Beyond the Boundaries: Camera Workshop 2

During our second camera workshop we had a more indepth look at the CanonC300 and the URSA, using the the lens kit of the two cameras, the matte box, and the follow focus. Using the Ronford heavy duty tripod and the TV Logic monitor.

We learnt about the two professionals cameras and how to set them up properly, and had a chance to compare and test the two cameras.

Being the Director of Photography on graduation film Debbie alongside Thomas Doukinitsas the Cinematographer on Debbie and also being in charge of the post production side you can find the comparisons of the two different cameras video on Thomas blog.

Being the grader on Debbie i am leaning more towards  the URSA due to its much sharper image quality, and will have better colour managent handle, as the ideal software I want to use to grade is Davinci.

Beyond the Boundaries: Anxiety Dance - Storyboarding

Working with the same crew members from D-eb31e  Laura and Lauren, Anxiety being Laurens and Lauras idea. To start storyboarding I got as much information from lauren about what she wants and how she wants the visual of the film to be so taking the shot list created by Lauren I created the storyboard also looking at the reference moodboards that Lauren used.

MoodBoards and Visual Set put together by Lauren Fox - Director

MoodBoards -

 Set Visual and Style -

So before I started on the storyboard I throughy anaylsed the moodboards and set visual to give myself an idea and a gist of how Lauren wanted the dance film to visually look like.

Shot List


Storyboard produced from the shot list, created digitally on photoshop.

Beyond the Boundaries: Anxiety Dance - Role (Storyboard Artist , Animation)

Anxiety (Graduation film) - A short contemporary dance film, that mixes live action with animation based around the notion of anxiety and the movements associated with it. The main focal piece will be the movements  and the animation that will consist of branches , that interact with the dancer, until they ultimately restrict the dancer's movements.

Anxiety Short Dance Film - Role

- Storyboard Artist
- Animation/ Animator

Beyound the Boundaries: D-eb31e - IndieGogo

Wednesday 4th November 2015

Dallies of D-eb31e part 1

We had G12 booked out to shoot our promo for our IndieGogo page for the films fundraise page. Then we tested and shot a few scenes for the D-eb31e trailer.

Below is the footages from the day -

Beyond the Boundaries: 13 - Modelling in Maya continued - Head

Modelling the head was even more harder then modelling both the arm and foot, due to the spherical shape of the head which is hard to do it accuratly in maya. So using Zbrush for the texturing of the body parts i will also have to remodel the head completly in Zbrush as well as.

Head process -

Rough work in progress head render.

Beyond the Boundaries: 13 - Modelling in Maya Continued - Arm

The arm was the next part I modelled, doing this part was even trickier then doing the foot because having the same problem as the foot the arm didn't match the concept.

Rough render arm

The problem I have with this the forearm is too thin and the wires are too thin. 

and the fingers trying to replicate the concept it doesn't seem to be working and looks too cartoonie in way which is not the style I am after. And would be hard to animate with the fingers this style.

So with readjustments made below is the process of the arm being made.

below are various changes I made to the arm going through trial and errors testing out different styles until I found the right style I was happy with. 

 

first readjustment made changing the forarm making it a lot thicker

along with the wires. However the fingers are too short having not included any index fingers so would have been hard to animate.

 

readjustment 2 made tried extending the fingers but realised it still would have been hard to animate.

So after consideration and thought I took the render into Photoshop and painted on extra index fingers to see if this style would work,  to which it does I then took the concept backk into maya and made these readjustments. To which the final arm render is below and looks and works a lot better.

 

Beyond the Boundaries: '13' - Modelling in Maya - Foot

Having done coloured sketches and annotated sketches, these acting as visual aides so it will be that easier to model and rig in both maya and Zbrush. Having watched online youtube tutorials and using Lynda.com in how to use maya and Zbrush, seeing as i never took 3D in 2nd year.

Below is my first attempt in using Maya to which after watching a few tutorials I am quite happy with the result. But still have a long way to go to get it looking like what i actually want in terms of aesthetics and animation  and how I want the overall final outcome to be a dark, grungey cinematic hollyood look / feel to it.

13 - Foot model.

Rough render

When looking back on the rough render the toes especially looked weird and for some reason didn't match or look anything like the concept i had intially coloured. This would have been  looked weird once rigged, and looks out of proportion. So I decided to change the style of the toes -  below is the  process of the toes being changed.

Below is the Final render of the foot. With the readjustment  made.

With the readjustment made on the foot, it looks a lot better and a lot more reasonable and has a distinct look to it.

Beyond the Boundaries: 13 - Visual references

For references for '13' I looked into various films and games and even previous works created from 2nd year.

References that I have looked at below and the aspects that I took from each films and games
Mood Board -

taking in consideration the critical context of this this project aswell qouted under the bibliography section.

Beyond the Boundaries: Storyboarding Josh Documentary

Josh needing a storyboard for his documentary, whilst at the same doing the storyboard for D-eb31e and Anxeity I agreed to help Josh and sketched up his storyboard for him. Treating him as a client treating this as an professsional job, Josh passed his shot list over to me and gaining as much detail as I can from him about the enviromnent and general gist of his documentary I asked Josh to make his shot list as descriptive as possible so that it would be easier for me to draw up.

Below is the shotlist


Below is the storyboard to which josh was pleased with.


Produced with an syntex graphic tablet.

Beyond the Boundaries: D-eb31e - Storyboarding

With every new project it gives me a chance to develop and further my skills, so using a graphic tablet to digitally create the storyboard for D-eb31e.

Rough Storyboard

Narrowing the shotlist down to 52 from 152, these 52 shots being the trickiest shots highlighted by Lucy and a few by myself. However after drawing these up using a graphic tablet I personally wasn't happy with this version that I sketched up. So leaving it for a few days whislt continuing with other projects I came back to D-eb31e and re - drew the storyboard to a better level adding as much detail as possible to inject life into them.

Final D-eb31e Storyboard on next post

Beyond the Boundaries: D-eb31e - Shot List

From the scipt Lucy had created a shot list and passed that on to me to start storyboarding.


I had my work cut out for me on this I have to admit because in total there are 152 shots to draw up. However D-eb31e being set in one location reading through the shot list most of the shots were conversation based and could be explained through texts. So I had asked Lucy to highlight the more difficult shots instead, myself highlighting a few extra shots.

 

Beyond the Boundaries: D-eb3le Character Concepts.

Final concept where D-eb3le will take place. Brown,Green and Blue as the films colour pallete.

For the character designs Laura had given me a few inspirations as to how she saw the characters to look like. Below are some of the visual references I had used from Laura to draw up the characters and of course descriptions Laura had given me as well.

 

A few visual references. For Jarvis and Pete and Debbie.

Using similar characteristics from This is England and old fashioned clothing 80s blazer for Debbie and the skin head kind of look. Uisng Photoshop I created the following charater concepts:

 Character concepts:

 D-eb3le

 Jarvis

 Pete

Waitress

Both Jarvis and Pete are brothers 

Jarvis being the oldest and Pete the youngest

Beyond the Boundaries: D-eb31e Film Colour Scheme

In the second page of the script breakdown there is an description Laura had written up. From this description I created the concept to which you can see below. 


Being the D.O.P and Storyboard Artist, Production Designer and Digital Colorist on Debbie. It is my role to make sure how the overall look of the film will visually look like. Liasing with Laura the Producer and Head Writer of the film and Director and Sound Designer Lucy getting references and ideas from both of them, and taking references from various films and Tv dramas below are Debbie concept designs which I had created:

1st set design colour scheme brown/yellow/green

2nd set design clour scheme red/brown/blue

3rd set design colour scheme brown/yellow/orange

Laura had produced a script visual breakdown, giving an detailed description of how the set needed to look like and from that the decsiption I digitally created the sets. Below is the set description

I had shown the designs to both Laura and Lucy to which they both really liked it. But the 2nd and 3rd set designs they didn't quite like the colour scheme so much and prefered the 1st set design but want me replace the green floor with royal blue instead. So the actual colour scheme for the film is now yellow/brown/royal blue. resembling a set being grungy and almost old fashioned like.

The new set design with the blue replaced floor shall be up with the character designs posts.

I had taken Kathleen's advice from our tutorial on Monday 19/10/15 and took out a book relating to interior colour designs Called: Colour transforming interior space Design RonReed

 

This book was really and I mean really helpful. Because it had eveything to do with colour interms: colour and meaning, colour and style colours etc. Which helped me narrow down down the colur scheme for Debbie.

Reference for images for the Set designs which Laura had given me. taking the inspiration from the top right corner the reindeer and trying to create a set that resembled a similar style to that of Filth, Trainspotting this is England etc.

Colour Scheme and style

Being the Digital colourist on D-eb3le and watching several films as Requim for a Dream, Fear without Loathing, Filfth, Trainspotting and doing and even in-depth research in styles of colour that will suit D-eb3le. I came across whats called a three colour theme. This technique has been used infilms such as Stoker, and Chloe.

The film Drive is example of this. It uses the colours of red,blue,yellow throughout the whole film so having seen discovered this I wanted to incorporate a similar scheme to D-eb3le but using the colours Green,brown,blue to resemble a grungy old fashioned stylized film. This will be a challenge but I look forward to grading D-eb3le.

Beyond the Boundaries: 1st Tutorial with Kathleen ( D-eb31e)

In our first tutorial with Kathleen we disscussed a couple a of elements about D-eb31e.

Elements discussed -

• Emphasize the fact that it’s a one set piece
• Names may date it / add elements (maybe unwanted)
• The character’s accent / place of origin will be important, since it is one of the first shots
• There should be a coherence to the piece (like Twin Peaks’s Razorhead)
• It should have a strong emotional core
• The quality of Debbie’s seductive voice is very important
• Look at Euripedes “Bakas” and the routes of tragic writing
• Be aware that pills take time to become active
• An interesting thing to do is instead of opening with the magazine, show it after we’ve met Debbie to surprise the audience
• Get equipement out and test most of the effects
• Look into interior books based around colour for Debbie production

Beyond the Boundaries: 13 - Coloured refined concepts

Refined Coloured Concepts

Having watched a few beginner's tutorials on Maya an industry standard software on the basics of modeling which was really helpful. To make it easier when modeling so i know parts will be the right colour and it will look visually once completed i produced coloured concepts of '13' these coloured concepts acting as reference so it will be easier to model in Maya and easier to texture in Zbrush because from these coloured concepts that i produced in Photoshop.

 

using cross a between textured gold and scratched silver as the colour mood for 13. These two colours being the main colour palette for the body parts, using dark and grungey metallic colours for a distinct look.

 Coloured foot concept. Using the colour palette above as reference. 

Coloured arm concept.. Using colour palette above.

Coloured head concept. Using colour palette above.

The head concept below however is an alternative design I had produced using various textures and edge wrapping in photoshop to create this design. 

Beyond the Boundaries: Camera Workshop 13th Oct 2015

13th  Oct Tuesday

With Dave Cooper, Anne Parisio and Noski Deville G28 Photography Studio.

We got our first camera workshop in which we were given brief introductions into four different cameras we had to decide from to use for our final year work weather individual or collaboration. The following cameras being: C300, BlackMagic URSA, GH4 and EX 3 and the 305.

As we tested out the cameras myself and Tom tested out both the C300 and the URSA to see which would be bettter to film D-eb31e on  and to see the look it would give.

 

Being the DOP on D-eb31e, comparing both URSA and C300, the C300 has more of an advantage and can be mounted various accessories such as the Glidecam or the Motion Control slider. It has a smiliar menu to the XF305 and can be connedted to the Samurai Blade.  And can do 10bit in Avid's DNxHD. The plus side to the C300 is that it gives a clean pleasurable image but gives an artificial sharpening which can be fixed through the cameras menu.

The Blackmagic URSA however is massive and bulky and would be impossible for heavy duty rig.
The image on the URSA is absolutely great and has a natural cinematic look to it. And would be great for colour grading. And would prefer to use the URSA as the main camera for film projects.

Beyond The Boundaries: 13- Researching into CGI

Because "13" I have decided to create an triptych of animated robotic body parts to best represent this idea.

Having designed the sillouette of 13, just after finishing 1st year with help from CGA student Freddie Littlewood. Below is the sillouette and the Mood Boards a much detaild moodboard then the one depicted in my presentation. With the Mood Board being films and aspects from particular games and sillouettes of bodybuilders that inspired me to create this robotic muscular body structure.

However the tricky part of this project will be to actually model and animate "13", because in 2nd year I didn't do the 3d animation unit which was learning Maya. So Maya is something I will be looking into watching tutorials online and of course Lynda.com. I will also need to look into tutorials into Zbrush as this software will be used for the texturing. below are online basic tutorials into Maya  which I found to be helpful into getting started and familar with the software.

The Zbrush tutorials will be in the next few posts once the modelling has been finished.

online Youtube tutotials:

http://www.lynda.com/Maya-tutorials/Maya-2015-Essential-Training/162450-2.html?srchtrk=index:1%0Alinktypeid:2%0Aq:maya%0Apage:1%0As:relevance%0Asa:true%0Aproducttypeid:2

Lynda.com essential training which was really helpful.

I have decided to use 3D animation in this project because it will be a better way to represent this "13" as i've mentioned before due to the film requring alot of technical visual effects and it being too ambitous to make. And also how this gives me the chance too expand on my portfolio, by gaining new skills which i could add too my CV aswell as a new skill set.

Beyond the Boundaries: Project Presentation

 Monday 28th September

Beyond the Boundaries: 13 - Intial Ideas

At the end of 2nd year i had a few ideas that i wantd to persue as 3rd year projects one of them being 13. an original film  idea i had pitched in my 1st year. also after disscussions with other people during gatherings an group collaboration had formed:

Group production -Film  about a date gone wrong through taking drugs, with a twist at the end.
working title for this project  "D-eb3le"

My role for this project would be - Art Director, post Colour grading and storyboarding.

own individual project - working title "13" with help from two CGA student.
this project being a triptych of animated body parts to represent 13. Due to this film requring a lot of technical requirements, and being too ambitious a much better way to represent this film would be to create a triptych of animated parts to depict 13.  here are intial concepts designs

 concepts I had designed to be animated with parts of the body moving as you can see below which parts I plan on animating.

Dance - Evaluation

Working with Tom and Lucy on this project, I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed myself and am extremely happy with how the film turned out turning out better than we had expected. A major factor that really helped is the fact myself, Tom and Lucy we were all very organised and had sorted our pre- production early on, thus making the whole production and post production process and in all the whole dance project easier. Only having one day to shoot, it went extremely well, and were lucky to have found dancer Amelia for this project as she was ideal for what we wanted and treated the project like her own we as a group had instantly made a working relationship with Amelia making the process a whole lot easier as well.

 

As a DOP - director of photography, being in charge of lighting, and assisting with camera , I felt I had done a good job in maintaining the lights in keeping them consistent to avoid continuity. Communication between myself and the camera operator Tom I found it really easy to liaise with him and in capturing the shots that I had created with help from Lucy. With lightning being a skill apart of the DOP I felt that the lighting, I was happy with the look of the film and felt that I had achieved the classical Caravaggio look gaining the skills from the photography unit I had undertaken. Creating unexpected lights in some of the shots which by accident really added to the piece, because in some of the footages we had shot the close ups of the Amelia's face for instance you could see green light, that looked like a green lens flare being unexpected but really made the piece unique. However I should have probably had taken more consideration into the lights as in some of the footages the dancers face were almost unrecognisable and meant that in post I had to lighten the dancers face by using an effect called animat which took ages to do to light her face up. However you learn from your mistakes and has taught me not to make this mistake again and not to rely everything in post.
 

As a Storyboard artist, Not being big headed or anything I think I produced an extremely detailed and professional storyboard. Portraying exactly what we as a group had envisioned. I will probably challenge myself next year no matter what film or style or genre it is storyboarding for other groups as well as for other courses. To further my skills in Storyboarding.  
        

 In post, colour grading and being an online editor, I felt I had delivered to my expectations and am happy of the final film. Although Lucy had done a re-cut of the first rough cut at the last minute which meant I had to with Tom's help completely re-cut the film in avid which meant that some of the effects shots that Tom had given me which I had put in had be scrapped but nonetheless the re-cut is far better than the first. I am extremely happy that we as group have made a high standard professional film which I am really happy with.

In all, I am happy with the final dance video the style, look, colour the story behind it.

I am really pleased with it and am excited to enter the film into festivals. I have really enjoyed working Tom and Lucy and would want to work with them again for future works. Being in a group with talented and hard working individuals it has made me push myself and I have defiantly leant a thing or two from both Tom and Lucy. 

And am happy to present our experimental and abtsract film.

Post Production Edit - Online Editor

After grading the films was done, with tom working on the effects shots Tom would pass me the effects shot and I would then add them into the cut. To make the effects shots work as well as giving me the VFX shot I also asked Tom to produce a matte of the effects shot as well.

This being the matte template above and VFX below.

When splicing the effect shot into the timeline I would layer the matte and VFX shot together applying a matte key on the matte shot to blend the together.

Layering the shots together from the timeline. With green screen shot first once ive been given the effect shot I would layer them on top of each other. So I would place the effect on a new video layer above the green screen clip, then I duplicated the effects shot and then put the matte template on top over the duplicated shot applying a matte key effect on this. The colour I produced I saved them as colour templates I simply applied the two different colours on to the two effects shots to get the split screen as you can see. if your reading this it sounds hard and difficult but its really rather simple . :)

Applying this same process on to the other green screen footages.

We had the avid edit suite booked and it was the same repeated process Tom would be doing the effects, Lucy would be in another room working on the sound and I would be in the same room as Tom doing the online edit. Tom would pass me the effects shot and I would put it together and splice it in to the video and at some points Lucy would come in and check on us It felt like working in a professional environment and felt like I was working within the actual Industry.      



Post Producton Edit - Colourist

Once everything had been transcoded and imported into avid I started the online edit and Colouring.

With Tom starting on the effects shots I started on the colour grading of the film. Speaking to Lucy the director on what colour she wanted the film. As Lucy wanted two different colours one warm and the other cold the warm colour being the reflection and the cold being real life. Lucy then started on the sound and left me to work on the colour.  

Setting the mode to colour correction mode , started to experiment and grade the film.  This was a fun process for me as it's an area I find really interesting and how colour can add to a film. using the colour wheel and curves to get the two different colours for the manipulator and the manipulated. trying to balance out the colours making sure the colours used weren't illegal. whilst grading the film there's different waveforms such as an vector scope etc displayed on the monitor.

On the different waveforms there's negative on the bottom and positive on the top and the colour has to remain balanced in between this, anything above or below the negative and positive lines the colour is illegal therefore not a broadcasting colour. However there were in a few shots where the colour was illegal so I applied an effect called safe colour limiter what this does is it compress the colour and keeps everything within the boundary so any colour that is off this effect keeps it legal.

The symbol above being the colour safe limiter which helps to keep the colour legal. Using this because when skimming through the clips it was to hard to find where the colour was being off so I applied colour limiter above the whole timeline to make sure the colour was safe.

This is the final grade of the film the top the warm colour being the reflection, the bottom the the cold blue being the real life. It took a while to produce these colours. Im pleased with the colour I have produced So was Lucy and Tom which we think best represent the different sides.

Final colour comparison below