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.