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.