Context of Practice Lecture - Communication Theory (Notes)

Passion Pit - Music Videos

Passion Pit - Carried Away from BREWER on Vimeo.

Love this music video for Passion Pit's 'Carried Away'. It's fun and has some nice transitions and montages. It's got a good balance between 'normal' and slightly surreal things and the incorporation of text works well.

An older video of theirs is also one I really like. It's different in tone to the above with a stronger visual style. the ripped paper texture is really effective and combines still images with moving ones. Things like someone ripping of footage to reveal some underneath when they walk works really well.

Animating and Rendering the Ship

Animating the Ship proved more difficult than expected, as I intended the blend shapes to create a certain form of movement, a jerky, pulsating movement. Instead I animated it too fast and it didn't look 'looming'

I also initially chose to animate with the camera as I would be masking out the sky in After Effects leaving the buildings in front. However I decided, since I had designed my ship to glow from below, that I should build the buildings in Maya to get a realistic reflection. This probably wasn't the best idea, as it took a lot longer than expected and could probably have been achieved to an extent in After Effects in a quicker time span. Making sure the camera was at exactly the right angles for the buildings to fit the plate image was a large hassle for me. However once built it allowed me to animate the ship around it, casting shadows and reflections.

By creating multiple render passes I have hopefully more control over the finished result once I import the footage into After Effects. These render passes included the reflection of the ship on the buildings, and also shadows (amongst others). I made a few mistakes whilst rendering. Initially for one scene I accidentally zoomed the camera out. Then I discovered I had also been rendering at a low quality (instead of Professional). This wasn't welcome news at it has meant losing a few hours for nothing. I have since rendered out some aspects at a much higher quality (such as the colour/reflection pass of the ship), however I will see how the quality Shadow pass looks in After Effects, as with settings such as gaussian blur and altering the transparency it may not be noticeable. 

Filming (Part 2) - Greenscreening

For the second Green-screening session we worked in groups dependent on which actor we were using, in my case I was with the group working with Jeff. It was a successful day and we worked with ease as a team, having enough time and people to shoot each others individual shots. Luckily Siobhan, who I planned to be my alien, was in our group anyway, so once she had directed and shot our footage she was free for me to paint whilst others shot their footage.

I'm happy with the end result of the alien, Siobhan gave a great performance and having her as the alien on set made it easier to a) position shots with Jeff - for example figuring out her eye-line etc. and b) get a more realistic performance and interaction from Jeff. It was useful having a storyboard on set, as I was able to mimic shots as well as improve them. My concept has made it's way into the footage which I take as a success. 

Lighting the scene, with an environment in mind, was a little tricky as it was important to keep the green screen as flatly lit as possible. I wanted quite shadowy lighting and this was managed by mainly lighting one side of the scene. Hopefully this will transfer once I've created my environment. When testing whether the green screen keys I have found it works quite well, despite the slightly green reflection on Siobhan's face.

I'd like to do more shoots like this, working as a team on a large scale, especially with extra props and perhaps a set, as though the green screen is useful for this module it limits the creativity behind the camera, as we have to consider the what will be composited and how the setting will look. It's refreshing to step away from the computers and create something with other people and that you can physically see and manipulate in real-life. I hope by having a 'real-life' alien I achieve a little bit of thickness to my film and that it doesn't come across as tacky.

Once I'd gathered the footage from this shoot I watched through and noted the pros and cons of each for quick reference when editing in Final Cut. 

Context of Practice Lecture - Globalisation, Sustainability and The Media (Notes)

Filming (Part 1) - Outside and practice Greenscreen

Our first day of filming focused on all the outside pre-abduction footage. This was done as a full class under the guidance of Annabeth and Matt. There was a lot to get through during the shoot, as we had multiple actors, however after a few dry runs we seemed to be able to get through it quite quickly. We ran into a couple of problems, due to the fact we were filming at the front of college, such as people not involved walking past during the 'run away' moments. However we managed to get most of the shots we needed, including the green screen shot and all worked quite well together. I really enjoyed this day of shooting, finding it liberating to work away from the computer studio and create real performances instead of relying too heavily on animation etc. I'd like to do more shoots like this and hopefully will in future projects.

It was quite hard keeping continuity constant since there were a range of different shots with different actors. When it has come to editing the footage there are certain aspects that have made it difficult to use certain clips, such as my actor Jeff turning around once everyone has gone (meaning I can't have people running past her in another angle).

We were also introduced to using the green screen as a large group. However the footage we (everyone using Jeff as an actor) filmed isn't really usable since her fringe is over the wrong side of her face (this was only noticed in the edit). We were able to re-shoot on the full green screening day however, which also allowed us to have our own specified performances.

Below is the first quick rough edit I created just to get a sense of timing and story, it's incredibly basic and I've since made more edits and cuts which I will hopefully blog about later.

I'd have liked a little bit more movement in the initial shots though understand that it would have made adding the ship in harder. If I were to re-shoot I'd try a few more hand held shots in order to get a bit more kinetic energy to the camera, to mimic the energy and 'fear' of people running away.

Power to the Pixels Exhibition

In December our course held an exhibition of our work for the 'Game Art and Machinima' Module we had just completed.


Though I see the positives with holding this exhibition - it gave us our first chance to display our work 'professionally' and organise things as a whole class, I didn't feel comfortable exhibiting our work.

I personally didn't think the quality and amount of work shown warranted an exhibition. To an outside party, someone who is unaware of the processes used in this module (Maya, Unity), I can imagine the finally showreel to have been a little disappointing. Though I realise it was the intention of the exhibition to illustrate the processes and explain to the audience the stages taken to reach the finished product, I think our work for this module is hard to be appreciated without having a knowledge of the limitations animating in Unity etc, creates.

Our audience mainly consisted of friends and family, I think in future we should perhaps reconsider the location and advertising of a show like this in order to attract a wider audience, as there were difficulties finding the area etc. Having an exhibition in a place with heavier footfall may have attracted more attention. That said, if it is more beneficial for us to target a specific audience, such as people working in the industry etc, then location may not be as important as word of mouth and invitations - creating a buzz! For future exhibitions we would perhaps benefit from having a little more time to prepare and advertise, as we had barely finished the module before having to show it.

If we are to have another exhibition I think it would be best after we have produced individual work where we have focused on our own specialisms or interests, then we would hopefully have created work we are proud of that is of a good quality and that makes us want to explain and show to people.

The 'Spaceship' - Designs and Building

 When refining my designs I tried to give the Ship a bit more form by roughly echoing the silhouette of the face of my alien.

Modelling

Creating the 'Inside Lave type glow'

Texturing

Though meant to be grey and brown etc. the colours for the ship are at risk of looking washed out or incredibly flat when rendered and put with my footage. I am still experimenting with Lighting and Rendering in order to achieve an interesting look to the ship whilst also 'fitting it in' with the scene.

Blend shapes 

I plan for the ship to have a jerky, blocky movement (that mimics it's design) so have created a few blend shapes to help this. When the ship moves I will be able to shift some of the blocky mesh to (hopefully) give the ship a slightly organic presence - instead of just floating into frame.

Context of Practice Lecture - Celebrity Culture (Notes)

Context of Practice Lecture - Cities and Film (Notes)

Vanilla sky is an odd film but has an interesting opening, especially when regarding Cities in film. It shows New York completely devoid of people and gives a sense of isolation due to it's unnatural state. This is interesting as it suggests the isolation of a city exists constantly with or without people, and perhaps is perpetuated and enhanced through the buildings themselves.

Context of Practice Lecture - Panopticism (Notes and thoughts)

The concept of Panopticism, and a tyrannical society is used a lot in media content, for example George Orwelll's Nineteen Eighty-Four takes this idea very seriously and creates a world in which people are, or are under threat of, being constantly watched. Though published in 1949 the content is even more relatable in todays culture and therefore discussed at length and in different ways. The band Muse's album 'The Resistance', especially the song Resistance, is almost a soundtrack to the book and fixates on the idea of 'them', the 'fat cats' and us.

However there are perhaps less serious uses of this concept in media, for example the show 'Big Brother', though taken from Orwell, was used for entertainment and fun despite claiming to be a 'social experiment', obviously not taking the warnings the book demonstrates to heart.

Spaceship Initial Moodboards

 I didn't want my 'space-ship' to look too cliche - and wanted it to resemble the alien in some way (though without it being blatant - such as it being a giant camera). I tried to simplify things to start with and decided the key shapes were squares and circles. So a 'blocky' lump of a ship seemed quite relevant.













Since my alien was 'live action' I haven't had a chance to demonstrate using blend shapes in Maya, so will have to incorporate this into my ship design. The blocky nature of my initial ship ideas reminds me of the below advert and I may try incorporate that sort of 'morphing' movement into my ship. (Blocks growing expanding etc)



Rough sketches - ship ideas:

Colouring the Mask and Facepainting!

 I initially coloured the mask whilst referencing my concept art and comparing colours to the face paint blended on my arm. However once I tested the face paint on my face I realised the original colours were far too muddy and wouldn't stand out as 'alien' leading to me brightening the overall colour scheme of the mask to a stronger bolder image.

By having stripes in my design and in the 'texture' of the mask it wasn't too important for the face paint to be applied smoothly, and allowed me the freedom to use brushes to add base colours as well as detail.

The test run on Siobhan's face took roughly 20-30 minutes as we were both getting used to the face paint being applied. This time dropped on the actual day of shooting. By testing the face paint and the mask I could alter the colours to make sure they complimented each other. After this final test I added more yellow to the mask and gave it a slightly stripier texture, as well as adding covers to hide the ears.

Alien Storyboard

Though half of our short is storyboarded for us, the second half is left to us to determine. With just a minute of time to fill (and half of that filled with outside footage already) I decided to have a simple 'reveal' of my alien and a brief interaction with the abductee.

Since my Alien is Siobhan dressed up it was important I had established every shot for the day of shooting, to save time and hopefully achieve the best results. As you can see in this storyboard the key shots are vaguely outlined but I left room for experimentation (such as using the dolly and the last shot etc.) Having the storyboard with me whilst shooting proved very useful and allowed me to explain the framing I wanted and theme I was going for to the rest of the crew.

Building the Alien Mask