Project 1 Improved Shots

 
Bad Shot                                             Good Shot
-The shot was to faraway                    - The shot is more to the action
- It needed to be cropt                         - The crane isn't there anymore
- The action is to faraway                     - The lighting is a lot nicer

 
Bad Shot                                             Good Shot
-The phone isn't in focus                     - The phones in focus
                                                            - Can see the phone more clearly

 
Bad Shot                                             Good Shot
- THERES A BIN IN THE SHOT       - Theres no bin in the shot
- Cant really see the guy on the floor     - Can see the guy on the floor more clearly
- The edge of the tables in the shot

 
Bad Shot                                           Good Shot
-The background is cluttered with      -The poster was removed
a poster                                             -The shot is closer into the action and actors

 
Bad Shot                                            Good Shot
-The shot is faraway from the actors    -The shot is closer to the actors
-There's a green screen in the              -The green screen isn't there anymore
 background                                       -But the camera bags on the floor

 
Bad Shot                                            Good Shot
-The shot is faraway from the actors    -The shot is closer to the actors and see them more clearly
-The shot is at a odd angle                  -The shot is head-on can see facial expressions more clearly
-Half of a person on the right hand side

Project 1 Research Rotoscoping

Rotoscoping is an animation technique used by animators to trace footage frame by frame in animated films and live action. Originally with Rotoscoping they use to project the live action film images onto a glass panel and the animators would redraw it but this was later replaced by computers. Rotoscopings was used in most animated films to trace things and to make the movements of the drawn characters feel realistic instead of imagine and guessing what the movement was, It was used for this purpose In Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs.
The Rotoscoping technique was invented by Max Fleischer he started using it in 1915 he used it for Out of The Inkwell, for his first bit of Rotoscoping he got his brother to dress up as one of the characters and he used the footage as a live action reference for the character. Rotoscoping has been used in things such as The Yellow Submarine, Looney Tunes, Charlie Brown, Flash Gordon, He-man. Martin Scorsese used Rotoscoping in The Last Waltz to get ride of some cocaine hanging from Neil Young's nose.
The Rotoscoping in The Lord Of The Rings animated film it is quite easy to tell when its being used because it is in a different tone and colour compared to the other parts of the film.
In The Beatles Yellow Submarine film they used some Rotoscoping for the Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds sequence. It looks like it was used for the people dancing in the sequence without knowing what Rotoscoping it was and what it was used for I don't think I would of know when it was being used and wouldn't have noticed it, but in the sequence I think it quite noticeable when its being used but I think its very effective because the video and songs suppose to be quite trippy and it fits nicely with the art style of the entire film and fits a lot better than the movement Rotoscoping in the animated Lord Of The Rings sequence.
I think Rotoscoping would be very useful in after effects when masking out something supporting a character or object to make them float or fly and it would fit in easily for the superhero film unit, but I don't think the part of Rotoscoping that they used in Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs and The Yellow Submarine (tracing the movement of a character) because I don't think it would fit well with the superhero unit but it would be very useful if we ever did any animating. I have done a bit of masking before by making a Lego figure fly I had to go into every shot a erase the support beam in the shots and I found it very long and tedious and I wasn't at all pleased with the final product.

Project 1 Analysing Your Cinematography

BAD SHOTS  

The main purpose in the shot is to see the phone but its not even in focus in the shot and the character in the shot should be annoyed but there smiling. I think the shot has a nice rule of third.

There's a nice bit of pattern and symmetry in the background. The shot isn't shot very well there's a bin right in the middle of the shot and a table sticking out along bottom where Matt took the picture. To improve this we could crop around the table or mask it out but its properly easier to re-shoot it.

The main thing wrong with this shot is that its portrait when all the others and they should all be landscape other than that I think its a good shot the books in center and focus and that's the main draw for the shot.













This shot gives a sense of movement and has a nice rule of thirds but there's really too much in the shot and most of its boring the shot really needs to be croppt.

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Again another bin in the shot and the backgrounds very cluttered with posters that arnt even symmetrical. we did take another shot of this scene without the bin in it.

GOOD SHOTS 

I like this over the head shot it shows a nice depth of field leading lines. I think the blurriness of the background gives the shot a good effect and makes the character stand out more.

This shot has a nice angle and viewpoint to show the book. The book could probably be at a better angle to see the cover and there's a nice rule of third.

The handshake is right slap bang in the middle of the picture makes it the center of attention and that's a good thing for the shot. The shot would be better if the hands where a equal amount in the frame.

This photos kind of apply s to the rule of thirds but it gives a nice viewpoint and a sense of height as if the character is towering over the other character.and it kind of frames the other character.

This photo gives a really strong sense of movement I think it also has a good rule of third and I like the slight angle the shot it makes the character look straight and centered while the rest of the scene is at an angle.

Project 1 Scene Breakdown Sheets

Breakdown sheet from Masinator117

Breakdown sheet 2 from Masinator117

Breakdown sheet 2 copy from Masinator117

Breakdown sheet 2 copy 2 from Masinator117

Project 1 Photo Animatic

P1 Props Table

P1 Photo Folder Labelled

P1 Costume Design Part 2

Max is the bad guy of the story. He is part of a group of people called Lechers, Lechers are people who can absorb other peoples powers for a short period of time but if Lechers absorb for too long this can kill the person being absorbed. Max hates going to school and hates the people there. Max is constantly bullied and ignored because he is a Lecher people don't trust and don't wanna have anything to do with them. Max is average height he has black hair and dresses in black, he likes to immerse himself with listening to punk music like the Clash. Max sets up a plan to absorb everyone in the schools powers cause hes had enough of the school and people picking on him.

P1 Costume Design Part 1 Mood Board

P1 Research and Understanding Green Screen

Green Screen is used in a special effects technique called Chroma Key Composting or Chroma Keying. Chroma Keying is a technique for compositing/Layering two images or videos together.
In 1898 George Meles made a film called four heads are better than one in the film he used mattes to composite several versions of is head onto tables, he did this by blacking out the part of the frame where he wanted his heads to be with pieces of glass that he painted black he did this to make sure those parts of the film wouldn't get expose. Meles would then rewind the film and matte everything else in the frame and expose what he had matted before. Edwin S. Porter also used this technique in 1903 for his film The Great Train Robbery, Porter composted moving scenery and trains into his scenes. The trouble with this process was that know one could pass the matted section and the camera had to be perfectly still. In 1918 Frank Williams patented the Traveling Matte this was a process like green screen but the background the actors where performing against was completely black it was used in a film called Sunrise. In 1925 the Dunning Process was made by C. Dodge Dunning, the Dunning Process would have actors in front of a blue lighted screen and have the actors/foreground lighted in yellow the Dunning Process was first used in 1933 in King Kong but the Dunning Process only worked with black & white films. In 1940 Larry Butler created a technique that could be used for color film, Butler shot the actors in front of a blue background. He used the technicolor 3 strip process and took the negative and create a silhouette matte he then used an optical printer to combine the foreground and background plate together. Petro Vlahos created the sodium vapor process. The process involved actors standing in front of a white screen lit by sodium vapor lights that made it yellow, this process was used a lot by Walt Disney e,g The Parent Trap and Mary Poppins.

Special and Visual Effects in The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is one of my favorite TV shows at the moment and watching the video I was surprised how much they add in post production. The green screen effect I have chosen is the ones above because when I watched the episode I never would of thought that they would need green screen for this and adding a helicopter blade in the post edit. The purpose of the shot is to convince the audience that Rick has woken up to find the world decayed and stopped working, The Walking Dead are good at making there scenery and zombies looking believable but for this scene I don't think they actually need the green screen because all they add into the scene is a few army cars, helicopter propeller, tents and props which they could of easily done with out the green screen, but with the green it was probably a lot easier and quicker to shoot than actually having the props already in shot.

P1 Location Rece Part 2

Location scouting report-2 from Masinator117

Location scouting report-2 copy from Masinator117

Location scouting report-2 copy 2 from Masinator117

Location scouting report-2 copy 3 from Masinator117

Panoramic Pictures of Scenes

Classroom Birds Eye View

P1 VFX Assets Sheet

Vfx asset sheet from Masinator117

Vfx asset sheet-3 copy from Masinator117

Vfx asset sheet-3 from Masinator117

P1 Animatic Review

My Animatic

P1 Shot Length 
Most of the shots in the sequence are around 2 to 3 seconds long with some of the other shots being a a bit too long than the should be, around 3 of the shots are over or around 10 seconds long these shots should probably be shortened or put more shots into the scene.

P2 Camera Movement 
The static shots in the sequence have dialogue to accompany the shot and I don't think that camera movement would help in the static shots unless it was a little zoom but I think that the dialogue it rests the audience in the shot with out having to add movement. The shots with movement really help flow the sequence together.

P3 Sound Levels 
Most of the dialogue in the sequence is clear and easy to understand but its quite easy to tell that we are reading the lines off a piece of paper, and most of Alex's dialogue was quite quiet but still easy to understand. The different volume of the dialogue going from low to high does affect the flow. There's a few background sounds in some of the dialogue but there not very loud and doesn't effect the dialogue that much.

P4 Voice Acting
I think the dialogue is quite easy to understand whats going on, but listening to the dialogue out loud some of the lines don't make sense together with the rest of the entire film. The voice acting isn't the best I've ever hear and its at all that convincing and you can really tell that we are reading them off paper. To make the dialogue more convincing we could put more emotion into the voice.

P5 VFX
I think its quite clear in the animatic where the special effects are suppose to be especially the lightning handshake at the end and the flame finger but we haven't made it very clear where the teleporting should take place in the animatic.

P6 Peer Feedback
The feedback I got was to add sound effects to the animatic this could help make it more clear where the special effects. That was the only bad feedback that I got

P1 Animatic Peer Feedback

Animatic peer feedback from Masinator117

Animatic

Animatic

File Structure

P1 VFX Test Footage

My First Attempt

For the first attempt of the flame I followed the video and keep the flame as it was because I thought the flame looked quite realistic as it was.

My Second Attempt
But for the second attempt on the flame I decided to add smoke at the start and the end of the flame to try and improve it i thought it made it ten times better but it would of been better if the smoke followed the flame but it looks good even without it. I also adjusted the flame by making it transparent this made the flame look a lot better it did this by changing the flames mode to add.

After Effects Assessment

When shooting the test footage we shot several shots that can allow for different effects in after effects like teleporting, fire balls and lighting. We had to reshoot a shot with Matts hand because Matts hand moved out of the cameras view. In after effects I did a flame coming out of Matts hand this wasn't very difficult because the video I found on youtube was easy to follow and easy to understand, next time I make a fireball I think I could do it without the tutorial video because it was quite simple. It was hard to try and get smoke to follow the flame with the tracker I wasn't sure how to add it to the flame so instead I put the smoke from when the flame get ignited and extinguished.
In all I didn't find after effects that difficult to use and add the fire effect to the video even thought the tracker was a bit fiddly to get right, if I didn't have the video to help me I think I would of struggled quite a bit, things to improve on in after effects is not relying on the video too much try and teach my self how to do some of the effects and learn how to make the effects look better and more realistic like adding a glow to the flame.

X Men Analysis

Having a scene with just dialogue can be very boring if the dialogue isn't very interesting or important to the plot this can make the audience bored and not interested in the scene. Adding music and sound effects too a scene helps tie the scene together especially the music,but the music shouldn't drown out your dialogue in the scene. If you have a action in a scene like a explosion in a scene and there's no sound effect to go with it this can really ruin a scene and make the scene feel unrealistic and this ruins the movie magic.

Music
The Music in the clip starts from the beginning of the clip and goes through the entire clip till the end. The music peaks at 00:06 it then lowers around 01:13 when Bobby starts talking the music changes tone at 01:27 when Professor X starts says X men. It also peaks at 00:56 when Bobby is about to use his power.

Sound Effects
00:06 - ball bouncing on concrete
00:09 - kid teleporting, sounds like a squeaky whistle, swish
00:12 - catching a ball
00:22 - clay pigeons being thrown
00:24 - Cyclops laser beams  hitting the pigeon and Cyclops laser beam sound effect
00:48 - lighter sound effect
00:50 - fire ball being created
00:58 - whistle sound of Bobby using his ice power
01:01 - freezing the fire ball
01:02 - frozen fireball smashing on the ground

Dialogue
00:04 - Logan: What is this place
00:12 - Kid off screen: Hay no powers
01:06 - Storm: John
01:06 - John: Sorry
01:13 - Bobby: I'm Bobby what's your name?
01:16 - Rogue: Rogue
01:18 - Logan: What will happen to her
01:28 - Bobby: Welcome to Mutant High

Narration
00:08-00:11 Professor X
00:15-00:18 Professor X
00:19-00:54 Professor X
01:19-01:27 Professor X

Visual Effects Research

 Tutorial that could help with this effect

 Scene 1 Shot 2 

The effect in the shot is of a boy lighting a cigarette with the tip of his index finger. The X Men films have used fire ball effects in their films , and many other effects.

Tutorial that can help

Scene 3 Shot 1

This special effect in this scene will probably be the hardest to film and do. The effect in this shot is several teachers teleporting into the cafeteria. Again X Men use teleporting special effect with Nightcrawler in X Men 2.

Tutorial that can help

Scene 4 Shot 9

The effect in this shot is of a few lightning bolts when Jay and Tom shake hands this should be quite simple to do.  Even thought the effect shown in the picture and video it shouldn't be that hard to change.  Again X Men provides the answer for the special effects.

Script with Selected Shots

The Script WIth Shots

Team Production Meeting 2

Date: 20/11/13
Present: Alex, Matt and Sam.
Agenda: Decide Shots.

• We all went through the script and decided personally what we wanted.
• Went through script and incorporated all of our ideas to decide these shots:

1. Long shot, follow Jay

2. Extreme close up

3. Over Shoulder

4. Medium close up

5. Medium long shot from side 

6. Long shot sweep

7. Mid shot

8. Over shoulder, Shoulder in focus then it goes out of focus and focuses on max.

9. Cut between convocation, mid shot

10. Camera sweeps across canteen slowly, pauses at Jay then carries on to show boy dieing.

11. Long shot

12. Flash backs

13. Pan though library isle to Jay

14. Over shoulder shots for convo

15. Long shot

16. Extreme close up 

Shot Blocking and The 180 Degree Rule

The 180 Degree Rule

The 180 degree rule is a camera angle that centers around two character. When using the 180 degree rule you create a imaginary line in between the two characters. This line is called the action line while shooting you must keep the camera on one side of the action line while focusing on the characters, if you go over the imaginary action line this can disorientate the viewer, confuse them, lose the sense of whats happening, when the scene is happening and the position of the characters and makes them look like they've changed position . When the camera crosses the action this is called jumping the line or crossing the line. If you do want to cross over the action line you have to show this in the film by panning over the characters shoulders and do the same when you want to go back.

P1 Composing For Film

When composing music for film the main thing to do is research the film find out what the film is whats the genre, whats it about, whats the story and really get in depth with the film and characters and make it come across in the music.Make sure that the music connects with the characters emotions and personality especially if its character based themes.One of the most import things to do with the music is to make it connect with the audience. Especially emotionally if you can get the music to fit with a characters and then get the music to connect with the audience, It is also good to make theme catchy or at least bits of it so its more memorable to the audience. If your struggling trying to compose experiment a little you might find a tune that fits really nicely and you can just develop from there.

Hans Zimmer composed the music for The Dark Knight with director Christopher Nolan. Nolan and Zimmer discussed how they wanted to do the score around the joker's character, so Nolan would constantly send Zimmer pictures and footage of what Heath Ledger was doing with the character and Zimmer would experiment by refrecing his performance and pictures so he Zimmer could get a feel of the character. Zimmer used string instruments like guitars and warped and edited them so that the wouldn't sound recognizable  like useing a piece of metal to pluck the guitar strings. Zimmers intentions when making the soundtrack was he wanted something provocative and something that the audience would dislike and hate. When Hans Zimmer was creating the music he took the qualities of Anarchy, so someone that has a sense of fearlessness, don;t obey by the rules and someone who does what ever they want. I would say that the joker theme is very effective it really builds upon the character and adds to finalize Joker. The theme really adds to the tension in the scene and can completely flip a scene around with it, compared to other themes I wouldn't say this is memorable if I heard it without the film to go with it I would struggle to realize what it was from.

Script and Character Bios

Draft of my Script

2nd Draft of my Script

Character Bios 

Jay 

Jay is around 16 years old and average height. Jay comes from a family full of powers his mother can read minds, his cousin can teleport and even his baby brother can shoot lasers out his eyes, everyone in his family have power except him and his dad, his Dad has come from a family without any powers so when Jay his worried if his Dads genes has carried on to him. Jay's Mum send's him to Merriweather Academy cause she is worried that Jay doesn't have a power and she hopes that the Academy can help Jay out with finding what his power is.Jay's goal in the story is too find out what his power is by any means necessary, even if it might kill him along the way. 

Bully

Bully is in his last year at the school and a lot taller than Jay and Max.Bully is part of a group called Pyromancers that are a group of kids with fire based powers that do alot of the bullying around school. Bully picks on Max because he see's him as an easy target but after what Max did to him I doubt he's gonna pick on Max ever again. Bully's goal in the story is to cause trouble around school and make it hard for Jay and Max. Max and Jay don't know Bully's real name.

Max (also know as Lecher Kid)

Max is slightly younger and around a few inches shorter than Jay. Max is part of a race called Lecher's. Lecher's are people with powers that can absorb over peoples powers and use them for a short amount of time depending on how long they absorb the person for. Max's goal in the story is to help Jay find out what his power is even if it might put Jay into grave danger.

P1 Research into Recording Foley Sound and Sound Effects

A Foley Artist is someone who creates sound effects from objects to make it fit in and match what is on the screen, when they are creating the sounds they are watching a version of the film on a screen and the create the sounds while watching this so they can get the timing right with the sound effect and film. Foley Artists create sounds that would usually be avoided when they are filming on set, this means that the Foley Artist has complete control,volume and timing of the sound effects his is making which is a lot easier than trying to do the effect while filming on set.
When the Foley Artist creates the sound effects they start of with all the main charters footsteps then the move on to all the background characters, then they do the rest of the sound effects which are basically any thing that moves on the screen. Foley Artist Gary Hecker says that a Foley is a performance of sound and that a Foley Artist should be putting in lots of energy while they are recording.
The advantages of recording the sound effects in post production and in a studio is that the artist has complete control over the timing and volume of the foley sound than if you recorded them on set or used ones from previous films.

Short Story Pitch

Jay is the main hero in the story. Most of Jay's family have a power of some sort his mother can read minds, his cousin can teleport and even is baby brother can shoot lasers out his eyes, everyone had a power except him and his dad, his dad had come from a family without any powers so it made Jay even more nervous knowing that he was going to a school full of people with powers. So with Jay worrying about what his power is he helps a small kid Max who was being bullied by a pyromaniac so with Jay and Max becoming friends he finds out that Max can absorb other peoples powers and use them for himself for a short amount of time. So this gives Jay an idea to get Max to absorb his power to try and find out what his is. Max struggles to absorb Jays power and ends up absorbing his life and nearly killing him. While Jay is recovering the pyromaniacs start to pick on Max again when Jay finds out he confronts the pyromaniacs and they beat the hell out of him this triggers Jay to retaliate with super aggression that triggers of Jays power of super strength.

Jay is surrounded by people with powers, but he doesn't know his own power so he tries to find out while still doing schoolwork#tweetpitch

FACE WARP

Face Warp

P1 Music Analysis

In the Submarine clip above the music fits really nicely within the sequence, the clip is a montage with flashbacks that helps the narrative flow and gives us clues about the character and the music helps establish the personality of the character. A few of the instruments used for the music are a flute at the start of the music track and later a few string/orchestral instruments, the tone of the music is neutral it kind of floats between maja and minor chords. The music gives of a sense of thinking music, romantic, busy, dreamy and whimsical. The genre of it seems classical and its tempo is a risk andante (walking pace). The meaning of the sequence with the help of the music gives the impression that its the characters thought process if its subjective and how he sees the world. Which reflects the characters dreamy, whimsical , romantic personality.

Adding Sound to a Point Break Clip

My Point Break Video

The purpose of the project was to add sound effects to a audio less chase scene from point break. To export a video in premiere you select your sequence and go to file-export-media and window should pop up and go to export settings and select H.264 and go in the presets and select Youtube HD make sure export video and audio is checked and then just export and render the video.
In all I thought it wasn't that hard adding the sound effects but at some points it did get boring and repetitive especially with the footsteps but apart from that it sounds good but it doesn't sound that believable probably because I know that I added the audio and it would sound better with a music track going through the entire video. The bit I'm most pleased with is when the guy goes through the bush and when he runs in the paddling pool and i was also pleased with trying to make the footsteps seem further away by making them lower. I wouldn't mind doing this again because it is something that has to be done during film making.