"Alte Nachrichten" My unfinished Movie in 10 parts

[Aces]

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/132/acesfilm.jpg


Alte Nachrichten (Old News) The Director's Cut including the lost U-boat scenes:
http://youtu.be/UBsC80aFH4g


Hi folks,

I decided to release my unfinished movie that, sadly, I haven't been able to work on for the last few years.
As I mentioned, it was my ambition to release it once completed but RL got in the way, it's quite raw and unfinished in places but I'm tired of having it laying around on my hard drive going nowhere.

Cheers

Aces


Edit: and a few more screenshots to entertain you:

http://imageshack.us/a/img201/8638/altenachrichten2.jpg

[Onkel Neal]

Thanks, downloaded the first parts. High Tide of the Wehrmacht. :up:

[Jimbuna]

Seen the first three thus far :rock:

[Aces]

Thanks chaps,

Or you can now also view the whole movie online here:

http://youtu.be/O1O31PUDEUw

Regards

Aces

[Jimbuna]

I am mightily impressed :sunny:

[Herr-Berbunch]

^ Me too. That would've took an age to do! :o

[Aces]

Thanks for the kind words chaps. It was perhaps too big a project given my poor old PC. I lost an entire u-boat sequence that I did which annoys me greatly. I would have liked to have "enrolled" the services of a german voice actor and then I'd have re-written the dialog entirely myself. Also I now have new sims such as SH5, Red Orchestra 2, Steel Fury, CLOD, PT-Boats Knights of the Sea and of course SH3 with GWX3 plus the latest and greatest mods etc. which would have also been incorporated. It takes hours to get a few minutes of good footage and then there are the SFX to do which take even longer. All in all it took about two years to get as far as I did, another year or thereabouts would have gotten me to the finishing post.

The main thing was I though "why not do something with what you've got before it goes walkabout and gets wiped on one of my numerous external hard disks" as it has been laying around for the last four years eating away at me that I hadn't finished it in the way that I really wanted too.

I remember watching the original series "Heimat" directed by Edgar Reitz with fascination and being deeply interested in the socio-political anthology of Germany partiocularly in the 20s, 30s and 40s and of also watching the original "Das Boot" series and reading later about the psychological effects that the film had on the cast being locked away inside the u-boat set during filming. I have always been intrigued with the way that Nazism insidiously permeated into all aspects of German life. I was hoping that the intro sequence would encapsulate a little of this if that doesn't sound protentious. For example I added the wartime childrens board games to the family around the radio scene and other small visual metaphores.

I'm glad that you enjoyed it, thanks again,

Best wishes

Leigh (Aces)

[TarJak]

Shame you never got it finished. Very impressive piece of work. :salute:

[Aces]

Thanks mate, hope all is well with you and yours. Maybe one day I'll be able to finish it.

:Kaleun_Cheers:
Aces

[Penguin]

I like it! :up: Very immersive. Glad you decided to publish it, even though it's not finished - much better than letting it rot on your hd. One can clearly see how much effort and sweat but also enthusiasm you put into it.
If you decide to finish the film, you might contact me if you like a pendantic German to help you polish it :know:


(also bumping the thread so more people might check the film out, it's worth it)

[Aces]

Thank you for your kind words my friend, yes it was a lot of work. Actually I'm starting to get a little excited about finishng it. I captured some new stuff from PT-Boats and Red Ochestra 2 yesterday evening and I managed to get my SH3 install running again "of sorts". I would also like to incorporate some footage from Steel Fury and SH5.

My main issue is "do I still have the original footage somewhere as opposed to the movie segments?". If I have then it would be better as I could add new scenes to them as required, re-compress without the subtitles and then re-do the subtitles or better still re-do the narration and the subtitles before putting it all back together again. The reason the I broke it down into segments was to make it easier to edit etc.. Each segment is un-compressed and then the final assembly in virtual-dub with compression.

I'd welcome any assistance you could offer especially as you speak German. That would be a great assistance. When a friend kindly did the German voice-over at the beginning and helped with some of the newsreel translation he mentioned to me that it would be difficult to immitate the original newreeder's voice as "german wasn't spoken like that anymore" so that might be difficult. What could be done is re-write the whole narrative rather than rely on Wochenschau original narrative.

I wanted to set it in 1942 as this was a pivotal year for the Wehrmacht leading up to El-Alamein, Stalingrad and the later stages of Battle of The Atlantic etc.

Thanks again for your posting and for the "bump" :D, hope to speak to you again soon.

Kind regards

Leigh (Aces)

[Fubar2Niner]

Hi Leigh,

First off welcome back on deck mate, I hope all is well with you and yours.

Second, thanks to you Penguin for bumping this, I missed it till now :salute:
I started by d'l the first 2 parts and watching...... You had me hooked, just finished watching the 50 minute version on youtube, amazing! Bloody amazing!!

Favourite parts? Too many to list, but way up there is the footage on board the Tirpitz, this must have taken an age to capture. You seem to have wringed every single angle, it reminds me so much of old WW2 footage of battlewagons. Another small, but nonetheless lovely touch, the buzzards circling over the battlefield in Africa :up:

Thanks to you old friend, you have me searching my old games, HDD's and archived mod disks for anything IL2, and looking to purchase "Theatre of War", ( not sure it will even run on win7 ). The Africa campaign airfield was populated so realistcally, could almost be a carbon copy of many b/w plates I have in my collection of reading material.

I salute and thank you for presenting to us what was obviously a labour of love. Maybe one day this will be finished, for me however this will always be a collectors edition :yep:

Very best wishes and genuine regards.

Fubar2Niner

[Aces]

Hello my old mate,

Sorry I've been such a recluse, SH3 won't run under Win 7 keeps CTDing for me so I've been working on a few mods for Steel Fury. I'm as bit "modded out" at the moment, can't get interested in gaming at all either.

I'm pleased that you enjoyed the movie, I'm delighted to say that I've found a later version of the movie segments that inlcudes the proper U-boat segment and some other new stuff. Althought I can't get to the "source" files any more I might have enough to work with and finish the movie.

Yes, the Tirpitz stuff took and age to do, I found files foing back to mid 2006 and as late as late 2008 which was when I stopped working on it. I will re-upload the newer version and post the link here for those interested in seeing it.

Take good care of yourself mate,

Cheers and best wishes

Leigh

[Fubar2Niner]

Sorry to hear your troubles re win7. Works like a charm here, when you feel up to it pm me and I'll try help you out. Looking forward to your newer version, subscribed to your youtube acct now so should get an email on upload. Take care old bean :up:

[Aces]

Thanks mate, appreciate it, I would love to get SH3 back up and running well.

Cheers

Leigh

Edit: BTW are youi on Skype at all?, maybe we could hook up for a chat one evening.

[Aces]

and the Director's Cut with extra scenes including the lost U-boat scenes:

http://youtu.be/UBsC80aFH4g

and a few more screenshots to entertain you:

http://imageshack.us/a/img201/8638/altenachrichten2.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

Cheers

Aces

[Aces]

Hi folks,

I have just ordered up some new low cost (as I don't have much spare cash these days) video editing software as my previous software really doesn't run very well with Win 7 so I should be able to re-commence work on the film in the near future. I'm faced with a small dilema as the film was capture in 4:3 format as I didn't have a widesceen monitor at the time and all new footage has/will be capured at 16:9 unless I run the games at a lower 4:3 ratio which isn't possible with a couple of them so I'm currently deciding on the best way of doing this without letterboxing etc..

Cheer and regards

Aces

[Jimbuna]

Looking forward to seeing the end product matey http://www.psionguild.org/forums/images/smilies/wolfsmilies/thumbsup.gif

[Aces]

Cheers mate, I'm actually getting a little excited at the prospect of working on it again and looking forward to getting my hands on the new editing software. It'll give me something to while away the oncoming winter evnings whilst she who must be obeyed is watching her soaps. :)

Cheers

Leigh

[Jimbuna]

What software are you purchasing?

[Paco]

Hi Leigh,

thanks for Your work, it is amazing!


Greets,
Paco.

[Aces]

Thanks guys,

@jimbuna, I was using Premier but now I just bought Sony Vegas Molvie Studio HD Platinum 12.

@Paco. Hi mate, thanks, glad you enjoyed it.

Cheers 'n beers

Leigh
(http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B008RVQM9M/ref=pe_217191_31005151_dp_1)

[Takeda Shingen]

@jimbuna, I was using Premier but now I just bought Sony Vegas Molvie Studio HD Platinum 12.

I'm a big fan of the Vegas series. You'll get a lot of bang for your buck there.

[Aces]

Thanks for the info, I cannot afford or justify the pro stuff but I think that this product has gotten good reviews and it is a linear editor similar mold to Premiere so should be quite intuitive and it is VERY good value for money.

Cheers

Aces

[Takeda Shingen]

Thanks for the info, I cannot afford or justify the pro stuff but I think that this product has gotten good reviews and it is a linear editor similar mold to Premiere so should be quite intuitive and it is VERY good value for money.

Cheers

Aces

Oh yes. And as you have said the interface has become quite intuitive as well. I started using the series back with Vegas 7, and that was, shall we say, not so intuitive. Powerful, but not intuitive. Since then, the series has improved that greatly while retaining the plethora of functions. I'm sure you'll be very happy with it.

[Aces]

I appreciate your comments, it is always nice to hear from someone who has used a product. I have been using Premier at work for years but I've always heard good things about Vegas, I was suprised to find an entry-level product with so much funtionality and for such a good price. It should come tomorrow in time for the weekend so that I can start working on the movie again.

Cheers

Aces

[Jimbuna]

@jimbuna, I was using Premier but now I just bought Sony Vegas Molvie Studio HD Platinum 12.



Good kit but if you need anything else drop me a line, i may have a licence or two available :cool:

[Aces]

Thanks Jim I appreciate it.

Cheers

Leigh

[Aces]

I'm VERY happy with my video editing purchase, you are most certainly right, you do get a lot of "bang for your buck" with it.

Already started capturing new material for the final film.

Cheers

Aces

[Penguin]

I'd welcome any assistance you could offer especially as you speak German. That would be a great assistance. When a friend kindly did the German voice-over at the beginning and helped with some of the newsreel translation he mentioned to me that it would be difficult to immitate the original newreeder's voice as "german wasn't spoken like that anymore" so that might be difficult. What could be done is re-write the whole narrative rather than rely on Wochenschau original narrative.


I would be glad to help, I am buried in work untill the end of November though, after this my schedule looks much better.

Regarding the narrator, there are several aspects that come into play. Yes we speak a different German today, but in the early days all speakers had a theater education, this is what made their voices so distinctive. There is also the factor of the older technology: the microphones had less dynamic, but also important were that the devices by which which the end-user listened to it - the boxes in the movie theaters were crap in comparision to today. The audio guys and also the voice artists at this time took all this into their calculation. This is why the narrators speak the last syllabels of the words very clear and distinct.
If you would really want to add new voice-overs, I would recommend a professional speaker who is able to imitate Giese's "narrative flow". I can sure help you with translating stuff, or even write new stuff which would be fitting, however my voice talent is quite limited - I can only do a mediocre Hitler imitation. :D

I asked an audio engineer what one could to in the post production, as my idea would be to reduce the dynamic of the audio. He told we that I could do it, but only carefully, as we don't want it to sound like a telephone. A tip he gave me, is to use a crappy microphone for recording :) - preferable a dynamic one, in contrast to today's standard for speech recording which would be a condensor type.

I would keep the subtitles in a different channel untill the movie is finished, but for timing reasons it would be neccessary to have them available, as they will determinate the pacing of the editing - or less complicated said: how long the viewer will see the different footage.

I'm faced with a small dilema as the film was capture in 4:3 format as I didn't have a widesceen monitor at the time and all new footage has/will be capured at 16:9 unless I run the games at a lower 4:3 ratio which isn't possible with a couple of them so I'm currently deciding on the best way of doing this without letterboxing etc..


I would suggest to keep the 4:3 ratio, as this was the original format of the Wochenschau. Even though the 16:9 format in our television is fairly new, the audience already connects watching 4:3 pictures with "old news", much more true for pics from the 40s. Shame on the BBC for raping the excellent "The World at War"-series by transforming it to 16:9 in the restored version :nope:(and by this, killing one quarter of the picture information)

If you record your game footage in a 4:3 ratio, any good capturing software would record only the depicted graphics, so you would have no pillarbox effect(black bars on the sides - a letterbox are bars on top and bottom :know:). However there is one big advantage if you record it in a widescreen ratio: You can choose the best part of the picture that you want to use - just like the pan & scan guys did. You don't lose any quality, as you certainly will downsize the whole movie to a lower resolution anyways.

So I would go for the highest resolution possible when recording game footage, a resolution that leaves you at least 25 frames/sec, then downsize it. This way you have as many details as possible. What would also be nice, is reducing the depth of field, as I noticed many in-game cams don't do it, or do it in other ways as real life cameras work. When you also use aperture filters or similar stuff that reduces the "sharpness", the result will be that your footage looks much less artificial and it will be harder to distinguish it from real life footage. I noticed for example that the stills in the end of your film are barely to make out as computer game pics.

Cheers and greetings,
Penguin

[Aces]

Hi Penguin,

Thank you for all the great information and advice. Regarding the format I want to keep 4:3 for the historical reasons that you have given and also because 95 or more per cent of the movie is already in this format :). I have been capturing new material at 16:9 and I will use pan and scan in Sony Vegas to frame as I desire. The main thing about using 16:9 is that one cannot frame whilst capturing so one has to visualise the final look.

With regards to the sound and sub-titles. It would be best to start afresh I think the only problem is that I don't have a version without them as my orignal "footage" was spread accross several external hard disks and I tried to re-assemble each "segment" but it pproved virtually impossible to re-locate all the clips using Premier as there are so many. What I'll most probably end up doing is putting black background subtitles rather than transparent over the exisiting ones and adding new ones in the same style.
When the video side of thing is finished then I will think more on narration both the writing of it to match the action and that's where your time and skills would be very appreciaterd and also the voice. I think a voiced actor would be good but I doubt if I could afford one but, first things first.

I did put in some softening already so as to make the film look dated.

Thank you for all your help and ideas, I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Kind regards

Leigh (Aces)