At the start of this project I knew I was going to make a short film with sci-fi elements and by watch and researching films. Throughout the project by doing all the elements which create a film I've learnt creative ways for which areas I enjoy the most and by using my knowledge from freelance work and other situations I've been able to create this project to my full abilities, and have a lot more respect for the industry of film makers and VFX artists. Problems which I've encountered on the way have been dread full and problematic that it put me off going into the world of film. However post-production work is what I find the most entertaining as it allows you to create awesome pieces of footage in work, If I was to look back upon this project I would have straight away done TV adverts instead of a short 5min film however this wouldn't have challenged me to my full capabilities also the understanding of the development of the film as time goes on changes a lot (or it was just mine) so that I had to adapt and fix things which couldn't be done or problems arose.
I'd admit that my professionalism went down hill after the first quarter of the project as I wasn't too sure what to create as I had an Idea, which I liked but not the motivation to carry it though. Later when filming started to roll problem after problem came along and really off put me from doing work and made me think differently about doing film as I had already done film however those times went smoothly because there were one off projects so you set a date do the filming and then everyone goes home but because this was over the course of a week or two, commitment was a problem, and sadly I don't know if it was my communication or peoples attitude dropping out which caused this however I had to move on and quickly by this stage, so I played to my strengths which was post production and I enjoy doing CGI. So with the help of James Buck I was able to use him as a reference and start making CGI animation for the project. Then for the model I asked Sean Bowes a game designer if he had a model which I could buy off him via Royalty copyright, He agreed and so I rigged the character and stared to make the CGI sections of my film and to be honest I began to enjoy my project again, and worked incredibly hard to make up for lost time with what happened during production.
Now into Post production with CGI and VFX I was fully enjoying myself and using everything about VFX I've learnt and the Information from VFX artists in development videos in the background as I worked. From this point on I was use techniques which I had learnt but adjusting them from what they were before into a more digital/sci-fi element, and example is the preset lighting in After Effects and completely breaking the effect down to make a interesting digital design and adding adjustment layers for a glitch effects to improve upon the design. Following on from this with the maya/CGI sections done and using my skills of VFX post work everything went smoothly and effectively to create impressive compositing work into my film, my only wish is that I did this sooner to create more CGI/VFX work into my final piece, instead of being held up by problems in the production section.
Evaluation of this project.
With the tutors giving us feedback nearly all the time, I wish I went in more to discuss what was happening and for their advice to help guide me though the Production stage of the project. The post production when I was doing this stage, they gave advice on where could be improved and ways on making the compositing to look more realistic.
My Research during this time was only at films when I could have been better looking at TV adverts as well but the overall was good as I looked into how they made certain things plus skills to create the effects in the project.
The critical Awareness was really needed as I had to keep improving upon my work to make the final product look as realistic as possible so that scene became real, by asking other friends and fate mates to look at the scenes and ask what isn't real, they said for the cargo scene that only the drones where fake but looked real, then I removed the effects and they couldn't believe that the cargo create wasn't real at the time because it became one with the scene, therefore what ever was making the cargo create work I had to implement onto the rest of CGI elements which was quite exciting to figure out how/what I did to create this illusion of the eye to the rest of my film which meant I had to use my Technical knowledge to bring the other CGI elements to the same level as the Cargo which made this project even more fun, and it came down to the same problem I had for a idea for my Skateboard project, what is the best way to make this awesome without over doing it and making it "artificially" worse so it becomes obviously fake. This became a problem as to when did something become over done with VFX that it becomes fake and stand out of the scene.
Music within this post production became the VFX problem as when is it real and when it's fake? By remixing the music within premiere and audacity and then moving frame by frame then placing it in and the watching over and over to make sure you have it in the right place then testing and playing became the same thing for me as I enjoyed this section so much it's made me realise how much fun I have when doing post production stuff, and I don't mind the production but over the course of this project I've really come to dislike it but it's apart of film so it must be done.
Pros of this project is that it has allowed to experience hardships during filming a bigger project by myself than usual, and made me truly realise where my best skills in the industry lie.
Cons of this project is that I've allowed myself to "sink" and let my project be slowed by problems I feel both external and internal of the project and should have kept to a certain focus and instead of having no changes to the idea should have been more flexible to enable a better experience.
The Differences to the project would have been more on CGI work then the starting idea of just film with no CGI however projects change and I would loved to have more time so I could create my own character than buying one. More time to play around in Maya then being stuck in production for about a month, and could have brought more fun and exciting VXF/CGI to my project. Sticking to my strong areas instead. Finally if I do another project like this be in a group and not soloing the majority of the project on myself.
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