VFX Workshops and Research

For our VFX outcome we had a lot of workshops to go over old and new techniques.
For one of them we used shapes and masks and practiced movements. Everything we did was too see if it was something we wanted to try out for out main intro sequence.



We did one workshop where we cut out the layers of different landscapes and placed them in a 3D space, and using a null object and adding a camera we were able to move through the landscape. This particular workshop inspired me for my intro sequence idea. We were told to chose a movie or TV show that we liked and create our own intro sequence for it.
Initially I was thinking of doing one for a TV show called 'Once Upon A Time' as it doesn't have it's own proper intro sequence and I thought it would be interesting to explore the possibilities of what I could do with it.

I was planning on using the circles to create something, maybe using masks and developing from there. I soon abandoned this plan though as it seemed much too dull and I didn't really have any idea of how I could use the circles to make it look good. I also had the idea of creating an intro sequence to Lord of the Rings, and using the ring designs that are on some of the book covers to create a minimalist design - in keeping with the original design.

I quickly realised however, that this was very similar to my 'Once Upon A Time' idea and while there was potential and plenty of ways I could go, I just found the idea a bit boring.
Nevertheless I did like the idea of using Lord of the Rings as the film I made the intro sequence for, and as I was thinking about it I remembered a book my mum had bought me for Christmas one year, full of Tolkien's original illustrations for The Hobbit. They're landscapes mostly, and use beautiful colours and designs. I quickly connected the landscape drawings with a particular workshop we had done in After Effects with the cutting out of landscapes and layering them up in a 3D space. I decided this was what I wanted to do. I would use several of Tolkien's landscape drawings and put them into a 3D space, and move through them, with actors and crew names appearing as I go through, and then changing to another one of his landscapes.