Releases and Recommendations
/ by Matt
As the DVDs are making their way throughout the globe and the web release draws nearer and nearer, it’s time to give a little update.
DVD Mailing
The DVDs seem to have made their way across nearly all of Europe and the UK. The first DVDs in the USA were reported arriving in New York and it seems a few more are popping up around North America. I haven’t heard anything yet from South America, Africa or Asia yet, and I have a feeling I still will be waiting a little while down here in Australia :). ‘Steve’ has started a map group on Frappr called Orangewave where in theory we’ll be able to see how the DVDs are spreading. You might want to add yourself and the arrival date to the list when you receive yours, it looks like fun, especially if we get all 2000 there!
YouTube
Yes, we know that some eager fellow has already ripped the DVD and uploaded it to YouTube. The general consensus within the team is that we have no problem with it (it’s creative commons after all) but we recommend that you do yourself a favour and wait a few more days for the official release. It’d be a shame to let your first impressions be tarnished by the small, jumpy, low-res, blurry, poorly sounding and synced YouTube version – it doesn’t really do justice to what we created, intended for HD projection with 5.1 audio.
Web Release
We’re working hard to get the web release out within the next couple of days. Video is (slowly) encoding on my system as I type this post out, but even after the different versions are all finished and checked, they need to be uploaded and mirrored before the onslaught, so we can’t guarantee exactly when it will be available. The aim is to provide a few different formats (H.264, MPEG4, OGG Theora, etc), at at least 3 different sizes each, but we’re still experimenting with different codecs so that list may end up changing slightly. Jan has made some audio mixes in various formats, in both stereo and 5.1 – we hope to provide 5.1 wherever possible. All, or at least the majority of what we release should be playable with open source video players, such as VLC Media Player, so if you want to get prepared early, you may as well go and download it now, in fact do it anyway, since it’s a fine app.
Waiting, Waiting
I bet you’re getting itchy waiting for either your DVD to arrive, or for the web release – so am I! But until that comes, you can satiate your desires buy watching some other great movies. We compiled a list of some of the movies we watched late after hours while we were working on the project in Amsterdam, some of them more recommendable than others. Read on to check them out and for bonus points, see if you can spot any influences or references in Elephants Dream.
Stalker
The Sacrifice
Wild Zero
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
City of God
King Kong
Il Casanova
Dr. Strangelove
Blade Runner
Zardoz
Serenity
Tetsuo Iron Man
Permanent Vacation
Sleeper
Annie Hall
Rebel Without a Cause
Mulholland Drive
Twin Peaks
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me
Akira
Perfect Blue
Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind
Laputa Castle in the Sky
Travelling Birds
Microcosmos
Koyaanisqatsi
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Brazil
Brothers Grimm
Twelve Monkeys
Corpse Bride
2046
Ghost in the Shell
Kundun
Saw
Return of the Living Dead
Evil Dead
Seven
American Beauty
A History of Violence
Naked Lunch
Scanners
Crash
Nightbreed
The Bird People of China
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
In Good Company
Donnie Darko
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
The Tulse Luper Suitcases
The Five Obstructions
Spun
Hål i mitt hjärtä
Night on Earth
The Chronicles of Riddick
Diamonds are Forever
City of Lost Children
Commenters: Feel free to share some favourites of your own! And any other Orange dudes can fill in what I forgot :)
« Complete score available for download | DVD sales hit 2000 mark »
Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain is my movie recomandation :) But most of your favourite movies are also my favourites, so… good choice ;)
P.S. I won’t sleep until tomorrow ;)
Wonderful list indeed ;-) I really love many of the pointed films…..
I found points of slight influence with King Kong and Blade Runner, maybe….
On the other hand, I would like to ask for advice to the Orange team regarding the following:
I got my DVD last Thursday, and I enjoyed the 720p HD version, but I have not been able to play the 1920×1080 version, nor even the 5.1 audio. The computer is an AMD Athlon 1600 XP+ 1 Gb RAM and 128 mb ATI radeon 9200 SE. So my question is: What kind of machine is able to smoothly play 1080p (1920×1080) video?
Or what was the system used at Cinema Ketelhuis for the premiere projection like?
BTW: wonderful visuals and music, I loved the film, really.
Cheers,
Juan Javier Martínez.
“Mulholland Drive” \o/
i’am in love with this movie.
I miss “Magnolia” and especially “Clockwork Orange” in your list, but I like most of the films listed.
Also, I thank you for doing such a great job in making “Elephants Dream”! It’s a damn good short! The best I ever saw!
Speaking of references, did any of you play the computer game The Longest Journey? In the game’s intro movie, there is a scence that looks freakishly similar to one in the Orange trailer. It’s similar to the one with Proog shadow inside of a large donut shaped machine (or stone?) that’s spinning slowly around. I would post a picture but I don’t currently have the machine it’s installed on.
richard: hey, I’ve actually played that game, and enjoyd it very much! can’t remember the shot though :) I really should find a win98 machine and try it again one day.. and, I didn’t design the giant stone donut :)
.b
It’s good to see somebody else played that game. Seems like most gamers these days has never heard of it. With the latest patch, it’ll run on Windows XP flawlessly. I’ve found a screenshot of the machine I was talking about on the blog here:
/wp-content/themes/orange/images/blog/ed_teaser.jpg
I was trying to find one from game’s FMV but didn’t have much luck with Google. The one in the game is made of stone, has a shadow of someone (haven’t finished the game yet) in the in almost the same area and is spinning around slightly. When I first saw it, I immediately thought of Orange.
Hi all!! Long time don’t write!! Recieved mine 2 days ago and watched it ten times now. Compliments, a great artistic peace with some touch of avant-guarde. All in all i’m slightly disappointed with chracter animations they seems a like puppets more than people. I’d like to point to this beatufil short for future reference about character animation.
http://ilm.com/ilmshorts.html
By the way, setting, lighting and textures in orange are great!!
i think i see an influence of king kong with the inside of the phone in elephants dream, am i right? ;)
can’t wait for the high res version of the movie!
Epsilorn: Yeah, I enjoyed that short. :-) Just one thing to keep in mind, though, is the number of people they had working on that compared to the number of people who worked on Elephants Dream. :-) Take a look at the credits, here: http://www.ilm.com/wip_credits3.html (That’s a lot of people.)
“It’d be a shame to let your first impressions be tarnished by the small, jumpy, low-res, blurry, poorly sounding and synced YouTube version – it doesn’t really do justice to what we created”
And then there was me thinking it was all about the story… ;)
I like Planet ES.
And Elephants Dream, even though I never saw it.
As a Brazilian in a certain way iam sad too see “City of god” in that list. It is a great movie of course, a truly “blockbuster” and all. But we have made other films that would give a better contribution for this project ;)
Just to give you a name: “Central do Brasil” (Central station). Its also a Oscar movie and stuff.
” they need to be uploaded and mirrored before the onslaught,”
Any plans for making a torrent?
Just got my DVD about an hour ago. I enjoyed the movie. :-) I thought I pretty much understood it, or at least had my own interpretation of it after the end of the movie. ( My interpretation didn’t really fit with those of the Orange team, though. ;-) :-) ) Kudos to all who worked so hard on Elephants Dream! :-)
p.s. I’m in Texas in the USA.
I Played the PC Game “Heavy Metall F.A.K.K 2″….an Amazing Full Action Game with Great Graphics, Sureal Environtments,..Scenerys and Characters!
Some Sureal Scenerys in this Game looks like in “Elephants Dream”..(not Exactly the same but very similar)!!
You have to Play and see this Game!
– Usefull..for new Ideas for the next Part of Orange Project…when this will be also Sureal oriented!
http://www.ritual.com/FAKK2/
…i forget to say i love Surealismus!
and the Orange Team made a very very AMAZING JOB in this!!!!
I like it all!!
hey I saw “City of god” during the production, forgot about that till this moment!
great movie!
As for the very high rez version, all I can say is, I don’t have a computer capable of playing it here (at home) ; I believe it is msmpeg4 compressed, meaning divx3 compatible, and I can sorta play it, but my computer totally chokes on it. VLC I think does a better job wit h it than mplayer.
The version at the ketelhuis was played from hdcam tape, the projector itself was less than the 1920×1080 resolution, so it was downscaled, but the result (I thought) looked great.
I think a really new and fast athlon or a newer intel chip would play the movie, but because it has to pull the frames of your hard disk, it is also dependant on disk speed.
For those who wait for the DVD and like to see a Dark and Sureal 3D Animated Fulllenght Film from France Team…go to your Videostore and Rent “Kaena the Prophecy”!
made with 3ds max,Realflow,….and other Tools you can Read about the 3d Film and Tools Used… here:
http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=Articles&Subsection=Display&ARTICLE_ID=174585
For me this 3D Film Kaena was Boring to see and the Story not so Interessting!
BUT Very Interesting Sureal Scenerys (Science Fiction Scenes)…some nice Characters (Kaena- very Sexy)…..and also very Interesting to see the Fluids made with Realflow and Great made Aliens (like in the Real Alien Film) and some other Fx´s and Textures used -from a 3D Programm User Point!
Today I’ve seen Lord of War, it’s a good movie. You list a very lot of movies, but maybe I’ve just seen 1 or 2 of them even if I’ve already seen hundreds of movies. How long will it take to see all movies? (forget the bad ones)
Just got my DVD!!! Movie looks great!!!
I only found 1 flaw. When playing the movie on my DVD player (instead of computer), about two fifths of the right side of the video is cut off. It is most apparent in the beginning of the movie…”Project Orange Presents” is cut down to “Project Orange Pr”. This doesn’t matter much to me because I would rather watch it on my computer anyways (better quality video), but just thought I’d let you know. Maybe it is something that can be fixed for future DVD’s?
Thanks for the GREAT movie!!!
Chris Gilbert
Thanks Orange! Got the DVD and the movie is really stunningly inspiring to watch :)
I got the HD version to play smoothly in full 1920×1080 resolution and its simply beatiful.
To those having problems with playing the HD version:
I had to copy the HD version to the hard disk as the player choked on playing it directly from the DVD. I used the VLC media player. I only have two speakers so I had to manually set it to play stereo sound instead of 5:1, otherwise parts of the sound were missing.
I’m voting for an H.264 version. It’s such a wicked codec.
BTW, besides bittorrent, something to consider for hosting would be Archive.org. They will host even very large files if the person uploading has the rights to it (like they’re hosting all the uncut interviews from BBS Documentary). I used them for hosting a half-hour instructional yo-yo video in three versions and it worked out great.
How big is the official HD file? It seems to me that’d be an easier thing to get up somewhere first (like bittorrent) since it is already compressed and multiple people already have the file.
And good taste in movies! I’m happy to say that I’ve actually seen about half of those.. :)
I’ve seen the short ‘elevator’ clip that was released some weeks ago as wmv file with a resolution around 1280 width. Media Player wasn’t able to play this clip but I found out that VideoLan (VLC Media Player) was able to play the clip.
I can’t wait for the real full download, but still will order the DVD anyway as it’s like an investment into Open Movies and Blender!
I didnt get it so far. though I live in switzerland :o
It still haven’t received the DVD in Austria. Is it possible that the mail is so slowly? Austria is not so far from the Netherlands and some DVD already have been arriving in the USA. If I don’t get it on Monday I’ll become nervous.
why can’t Elephants Dream be found in the IMDb ?
I recieved mine several days ago, and the HD Version plays great here (Apple G5 Dual 2 Ghz), although I’d have loved to have that HD Version in h.264, it’s still awesome quality and such a big improvement over the Standard DVD PAL/NTSC Versions ;)
I actually lend a friends 24″ Cinema Display so I could enjoy the 16:9 of the Movie ;)
Is the HD version going to be released on the web. I know that it would be a killer of a file to download, but with BitTorrent and a fast internet connection I’d like to have it.
To Vassilios Boucer:
I have the Kaena the Prophecy DVD, and I agree with you in all aspects. I see you are a very wise person ^_^
If you really want a worth to have DVD, besides Elephant Dream of course, buy the “new” movie of my favorite character designer:Tetsuya Nomura Square-Enix Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.
There are some peoples that don’t like the story or find her too pour, but everyone’s agrees that is the best CG graphics, CG character and camera action ever seen and also there is the incredible Nobuo Uematsu music that plays on a fabulous THX pm3 soundtrack.
After seen it 20 + times, personally, I just find him the more awesome CG movie ever made beating everything else in large scale… the story is perfect, you just have to listen carefully and pay close attention to every detail and you’ll see that is more to it that meets the eye…darn!! I think it worth to buy just to see the end titles with Cloud riding is gorgeous Fenrir bike in amazing real roads.
Oh! Of course, it helps allot if you have played Playstation Final Fantasy 7 game ^_~
“Is the HD version going to be released on the web”
Well. There is no such thing as one HD.
The movie is on the dvd in 1920×1080 (1.78:1) [=16:9] in S-Mpeg 4 version 2 compressed format. And that is “only” 840 Mb. I see no reason not to release that (technicly it is already released, someone just needs to start the seeding).
But the 10bit OpenXR image sequence, I don’t know.
The 15693 frames png sequence is about 24Gb.
Oh! I also have the Heavy Metall F.A.K.K 2 2D animation movie DVD… The game is much better ^_~
Sigurður: what do you mean “manually set it to play stereo”
“But the 10bit OpenXR image sequence, I don’t know.
The 15693 frames png sequence is about 24Gb.”
Has ANYONE actually seen this? can it even be played? I understood that even for the premier it was converted to a lesser format, and it sounds like it would take a monster of a computer/screen to play this, and I heard some of the Orange guys mentioning that they didn’t even have HD monitors.
It seems that the only reason for that file would be for huge posters. So maybe it could be set up in small chunks, so if you wanted it for a poster, you could mark the time in the Codec version and then go download that particular little chunk for you poster.
Well my experience with OpenEXR is that using Zip compression you can fit a 15693 HD1080p frames movie in about 15 Gb but that depends of many factors, so I don’t know for sure.
And yes I can see it in my workstation with full detail at someting like 5 fps ^_^ hehe
I think it’s better to use 7zip, the zip compression isn’t the best there is.
If someone is going to make a torrent, please tell me, I would like to seed and help as much as I can. :) Would be great if someone from the project starts it.
Tin House Wonderfull Days directed by Kim Moon-saeng…another great animation movie ^_~
Morris: When opening the HD file in VLC player it defaults on playing the movie using 5:1 surround sound. I changed it to stereo via the menu Audio->Audio Device->Stereo (this menu is only available while the movie is playing). Otherwise I couldnt hear the actors speaking.
Does anyone have the link to the thermometer counter for the DVD sales? I can’t seem to find it… :-|
Wooot! just arrived here in Nelson,New Zealand – look it up on a map (1:45 am Mon 15 Amsterdam time)
Haven’t time to look at it at the moment though off to work :O(
Hi we’re working on encoding and sound for the downloadable versions- that is some people from the team are- I sadly lost contact with the project server, so I’m currently unable to help.
glad that at least some of you have good enough computers to play the full rez version! VLC is indeed the best cross platform app for playing it.
we had final fantasy 7 in the theatre ( I believe Lee owned it) and watched clips from it from time to time.
thomas: good question (about imdb) I recollect ton saying he was submitting it to them, but I don’t know what happened with that.
I would just like to re-iterate what has been said above with the distribution means by use of a torrent. It will more than likely save you servers and bandwidth.
you guys left out “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians ” in your list of moives up there………what were you thinking?
……….its real
http://www.archive.org/details/santa_claus_conquers_the_martians
Please mirror the files on archive.org
It’s the best place considering how much bandwidth would be required for those who need http.
“Has ANYONE actually seen this? can it even be played?”
Sony has 4k projectors and considers 1920×1080 to be HDcam, for home use. HDcam is a 10bit color depth per color component, so yes, that’s a format that can easely been seen. It’s also a format we will hear much from the comming years. Ofcourse you will need dedicaded hardware. a HD(handy)Cam, HDtv and/or blu-ray disc player.
I can play the HD (1080) version perfectly well on my MacBookPro 2.0GHz using VLC in full res on my 24″. CPU-Usage doesn’t go above 160% (2 Cores, 80% each) I’d say. But I too need to play it back from hard disk becuase it choked when I played it from DVD.
The quality to me is good enough to use screenshots from the playback as wallpapers for my dekstop.
A single speed dvd player has a data transfer rate of 1.32MB per second.
800MB for 11 minutes = 1.2MB/s, so should play without chokes. :)
Ofcourse the 800Mb is not evenly spread over the 11 minutes and thus the “hard parts” can cause the data to come to slow from the disc.
I just got mine dvd today in Sofia, Bulgaria. I can only say WOW. Amazing stuff. :) I added myself to the orange wave.
As for the movies stuff, a recent favorites of mine(slowly going all-time) are Batman Begins and V for Vendetta.
I am glad to have been part of this project. :)
Well it’s pretty darn good guys! Sound,music,lighting,colour,textures,compositing,acting etc etc all great…yes some of the walk animation was a bit awkward at times hey but it passes…
I have to say though without the explanation in the making of commentaries it would be very hard to derive the story line watching the action.
Really it needed to be 5 mins longer I think to convey enough information to the audience but it does show that Blender is a very capable tool for artists – so mission accomplished!
I think with more time, participants and a better defined story to begin with it would all come together.
You set out to make a movie with open software and you succeeded to a high standard.There is no reason why Blender cannot be used to produce 1st class animations.
I think we all owe you our thanks not only for your dedication to the task but also for the improvements you have brought to the program itself through your experience.
Congratulations to all involved in the project.I/we look forward to another Blender movie project soon maybe with some of the same artists aboar ;O)
BTW The dvd content was presented very well too Joeri thanks :o)
and thanks too to Anja and Anne for getting everyones dvd in the post so promptly and all the support tasks they under took in the background.
Also big thanks to major sponsors without whom it could not have happened :o)
Tarkovsky would really be ashamed to see ED be able to show the same kind of story in just 1/15th of the time :)
Just got my DVD, Portugal.
It is really cool, thanks for this, it is an amazing work.
— Rui —
just added myself to the orangewave! that was a cool idea, thanks Matt.
Laurens! I’m sure you don’t mean it! Tarkovsky is the master, always.
Wu: If you’re into cult movies of a certain type and vintage, check out “Robinson Crusoe on Mars”-It’ll bring a smile to your face.
Bassam:
Thanks for the technical paragraph on the premiere projection, this is an awaited information for me.
Sigurður:
Thanks for the info, I shall try it at home.
Quote from DwarvenFury: “…one thing to keep in mind, though, is the number of people they had working on that compared to the number of people who worked on Elephants Dream. ”
—That`s no excuse, anyway. When you release an artwork, (film, music or whatever), chances are that your work will be compared to every work out there, be it from Pixar, 20th Century, Dreamworks, Blender 3D Orange, or the like.
Besides the quality of character movement has got nothing to do with the number of people working in the film.
You have to be in a proficient level that allows your work survive the comparison with the `bigs’, IMHO.
Cheers,
Juanjavier Martínez.
Hi,
Received my DVD 15 May, in Pretoria South Africa.
Christo
Hi!
got my dvd today, 16 may, in Russia (as a gift for translation of subtitles). Great movie!
I should have said too that mine was also a gift :).
So, any news on how long the official release will be? I know it’s already out on YouTube, but those of us without the official DVDs are waiting for the high quality version.
I received my copy of the DVD probably as one of the first, since I live in the netherlands. Although there were some points of criticism, especially in the lipsyncing, it was a truly remarkable achievement. So, hats off to the Orange-team.
I actually wrote in, just to make a small suggestion to the Blender-team.
You could upload the HD-version of ED to a newsgroup like alt.binaries.hdtv. The normal dvd-version could be uploaded to a group as alt.binaries.dvd f.i. The blender-fans that have access to these newsgroups could then download it from there. Newsgroups usually have a high bandwith capacity, especially the paid ones.
This could significantly reduce the load on the Servers at the Blender foundation. The ones downloading from the newsgroups would benefit from their high bandwith and the others would benefit from the smaller load on the foundation-servers.
Greetings
Charly Brown
Got mine today in Tokyo Japan, May 17. It came at work and I wasn’t there the last two days. Great package. Looking forward to watching it this evening when I get it home!
I’ve taken the liberty of submitting Elephants Dream to the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com). For now the information is limited to the very minimum they require, plus a plug for Blender in the Trivia section. If it’s approved it should be up in a couple of days. When it appears, feel free to register and add to the entry.
I have been enjoying watching ED over and over, with and without the commentaries. Now to check out the Blender files! Props to everyone involved.
Lovely work, Project Orange! Elephants Dream is enjoyable in every respect.
You’ve done the world a great service by making this little film, demonstrating what can be accomplished with open source software.
Also, that is possibly the best “making of” film ever. You guys are wonderful.
I received the DVDs this morning, here in Jacksonville, Florida, US.
Congratulations!
My personal suggestion for distributing the Orange files is by using BitTorrent, that way everyone has as much badwidth as they can handle. Something like this would be a hot enough item that I it would probably be a perfect candidate.
It would also be nice if you could get it in one big tar.bz2 file, or mabe just one file for all the .blend files textures etc.
P. S. It would be nice to get my hands on the 24 GB PNG sequence :-)
P. P. S. I downloaded and listened to the sound track yesturday and it sounds GREAT!
I just watched the HD version. I almost fell out of my seat when I saw how detailed it is. It had me wanting to play it back in slow motion just to catch everything. I had to get VLC media player in order to get the sound working…Windows Media Player doesn’t pick up on the 5.1 audio. If you have a comp capable of viewing the HD version, it is a must. I think I might watch it again :) Once again, Great Work Orange Team!!!!
It appears that at least some form of the entire film is accessible to the public in the same folder as the scores. Is this intentional? It doesn’t appear to be compressed in any way, and is quite large (453MB).
Can someone fix the file “video_only_pal.part1.rar” because it gives a error when i want to extract the .iso image from the 5 parts.
I now have the 5 parts, bud i can’t extract the dvd because there’s a error in part1.
I already downloaded the part1 several times now bud it makes no difference.
thanks – jeroendd