CaptainDisillusion

Weather Ahead

Hi friends,

Content update: I've been working on a script for what I think will be a pretty cool video. It keeps teetering between a concise, tightly-packed Quick D or a satisfying, slow-burn traditional debunk. Either way, it should be a fun watch.

But as I work on this, I've also hit one of those patches in my real-world life, which statistically tend to happen (especially the longer you've been around), when multiple unfortunate and sad events are queuing up all at once. I would never bore you with details, but suffice it to say, there is some triaging of complex emotions and tasks to be done for a little while.

I share this only to flag that it may take ol' Captain D a tad longer than the usual long-length time to get this next video out. Or it may be about the same. Hard to predict.

Just know that despite personal life stuff, I love what I do and am not at risk of posting one of those "Why I'm quitting YouTube" videos that are so en vogue with solo creators lately. I want to keep making engaging, entertaining, [borderline-educational] little films, in my weird style, for a special audience that have been so kind and supportive every step of the way. Have I said it lately? Thank you.

See you on the other side!

'CD/Blur' Behind-the-Scenes STREAM

REMINDER: the stream starts in 30 minutes!

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The Blur video has reached 1M views! So as per tradition, let's do a behind-the-scenes "director's commentary" livestream.

This Tuesday, June 10th, 5PM ET

I've gathered over 50 pieces of media about the effects, graphics, and the filming process. I'll show them off and attempt to talk about the math, in a way that my feeble brain understands it, as we go through, analyzing the video scene by scene, in excruciating detail. You'll get so so bored, it will be glorious.

Please join me live if you can! But as always, the recorded stream will remain available afterward.

Cosmos Sketch - IMAX OPEN MATTE WIDESCREEN VERSION

In the final video, the Cosmos bit was matted into a 4:3 aspect ratio to stay authentic to the original show, but we shot and did all the VFX in normal 16:9.

So here, for the first time in history, I present you with this exclusive look at the newly digitally restored original aspect ratio of the piece!

Note the awkwardness of some of the framing, and certain elements, such as the FFT machine, being in shot earlier than would be ideal, diminishing the comedic impact. The filmmakers clearly didn't intend for the film to be seen this way. And yet, here it is. Truly fascinating.

Please like & subscribe!

Early Access: "CD / Blur"

Hello friends!

I bring you... a new video!

Don't remember the last time I worked on something where I felt so uncertain every step of the way about whether I'm explaining things correctly. And where I've had to make so many revision and tweaks to the concept, to the visuals, and even to the sound. It's like it just didn't want to get made!

But in the end, I think video holds together and manages to be entertaining.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

COMMENTARY LIVESTREAM - 'SNL VFX Mystery'

REMINDER: Stream starting now!

As the latest video approaches 1M views, let us humble ourselves by taking a critical look at its concept & execution. I'll share some fun behind-the-scenes material and try to figure out what, if anything, I learned this time.

Join me LIVE on Wednesday, Jan 15th, 2:30PM ET!

Or watch the replay whenever!

'SNL VFX Mystery' - Music & Sound FX ONLY

I haven't done this in a while. Here's a version of the latest video without the dialogue tracks, to better hear the delicious details of the sound design. For registered audiophiles.

Early Access: "SNL VFX Mystery | Quick D"

Hello!

Here it is, the latest video! I can't help feeling like it holds a new record for amount of time spent creating vs. amount of content, but... I did work very hard on it the entire time and... I hope it briefly brightens your day!

Sound Design STREAM

I'm spending tomorrow working on sound FX of the upcoming video. If you don't mind crazy noises and want to hang out/work along with me, join the livestream! (starting at 2:30PM ET)

FinalComp STREAM: 3D...Studio?

Greetings, patient friends!

It's that time again. After chiseling, sanding and polishing over 100 shots of the upcoming video to shiny perfection, I've arrived at the last one. And I'd like to livestream the process of working on it!

The VFX on it are so elaborate, I'll need some help. So Intern Joey will join us via an interstellar video link (that will definitely not cause a bunch of technical problems throughout the stream) and show off his mad 3D modeling skills.

We'll try to have fun along the way and maybe, just maybe, get close to finishing the shot before we completely lose our minds.

Please join us Monday, Nov 25th, at 2PM ET at the link above!

WARNING: major spoilers on various aspect of the video will definitely occur, so I guess don't join the stream if you wish to avoid them. As always, a replay will be available for later access.

COMMENTARY STREAM: Beckham Beach Kicks Debunk

UPDATE: As those who joined live know, the broadcast was sabotaged by a disgruntled projectionist, Eduardo. But we were able to band together, defeat him, restore the feed, and continue with the commentary!

To make the replay slightly less annoying to watch, I have edited out a boring chunk, mostly consisting of a glitching 'STAND BY' screen. Hope you check it out! (The remaining content, not the boring chunk)

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Now that we've all had sufficient time to psychologically process my most recent powerful art piece, I think it's time to rewatch it with live in-depth commentary regarding the dramaturgic and cinematographic choices made by me, the director.

As usual, I'll share some BTS bits and pieces and try not to criticize myself too harshly.

Hope to see you there, Sep 12, 2PM ET!

Intern Football Face Smash Outtakes

Here are some delightfully painful slow-mo bloopers of Alan getting hit in the face by a non-American football ball for ya!

Beckham Debunk AGAIN BUT BETTER

Thanks to the helpful suggestions from some of you, I had a chance to fix some minor and major technical issues and reupload!

• Several VFX shots improvements

• Replaced the Canon 5D/7D cameras shown with generations that existed at the time

• THE WHOLE VIDEO WAS ACCIDENTALLY IN MONO 😱

• Color encoding needed a correction to display more accurately on YouTube

  Please consider watching the video again. You might not consciously notice a difference, but it'll FEEL better. (And also help with some starter views before it's public.)

  And of course, if you spot any other significant issues, please let me know ASAP.

NEW VIDEO: Beckham Beach Kicks DEBUNK

Hello!

So here it is. Another effortful video about something silly. I hope you like it.

This is early access, so lemme know what you think!

(FYI: proper subtitles are not ready yet, but they'll be there by the time of public release. Sorry for any inconvenience.)

Sound Design Work Stream

UPDATE

Looks like I had accidentally scheduled the stream for 1 PM, but it is in fact 2, i.e. any moment now. Sorry for any confusion!

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Hi!

As planned, tomorrow at 2PM ET, I'll stream working on sound effects spotting (finding and placing them) for the upcoming video. There's just the last section left, so I'm hoping to finish the process on stream.

It'll be a bare-bones type of deal, just me staring at my screen, trying to concentrate while auditioning lots of crazy noises over and over and over.

So if you're into that, see you there maybe!

FinalComp STREAM: "Fast Forward to Today"

UPDATE: Folks, I'm pushing the stream by a day, to Jul 10th. Just need a li'l more time to set up some new graphics & remember how to operate it all. And my brain needs just a tiny break from computers!

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I'm on the last VFX shot! And it only makes sense to prolong the process by streaming myself working on it from start to finish. I'll be using in Blender, After Effects, and my mouth (for speaking).

Making this stream available to all tiers. Because like,... I missed you guys and I'd love to catch up with everyone!

So please join me at the link above Tuesday, 2PM ET.

Or, if you're from the future, watch the replay right now!

A Live Update From a Creator Who is Alive

Greetings friends!

I rise out of the swamp that is the overly-complex VFX stage of another video to bring you a graphical update of its progress.

As before, the picture is a representation of the whole edit and the green parts are what's completely visually finished. It's 36 of 129 shots, but it amounts to exactly 50% of the video.

I've also included my face so you can remember what it looks like. I'm really sorry that it takes forever to make these things.

This video will be a classic style debunk, peppered with a lot of silliness. I hope you like it. A work livestream or two might precede the upload, if you're into that kind of thing.

Thank you as ever for your superhuman patience and support!

Director's Commentary Stream - CD / Shutter Speed

REMINDER: The stream starts in 30 mins! Hope to see you there!

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The challenges, the triumphs, the horrible mistakes...

Let's take a fun, in-depth look behind the scenes of the latest video, with me, the maker of it. RAW AND UNSCRIPTED.

I'll also answer any questions. If anyone has any.

Friday 11 AM (ET) 

See you in the LiveChat!

(or in the replay)

"CD / Shutter Speed" Early Access

Hello!

"CD /" videos were supposed to be the shortest, easiest type of video. But noooo, I had to make it complicated. I'm not sure even *I* understand most of what I explained.

Please enjoy!

Year-end Video-update

Hi everyone!

I've been working on the VFX of the next video (which will be a CD/ episode) throughout December. As the graphic above illustrates, I'm on shot 68 out of 86! I hoped to get it out before the 1st, but I'm just not fast enough.

Don't know about you, but '23 has strangely been a year of exhaustion for me. Like one of those dreams where you can't run fast. No matter how short/simple I tried to make my video projects, each one unfolded into a super-complicated process. Even more than usual! I clearly need to change something fundamental about the way I approach making stuff. Really want to do better in the new year!

On the bright side, this new vid IS coming out soon and it's turning out pretty fun, IMO.

Thank you as ever for your continued support!

Hope you're all enjoying the holidays!

Early Access: "Surviving Feedback" (Bcon23 mini-talk)

Hello!

I've just returned from the Blender Conference in Amsterdam, where I got really creatively inspired watching interesting presentations by artists & developers from around the world.

(You can watch recordings of all the talks on the Blender YT channel!)

To counter-balance all that talent & skill, I decided to do an awkward, rambling mini-presentation of my own. It's only about 5 minutes long.

Hope you enjoy!

"AlBot" Short - Early Access

Hi!

Here's a silly sketch, the production process of which I've been documenting in my other Patreon tiers. The goal was to try something cinematic but specifically designed for a vertical video feed, as well as to test some virtual production techniques I hope to use in future "proper" episodes.

Apologies in advance if you don't like vertical vids. Or short-form content. Or comedy. Or fun of any kind 😋

Making "AlBot" Pt. 7 - Final Product

Since the livestream, I've been building the rest of the CG assets, laying out shots, animating, [miGRAtiNg tO a nEw coMpuTEr], rendering, compositing and mixing sound. And here's the finished video!

Presenting it above in square format, but will post the vertical version shortly at the "early access" tier.

Some final production details:

I textured the robot in Substance Painter. I think the clash of super basic shapes and realistic textures weirdly works.

I cobbled together a table, photo-scanned the wrench prop with Polycam (so it could be on the floor after I drop it). Joey made the console with the button & I tweaked it.

I blocked out a primitive layout of the lab...

And Joey turned it into this!

All these things were dynamically linked into the different 3D scenes, so that if something was adjusted on a model, it would update in all the shots. Because all the camera angles were already lined up and everything was modeled to scale, it was almost fun putting the shots together.

I used some tricks to help with interactive lighting, such as making dummy objects of the characters and projecting the footage onto them.

After everything was rendered, I comped things together in After Effects and did a final color grade in Resolve.

The timing with the animatic is so close, I was able to use that sound mix as a starting point to make the final one. As in all my videos, I cleaned up the dialogue and added a bunch of sound effects. The stock music was basically left untouched.

I think the whole thing came out pretty cool. But you be the judge!

After working on this elaborate short, explicitly designed for a vertical video aspect ratio, what I have learned is... I still kinda hate it! 😝

Making "AlBot" Pt. 6 - Livestream STARTS in 30 mins!

UPDATE 2! The rescheduled stream is on in half an hour. Hope to see you there!

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UPDATE! My poor 10-year-old computer has picked this moment to peace-out, so unfortunately I have to postpone the stream. For now I'm pushing it 1 day, to hopefully figure out a temporary streaming/work setup, until my new system comes.

Sorry for the change of plans!

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Let's continue the work on the short in realtime! Tomorrow (Sunday, Sep 10th), starting at 11 AM Eastern Time, I'll stream the process of finishing the robot model. I hope it'll be a nice, calm, productive time, so join and co-work with me if you like.

I'll take breaks by doing Q&As, so if you have any Qs in advance, feel free to comment here and I'll field them on stream.

Otherwise, see you in the live chat!

(As always, if the stream already happened, it's available as a replay above.)

Making "AlBot" Pt. 5 - VFX Setup

Every shot of the video is a visual effect so it makes sense to set up the project in a way that'll make the creative process easier.

I exported the edit as an AAF file which can be imported in other software. This lets me jump into Resolve to color-grade the original camera takes used in the final video.

Then it's off to After Effects where I turn the edit into one big composition.

I like to number the shots using the old-fashioned VFX syntax we already saw in the animatic:

[number with leading zeros]+0.

So the first three shots are 010, 020, 030 and so on. That way if you ever need to add an extra shot between 010 & 020, you can use the end digit to call it 015, and still have room on either side of that to insert more shots (013, 016).

At this point we can just start chipping away at the VFX one by one, but since the main goal in most shots is for the characters to be realistically placed in the virtual environment, I think it makes sense to first go through and take care of 3 things:

• Cleanly key the greenscreen & fix problem areas with roto
• Composite basic plate element (falling sunglasses & dangling legs)
• Track/estimate each shot's camera placement in 3D

I put each shot into a precomp and take care of the greenscreen. For some shots a simple Primatte key works, for others I need to do a multi-step process, cleaning up some parts of the matte manually. The leg and the falling sunglasses of course need frame-by-frame manual rotoscoping. The latter has so much motion blur, the rims are practically invisible on most frames, but I managed to trace them!

I use a combo of Blender & SynthEyes to track camera motion and calculate the perspective of the static shots. The measurements of the objects on set along with the known camera height help set the correct scale.

If all is done right, the floor in the 3D scene should match the floor in the footage, and when we start throwing 3D elements in, they'll automatically have proper size.

For now I place a few planes with UV grids around to indicate the environment, then gather everything in AE.

Back in part 3, I forgot to include the funny little chair among the purchased props. It looks oddly menacing, lol.

I decided to go through the main comp and animate a frame guide to make sure each shot can work in square AND vertical format. Judging by the playblast at the top, it seem workable!

And now is the point where things go into slow motion. It's time to create/acquire all the CG assets. With Joey's help, I'm going to model & texture button console, the rest of the space lab full of things, and of course... the robot.

Oh boy. Is it too late to just make a dance TikTok instead?

Making "AlBot" Pt. 4 - Shoot (and Rough Cut)

Everything went according to plan.

At the last moment I decided to frame for a square format with safety for vertical, so it can work for both - similar to how TV shows in the mid '00s used to frame 16:9 safe for a 4:3 crop on older TVs. Just a little insurance policy!

It might sounds overkill, but for the moving shots I opted to use a crane. Ultimately it's more efficient than setting up a slider and allowed us to do the vertical ascent for the opening shot.

I used a Kessler PocketJib with a Ronin RS2 mounted on it. I've never combined the two before but it's a great way to work. I pre-programmed the Ronin pan/tilt move so Emily just had to trigger it and push the jib arm at the right speed. Human-assisted motion control!

Ever since the AG shoot, I've been doing "dual system" sound, meaning the audio is recorded on a separate device. It's a bit more fuss syncing everything in editing, but the quality of the Zoom F6 preamps and 32-bit recording is just way better. Also, having the camera completely untethered from any audio gear makes filming easier.

Since I was in a controlled environment and moving my body a lot, I recorded with a boom mic mounted on a stand. For any shots where I travel a lot, I made sure to grab wild (audio-only) takes staying by the mic, so I have a clean version.

I tried to capture coordinate reference for each angle. Filling the frame with rectangular objects of known dimensions will help me recreate the exact angle of the camera in 3D rather than eyeballing it for each shot. While recording these reference clips I said out loud the height of the camera from the floor and the focal length of the lens.

Ended up with about an hour of material. The rough cut of it edited down to the 1 minute is at the top. Pretty close to the animatic, don't you think? It looks washed out because it's shot with Blackmagic's film gamma. I typically don't bother applying a LUT (quick correction that makes the colors look normal) while editing.

Next comes the hard part...

Making "AlBot" Pt. 3 - Preproduction

If there's one thing I learned over the years of filming stuff, it's that you can't trust your brain to remember anything on the shoot day. You're going to miss things. Worse, you're going to think of things you need on the spot and regret not getting them in advance.

Even for a tiny scene like this, there are a bunch of elements to consider. For example, it starts with CD hammering. I have a hammer. But really whaling on something right by the lens while trying to deliver lines is impractical, both for safety and for recording clean audio. Miming the hammering with a real tool will look obvious. So I need a realistic, light prop hammer.

Same with the giant wrench. Those things are heavy. Maneuvering and dropping it as depicted in the animatic would be hard. A prop would make life easier.

At the end there's the obvious "where we're going" BTTF reference and I think it would be funny and absurd for CD to suddenly have a visor to flip down in that shot. I don't want to use a literal replica of Doc's visor, so I'll find some sort of goofy '80s shades.

A quick Amazon shopping spree later, here are the final props:

Experimenting early with the robot's look in Blender I realized that it would probably help to have mockups of the strangling arms on set to maybe cast shadows on CD and help with camera tracking.

I rendered a side view of the arm, printed it out across multiple sheets in true scale and used that as a stencil to cut foam board.

Mounting the cutouts on a couple of light stands should work well.

Speaking of lighting... I'm shooting on greenscreen but trying to depict a realistic environment. I can't just point some LED panels at my head and call it a day. The lighting needs to look motivated and change depending on the angle or characters' position.

I don't want to flesh out all the details of the environment in advance. It's not that important for the scene - just a murky, messy scifi cargo bay. For now I'll simply decide on a basic, abstract arrangement of light sources and stay mindful of how they would rotate from shot to shot.

There'll be a bluish backlight to screen right of Alan (which will intensify once he walks over to the table, and a warm backlight to screen right of CD & the robot. These lights will also leak as fill onto the opposite character's side, hopefully creating a cohesive feeling.

Since the greenscreen doesn't move, the lights will have to. Via my muscles. Rearranging them as few times as possible is a priority for shooting order. There's also the issue of makeup. I'll of course need to film all of one character's side, then the other.

For many years I've been using an excellent iOS app called Shot Lister. It lets you import a script, create a shot list and plan an extremely detailed, realistic shooting schedule, which can then be tracked throughout the shoot day and dynamically updated on-the-fly.

After inputting all the variables and really thinking through the logistics, it seems if I start filming this 1-minute video at 10 AM, I'll be able to finish by 8 PM.

What am I doing with my life? Don't think about it. The shoot is next!

Making "AlBot" Pt. 2 - Animatic

Because I don't have a sci-fi space lab or giant robot at my disposal, there'll be a lot of greenscreen in this production. To help plan out the shots I decided to preview the entire sketch as a rough hand-drawn animatic.

First I recorded the lines in Pro Tools and edited everything to exactly 1 minute. I was recovering from an illness so my voice sounds rough and snotty (sorry!) but it gets the point across. I also threw in some sound fx & music to help create a vibe and guide the visuals.

Importing that as a single mixed audio clip into Blender, I set up a Storypencil project. Storypencil is a free addon that lets you organize and manage a whole edit of Grease Pencil scenes in one file (Grease Pencil is a toolset in Blender for drawing & 2D animation). It's extremely handy.

After marking where all the cuts of my imaginary shots will be, I got into sketching and crudely animating each shot to the soundtrack, until I had some lazy version of all of them.

It's really hard to compose for vertical framing! Feels like a bunch of compromises. But I can't tell if that's objectively true or just my personal bias due to a lifetime of watching and working with horizontal aspect ratios... Is a future gen-alpha Spielberg going to think CinemaScope looks like trash?

You can see in the final video above, I started out doing very sloppy stick figures, then gradually slipped into doodling more details. I should've kept myself more in-check with that! Would've finished faster.

But now that I watch it... I think it works as a short. Let's commit to this. It shall henceforth be our bible.

Now to figure out how to actually shoot it. "Preproduction" is next!

Making "AlBot" Pt. 1 - Script

We all know short-form videos (TikTok, Instagram Stories, YouTube Shorts) tend to encourage "low-effort" impromptu content. The vertical frame and severe duration limit make it almost impossible to create elaborate, nice-looking stuff. I mean, you'd have to be CRAZY to spend time working on a cinematic narrative sketch, custom-made for the shorts feed, where most people will just scroll by it...

Eh, let's try anyway!

I think it's a good testing ground for some virtual production techniques I want to practice for future proper videos.

But since the end product will be small, I thought it might be interesting to take you through the creation process as it happens. In the next few posts I'll document the steps of creating a fun Captain D comedy short as I work on it.

It begins with...

Concept & Script

TikTok allows videos up to 3 mins, while IG Stories are just 15 seconds! YT Shorts are in the middle, at 1 min, so I'll go with that. To avoid involving other people for this first experiment, it can be a scene between CD and Intern Alan. A silly take on something vaguely topical like... AI.

Maybe CD wants to replace Alan with an AI, or just a robot. The robot looks obviously dangerous to Alan but CD, as its designer, refuses to see this and is eager to turn it on.

To roughly aim for a minute of material, I brainstormed and wrote the scene out in classic screenplay format, where one page is supposed to represent about a minute of screen time. It ended up slightly over a page, but I think a fast comedic pace will make it fit.

The script is attached as a PDF. Try to picture how it plays out visually! I'll present how I see it in the next post, with a storyboard/animatic...

Production Art: Decades

For a shot in the latest video I needed to visualize the idea of fun things from decades past, that the world is currently nostalgic for. It was going to be a collage of images, but I quickly realized that anything I choose would be purely subjective. So instead I opted for labels of decades themselves, stylized in the design language of their time. To have flexibility I made them in 3D. Here's a video of each one up-close.

It's interesting how what we think of as emblematic design of a time period is usually concocted much later, looking back at it. If you google graphics strictly made IN the '80, you won't see much glowing purple wireframe synthwave album cover stuff. The '60s weren't all groovy Austin Powers flower blobs...

But still, if you want this sort of concept to read on screen, you have to lean into the corniness somewhat. I tried to split the difference between the stereotypical design tropes and my own first-hand impression/experience of the times. The '90s logo, for instance, is a barely exaggerated version of my actual high school's official print materials!

EARLY ACCESS: Empty World | Quick D

Hi!

Here's a brand new video, freshly baked in the edit oven, chilled in the sound design fridge and piped with delicious VFX creme. I hope you like it.

As outlined in a previous post, I sort of had to switch gears and make a completely different video from one I began working on. I tried to keep the new one short, but of course got carried away with details and flourishes, so it also ended up taking an extra while.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!