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Evaluation

This project has to be the most stressful thing ive have ever incountered. I was very excited to get started on this project because its a different direction but at the same time i was totally scared because ive never really done green screen apart from tutorials in lectures. For all of my projects so far they have been very mixed with elements of both motion graphics and just plain editing, and heavily styled on my love of minimalism and type. For this I decided to go for a completely visual effects look, something which I haven’t done on this course yet. It took me quite a while to come up with an idea for this project. Gariant helped me alot during this he opened up my eyes and made me think hard on the spot on what i could do. trist me when i say the struggle was real. but i was excited to get in the studio and play with the lighting with my small team. plus i cant thank Kris and jack more for being there for us all because we went in like dears in a field full of lions, we had no idea how much work and stuff had to be down in post. 

 in the future, I will shoot a wider shot to ensure that the actors full body is in shot, which then gives the correct perspective. plus put the talent closer to the camera and have the correct ISO which will help my key alot better. id love to explore more of nuke. because i feel after effects was a easy way out of keying, if i had more time on my hands i would have but i had to hand something finished ishh, in so i went with after effects.  I would also like to shoot in a higher resolution in future which would allow me to crop in and change the composition, without a loss of quality. For example if I was to deliver in 2K I would ideally like to shoot my footage in either 4K and then downscale to 2K, and if I was delivering in 1080, I would like to shoot in 2K. 

 Another thing I’d change in the future is the amount of time I spent on the audio for this project. I left the audio to the last minute, it became an after thought, and the end result of it isn’t up to my standard. I am not a sound designer, and have very minimal knowledge of sound, however I know that I can produce a better quality mix for the sound. However because I left it to the last minute, it became and after thought, the quality of the mix is poor. So in the future I will definitely begin to think of the sound and mix a soundtrack earlier on in the process, instead of leaving it to the last minute. 

In conclusion I am disapointed with how this project has gone,but I have really enjoyed doing it. Although I really like motion graphics, and will most likely design most of my projects to be a motion graphics piece, or motion graphics prominent. I would like to revisit a visual effects style again in the future, and try and combine both visual effects and motion graphics in a future project. I will also be shooting more live action footage and background plates in the future because Id really love to go out with a camera and shoot. i now know how much work has got to go into going and booking the studio and how much paper work has to be submitted. i wish i could redo this project because iknow i can do so much more than what your seeing. 

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Final edit!

Below i have placed my final submitted edit for my green screen project, ive done my best, but im not happy in the way i have approached and dealt with this project. i know i could have worked on it further on in starting and planned a hell of alot more, but i now know thats something i have to do for SURE in the future.

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Footage

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Development

I then began to create what would be my main comp. I started by creating a new composition for my scene1. which went on for 3 versions because i dont the keying wrong. i finally remembered how to key after referring back to the noir and monk piece in gariants lessons.

so i started by creating a new solid, which i then created a mask on for my first key which would be the leopard pillow because i noticed that my footage was noisy to hell.

because i wasnt really seeing my footage i realized i should really up my levels almost to create a Log2Lin just like Nuke but not like Nuke, if your getting what im trying to say.

i then picked a green spot, then changed my sources to screen matte to show my matte, and i needed to clip my white almost on ever frame because the footage was so bad, it looked fine when filming but i guess not, why is it whenever i try something new all the time it goes wrong... i think im cursed? CRY again! but im not going to let it get the better of me! i will finish this project if i dont have any sleep for a week.

Although for the head/scarf details i turned the softness up to around -1, and also tweaked the whites to show more. i feel the end result was the best i could have gotten with after effects. 

ROSIE WAS RIGHT.... NUKE IS BETTER!!

Once I had completed the garbage matte, I applied the Reduce Noise because of the noise, which i want to apologize for once again if your reading this?

my keying i thought looked okay i guess, but i would have to do because time is running out, the project is due FRIDAY.... everyone panic!

after adding my backplate and sky in, adding some reflection in the windows to make it more realistic, i then rendered it out and started on the next 2 scenes with the same process.

i then took my scenes into premier and added sound effects to create the piece because it sounded weird with no sound.i added simple sound effects that youd normally hear like winds and traffic SFX.

IM NOW TEAM NUKE! sorry after effects

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Green Screen Studio

although i filmed and took photos for others behind the scene, no-one seemed to take any for me so unfortunately i dont have any images but the footage When shooting my footage, I used the canon c300 mark 2 with a 24-70 mm lens, this allowed us to get a standard wide view but also zoom in to a cropped view if i needed?

to be honest thats all iknow about what lenses we used as a group, i dont really no much about using the camera, but lighting is another story. I NEED TO GET BOOKS ON CINEMATOGRAPHY ASAP?

I'm going to shoot my project on Tuesday 21st feb alongside my team who are Paul: Camera, Aina: talent, mario: set up assitant, elliot: Lighting and also myself in lighting and directing... also not forgetting Kris and Jack they helped up ALOT, we didnt realise who much planning and prep needed to go into to the studio untill we got there, WE WERE ALL SHOCKED. We will all be shooting our project that day, and we will be helping each other out in different roles for each persons projects.

I will make a shot list of everything I want to do. so then the talent and everyone knows what they go to do and what camera shots the camera man IE paul will now what is being shot. i have also created a rough lighting plan so i know my set up for each scene instead or derigging lights for each scene and figuring out what i should be doing, which people forgot to create.

my photos are very burry because it was a very busy and tight schedule to shoot everyones piece, but below paul is measuring the distance of the talent so then he knows what dial to put on the focus so the talent are clean and in focus, i dont really know what other words to put it in.

I also made sure that all of the lights were set to roughly 5000-5500k as that gives the whitest daylight look possible, which would be perfect as the green needs to be evenly lite and my first scene is placed in the sky so the talents needs to be lite to fit in post. as kris quotes ‘LIGHT THE ENVIRONMENT’ 

the only photo of me that day, SAD FACE

although i filmed and took photos for others behind the scene, no-one seemed to take any for me so unfortunately i dont have any images but the footage OMG! im so sorry rosie! i tried to save it but my GS blows and i feel so angry in myself becaus ive let you down and everyone else down, because i should have been the one to check my ISO and yeah... im so p’’’ed ive never been so upset and yeah i have no words i know how bad my footage is.

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Keying test; AE

We did some more keying and compositing with different footage across Nuke and After effects, i really like both but i think i need more lessons in Nuke to get more confidence in using it so im going to stick with AE! it might seem like the easy option but im still new to AE really, and keying not my strong point.

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Development - Back Plate Shots

So first I went to CGtextures.com and flickr (making sure creative commons search function was switched on) and found some very nice surreal room pics: but they didnt really work so i went to PEXELS and found some pretty sweet buildings and thought theyd add a surreal aspect to my piece.

i took it into Photoshop and erased the background to make it transparent and the windows because i was thinking about adding a time lapse of the sky to make it a bit realistic just too add elements really? ha 

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Beeple – Light Wrapping

Mike Winkelmann is a motion graphics artist, best known for his everyday work with Cinema 4D, producing a CG image every single day.

Recently he’s been taking the landscape route, adding people into his CGI environment:

You can see all of his work at http://beeple-crap.com.

Now the one thing I found that he did very well is his lighting, especially on his subjects:

You can see how the edge is lighter on the subject, but not covering the entire body. The figure still works as a silhouette, but the slight light edging make it more realistic.

The light wrapping depends on the direction as well. light would wrap around more to the left and less on the right, if the light is towards the left. Not only does it work as a separation light, but also gives the subject depth.

If you look at the triangle, the more intense the light is, the more light wraps around the subject. Not only that, the subject matter should be completely shadow, so there is no colour, or otherwise washed out.

Now we are far from over in terms of understanding light wrapping. There is still the matter of whether soft light or hard light would affect the gradient (though I’m sure a soft light would create a more gradual wrap than the hard light).

I guess with more tests, we can work it through.

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Storyboarding

I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do for my Green Screen project. i loved this idea of changing environment, so i went through possible solutions in the that i could explain this. this scene in lucy is my best idea of flicking though time. because i was also suggesting keying WHAT ABOUT KEYING? i didnt want to make it hard for myself so id rather my talent to be tood in  one place or sat down on something.

My second idea was that a normal person one day discovers that he/she has something supernatural wrong with them. They cannot control this supernatural ability/power and they begin to explode and superheat from the inside out. When they realise that they could explode or do harm to other people they go to an empty secluded space to explode.

another i dea was also creating a Alice in wonderland piece, where the talen could be normal size then eats something then shrinks and is in a garden when she eats whatever she has eaten, simple things like ants could be seen as a treat because of there size? showing this could be shown from the film honey i shrunk the kids? or even alice in wonderland 

other ideads include: 

Being in a game of mario

playing the game nerve, possiblity of motion graphics being added?

tight rope walking over the grand canon

free climbing a mountain

getting dragged by a train

walking ontop of a crain 

walking through walls

it might seem that i have this thorught out but gariant helped me alot thinking about ideas and trying to tell me what i could do for my green screen as i wasnt being very creative and open minded about this i did want to tell the weather... iknow thinking back now WHAT WAS I THINKING?

im definitey going to go with changing enviroment, theres something elegant and pretty thinking about it...  think that everyones going to space or killing other people but i think theres a calm element to my choice in paths to go down in this project  

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Colour Separation Matting

After the Williams process in 1918, colour photography was introduced colour photography in the 1940s and 50s which introduced difficulties that the Williams Process could not immediately overcome and a new method of combining foreground and background elements was sought.

In the late 30s, the Technicolor laboratory with methods of creating travelling mattes using the three colour separations (red, green and blue). They discovered that by filming foreground elements in front of a blue screen, the blue and red colour separations of the scene could be used to generate high contrast male and female mattes.

This was known as the blue-scene colour separation process, the new method was the basis for modern blue-screen techniques.

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Albert Whitlock – Matte Paintings

Now this is just a very brief tutorial on matte paintings, but let’s dive in a little deeper.

Matte paintings are (from Wikipedia): A painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that is nonexistent in real life or would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit.

Albert Whitlock was an absolute genius in this area. He painted things that were stunning and realistic. His sense of light and colour tone is spot on, and there is nothing like looking at one of his paintings and go: “that wasn’t real?!”

Now obviously nowadays, matte paintings don’t have to be painted, but it still serves a purpose to filmmaking. Matte paintings are used as a tool to make a non-existent environment seem realistic, and place the subjects into somewhere other than a studio.

There is a reason why I touch on matte paintings. One is because I want to try doing some matte paintings. But the main reason is to place the subject in a non-existent location. Why bother with green screen if you can afford to go to the real location? This is where matte painting can come in handy.

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The Invisible Man – Travelling Mattes

An absolute classic. I don’t know why, but I’m sure I’ve never seen this film in my life, yet this scene is still reminiscent in my mind. Maybe I watched it as a kid or something.

Well how did they do it? How did they make it work so well in this scene?

Well first we must understand that black velvet cloth absorbs so much light that rolls of film cannot capture it. Similar to Méliès visual effects, where he would cover an area of the set with black velvet cloth in order to make a space for recording more.

Then we run the filmed footage into an optical printer and printed onto ultra-sensitive film in order to create a black and white matte. Using that, anything that is registered onto the film would be completely white, and everything else (*cough* black velvet cloth *cough) will be black.

Using that, we take it and the back plate into an optical printer, and create the final background with holes cut through it, which gives us the matte. All we need to do now is run this and the foreground film strip and BREATHE.

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Rear projection

Rear projection is a special effect technique that is used in film productions. It is the effect of combining the foreground with an existing background that could be filmed beforehand or matte painted. It has been commonly used in the film industry, mainly in driving scenes or to show some form of background motions. This effect is to create an illusion that the characters are in a place they are not in, very similar to a blue/green screen effect.

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Optical Printing

An optical printer is a device consisting of one or more film projectors mechanically linked to a movie camera. It allows filmmakers to re-photograph one or more strips of film. The optical printer is used for making special effects for motion pictures, or for copying and restoring old film material.

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Schüfftan Process

The Schüfftan Process is pretty simple. This german guy named Eugen Schüfftan realised the possibility of mirrors being used instead of the actual live action element. So if we were to film a train coming straight at the camera, we would be able to do the same but reflecting the action through a mirror, in order to avoid damage to the camera.

Same goes with using miniatures and bringing them closer to the camera, making it seem like the miniature is life sized. Adding some actual life sized elements in the background will sell the shot.

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The Beginning of Compositing

Compositing is a term used to cover a number of different technologies that allow the creation of a new image from multiple unrelated elements. The main objective of compositing is to allow a directors creative vision to be seen, by incorporating unreal elements into a live action sequence.

Visual effects compositing is used in a wide range of different circumstances. Film, Broadcasting and Commercials all use visual effects compositing, with film usually having the larger budget and longer deadlines, and broadcasting and commercials having a faster turn around and varying budgets, from big budget to small.

Compositing was first primarily used in photography, with the early art-photographers and pictorial-photographers setting the path which modern compositing has become, in both film and photography.

Oscar Rejlander (1813-1875) created one of the first composite photographs (‘The Two Ways of Life’, which is comprised of 32 individual images - this revolution in photography set the path for modern visual effects.

Combination print is where we should begin to understand what good integration is. The first thing we should understand is that not everything in photography is possible. Unless you are an absolute genius, you gotta work your way around stuff. Most of this is because what you are trying to achieve is basically unachievable at a certain level.

Combination print was used when the photographer had something in mind that is so grand, the scale of it is impossible. Like the one above, Oscar Gustave Rejlander wanted to portray two sides of society: the good side and the bad side. Of course nowadays you can just rent a studio, but back then that was a hell to do. So instead he did a combination print which consisted of taking pictures of various people in poses, some furniture, and then bringing them together in a dark room. The end result is surprisingly well integrated.

Here’s another one. As you can see, the lighting is unnatural, because the balance in exposure of the light through the window and the lighting in the interior would’ve been hell. Henry Peach Robinson used combination print instead to make this composite possible.

The reason to use combination print is because a one shutter click isn’t possible, and needs to be built upon multiple layers. The same thing applies to green screen and compositing. The only reason that green screen is used is because you are trying to achieve something that, besides using green screen, is out of your reach.

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Project Plan... yay its becoming real now

Research history of compositing.

Watch VFX breakdowns of existing films.

Begin concept development.

Create storyboard.

Create style frame.

Test tracking.

Film/photograph background plates.

Film/photograph any extra elements.

Film foreground plate in studio.

Create bash comp.

Create garbage matte and begin keying.

Colour correct to background plate.

Add elements.

Colour grade.

Finalise and render.

Write evaluation.

DEADLINE: FRIDAY 10th MARCH 4PM

Also, cry and sleep every moment i can!!... wait... i was crying