CoP 3 Evaluation

Evaluation.

At the start of this project I looked into new systems and learned new plug-ins for Maya.

Bifrost was fun to learn however didn't fit this project at the time.  

On the other hand 3D Tracking for my robot hand was a different story as 'Match Mover' it frustrated me beyond I could have imagined, and sometimes during it I felt like giving up, but I continued with it with the thinking of 'What if a client asks me to do a 3D track of something?' with this in the back of my mind I knew I would have to complete this even if it was only 5 seconds long it shows I have tested it and put it into practice.  However I need to learn these different skills in order to improve my skills as a digital filmmaker.

This Project Context of Practice has been interesting with writing a dissertation about what I first thought was going to be VFX however I found a better subject of storytelling which has been better and fun.  This also lead to my discovery of what makes a good story, a question which can be answered in different ways but looking at this subject within film it can be found and allows me to dig deeper into the subject, also finding Andrew Stanton's talk on TED.com about storytelling and steps he took for the film 'Wall.e' (2008) also the fact of visual storytelling is the best form of storytelling as if you can understand the story visually, you've done something right as you have thought out your ending.

Along with McClean's book on 'Digital Storytelling' (2008) talks about how DVFx is ruing some films and enhancing others and why this happens but the fact comes down to the story and how it was created in order to gains the attention of the audience.  The combination of both of these authors to create the dissertation and the influence of these on the practical piece has been essential in my finds and my broadening my understanding of film making for the future.

If I was to critique my work of this project, I would say it's interesting as I look into the origins of storytelling, and find out why we crave stories 

Overall it has widened my understand of film making, as I have before always thought films were apart of a balance of story, lighting, sound, actor, DVFx and VFx. Now I can see if the story of a film wasn't there the audience wouldn't care as much about the film, as we love to her stories about different thing which makes us care about how the ending will unfold.  This also adds to the fact of how the brain works as it become emerged with the film and responds to the emotions on screen, combined with the sound effects to add emphasis.  Stories are key to our every day lives even if we don't know about it happening, but we can tell the story of our lives easily and other people who listen enjoy them as it's something new and can care about.

Stories is about knowing every thing you do is leading to a single point which is the ending. From these stories they cam tell truth, fact, or fiction, but they deepen our understanding of who we are as human beings as we are born for stories, they confirm who we are.  Stories are passed on and go around the world influencing people in many different ways, by using the medium of film this is changed into Visual Storytelling, with the creators creating their visuals takes on the stories the've created and showing the us the audience.

CoP 3 Synthesis

How does my dissertation and practical piece fit together?

At the core it's all about storytelling, and how the story is worth your time because basic stories have a beginning, middle and end. It's what we're taught in primary school. I'm looking at what makes a good story? I have found it's by making the audience care, about the film or the characters or subject, also does just stay to film it's used in everything to get a reaction, this is not by fluke or coincidence, it's by DESIGN!

So as I create my FIlm trailer as my practical, what is the story telling the audience?
I'm showing them cybernetics and how awesome and cool these are with real facts to back up the verisimilitude(believability) but then ask the the question is this good or bad? provoking the audience to care about this all of a sudden which is by design! as Andrew Stanton quotes " It confirmed something I really had a hunch on, is that the audience actually wants to work for their meal. They just don't want to know that they're doing that. That's your job as a storyteller, is to hide the fact that you're making them work for their meal.We're born problem solvers. We're compelled to deduce and to deduct, because that's what we do in real life. It's this well-organized absence of information that draws us in. " This is what makes Andrew one of the head story tellers at Pixar.

Therfore in my dissertation I've looked at storytelling, analysed from different films about how they tell the story and from this learning placed it into my practical piece.

CoP 3 Final Video

Final Trailer

CoP 3 Practical Endin/Title

In this part I need to make my ending have an impact, after the riot scenes. Therefore with the riot scenes going to black I'll have a small bit of text appear saying "is this the next..." which shall lead into the title of "Human Revolution".

The first part is simple as it's just text with the theme colour of blue/teal blue.

  The blue bar goes across the scene which keeps the audiences eyes on the text and bar.
The next section was hard as I re-used the background from "X-Gen" scene and removed the oragne highlight bar which looks like this.

 Next I added a flare to start the title

 From this picture below, I have used the circles  from the hud display in the film and overlapped them and rotating to give a cyber feel as the title is revealed from the centre out.

 12fps from above showing how the title is revealed

 This then gives us the title with powerful music to give it a dramatic feel to the film and by having a a glow at the bottom combined with the particles at the top t balances out the composition.

 Flash flare into black for the ending.

 Credits.

Later I pieced together all the film and a peer watched it so i could get feed back, they said "I don't understand the riot section"  at this point due to the fact I knew what the story was about I didn't notice this fact as it suddenly jumps to riots for some reason.
This was an easy fix as I needed to just add text similar to "Is this the next..."

 I decided to make these questions as I have learnt from Andrew Stanton a writer at Pixar he states "the audience actually wants to work for their meal. They just don't want to know that they're doing that" Therefore I've asked questions with no right or wrong just the viewers own opinion. I went with revealing the "Is this future bright?" as it's person and a percentage said "possibly" and "Yes" then by following that question up with "Is society ready for cybernetics?" asking them the question what about everyone else? which then leads to the riots and the audience puts 2+2 together and the fact cybernetic's is bad as these people are rioting.

CoP 3 Riot Section

In this trailer I wanted people to think about the consequences of Cybernetic implants, and the effects it has, examples are I,Robot with an advanced A.I.(artificial Intelligence) ruling over the world.  Deus Ex and the 'poorer' people not able to pay for the augmentations and how the companies are more powerful than the governments, therefore unable to do anything about it.
In today's world there are cybernetics in humans, to help people with lost ligaments, but with technology advancing rapidly from the simple plastic prosthetic ligaments are changing into machinery which receives electronic pluses from the muscles/brain in the body and makes it move.  Which sounds amazing for helping people however what would happen if in half a decades time there were people who would misuse this technology?
From this I thought it would make my trailer interesting and different.  One set back to this was there was no recent riots in Leeds, and I had looked up for the next riot/protest which would be happening and unfortunately it was in London about specific material, which is not a good idea really.
Luckily I found a website which sells Royalty Free Footage and I searched for riots and found a 1hr long mix of riots in the news which came from "UnusedNewFootage" (user name) had placed up, now because it was news footage I thought this was great, but I decided to E-mail him asking about the footage.  It turns out the footage is two years old and belongs to the company as stock footage but is getting rid of/going into storage therefore they decided to put it up on this website for £30.  I thought would be great as £30 was wroth the cost of this footage since I wouldn't be able to create a riot/protest myself.
The footage in this was great and I've used to sections to get the best effect for my film trailer.  Then by creating text boxes in the lower third of the screen as news articles.
Below is how they came out.

I decided to use two different colours to get the audience to notice that the text had change form the previous one.  Another point is the use of a robotic voice over to say out the heading of the news articles, one male and the other female so the audience notices the difference and listens in.

CoP 3 Academic Poster

We received a task to create a Poster showing the work we have done. The text should be somewhere in the 500-800 words, clearly arranged and possible to read in 5 mins.

The day of the Crit I went to York Aesthetica for the day therefore had to send in my poster and collect my feed back from the poster.
Unfortunately I saved over the initial first copy of this therefore unable to show it, however from the feed back I received it needed a lot of work to be done as I had created white text boxes with a gold outline which looks appeasing but since the information was in different sizes from showing how I did my motion tracking  the boxes were all different sizes and didn't work.
The next point was the size difference in the pictures showing how the tracking was done, in the fact some needed to be larger to be seen, therefore need to look at which pictures would be need to show enough information to the reader.
The last bit on the bottom of the poster was about my subject theme Storytelling and the research which had been used so far. This part received the same comment about the white text boxes in the fact they weren't great.

Final Poster design.

The changes which I have made, removed all the white text bowes with the yellow outline and changed the text to white to make it stand out and readable on a dark background.  Added my title and methodologies at the top.  How I made the motion tracking hand information has been alined and not at different levels, therefore looks professional.  My images of the motion tracking showing each important step and all alined to the text for professionalism. Storytelling at the bottom showing information about how each aspect of film should be equal with an example if "Life of Pi" (2012) had no VFX in the film it just becomes a blue stuffed toy.  Lastly the final thing to add was my name and course at the bottom as this would show who did this compared to the crit version as some of my peers didn't this was my work.

CoP 3 Exo Suit Section

Recently my friend has be doing a games development course, he was presenting some of his work. This work contained his drawings from concepts of different games and films to create his main character. I asked if I could use some of his less important images.  He agreed to help as a part of his course was to be a concept artist for a contractor, therefore I was able to pay him to use his drawing as part of a royalty free concept art (Royalty free means that you can pay to use the images in a piece of work however he owns that piece of work therefore has to be mentioned in credits) and at the end of the credits he wishes to be mentioned as "Concept exo suit: Mr S. Bowes"

I told him I would like to film the pieces under glass which he said can be done.  This lead to the setting up of a date and I did some filming/photos. I needed to be careful as I hadn't got permission from the other artists work as they share a studio so if I accidentally caught any other pieces of work it would be trouble as I haven't ask for permission making filming there. It was very tricky as it was a small studio space but this adds to the X Gen corporation feel.
In the end the footage was very tricky as I noticed other pieces of work enter the frame which became a pain, therefore with the photographs I took, I decide to use these and animate to camera movements.

 Concept based on "Halo" and "Crysis"

Only major thing is tinting the images to a blue to keep the theme running and followed by adding lower thirds text boxes.

CoP 3 Improving the cybernetic eye section!

Previously with my Cybernetic eye section there was a lack of a theme running throughout the scene, which lead my audience to be confused in thinking is this the same thing or something different!
This needed to be adjusted as soon as I got my theme running! In the blog post about the Cybernetic Arm (post below) the theme became blue with the text boxes being an effective way of showing what the product was about!!!

Here is one the clips before I heavily edited it.

This is Briggate main street just outside Trinity and Top shop/Top man.
In the image you can see the the vector circles on the Top shop logo are in white, now look at the top left of the image to find a 3/4 circle in yellow/gold, straight away the audience don't have a clue what is going on and its shows a lack of professionalism in this scene as the amount of VFX is very little here and there isn't a reason why the white circle is moving around...

Therefore in order to get a better visual storytelling a lot had to be done!
Below is the final result at roughly the same point as image above.

Straight away a theme colour of teal blue which matches the text in the text box at the lower thirds of the scene helps the audience understand this is following on from the last product showing.
This looks 100% better than the original version and by having the blue a lighter shade it  enables the audience to see it and what it's doing. Some extra features which I added to this were the placing of logos such as the "50% off" in the window as a real time stream of information which is said in the voice over!

The same thing was done to the Video of the nation of shopkeepers.
Original

So above we have a small theme of yellow/gold which looks nice however the time in the top right and the information boxes to the left are all huge and in your face which is distracting! Another point was when the information about "nation" came up nothing else happened in the scene, there wasn't a reaction to finding out this information! A simple zoom in could have done the trick.
Here is the adjusted version with the blue theme and text box again to keep the audience on track which is this showing off it's products!

This is at the same time frame as above, notice the difference in the zoom to show off that this is Nation of shopkeepers and that the is the entrance is there, it's incredible the amount of difference this has made!
Secondly the smaller map and time has had an impact as well, it's opened up the scene and you don't feel squashed in. The nation of shopkeepers information from Google has been adjusted to be slightly smaller and with an entrance so it's more interesting.

Overall the improvements to these clips have had a big impact and flows with the cyber arm footage therefore will make a good trailer!

CoP 3 Practical Robot Arm and Lower Third Text boxes - High Tech

Earlier in this blog (further down the page) I did motion tracking using my arm as a tester with the robot arm which I had made, these results were amazing, however the amount of time it took was far too long!
This lead to a problem, as I wanted to include a person with the CGI robot arm, but with the test of the motion tracking before I thought it would be best for me not to do a motion tracking section because of time constraints. This leads me to change a part of the story and adapt the trailer, so I thought about creating an advert for it with detail about what it is and what does it do?

Straight away I took a photograph for my background which is a plain grey-ish backdrop which contains blue and orange lights.  I can place my robotic arm on top, then add effects to make it look like it's a hologram plus create text boxes with information which the announcer/ speaker will talk about!

The picture above is at the start of the holographic robot arm.  The way I have created this effect is by using a adjustment layer combined with white noise streaks which analog TV's used to produce when there was no signal.  On the adjustment layer by using the "Add" or "difference" mode it can produce different streaks on the original layer, therefore I used "add" because the footage had a lot of small white lines which looks more effective!
Within the scene I have animated the robot arm to rotate and move, to show off it's capabilities as if this was an advert trying to sell it's product.  The reason why I have done it this way was because my research into storytelling.   I looked into a coca-cola advert which tells a story and tries to convince it's audience to buy the drink.  Therefore how am I to convince people to buy this imaginary product?  The answer is BELIEVABILITY!  So what can I use to make it more believable? I decided to add real life facts such as what materials it uses and how it works.
This lead me back to the start of my research!

The link for this video is here

In this video it's showing what the arm can do and it's different modes.  The arm is made of Carbon Fibre a very strong material and also light.  Other links about robot prosthetic arms show they are made of Titanium, a rare metal which is incredibly strong and also light weight!
This means as the speaker talks in my film about the arm which I created it will need to be either be made of carbon fibre or titanium.  I think it will be best to use Titanium because my arm looks very metallic, so I will say its titanium and say that its strong and light weight for everyday use! Convincing the audience that this is a good product for people who have lost their arms!

I need to produce before hand a text box and logo to help the audience understand that this is the same company, "X Gen" which I created and that we aren't switching styles or themes.
For this I thought it would be best to use my blue theme, and use lighter and darker shades of blues to make it stand out more!

As shown above the text is in a teal blue so it stands out and its easily readable for the audience, then by having a chequered dark blue backdrop for the text it adds to the emphasis hopefully this will give the desire of a futuristic company!  I need now to animate this, as if it just appears it will not be affective enough to grab the audiences attention, however it needs to be subtle so that it doesn't draw the audience's attention away from the main focus of the advert!
I decide to animate it like this
(Every 6th frame!)

From above you can see how the text boxes are revealed.  I like this method of slightly animating the outline combined with the classic fade in/out effects as this is effective enough for the audience to notice but not get distracted from the main feature.  Now I need to place this into the scene either at the top or bottom depending on where the main area of 'dead space' is.
(Dead spaces are areas which are not used through the scene and nothing happens, however they are large enough for the audience to notice them and think something might happen in that area!)
I decided to place the text box at the top of the scene.

However In the Image above there is a bit of dead space to the left had side where the blue light is and it seems to be ready to show something which is a major problem as it will distract the audience.
I need to fix this quickly!

I duplicated the text box and put 'Titanium structure' in the dead space to re-enforce the point of what it is made of, additionally this keeps the balance in the scene as the right hand side is dark, therefore isn't much of a problematic dead space!

I am happy with this section as it now shows off the robot arm with some interesting features and information included in the voice over and text boxes.
The next section is my robot eye piece which last time was criticised for having different themes and not staying to a set theme. This will be corrected and also will need to be improved to match the level of VFX used for the robotic arm so they are balanced.

CoP 3 Practical Intro pt.2

Last time I looked at the trailer for The Dark Knight (2008) and found out why it was so powerful and why audiences wanted to watch the rest of the film, It was powerful.
So I need to make a powerful, interesting start
I need to have a striking background which looks appealing but not over the top
For this I decided you use particles built in After Effects (AE)

 As I chose my theme colour to be Blue, I intend to have the start of the particles to be white and changing to blue this will start off the theme!
I have set my CC particle world gravity to 0, so I can have the audiences eye be drawn into the scene plus my title will sit in the centre to have a impact!  With this I should have more impact compared to my last intro.

Here I have built up the background much more, however at this point it will be trial and error to get a correct background as there are many different effects and possible changes to look at to get an effective background which will have a major impact upon the audience.
Later after getting the right particle effect and slight adjustments to the colour this is version 2 background.  Below is using a lot of effects and by having them slightly blurred sections, so that there won't be distractions as the title is shown.

FINAL Version

The layers in order:-
DaOutLine: black edge around the scene to add effects plus keep eyes focused on the centre.
Adjustment Layer 3: The Yellow bar in the middle and making it a orangey colour and fitting it within the scene.
PFall: Particles which fall from above!
MainOF: renderout version on a set of particles
ParticlesT: Third set.
BlackRight_Edge: fades the orange bar on the right hand side as a fade out.
DarkenCentre: self explanatory
Secondary Particles: Background Particles which aren't in focus.
Background: Just Black 1920x1080 size.

Overall I'm happy with how this has turned out.  My knowledge of Colour theory has really helped here as I've used orange and by using a dark blue with a lighter blue as main effects and the Orange as a highlight it has worked!
The next part is to add text to the scene.
As this is the Introduction to my fake company "X Gen" I decided to go for a slogan line about the work they do, since it's cybernetics + future I went for "Designing your future"

So above is the text I'm using which is Trajan twext a plug in text, which I prefer to the other preset texts in After Effects.   The text is 3D, so it gives depth of field for the next effect.

I've never used CC Scatter before on 3D text and it works really well, as a break up from the normal.
I believe this will be good in my scene as it will improve the particle effects in the background.

Putting this all together

By Placing the text under the orange bar layer it's had an effect of making it slightly orange making it stand out on the blue background. Overall I'm happy with this, however this is my own opinion therefore must get must get feedback from peers.  From the feed back on this intro because of the orange light having a bit of animation the text glows and becomes distracting as you read the it.  So I've changed the text by size, colour and position.

From the video above the text is now altered with X Gen above the orange line and is bigger making it the main focus. Following the saying 'Designing Your Future' under the orange line so it breaks the two more effectively.  The CC scatter effect isn't shown off much here but is still used to bring the this title in and out of the scene.

The next section will be the Robot arm section.

Cop3 Practical Intro Pt.1

My first rough attempt of the introduction to my film trailer was a disaster, as it didn't wow my peers during the critical analysis.

This is the clip.

In this I used 3D text and used point lighting to set up a 3 point lighting, so as the title entered the scene it was slowly lit up. This looks nice however it's not breathtaking, also becomes boring as it takes too long and has no impact!
I need to look at some movie introductions and some trailers to see how they got the impact to make the audience to watch the film!
One I have looked at is The Dark Knight (2008)

The trailer starts with non diegetic sound from the character "The Joker" as clips of the "Batman" are shown. The voice over has a serious impact as its about how the "Batman" changed things in Gotham from the first film and about how they are both freaks of the city of Gotham.
The Background music is full of bass beats to have an impact after each sentence by "The Joker"
The second section of the trailer is very dramatic as this is where the action scenes start to grab the audience, so it has the introduction of "The Joker" followed explosions caused by "The Joker" showing that he's the enemy!  This is then followed by what the "Batman" should do by saving Gotham.
The final section is the most interesting as it leaves an impact on the audience, it has batman riding on his motorbike charging at the joker, with the voice over of "Hit me, Hit me, HIT ME!". After "Batman" goes past him and apppears to have crashed, the scene cuts to black with a voice over "Why don't we put a smile on that face of yours" cuts back to "The Joker" turning around (followed by laughter).
Into the title of the film.
Throughout this the background music was powerful and dramatic to reflect what was happening.  In the start of the second section the music was building up with small breaks from the voice overs, another point about the sound is that at the end with the charge at the joker, there is only bass.  Therefore making it epic and memorable.
The title gets a powerful introduction with its music to gain emphasis to the film.

From this, combined with the work I've done I will need to improve my work a lot in order to get an reaction from my audience and make them want to watch the film!

CoP 3 research: Colour in Film

From the comments of my work so far I was asked to use a theme colour to run throughout my film, therefore I looked at a game called Deus Ex:Human Revolution which uses a yellow tint throughout the game!

On this website

Symbolic colours used in film

1. Red – anger, passion, rage, desire, excitement, energy, speed, strength, power, heat, love, aggression, danger, fire, blood, war, violence

2. Pink – love, innocence, healthy, happy, content, romantic, charming, playfulness, soft, delicate, feminine

3. Yellow – wisdom, knowledge, relaxation, joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard

4. Orange – humour, energy, balance, warmth, enthusiasm, vibrant, expansive, flamboyant

5. Green – healing, soothing, perseverance, tenacity, self-awareness, proud, unchanging nature, environment, healthy, good luck, renewal, youth, vigour, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy

6. Blue – faith, spirituality, contentment, loyalty, fulfilment peace, tranquillity, calm, stability, harmony, unity, trust, truth, confidence, conservatism, security, cleanliness, order, sky, water, cold, technology, depression

7. Purple – erotic, royalty, nobility, spirituality, ceremony, mysterious, transformation, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, mourning, power, sensitive, intimacy

8. Brown – materialistic, sensation, earth, home, outdoors, reliability, comfort, endurance, stability, simplicity

9. BLACK – No, power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, anonymity, unhappiness, depth, style, evil, sadness, remorse, anger

10. White – Yes, protection, love, reverence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, birth, winter, snow, good, sterility, marriage (Western cultures), death (Eastern cultures), cold, clinical, sterile

11. Silver – riches, glamorous, distinguished, earthy, natural, sleek, elegant, high-tech

12. Gold – precious, riches, extravagance. warm, wealth, prosperity, grandeur”

Colour Theory.

Before I choose my theme colour, a quick look into the theory of colour will be most valuable because I'll be able to get a better understanding of colour and which colour will compliment my theme and ones which will clash.

I believe that Blue will be the best colour for my film as it relates closely to technology, therefore by looking at a colour wheel created by Issac Newton, I'll be able to tell which colour can be used with my theme and ones which won't.

If I chose Blue, I can use shades roughly related, ether darker, or lighter but could also move into Blue-Greens or Blue-Purples.  If however I use Yellow, being complimentary to the blue, I will need to think about a balance between the blue and the yellow, this colour use is Strikingly used in the film Columbiana (2011). The trailer for this film also uses the blue/yellow theme. click here for trailer!

The Blue/ yellow them alternates from shot to shot.  This is interspersed with high higlights of red - jacket, her lolipop and the man's red shirt.

I will find this most useful when it come to editing my film.

CoP 3 Research: Deus Ex: human revolution

Deus Ex:Human Revolution is a cyberpunk themed role playing game. It is set in the year 2027, where multinational corporations have grown in power beyond the control of national governments.  The game follows Adam Jenson, a security manager at Sarif Industries, a growing biotechnology firm.

Deus Ex game trailer here.

I'm looking at this game because this is where my main inspiration came from for my film trailer.
I absolutely love the cybernetics and human augmentation in this game.  Looking at the storytelling in the game it is interesting as it could easily become a animation film, which shows that at the core of storytelling it's roughly all the same sadly I don't have anything to back up my statement for the dissertation about this point.

On the other hand looking at this for my practical project is useful as most comments from the critical analysis asked for a theme to run through my work so far. Deus Ex uses a yellow tint through the entire game! This I find interesting as it adds to the aesthetics of the game, however in a version of the game you can take off the yellow tint and this is what it looks like!

Above we can see the difference between, the directors cut without the yellow tint and the original game.  The left hand side looks more realistic, however the right is more stylised towards a noir look.
I prefer the right as it has a style which makes it look unique compared to the left, therefore when I choose a theme colour to add to the my film trailer it will have a slight tint to make it look unique and stylised!

I will need to look into colours in film in order to find which would be the best colour to use!