Final Presentation

The Final Presentation went better than I expected!  Feedback was generally positive and constructive and any flaws that were pointed out were things Lynn and I had already discussed.
This was an ambitious project, and one that I was perhaps not duly prepared for at the time.

Ultimately I am happy that we managed to achieve what we set out to do, but I wish I had been able to get a handle on the direction of the piece earlier in the semester.  There is very little narrative to be gleamed from the overall piece but it achieved the goal I set out to investigate the potential uses of VFX in narrative and successful or not, that is what I achieved,

Exhibition

I've been thinking about the showcase exhibition and the need to update my CV, get business cards and set up a website.

I have set up the link to a website, which currently has placeholder pages!
http://pinkvisual.squarespace.com

I tried out some particle tests for use on the business cards.  I'm unconvinced about the style for the moment.

I will need to get some posters printed as well and spend time this week working on the breakdown of my VFX

Edited Video

Here is the final piece as I was able to achieve before submissions!

Am I happy with the final result?  Not particularly, but ultimately it provided the platform for an exploration of VFX for which I was looking.  I've said since the start it was never about creating a story for me but the story was necessary to explore the potential of digital VFX.

I was able to explore set extensions, blue/green screen, rotoscoping, colour correction and grading, camera tracking and not to forget my (attempt) to learn a little about video cameras as well.

It has been fun collaborating (unofficially) with Harry Ip and I thank Andrew McIntosh and Jeff for their help.  Not to mention the support from staff.  This has been a tough year but I feel I have a place to build from for the first time in a good few years.

Last Honours Project Meeting

Today was our last honours project meeting.  I showed Lynn the effects on the video and she seemed happy enough with the results.  The aim then is to get as much prepped as possible for submission on Monday.  I will attempt to finish the smoke animation when my character first back at Jeff and then finalise submissions and the blog this weekend ready to go.

My final presentation is on Monday as well.  We had a rehearsal this afternoon, the e-mail about which I missed so I was unprepared but I gave it a go anyway and it was very helpful to hear some feedback about what to talk about for my project

Final Thumbs/Animatic

I have been able to successfully produce four effects shots.  As such the final animatic and storyboards look this this.

Effects test - Lightning

These are tests for the final outcome of the lightning effect for Jeff.  I wanted to play about with different colours but I think the blue still retains something of his being the protagonist in the film

   

The glow helps to define the edges of the lightning and the particle effects just help to give it an exra air of the supernatural!

Enemy Effects test - Particular Smoke

I've been playing with Smoke effects in Trapcode Particular!  Smoke is extremely difficult to get right.  I think the lighting plays a big part in it but it is generally formless so it is hard to pin down to a person or a place!  I attempted using 3DS Max's particle system to generate a cloud of particle 

   

   

Meeting

At my meeting with Lynn today we looked at a couple of edited videos from the footage I have captured over the last few weeks of filming.  We decided to keep it short and succinct, focusing on 4 VFX shots that I can attempt to polish to a high standard.

Other than that there was not much more to discuss.  I need to submit a draft of the dissertation ASAP so that I can still receive feedback before submission.

Akira Kurosawa

Blawg post

Kishōtenketsu

Different way of telling stories

Desert Run

Here is an extension of the desert background replacements.

Using rotoscoping techniques I was able to single out Jeff's character from the scene and blend him almost invisibly.  Seamlessly, rather!  Certainly the quick movement of the scene disguised any potential blemishes that may have occurred,  

Again I was really pleased with this result.  I wish it had been a little longer to push him further into the scene, but rotoscoping is a lengthy process.  It would have been nice to extend this particular technique on to the full final piece, but it was difficult to see where this particular scene could be used consistently.

Background replacements

So I did some cool background replacement images!  I'm really happy with these, I think they are the best thing I've done this year so far.  I cut the characters silhouettes out and merged the grass on the original image.  In order to mix up the second image I created the mountains from the original image.  I am also quite proud of the colour grading where I was able to make the light from both scenes to match the desert lighting.

 

 

Animatic

Thumbnails Revised

This is the idea I would love to attempt.  A sort of take on the chase sequence I have been developing and something to try with VFX.  The scene begins with a future version of myself watching the chase unfold and then at various points he tries to stop the same thing happening again.
I wanted to get the idea of a kind of Groundhog day style infinite loop - with a feeling of hopelessness that what we are potentially witnessing has happened an infite amount of times....

Thumbnails - Chase

I think I'm getting somewhere with these thumbnails
I ended up kind of combining the ideas of a chase/hide and seek kind of game which would look quite sinister but end a little more tongue-in-cheek!

I was able to get out with my friend Jeff and Harry to see if we could shoot some test shots.  They seem to work well and coherently but I really need to see just how much this process is going to transfer across to film, so I will run off an animatic with some video in it as well

Cinemagraphs

I really like the idea of cinemagraphs

Cinemagraphs are one other way we can now tell stories with a static image.  The single moving element is informative to the patient and so I wanted to try making one myself based on the lightning image I made a few weeks back.

The flaws in this image are of course the lack of reflection of the lightning in the eyes.  I have never attempted reflections so this could be an interesting tangent to wander off down.

All in all though it was fun - and I learned a bit about the differences in colour correcting for 3D over Photoshop.  You can have a bit more painterly control over an image in Photoshop but programs like After Effects are like Photoshop in motion and as such becoming a massive part of filmmaking.

Fun times....

I've had a chest infection for the last couple of weeks - there is something going around at work, everyone seems to have come down with it so I have had to put off filming and things as I can barely get myself out of my bed.

Didn't really need this right now, I'm behind as it is!

Thumbnails

I've been trying to rattle of some more story ideas.

I had the idea of a sort of game of hide and seek with powers, like a brother and sister or something having a chase through the forest.

 

I tried to ties these ideas together in some way with a kind of overarching theme, which had some potential but unfortunately it ran the risk of getting contrived like 5 People...  I did however begin looking at the negative space around the characters and if there could be anything in the manipulation of this space.  Honestly I feel it could be important but I don't really know much about the visual storytelling language yet!

Trying to imagine location is really difficult and without experience of a lot of the space in the scene it becomes difficult to imagine how these shots might be accomplished of if they are even possible.

I do feel like it is moving a little, but I just wish I was able to come up with a story a lot easier to get things moving a little bit faster  - I am not sure why I am finding it so difficult.

The Prominence of VFX

I discovered the book Digital Storytelling by Shilo McClean, which scarily seems to answer a lot of my questions about VFX and narrative.
She classes VFX in 8 categories - Invisible, Seamless, Documentary, Exaggerated, Fantastical, Surreal, New Tradionalist and HyperReal!

Mostly I have been stuck talking like a critic - in terms of prominence and spectacle but this beek has really opened up the language for me!  McClean has anylised of 500 films to come up with these categories and I am forever grateful.

Going with these I was able to look at things a different way and think about why it is that spectacular effects can draw such negative criticism.

If there is a scale of prominence upon which each of these effects can sit, or rather a scale of awareness or activity, with regards to plot then the plot becomes the deciding factor in what is or is not acceptable to an audience.  This ties right back to Stephen Prince's idea of Perceptual Reality because an audience can be asked to believe almost anything so long as the correct conventions have been set up before hand.  The plot weaves a line through this scale, running the gamut of VFX in the process.  Should any effect appear to have more weight than the plot will be inevitably right right of course and it may be hard to recover an audience from such a thing.  The planet example above is the perfect metaphor - the more "mass" the effect has the greater the gravitational "pull" it has on the plot.

Animex 2015

Harry, Jack, Pip and I all went down to Middlesborough to attend Animex for a couple of days!

It was excellent - there were talks from Ed Hooks, VFX artists from The Mill, MPC, ILM, Framestore and Zach Parrish was here all the way from Disney!

It was pretty cool to get to talk to a few of the companies - I really liked the sound of The Mill; Tom, the recruiter made it seem awesome!  They do a lot of adverts and I like the idea of doing shorter kinds of projects like that I think it might be challenging!

And I got on really well with the girl, Millie, from MPC she was hilarious!

I tried to discuss my honours project idea with many of them but a lot of them have worked as artists mostly on the post production side of things so didn't have much to comment on the things from the pre-production side, although Millie did put me on to her friend Simon who at least got what I was trying to say.  I get the feeling though from much of what they say that it's a kind of an amorphous process so in some cases there is flexibility for input and in others not.

The talks on things like Groot were completely mindblowing and it was fun getting a bit of insight into Disney's processes from Zach!

Great experience to get to the festival!  

Also Song of the Year now btw =P

Iain McCaig Interview

I really liked this!

It's great to see the enthusiasm of someone who has worked for so long and still loves art and his work so much.  The comments on movement and story were quite useful.  I like the idea of looking at characters at a turning point, where some sort of great change may be happening.
I think as a focus on story and character for my project this might give the characters the meaning and be a useful form for giving the narrative some depth.

Dust Trail...

I tried another photo manipulation to achieve some sort of effect.  I tried to make it look like the I was appearing mid walk out of particles of dust.  The first attempt looked a little static so I tried giving it a little motion blur.  It goes a way to improving it but it could be better.  I think something of a bigger, more variable trail might give a better impression but it is an interesting test anyway.

Presentation

We had more presentations today!

I discussed the ideas of the the chart, my two ideas for a story and what Brian had told me about story in general as well.

I said I agreed with Lynn that the magic showdown one was more interesting but I don't actually believe that.  I would much rather do the adaptation idea even though I was dead set against adapting anything originally.

The main thing though is that there could be the potential to get lost in unnecessary things like dialogue and trite notions so I definitely think the other choice is better that way.  It's the least developed of the two though so that is going to be difficult.  It has moved so far away from the original idea already which was a lot more shallow in terms of scope.

The rest of the presentation was fine though with not much to say.

Effects test 1

So I made a couple of images to experiment with the style of how people with powers might manifest themselves.  With the first one, I tried to achieve something of an antagonistic character.  The cool blue of the lightning and the bright blue colour in the iris give the image a rather sinister feel, as does the grey colour grading on the skin and overall.

In the second image I tried to match the quality of the colour with the first image but wanted something friendlier than the electricity.  I think the first image is more effective than the second one in what it tries to communicate; the second could do more to show the identity of the person.  Perhaps a different pose would help but it may be difficult with so very little in the frame.

Five People Adaptation Idea

I tried to work through an idea of how to adapt this book in a unique way.
My initial idea looks a little like this:

In a more detailed way it shows a young girl having entered the afterlife having her journey interrupted and the opportunity to return to her life is presented to her.
I like the idea a lot, although like the other idea I am having trouble with coming to an ending but that is okay I think it will come in time.
This one has less chance for spectacular kinds of effects but there is definitely scope to utilise some kinds of invisible and seamless effects!  The trick will be to not make things arbitrary or stereotypical, which is difficult around religious-style themed stories.

Meeting 3

In today's meeting with Lynn, we talked about the discussion I had with Brian regarding story and visual storytelling.  I got the book Cinematic Storytelling by Jennifer van Sijll which I hope to be able to use to understand how you can communicate ideas visually and apply this to my honours practice.

I discussed the options we talked about for producing a piece for my honours project.
I talked through the idea of adapting the story from the book The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom

The book is about a character Eddie, who dies and upon entering heaven he discovers 5 people from various points in his career who explain his life to him.  The book deals with things like loss, death, forgiveness, human connectivity etc.  A lot of common spiritual themes.
I'd like to take the the concept and adapt it for two characters.  The concept would tell the story of a girl who, after she dies, has her journey to meet her 5 people interrupted by a wayward soul, an interloper who looks to give her the opportunity to return to life in exchange for the use of her heaven 'til she returns.
This one would give me the opportunity to develop a short piece that was very story focused.

The second story option would involve something purely of a spectacular affair.  Two characters duelling it out with electricity throughout the town.
Both of these show different approaches to the use of VFX.  Lynn liked the idea of going quite far with the spectacularity on the second idea but suggested I develop both to a point and see which one I begin to prefer so that will be the task for next week.  I will try and develop the thumbnails further and explore the ideas more.  Lynn suggested looking at things like InFamous for inspiration!

This is a pretty cool concept and it would be a lot more fun to develop this!

Lynn suggested I take stills and draw on some effects so I'll have a play and try to develop some images that can show how people might look!

I need to think in terms of having a narrative that can be driven by the VFX.  So I need to think of the relationship between the characters; who they are, why they are fighting, what will the ending be and how will that show their relationship?

Lynn was keen for this to stay non-verbal which is cool because I hadn't planned any dialogue in my initial thumbnails.  This might make it all the more challenging but it should be a better exercise in visual storytelling if it works.

I should look at existing media for staging examples - Lynn's suggestion here was Samurai Jack, which a friend has also suggested.  I have never seen Samurai Jack but I understand it to be quite stylised.

Finally, I need to make a start on my dissertation, so a final task for next week will be to write a draft of the introduction for the text.

Fums - Sparks

Here are some written thumbnails for a potential short about two guys who top up their electricity metre keys and go head to head in a lightning duel.

I wanted to do something that I could have a bit of fun with!
Actual thumbs and storyboards to follow...

Story Meeting with Brian

I had a meeting with Brian about Story and film language etc.

He talked about what he thinks are the most important core elements of storytelling and will send me some slides focusing on ideas of theme conflict and character.
I got the book Story by Robert McKee to go through in more depth.

As a map for storytelling Brian described that as an Author/Artist you are trying to communicate meaning to the Audience.

Theme being central - what ideas are you trying to communicate

What media are you choosing to represent this

......


Story is based on the emotional dynamic.  If you have a contiguous set of ideas that progress in a way that the emotion is felt by the audience, or the ideas trigger the emotions that are contiguous.

Continuous flow of aesthetic emotion in fiction.

Look for the story beat.  The idea of the emotional interchange or a change of ideas that elicits an emotional impact.  Aristotle called it the idea of revelation and realization, apparently!
Whereas in real life a revelation may occur, the emotional impact may not follow immediately - in a dramatic moment, we want to bring the ideas and emotions together.  Aesthetic emotion - it's an aesthetic experience not real life experience.

In imagery what's ideas are we giving visually?  What are the values stated at the beginning? (someone sad, happy, etc).  This value system sets the themes you wish to deal with.


Practically

I want to be in the area of compositing, the subject matter I would want to look at is cinematography, film language, visual language.

Film language is a way of expressing storytelling as opposed to screenwriting.  If you understand how a screenwriter is setting up a script, the core structural elements, it will resonate more deeply if you understand this.
Brian described it best by saying I don't want to write a script, I want to respond to a script.
So what I can do is interpret an existing story as that's what I'd be having to do in my discipline anyway.  People have suggested doing adaptation before and I had hoped I wouldn't have to buuuuut.....
This will stop it from turning into a character design module, for instance.

He reiterated what Lynn had said previously that I shouldn't talk about VFX at the level of the application - try to look at the art of it at the higher level.

If you know what you're trying to produce you know what you can shorthand, what you can get away with and what artistic choices you can bring; what to emphasize, what to put in, what to read out.


Case Studies

Look at formal art criticism.
https://www.uwgb.edu/malloyk/art_criticism_and_formal_analysi.htm

Mentor Meeting 2

Productive meeting today!

We talked over the deadlines for the Dissertation and what practical things I have been up to.
I'll have to continue with the environment studies as these went incomplete this week.  I struggled a bit with them but I will continue.

We spent a lot of time discussing the concept of the project in terms of the theory and Case Studies.  I felt a bit more inspired this week, I seemed to start understanding a bit more what it is I'm actually interested in.

I saw some videos like the one below at the end of last week which were quite inspirational.

I like the everyday nature of the premise: a man going about his day when suddenly he's thrown into this situation.  The VFX establish quite a lot as well as benefiting from having a touch of the spectacular.

As I've stated, I started to feel like the ideas of diegetic and perceptual realism could be a way to drive the project forward.  I mean diegetic in the sense of the cinematic world being produced, but it may have relevance to the method of storytelling as well.
We determined today that I might be talking a bit much about the production methods when it is the conceptual side of things that interest me regarding VFX.
Films that use VFX more passively don't strictly use them to actively contribute to the concept of the film or themes.  I'd argue there are small overlaps as the creators build the worlds before us, but again these would be production method decisions not decisions that add to the concept.

Films like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World revel in their use of effects, and these reveal much about the world and actively drive the plot too.

Lynn confirmed my thought that it would be worth looking into storytelling itself.  It was her suggestion that I see if there are any existing techniques in storytelling that I might apply to the VFX process.

So this week my Tasks are:

• Develop a Framework looking at narrative in relation to VFX
• Develop a couple of story ideas and do some thumbnails
• Continue Environment drawings

and next week we will go over these concepts and go over my blog.

Week 1 Tutorial Task

It seems Digital Tutors may have removed the tutorial I said I would do this week, so I'll do another environment one.  It's a bit more advanced.... but hopefully it should be ok!

I'll post the results if I can!

Taking Stock...

I've been trying to get to the bottom of my frustration in why I keep going round in circles.
The problem has been trying to tie it into the ideas of the dissertation.  I just wanted to learn the tools and trying to view it from the point of view of narrative is stressing me out because I didn't begin this project with a story I wanted to tell.

Anyway, I know the power of storytelling in cinema lies in the ability to craft and create an image on the screen - the image you want to show the audience.  It's a composite in the complete sense of every element in the screen.

To me that's where this is the power of digital visual effects.  An image can be altered, added to, have elements removed, tweaked or even constructed entirely from scratch.

The Wolf of Wall Street is insane in it's image composition.

I haven't seen the film yet but I will have to now just because it looks like it will be really hard to tell which parts of the film are actually 'real' and which parts are completely manufactured.

This isn't a sleight on the process or the end result or anything.  In fact it probably goes a long way to making some sort of point for me that I have yet to make.  Or maybe I have already and this just backs it up more =P

I remember Stephen Prince talking about critics of digital effects for this manufacturing.  Die hard photography buffs keen on the idea of photography as being 'indexical' or true.  I can see their point from the idea of photography, at least from a particular artistic perspective, but I don't think it rings true with cinema for the sole reason that even when it was purely indexical, i.e when what was there, live on set was what was shot, you were still being 'tricked' by the director into believing what was true about the story he or she aimed to tell.  Even before digital manipulation was an option one could believe that a lake in Italy was on the doorstep of an English country manor.  It is not indexically true, but it seems real.  It is believable.  That is therefore the success of a well directed film.

And I think then that this is where the success of digital visual effects lies - in its believability.  What Stephen Prince calls "Perceptual Reality".  I think this is a good basic judgement for success in that we as people are basically kind of programmed to know when something we're looking at isn't [quite] right.  Probably where the well trotted out 'Uncanny Valley' example is mentioned.

I think I'm beginning to go over old ground here, though...  I feel like I've said all this before but for some reason going through it again seems to focus my mind on the idea...

In fact it seems like I might be hitting on the answer.  The problem I've been having is determining how to explore this in practical terms... (and I know it's probably something I JUST NEED TO DO!!!  Give myself something to get on with and practice some techniques from the tutorials)...
So I think what might be an appropriate solution to the practical work might be in trying to simply create something that is perceptually real, i.e. it doesn't matter what it is as long as it is believable: perceptually real to the viewer, and real within its own diegetic.  That should hopefully save me having to come up with some sort of narrative, although I did say in my Proposal that I would show some overarching "narrative", but I'm not too worried about that - little things can hint at connectivity without necessarily explicitly saying so.

Ahhh god, now that I think back, that's probably what Brian's point about adverts was.... 

I might then say something like:

• Create something perceptually real using VFX

But that's too vague...  So it might be better to say something like:

• Create a perceptually real character/

Still too vague but probably getting warmer.  We've been toying with the idea of a futuristic Dundee.  So for instance in that context (diegetic) I guess one could say...

• Create a perceptually real policeman from a futuristic Dundee

Anyway I have tasks to do for this week so I will get on with them first and perhaps work towards the above.  It will help to discuss it with Lynn on Monday.

Drawings...

I tried to go out and draw but it was pretty cold so I also tried to use existing images of Dundee from online.  I wanted to take some photos but the library wouldn't give me the camera because I didn't give them 24 hours notice (don't know why they didn't just automatically book it into the appropriate time instead of cancelling the booking altogether, piece of nonsense, but I'll know better next time than to apply common sense to these things) so I had to book it for Monday.  It'll probably still be too cold and who knows what it'll achieve.

I am still terrible at drawing environments, so much for achieving the task of drawing four.

I've about managed to thumbnail the layouts for two at the moment and I'll attempt to make some more and do them bigger.

The left is the Overgate shopping centre, the second is supposed to be the new train station.  It's hard for this not to feel arbitrary, to be honest, and I know that's my own fault for not having narrowed this down any better, but that's why I wanted to try and draw the new station.  It might be a good compositing task!

Case Studies...

So one of the tasks for this week was to come up with some sort of framework for evaluating Case Studies consistently (and perhaps determine the success of VFX in films).

Although I think success is too vague a word there.  Simply the achievement of implementation of visual effects alone isn't any criterion for determining success; it requires the specific context of the impact of the effects on the narrative for the studies to have any significance as a piece of research.

With that in mind I'll need to determine if VFX can be categorized into meaningful categories.

So because in the meeting I forgot every film I've watched since the age of 5, the three initial films I have chosen to look at are:

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

In this film the story largely takes place in the mind of Jim Carrey's character.  The world is digitally altered in front of the audiences eyes as his mental state shifts around him.  This is an example of VFX driving story directly.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

I have chosen this film due to the excellent production value.  The entire production design, from costume to set design, from cast to camera, is a seamless exploration of nostalgia.  The effects in this film are an example of VFX enhancing the narrative.  This could be a good example of VFX as an aspect of mise en scene.

The Hobbit

The Lord of the Rings franchise has been responsible for many technical achievements in cinema so it seemed appropriate to take a look at the latest installments, The Hobbit.  These are films that are almost built on the prospect of VFX; the effects are at the heart of the deliverance of the fantastic in a believable way.

Films like The Hobbit may seem like they make use of VFX in the same way as Eternal Sunshine... and The Grand Budapest Hotel, but I think it's important to try and identify the subtle differences: here, we do indeed see the VFX both complementing and driving the story, but these are worlds (the diegetic) built on effects, like avatar, so these additional features are at once a side effect complementing the story and a deliberate tool the director can use to drive the story.

In this type of film you also see effects directly relating to character, a type of effect not usually implemented in films based on reality.  Again, these can be internal to the character or external. 

Already it seems like these are examples of an approach to narrative and require different consideration be given to VFX creatively.

I hope this makes some sort of sense, ultimately.

I shall watch at least one of these films this week to try and tease out suitable critera for a framework.

Before I say the word criteria again  I'll just say that perhaps it might be worthwhile reading a bit about storytelling in cinema to see if anything emerges...

2nd Semester 1st meeting

I had my first meeting of the year with Lynn today.

Agenda

We met to discuss:

• Practical work
• Case Studies
• Dissertation
• Ethics form
• Moving forward

Practical Work

I explained that I had continued to explore tutorials but haven't been out to take location photos and with no real direction beginning to form we determined that it will still be likely that I will have to continue pre-production work for several weeks.  I think the problem with the practice based research is that I haven't been able to conceive of a suitable direction relating to the Research Proposal.  Lynn suggested I look through this to gleam some key subject areas to discuss in case studies and explore practically.

Case Studies

We discussed investigating several films as case studies and determined that by next week I should bring a proposed framework for carrying this out.  I think this will allow me to determine a structured approach to practical work and relate things back to my dissertation more easily.  We agreed that I should return next week with a framework for how to critically analyse each film in a consistent way and determine each film's approach to VFX, or the focus of the VFX as a tool, for instance production design, story.....

I'll begin by looking at Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,  The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Hobbit.

Dissertation

We discussed writing the dissertation in smaller parts to enable Lynn to give me feedback and gradually build up the dissertation for submission.  I will determine a schedule for submission of each section and inform Lynn of this next week.

By engaging existent elements from the lit review of the Research Proposal it should help determine a direction to take the practical work that will, more importantly, be relevant to the exploration of the role of VFX as a narrative device.

Ethics Form

We went over the Ethics Approval Form which was due in today and made some minor changes before submitting it.  These improvements involved being more specific with participants and hazards.  The project may well involve one or more participants should it be required in filming.

Moving Forward

Going forward I will aim to develop work in a more consistent way.  I will be more prepared each week for meetings providing agenda of what I need to achieve each week.  I will determine a framework for Case Studies.

I will do at least one environmental compositing tutorial and 4 environment drawings from life.