Thursday, 20 April 2017
Shoot and Edit
On our shoot day we took all the equipment we had booked out round to Nicole's house and began to set up in her Grandads studio.
We made sure the Go Pro rig was charged and had SD cards in and ready to go, and formatted them before we began. We attached the rig to a light stand and placed it in the center of the room. As for the room itself, it was well lit and needed very little doing to it. There were already really interesting objects in all corners, we simply laid out his sketchbooks so they were in view and that was it.
One of my favourite parts of the room was that the ceiling had loads of items hanging from it as well which was really great for us because of course, it's 360 so people can look everywhere.
We made sure the Go Pro rig was charged and had SD cards in and ready to go, and formatted them before we began. We attached the rig to a light stand and placed it in the center of the room. As for the room itself, it was well lit and needed very little doing to it. There were already really interesting objects in all corners, we simply laid out his sketchbooks so they were in view and that was it.
One of my favourite parts of the room was that the ceiling had loads of items hanging from it as well which was really great for us because of course, it's 360 so people can look everywhere.
Once we had imported our footage we had to colour grade it. As it was all filmed on the same camera at the same time we luckily didn't have to correct much of it, it was more of a making sure the lighting was okay, and that it looked good. We ended up have the doorway slightly over exposed but when we lowered the brightness then the rest of the room became too dark. We decided that the room was the most important part to have well lit so we kept the doorway a bit too bright in exchange for having the room well lit.
When we made our quick stitch, it worked quite well already and didn't need loads doing to it. There were however, a few bad stitch lines and so we used masking to fix them. We placed the mask points over those areas that were overlapping poorly and most of the time they got better. There was one stitch line however that was not very good and no matter what we did we couldn't get it to line up properly which was very frustrating.
We also used control points to help, and ours were all green from the start so there wasn't a lot for us to do.
For our sound we had recorded Nicole's Grandad talking about the items in the room. The idea behind this was that it would direct the viewers gaze to areas around the room, so the could drag the camera around with it.
We recorded a lot more of him talking than we needed and so we spent a lot of time cutting up the sound and making it run smoothly from one clip to the next. I had been holding a shot gun mic to record him, but on occasion he had moved away from the mic to quickly and so that section of the sound was quieter, so I had to play around with the volume of various clips so that the sound all matched up.
Wednesday, 19 April 2017
Research and Idea
For research I looked at really wide variety of 360 films on youtube. I found this rollercoaster film which I thought was great at first because one the one hand you can look at the view, and where the rollercoaster is going to go next, and on the other hand you can look the other direction, towards all the people who are screaming as they go over the drops.
I did find however that the movement was a bit too much and made me feel quite motion sick as I watched it so I decided that that wasn't something I wanted to incorporate into my piece if I could avoid it.
This next one I really liked because of how simple it was, and easy to execute. What made it interesting was the content. This is something I'm going to draw on in my own piece. When I first saw this film I thought it was CGI but the people who posted it have confirmed in the comments section that is is not digitally engineered.
It's got beautiful lighting and is really simple and minimalistic in its design (for want of a better word), as in its literally just grassland and sky. Plus elephants. Which is a pretty big part of it.
We were working in pairs for this project, and with my partner Nicole we came up with the idea of doing an observational 360 film.
We began running through various locations that we could use to shoot at, and Nicole suggested her Grandads art studio that he has at the back of his house. Talking it over and hearing about all the eccentric objects he stored in there was enough for us to decide that this would be a great place to make our film.
We would booked out the 360 equipment to take to Nicole's grandads house and set up in his studio. We would then let the camera run and add sound later on.
I did find however that the movement was a bit too much and made me feel quite motion sick as I watched it so I decided that that wasn't something I wanted to incorporate into my piece if I could avoid it.
This next one I really liked because of how simple it was, and easy to execute. What made it interesting was the content. This is something I'm going to draw on in my own piece. When I first saw this film I thought it was CGI but the people who posted it have confirmed in the comments section that is is not digitally engineered.
It's got beautiful lighting and is really simple and minimalistic in its design (for want of a better word), as in its literally just grassland and sky. Plus elephants. Which is a pretty big part of it.
We were working in pairs for this project, and with my partner Nicole we came up with the idea of doing an observational 360 film.
We began running through various locations that we could use to shoot at, and Nicole suggested her Grandads art studio that he has at the back of his house. Talking it over and hearing about all the eccentric objects he stored in there was enough for us to decide that this would be a great place to make our film.
We would booked out the 360 equipment to take to Nicole's grandads house and set up in his studio. We would then let the camera run and add sound later on.
Thursday, 13 April 2017
VFX Process
Once I had decided what to do for my piece, I immediately began choosing which of J R R Tolkien's illustrations to use, making sure to find the highest quality versions I could locate. I then sorted them into chronological order from the book 'The Hobbit.'
I began to cut out the layers from the images on photoshop. This involved using the quick selection tool on the area I had decided to cut out, then inverting the selected area and making sure I unlock the layer before deleting the section I didn't want. I then saved it as a PSD and made files named after each illustration and placed the layers for each one in them.
I then imported all the layers from one illustration into a composition on After Effects. I made all the layers 3D and arranged them so they were in order, and spacing them so the fact that they were in a 3D space would stand out.
Then, I added a camera and a null object which I made 3D. I parented the camera to the null object so that any movements I did with the camera I could do with the null object which made things easier for me. I began to add in key frames, making the camera move forwards, through the image as if the viewer was going into it.
I played around with orientation and position, testing out what would look the best. Once I had arranged one scene, and it was ready to be played and zoomed in through the middle of the illustration. Then it was just the matter of completely all of the images I needed to make the intro sequence.
Something else I knew I was going to have to deal with was the transitions from scene to scene. I decided to use a motion blur that would quickly pan left or right or wherever and blur the movement so that if flowed a lot smoother.
I then added all my individual compositions into one final composition and edited them into the right order and size, before adding my sound file.
For sound I used premiere pro to cut up a segment of a song from 'The Hobbit' movie series. I thought it was suitable for the intro sequence as it was made for those films.
Sunday, 2 April 2017
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.
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.
Wednesday, 29 March 2017
360 Practice Shoot and Workshops
Never having done 360 film before, this was a very new and exciting experience for me. Our tutor went through how to work a go pro and how to use the 360 rig which was tricky as it was very different to anything I had used before.
It was a simple enough design. It's cube shaped, and has six go pro cameras that fit into a slot of each side. These create a 360 view of their surroundings. When you have completed your filming you import the footage into a specialist software called Omni Importer. We also use Auto Pano Giga and Auto Pano Video.
We decided to do a practice shoot to see what we could do with the technology, and get a feel for the sort of thing we would be doing, with the advantage of having a tutor around to assist us. We used a handle to attach the 360 rig securely to a BMX bike and did a quick film where the bike was ridden down the road and filmed as it went. We then used the quick stitch that the Omni Importer allows and exported it. This was the final result.
If we had uploaded it to youtube we would have been able to click and drag to view it as if it was 360 rather than just look at it like this which is quite disorientating, and there were also some stitching problems as the subject was quite close up to the cameras.
It was a simple enough design. It's cube shaped, and has six go pro cameras that fit into a slot of each side. These create a 360 view of their surroundings. When you have completed your filming you import the footage into a specialist software called Omni Importer. We also use Auto Pano Giga and Auto Pano Video.
We decided to do a practice shoot to see what we could do with the technology, and get a feel for the sort of thing we would be doing, with the advantage of having a tutor around to assist us. We used a handle to attach the 360 rig securely to a BMX bike and did a quick film where the bike was ridden down the road and filmed as it went. We then used the quick stitch that the Omni Importer allows and exported it. This was the final result.
If we had uploaded it to youtube we would have been able to click and drag to view it as if it was 360 rather than just look at it like this which is quite disorientating, and there were also some stitching problems as the subject was quite close up to the cameras.
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