Blender in Amateur Movie “Idealityâ€
Blender is used very much in low-budget amateur movies. “Ideality†is a good example of this, and its moment in the BlenderNation spotlight has arrived.
The movie took 2 years to complete, and has a total runtime of no less than 40 minutes. While the quality of some aspects of the movie can be discussed, the Blender CG shots in the movie are quite impressive. Definitely worth a look.Ian Hubert writes (quote from this thread):
Well. At long last (started when I was 16, now I’m almost 19) Ideality is being released. I’m hoping that for a fresh audience it’s as enjoyable as it was to me back in the beginning. My thanks to everyone involved (and there are many! So many that I’ve forgotten quite a few.) Feel free to give yourselves a shoutout!
But why do I post this here? Because all (with two exceptions) of the 3d CG was done in Blender! Yeaho! It’s intense. So yeah, I know it has many faults, I know the audio can be difficult to understand, but it’s still the result of 2 years effort, so not all bad. My 16 year old self would be proud. :)
Alternatively, the movie and a trailer can be downloaded here. If you like “Idealityâ€, go visit Ian Hubert’s website as well.
Wow, downloading it now, can’t wait to watch it :D
I really enjoyed this despite the ‘amateur’ shortcomings.
I have had Ideality in my best of collection since it came out ;)
The blender effects are very good and it all works together quite well.
His other projects are also of merit and worth a look.
Well done Ian and friends :)
Lilkewise I agree, the ‘amatuer’ aspect is just part of it.
What I liked is that someone had the motivation and GUTS to produce something like this. It was FUN to watch, and I hope we have more of these Independent Productions.
It’s always good to see what other people produce, not just to compare, but to motivate us. To show us that it is possible, and even if you don’t get rich, it’s something FUN to do!
Keep it up!
ià agree with Big fan
By the way, the comments on youtube were not so friendly.
But – hey, production over 3 years and don´t give up – respect ….. move on!
Amazing work ! Citys / Hardware vehicules and mecha and other 3D effect are really really cool.
The section tutorial of the site is really interresting too.
I just watched Ian’s Demo Reel – what a blast – Great work Man. I will check out the Movie when I have time.
thanks for posting this link.
just a thought:
after watching the first couple of minutes i would suggest to call such a project a “student film” or a “low-budget feature” – i think “amateur” is not the right word to describe this kind of work.
apart from the obvious things one could say about the acting etc.: what is an “amateur”? the one who does not get paid for his work? but when i turn on the tv i see 95% of crap (sorry, but i can not find any nicer words) that is pro content, done by people who get paid.
the acting in your average cheap daily soap is not much better than in this rather imaginative piece. so who is the amateur, who is the artist…? and who might be the real pro one day…?
really just a thought, i know this post was well meaning…
indiworks, Agreed man!
I put the quotes ‘amateur’ in quotes to indicate just that.
I hope we have more of these so-called ‘amateur’ productions to show to the Mainstream media that we can (and will) do better. If not for that reason, but for the real reason that we love what we do. That is something that is missing in Lamestream media — people lack the passion.
Keep up the good work.
If anyone else has an independent production of their own, please share it!!!
Wow! I’m honored!
And Dude man, I know EXACTLY what you mean. When I watch a movie, I want to be entertained, not impressed. Unless if I’m impressed by how much I’m entertained. And I don’t think it’s any big secret that a lot of the big-budget movies coming out of hollywood (whether due to overproducing, or just a fear of trying something new (thus sequels of sequels)) just aren’t as entertaining as a lot of the “Sundance films” being distributed. Lots of them seem to be all plot, and no story. Or something.
Which I’m sure will sound ironic coming from the guy who made Ideality, but hey, it was a learning experience.
In response to your proposal, Dude man, feel free to check out SBFP. http://www.spacemenmovie.com. No idea if you’ll like it (it admittedly isn’t for everyone), but if you do, sweet. 3rd episode will probably be out in a week.
Take it easy, ya’ll.
I’ve seen this movie before and have it in my video library. Cool robot spiders :) I think he did a good job and I thought it was fun to watch.
The acting is a “little bit” bad… =/
You do an awesome job, keep doing what you do.
Everybody seams to say wow, what a cool film, amazing stuff, probably…..I find the film so fake, the dialogues are total shit, the story is bullshit, it’s relay the worst low budget film I’v ever downloaded. Despite those comments, the animation dosen’t look to bad and blender is becoming a interesting tool for future movie.
I also totally agree with Indiworks.
This movie is very good. As I’m a lucid dreamer, I’m always interessed by stories about dreams.
I loved it a lot. My only regret is that I have had to guess most of the dialog because of my bad english, and I’m sure that I have missed a big part of the content.
It is well filmed and very good graphically (maybe too much glow effect in some shots, but globally very good). CG works are very impressive and the music is awesome.
Thank you for sharing your works.
Congratulations, and keep on !
Philippe.
It was done incredibly well, very impressive.
I thought the fight scene was done really well. Some of the movements felt a little unnatural but the gun blasts and the sparks from the swords, yeah that was awsome.
It makes me want to work harder on blender projects myself : P
I dunno about algerdino (he seems a little scetchy), I liked the odd dialogue and for an amature movie it was deffinitely above average overall.
Oh, you know, i think 3d and visualisation very nice, especial for low budget, but other… I not sure of they must be do real character… The script is bad definitely…One way or another my opinion: effects good, other awful.
Quite funny to watch.
Sure, i wouldn’t hire the artists for the next Matrix movie but they still have my respect for doing a rather big amateur project and i think with one or two more movies and a bit more exprerience they will do a awesome movie ;)
I thought this film had good points and some points not quite so. The story was thin, and the dialog usually delivered too fast, everyone was ‘playing an actor’, rather than acting like real people, and it got annoying. For 16-19 year olds, I wouldn’t expect anything else. Some parts were done very well though. The blender effects were well done, the music in the background when it was there, was usually done to great effect, as were other sound effects. The transition scenes were usually good too. It may have been a first effort, but it probably gave the actors experiences they wouldn’t have had without doing this (to their benefit). The editing was good. Transitions were reasonably effective. There were no really impressive camera angles, but there was some camera shake (at appropriate times). The lighting of live scenes could have been a bit better. I don’t mean to be overly critical though. The work that went into this was likely on the order of several hundred hours (or more). The sound was for the most part good, as was editing, and special effects (with some of it very to extremely impressive). The story, acting, and live lighting are what pulls things down (sorry actors). If there was more story, less dialog and better acting (everyone is way too hyper, speaking so fast as to lose native speakers of English, and no emotional content), this would be great. One and a half thumbs up! I encourage everyone in this project to continue making films. A great first effort.
Right now the International Film Festival Rotterdam is in full swing and I would like to see this film and the others Ian is working on in the line-up for next year.
Usually they invite some of the makers for an post-viewing talk, for this guy I would stick around.
The mechas are ILM material.
BTW I read he was 19.
arf ! *jealously cowering in the corner*
sndr
This is the sort of stuff that’s one day going to make indie content more and more relevant. It’ll all be on BitTorrent, published via RSS and sold for a reasonable price.
Massive kudos for pulling this off. First of all for staying focused, having once worked on a 4 min. animation for 6 months, I know it’s not easy.
I really can’t comment on the CG, since it all looks the same on YouTube (doesn’t matter if you’re looking at Children of Men or some independent stuff) but I think I had seen some pieces of an earlier version of the opening mech scene and it looked really good. Both a blessing and a curse, I guess. :)
The music was also really good and well cut together with the movie.
Some ideas for the next project:
* Work hard on the story. Just get your production crew together and discuss it. Even if it’s a fantasy / sci-fi thing, it should still make sense, otherwise you just loose your audience. Ask yourself “why?”. Pay attention to continuuity. Check if you’re making a connection between the viewer and the characters. There’s some really nice examples of this out there right now. For example the BSG podcast.
* Get someone to do makeup
* Get a sound person, use a boom mike. As we all know, sound is 50% of the picture.
Definitely festival-worthy stuff btw. A good way to get valuable feedback and find people to work with!
I like the demo reel and the robot stuff on elysiun much more than this movie.
Really, it bored me to death (almost)
and this is not the niveau I would have expected from him.
Sorry for the hard words
Ouch! Next time don’t make a movie with a bunch of teenagers talking. This looks like a sci-fi version of Dawson’s Creek.
“This I do refer”.
That was kind of freaky when the girl said “I’m a man.” Very confusing.
But I think the effects were done well, I have to agree that the lines in some parts were a bit stilted, but so what? The Star Wars prequels had no better acting than this… I think bad lines will make even a professional actor look dumb.
Hahaha, great work man, I must agree with everyone, well done, even if amateur. Loved it
To the maker of the movie,
Don’t let the criticism bring you down — for the most part, they are honest and accurate. I get criticism ALL THE TIME, but I a) dont’ let it bother me, and b) learn from them and improve.
This is your first ‘big’ production, and good learning experience. I’ve had MANY projects, but no CGI. Perhaps I’ll incorporate some CGI in the future, but I need a GOOD STORY, just can’t think of a good story (and I mean a really interesting story – I don’t want to ‘regurgitate’ stuff)….
Anyhow, keep up the good work!
Dude man
Well done! Original and interesting. Rough around the edges, yes. Lots of subtle and not so subtle visuals that show a truly artistic eye. The dialog is flat and dry, but in this this setting it works nicely. Yes, the 3D was nice as well.
Keep up the great work!
The “what is reality” card was first played by Aristotle in around 400 BC, so you have to be a real philosophical and literary genius to squeeze something fresh out of that one.
The main character reminded me of Screech from Saved By the Bell.
I think the editing was mostly relevant, but maybe a tad too fast at times. For example the bridge scene in the first quarter of the show – the far angle is a beautiful shot, but if you cut to it 3 times, it loses its value.
Especially in short films, long cuts really help to make the movie “seem” longer. This was also the problem with ED, IMHO – too many shots and cuts. Take for instance the short film Sweet, it’s only 4 minutes long, yet it feels like a “real” movie and not once are you bored. Notice how few shots there are and that some of them don’t even “make sense” storywise (like the opening cityscape). They’re also very long, considering the total length of the film.
This isn’t even cricism right now, just some ideas for the next time. A great job, especially for your first project! I’m sure we’ll hear great things from Ian in the future.
I gotta give props for putting something out like this. It was a great effort required and I’m sure you picked up tons of skills along the way. Project was budget constrained, but I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing more.
I’d say listen to the constructive critics (e.g. filipp) and focus on developing your artistic and technical talents. As for the non-constructive critics, remember that many artists (Bach, Vivaldi, Van Gogh…) were not well received initially but were later vindicated. How many of the all-knowing critics who condemned Stravinsky ever composed anything as beautiful and original as The Rite of Spring? The more you produce & release the better you get and the more other artists may be inspired by your work.
Yeah, Filipp, Ideality was really the beginning of my developing my “editing habits and theories”, the most important of which is that I now treat each shot as a sentence, let it say what it has to say, then let it go. Anything less is too short, anything more than that is just gratuitous. It’s worked well for me on future projects.
Sweet was a sweet movie.
“Ouch! Next time don’t make a movie with a bunch of teenagers talking.”
Haha. Noted.
“To this I do refer”. It’s fun you pointed out that line. One thing a lot of people don’t really get (it’s not their fault) is that the whole dialogue thing was just kinda a fun/joke/nonsensical satirical thing. Just making up random ways of saying stuff. It certainly wasn’t to impress anyone. “Would you wish to engage in lively conversation over a shared meal?” “Normally I would decline your offer-” “Offer? It was a question.” TOTALLY not being serious. I think it’s a fault of the movie that few people really got that/found it amusing.
Actually, one of the biggest things I like about this movie is that I was able to remove the 6 minutes of pure expositional dialogue between Sword and Alexander and the movie still makes sense.
me Yoda, I too enjoy the demoreel and robot more than Ideality, much of which was notably made 3 years prior. I know exactly what you mean. Although I still try to shy away from hyperbole’s in my criticisms.
Check out http://www.spacemenmovie.com
Hiya Ian. I really like your stuff. I would love to put something into my spring film fest (it doesn’t make any money). Ideality is unfortunately too long and SBFP though in 15 minute intervals is a three parter so that’s too long too. I’ll check out some of these earlier pieces. But either which way, would you be okay with me showing your stuff to audiences? I’ll throw in any making-of, special thankyous you like, and I’ll send a dvd your way after it’s all done. :D
Hi Ian,
that’s a wicked demoreel you’ve got there!
Bart
Bmud, sounds good to me. Use whatever you can find.