Final Video

The following video is property of Ben Bunting and Madilyn Davidson 

contains drug scenes.

BSA227 Final shots

Final Compositing shots 

After Effects

Nuke

For my last compositing shot I decided to experiment with both programmes to get a feel for how they work. The results were marginally different with certain aspects causing trouble. After effects camera tracker was harder to use while the Nuke tracker worked smoothly but took a lot of work to get the sign where i wanted it on the track. I'm not sure which i preferred as each had its positive and negative points. Nuke made it very difficult to export while I am more accustomed to after effects so it was easier to navigate around.

Ben and I both worked on sound on the last day to get everything looking how we wanted it to look. Ben was in charge of colour correction as he has more experience then I.

Overall I am happy with how our film turned out both Ben and I have worked very hard on making sure it fits our original vision. Will be released after the 10th November 

BSA206 Drugstore Cowboy Review

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Director: Gus Van Sant

I really liked watching this movie. Drug movies are interesting to me as there are so many ways to tell the story differently. The genre gives the director a chance to be creative with shots and scenes that otherwise would not be possible or seem completely out of place in any other type of movie. The story line was typical and predictable, however, The actors and film made it stand out enough to be an interesting movie. 

Bsa227 Compositing, Frame by frame continues...

I have been working on our rotoscoping shot for the past week and can safely say I am halfway through! not sure if I am a hundred percent satisfied with the result as although the strobe lights do significantly cut down my frame number they make the scene very jumpy and a little hard to read, however, given the time restraint I cannot afford to rotoscope over these frames aswell.

Update BSA 227 Compositing

So time is slowly running out and I still haven't locked down a style for our rotoscope scene. I prefer the look of frame by frame painting but it is taking a lot of time to achieve. all other attempts at shortening the time have produced varying results, some of which I like but none compare to traditional rotoscoping style which I will have to have decided on in the next couple of days if I am to leave enough time to finish the project by November 10th.

I have got my speed down to around 2 minutes per frame and can alter the style to cut down the amount of rotoscoping needed, however I still have over 400 frames to paint. that is 800 minutes or approximately 13 hours if I get each frame done in 2 minutes which technically means I could have this done by the end of the week. I am having issues with Lab times as its difficult to get on the computer and actually spend time painting. I think it is worth the effort to achieve the effect we are after, though my painting skills are not great and will be rushed a little we can alter these with different effects to get the really unique style we are after. I will discuss this option with Ben today as we are tackling sounds also this afternoon.

BSA227 Compositing Begins!

Filming has finished! We lost our main actor due to sickness so instead had Liam help us out for the two days of shooting, not exactly who we type casted but beggars can't be choosers this late into the semester. It was really important for us to finish filming before semester break so I would have enough lab time to work on editing.

I have been working all week on my first compositing shot, I started off first in After effects but was not happy with the result as I could not get the camera tracker to work in my favour and resorted to animating frame by frame. However, it was a good way to get an idea for what I was after and start to learn my way around the programme better:

Next I bought the footage into Nuke. This is probably my fourth time using Nuke and I'm starting to really enjoy it. The nodal based system works for me as I find it easier to organise and follow exactly what part of the shot I am working on. Using an online tutorial I think I have created a look that I am happy with. After some false starts where I lost whole days worth of footage I am on my way to completing our first real fx shot.

The tracking tool in Nuke is also a lot easier to follow and I think wields a much better result then Adobe After Effects.

Final shot 

BSA227 Shoot Day 1

 Day One on Set

We had a really successful first day on set

We had an issue with not very many extras turning up for shoot which made some of the scenes difficult to film.

Josh Clive was our camera man, Ben Bunting directed and I was first AD

We stayed on schedule and were able to finish up by 9:30 as planned.

Dinner break at 6pm. we were too scared to touch the bar lights as it took us a long time to get them set up 

Last shot was taken at 9:15pm ! 

we had a few issues with noise as someone decided to start construction at 9:00 which stretched our film time further 

BSA227 Nuke Tutorial

Nodes:

Keyboard Shortcuts

R = Read node
S= Script Directory
1,2= Change Viewer node
B= Blur
M= Merge node
T= Transform
W= Write node

Colour correction node 

This node is used to correct colour levels

Read node: R

The read node is used for importing files into Nuke

Blur node: B

God rays node

by setting keys on the right hand side you can animate timing easily

The higher the number the further in front the picture is i.e. A1 will be behind A2 

Green screen layers are used using merge and roto functions

BSA206 The Wall

Year: 1979
Director: Alan Parker
Animation Director: Gerald Scarfe
Screenplay: Roger Waters

Review:

I enjoyed watching The Wall. The integration of animation and live action film is an interesting technique that I would like to channel in our compositing film project. The main themes in the film were intense and very thought provoking as they challenged the idea of medias control on the public. I found it interesting how the music of this time challenged hierarchies and to a certain extent made a difference to how a lot of people viewed the world. It is sad to think that since this breakthrough we have gone back to being controlled and manipulated by the media.

BSA227 Personal Tutorial text

I used the tutorial to practice my text animation in After Effects
This is a similar style to how we want our opening credits

BSA 202 Remakes

What remake or reboot of a film is worse than the original?

Hercules (2014)
Director Brett Ratner




What remake or reboot is better than the original?

The Departed (2006)
Martin Scorsese



Remake of Hong Kong film

Internal Affairs (2002)
Director: Andrew Lau & Alan Mak



Is there a film you would like to see a remake of?



Eragon, mainly because the film version was so disappointing. The book is fantastic but the movie let it down. New Actors, new script writers and it would not be hard to best the original.

BSA227 Prop List

The date has been set for filming our film 20th September next week

Ben is organizing our film crew and actors while I am in charge of getting the prop list together

THINGS WE WILL NEED

1. Glass

2. Bed spread/ Tattered 

3. Red pills (neurofen) 

4. Cigarettes (at least 3)

5. petri dish/ ash tray

6. Old TV

7. Bartender outfit

8. Car

9. spray bottle

10. Empty bottles/ beer

11. Signage (Drinking Area)

I am having trouble finding an old TV to use, as an alternative for the montage scene I have considered replacing the TV scene with a cooking scene, maybe frying an egg or turning on a blender.

I have also contacted all the taxi companies but have not received a reply in two weeks, we have to use an ordinary car if we cannot acquire the use of a cab. 

BSA 206 Films 1990's

High concept films were introduced
easily categorized characters
Stylish and Slick Production Styles

Don Simpson

Flashdance
Top Gun


Teenage Comedy became a significant Target Market
e.g.

Porky's
Revenge of the Nerds
Screw Balls

John Hughes
coming of age films

Sixteen Candles
Breakfast Club
Weird Science
Ferris Bueller's Day off

Sequals everywhere

Many sequels were made using the same stories to generate large amounts of income with little creative effort put forth.

Horror

John Carpenters
Halloween (1978)  plenty of sequels
Friday the 13th

Action

Rocky
Terminator
Indiana Jones
Die Hard
Lethal Weapon

Animation 

Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Tron


Has there been a Sequel that is worse then its original film?

Ice Age

vs

Ice Age (2, 3, 4 ... and 5?)

2002

Directors: Carlos Saldanha, Chris Wedge

20th Century Fox Animation

The original Ice Age movie was one of my favorite animated films as a child. I enjoyed the fresh story and dynamic characters that were bought to life. However, as the franchise continued movie after movie got progressively worse. to the point where watching Ice Age Continental Drift was actually physically painful. The films have been targeted towards a very young audience which leaves the older generation bored and unamused with continuous repetition of the same jokes and story line. 

Has there been a sequel that is better then the original? 

Terminator 

vs 

Terminator 2 (Judgement Day)

1991

Director: James Cameron

Although the next sequels did not rate as high Terminator 2 was my favorite out of the trilogy ( I don't include the next two) Better graphics, story line and drama then the original. But the story was always set up to have a sequel.  

BSA 227 Exploding Bodies

After Effects Tutorial

Today we focused on exploding Doug's body using effects including, Lightning, shatter, masking and rainfall.

Original Video

Final Edit 

BSA 206 1976-1980 Animation

Caroline Leaf  
CANADA
The Street (1976)




Sand Animations led on to painting on glass animations
I really like this style and the way the characters personalities really come through effectively.
the visual style is constantly moving and is very interesting to watch as each frame looks like an individual piece of art.

Bruno Bozetto
ITALY
Allegro Non Troppo (1976)



Focuses on different aspects of life using science fiction and specific music.
Mix of live action and animation
The flow from live action to animation is pretty seamless I like the art style used particularly with this cat scene
The music is dramatic and upbeat


Martin Rosen
UK
Watership Down (1978)





Yoram Gross
AUSTRALIA/ POLAND
Dot and the Kangaroo (1997)



2D animation on live action backgrounds
Australian animals and birds


Yuri Norstein
RUSSIA
Tale of Tales (1979)



Visually similar style to Caroline Leaf's The Street
Uses a variety of techniques, mostly cutouts
Different stories linked together reminiscent of human memory

Films that blow your mind (Visual Effects and story lines then and now)

Donnie Darko (2001)
Richard Kelly



Still one of my favourite movies, Donnie Darko was the first movie I had scene that dealt with time travel and parallel universes in a complicated and scientific way. I enjoyed this movie because I could watch it over and over and still find more aspects that added to the plot.

Terminator


The Butterfly Effect


Fight Club (1999)
David Fincher



Fight Club has an extremely interesting story which leaves you not sure at the end, Like Donnie Darko I can watch this multiple times and still pick up random bits that I missed the first time around. the main actors are awesome and the plot twist is mind blowing



The Prestige (2006)
Christopher Nolan



I love this movie as the story is so intense, I also liked how the magic elements were so believable at the time I watched them. When I was younger it was also a little terrifying so the story stuck with me

Shutter Island


Inception


Avatar (2009)
James Cameron



Avatar's Visual effects are beautiful and captivating. They changed everyone's expectations of CGI movies and created a new and refreshed challenging environment for the film industry.

Tutorials BSA 227

Changing colour levels to fit with the environment behind 

match red, blue and green levels with the background colors using curves

Masking dress to get rid of green spill 

Final Video Exports:

BSA 227 Concept Art

Concept Art

As our film is going to be primarily live action we have chosen to do both the concept art as photographs, taken by Ben, showing our chosen actor and the lighting style we intend to use. This first shot is an experiment for scene 5 where Sam is running down the street away from the club. We will use matte painting over the image to show his disorientation.

This scene shows one of our compositing scenes where Sam first reacts to the pill, the eyes will ignite with colour and then dilate similar to scenes in 'Requiem For a Dream'. 

This was an original Photoshop concept of the scene before we had found an actor to play the role.

Story-boarding Cont. BSA227

 Scene 3

Scene three is outside in the drinkers area around big violent humans, I focused more on action lines in the characters, I am finding it easier to draw and am working at a faster pace.

Scene 4

Scene four is going to involve the most post production editing as we need to make the main character seem disorientated with his surroundings using lighting and smoke to mask characters

Scene 5

This scene will include a lot of animated background as Sam leaves the bar feeling disorientated and confused

Scene 6

This last scene will travel through the window if the taxi to discover Sam still sitting in his room staring at the pill.