our times - his music would have probably been labeled “produced by the makers of The Little Night Music”…

 I’m so glad for Dan Brown who first published his books, and made his name before hollywood started turning his novels to movies : )

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18/02/2007 by Stiglic Dragan.

It dawned on me just yesterday. Our previs profession is similar to that of a dentist. I realized that when I heard my dentist saying: “Pain prevention is my intention“. So correct!

If you want your teeth (movies) to be healthy - you gotta brush, brush, brush (previs, previs, previs)… until the dirt is out. But if you won’t - dirt “gets into production stage”, decays, and later on - it costs a lot to patch those holes - or worst - take some teeth out. Otherwise, audience will always know (smell : ) which parts of your movie stinks… 

Message is clear - Do your brushing (previs) - save your teeth (movie). Pure zen.

Ok, now just like doctors, let’s see what are the usuall syptoms before decay.

1. 1. Everybody knows that many projects get into production having relatively unfinished scripts as project’s creative seed.
2. 2. It’s familiar thing to have greenlighted projects waiting for a while until the director is available or until animation of vfx studio is chosen. Between greenlight and first productions there is great amount of valuable time vasted.
3. 3. Many projects get director attached in the very last moment. Sometimes it might happen in the middle of production as well : )
4. 4. Probably most of projects get into production with tons of visual & story solution that haven’t been very well thought of, let alone tested.
5. 5. At the end - since text is not really an appropriate media to communicate visual and cinesthetic elements - many projects suffer from bad communication between creative departments, .

Now, how to prevent this in your next production?

• 1. Give another knowledgable person to proof-read that script! Improve the script! Revise, revise, and revise! There is great amount of script analysts and writers out there. Writing stage is inexpensive, and invaluable component of every movie. So, don’t go in that production until script is near-top-class, or top-class : )
• 2. Let your director sit down with someone who can draw. Visualize ideas! Involve more people. Visualize and test the ideas through pictures. Again and again…
• 3. Make a rough 3D sketch of your environment and characters. Take your virtual camera “on the location” and previs, previs, previs…
• 4. As soon as you know who’s directing, who’s art directing, who’s DP, spinn them around previs process, and previs, previs, previs….

… until your reach superprevis : )

Fair Question: Now why would someone wish to do so much work? Fair Answer: Simply - to prevent doing much much much more work!

Just remember what my dentist said.

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15/02/2007 by Stiglic Dragan.

Hi there and Welcome!

To the best of our knowledge - this is the first blog dedicated only and exclusively to previs. This is probably one of few rare places where people can think & talk about previs for film, commercials and games.

Here you can find all information about our SUPERPREVIS film prototyping team, and all about the very meaning of term SUPERPREVIS. Beside providing all the necessary info, we’ll give an exclusive insight into our working process and thoughts that follow it - via our “previs artist’s diaries”. Enjoy your reading!

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