AN UNIVERSITY JOURNEY

How did it go? to be honest I don’t know. Since the brief day I knew I wanted to do something with a meaning, something that would make people think, with a important message, like a campaign. The idea of which message use took a while to arrive, but then I found the WWF campaign that says thath the nature is not recycleble which I think is a very important message and it is also something for which everyone can do something about, this Video is a good example of that (apolagize for the video on Facebook, I didn’t find it somewhere else).

Speaking with a friend of mine about my project, explaining him my idea of people, kids, familis looking at rycicled animals, he gave me the idea of use carton, paper animals. I really like it. (Thinking about it now I could have use different materials shrivelled up, it could be an idea for another project).

As soon as I came back from Switzerland after Easter, I’ve been to the Bristol Zoo to filming with Jack (he’s very good with cameras, he really helped me, but I filmed my stuff by myself under his supervision). I wasn’t sure about what I wanted exactly and I had no idea of how the zoo looked like, so I got as much footage as possible. Once back at uni I looked at the footage to devcide what to use and how to use it. The aquarium shot was the best, empty and dark, it already had its own meaning. I worked on it.

Got the idea, drown the story board, found the kids, booked the studio, filmed. Filming with kids is never easy, and if the kids are your toutors and you film during the weekd close to beadtime, is less easy. We forgot few shot, we forgot few details, we tried to make it as quick as possible and it had its consequence. I work on what I had. 

This has been my second green screen project, the first one wasn’t too bad, but compared to this it was less work. I had a lot of problem with keying out, but not becuase the footage was very bad (except that was a bit dark, that we use a blue light and that the end of the dolly out wasn’t on focous, it was good) but beacuase I’ve very very very slow, I need much more practice on it, I just couldn’t make it look right (Chris keying it out in 5 mins), in the end I did it, but it took me nealy one day for each shot. Once I keying out the green compositing wasnt to difficult as I just wanted the talent in front of the aquarium.

I did a last minute editing with the few shot I did, not proud of it at all, but it is not too bad for the short time I had left.

As like for my last works, my flat mate Simon James wrote the music for this project, I asked him something with piano that reminds the ocean, and not too happy.

The final work is... ok. I’m not happy with it, it’s nothing of what I wanted, but maybe is going to make people think a little bit anyway. I see this project like a very short and previous version of my next work on which I plan to work during the summer.

Has been a very full year. There are a lot of think I want to learn and improve during the summer, I’ll come back in September full of energy, motivation and milions of new ideas.

Nice summer break to everyone!!!

I have a lot of thing missing and not done, I had to do something with I had. I decided to integrate types between the shots. The idea is: the kid is looking at the empty aquarium, the viewer is asked how they imagine the future and an answer is the kids alone using a paper fish becuase the aquarium is empty, there are no animals anymore, there are not gonna be animals in our children future.

For the question I’ve used the typeface Heletica, simple and direct, the meaning is in the word and not in the font. In the type you can see the lighting effect of the water. The words you, your and future are in bold, they are the important things. Future in the first word to grade out, it is litteraly what is gonna dissipiert, the word you is the last one, because you is the person who can do something to change the future.

For the end of the video I used the WWF logo with the type for a living planet. I wanteted the type growing like a plant, the idea of it at least, so I key framed a mask over it. 

The third shot required lots and lots of painting in order to save my talent’s hand. 

The composition of this shot is esactly like the other one, acquariu, light wrap. color grate. The only difference is that this scene has a dolly out which I tracked with mocha and applied to the background. 

Spent another day on a single shot, I’m too slow but at least now I feel more confident in key out that stupid green XD

My keying in this shot is not super perfect, there is a tiny edge and not soft, but I left it like that to see how it looked with the light wrap. 

The background I used is the aquarium filmed at the Bristol Zoo.

Colour corrected to make it less green.

Added and colour corrected the kid, I created a light wrap around him how learn on one of Chris’ tutorial (duplication kid and bg in another comp, mixing the salute and the alpha version of the kid to create a blur edge that created the effect of the light coming from the windows).

With a final overall grade on the shot, this is like it looks now:

My work is going very slow, me and keying need a very long conversation over the summer to get know each other better. 

It is the end of the day and I have the opening shot done! It could needs other little adjustments but for the moment I’m happy with it. 

When we filmed we had the wonderful idea to use a blue light on the kid face as effect of the light coming from the aquarium (he is suppose to face the empty aquarium), in therms of key out the green, the blue light was just a nightmare. I’ve divided the area in 3 different part (face, left arm and right arm).

I was not sure about the edges, I later fixed them applying a Matte Choker on it to make the edges softer and delete that horrible white border. 

For the background I decide to do not use any wall or part of location as the aquarium is suppose to be very dark, I used a simple back bg and I’ve applied to it a Gradient ramp to have the effect of the light coming from the aquarium. 

The water in the aquarium is moving and it creates nice lights reflections that I tried to replicate on the background with a Turbulent Displace.  I also wanted the shot to look like if it filmed from behind the glass, I applied a very glass texture making it softer on the kids face.  

Color color corrected back ground and talent, and added the vignette effect, this is the first-version-look of my opening shot:

I’ve been working on the footage since few days. Choosing the clip to use I found that we missed few shot and didn't thing about few particulars. Fixable but my project is not gonna be perfect before the deadline. This is a very good lesson!!! 

I putted together in premier the shoots I want and tried to change the storyboard to fix the missing shots problem. It is a kind of ok, but the main part, the link that tell the viewer what’s going on, it’s missing and it’s goon be obvious. I’ll try to fix it later. 

Keying out the green is giving me a lot of problem, there is a shot (a dolly out) that its slightly out of focus, but its not to much a problem. I’ve been to speak with Chris, he tried to key my footage, he did it in 5 minutes without problem. Been back to try again, still not working. This thing is really annoying me! 

Garbage mask and tracking of the final shot.

After trying again and again to key out I needed to calm down and I start paint few part like the tracking marks (I should make Jack doing it as that stupid track mark is his and not one of mine) and the horrible black line created by the green cartons and the green carpet (happens).

Painted

I thought that if today I still strangle with the work I’ll shot my video and use only few main shots for the dead line and work on it later this summer. 

Tuesday 28th April. With the help of Jack and Molly I’ve been in the TV Studio filming the kids to add on my project.

Preparetion:

Storyboard on dispolay. 

Cameramen Jack.

Runner Molly. 

I tried to make it straight. 

We all spent the luch break trying to build an origami fish, its not easy how it looks.

Once we finally created the fish we realised that the paper we used was too dark for its purpose, we than made it stronger with some wite tape. 

The idea was to use the zoo map but unfortunately I didn’t had to different maps.

Few test without kids: 

Filming, the talents:

I used the real zoo map for the tropped peace of papaper.

As we had the Sony NEX-FS700EK we played a bit with the slomotion :)

I din’t draw a storyboard before filimng at the Zoo how I was suppose to do becuase I had no idea about what I could find there. I’ve been to the Zoo with my idea in my head and I build it on during the day, shot after shot.

My first ideas was to have a sequence of images of empty zoo places, and put fake animals behind the widows or the caiges and the siluette kids looking at them. Once filmed I realized that what I wanted to do was to complicate with the footage I had. So i decided to use my favorite shot from that day and build my idea on it

At first I wanted to keep the idea of fake animals, in this case fake fish, but it could be very difficult as the footage is moving, and there are a lot of light reflcion going on withe the water. But most important, are the fake fish very effective for the message I want to give? Looking at that empty acquarium I realized that put a kid looking at that empty tank was already more and pawerfull! I then build my idea on it. Speaking with Chris, telling him that at first I didnt want to give up the idea of fake animals, he gave me this idea of make the kids using a fake fish in his ands. Gorgeous! With help from Jack and Molly I wrote down the final storyboard.

So here we are: Establishing shot of the empty acquarium, dolly out and the family (mum and 2 kids) coming in the shot, they look at the water, its empty, the mum get bored, she don’t care, she leave with one of the kids leaving something on the floor. The other kids pic up the peace of peiper/ map of the zoo left from the mum, he build an origami fish, it pretend to make in swim on front of the window. Title. Simply, clear and effective. 

On Wednesday the 22 I’ve been with my classmate Jack at the Bristol Zoo to filming. We carried around all day a Sony NEX-FS700EK, a Canon 5D with a 24-70mm lens, and obviously a tripod. 

With a huge help from Jack, I filmed few empty location I thought to use for my project.

We took the chance to get some slowmotion videos and some amazing picture too:

I started my idea from theese to posters:

There are a lot of issues on this planet and there are a lot of campaign the try to open our eyes to see what is really happening and what are the conseguences of our actions. Most of people doesn’t do anyhing about it just because they thing that they are not involved and that their contribution would not help or change anything. This is the reason because i would like to do something to tell everybody that even a easy thing like recycling, which everybody can do, means a lot. I thnk that The Nature is not Recycable is a very good point of start.

I start thinking about what people care about, what would they make think, what is the thing they would not loose. I then think about kids, the children future and what link them with animals and recicling.

Parents are ones who give the example to their kids, and the kids anre the future. Every adult action will effect the kids future.

People don’t care about what they throw away like if that is not gonna effect them, what if they can actually see that it will?

I had this idea of kids, family to the zoo, but every thing they look at are animals made of carton and rubish, everything they throw away on the way to the zoo. Evey action has its conseguence.

I decide to shape my project on a WWF campaign, here then some of the video for the WWF campaign We are all connected.

Here some of the video I found online that i think are very interesing and insiprational for my project.

Charitywater

Sevenly

Here some of the tauching poster from WWF.

For my FMP I really would like to do something with a meaning, something that would make people thing about something important, for this reason I decided to create a campaign video. For example for a WWF or another company. I start looking for ideas pass trough several posters.

Water campaigns

Environment and planet

It’s filly time for the Final Mejor Project.

What to we have to do? Anything!

FMP: It’s all about you.

The project can be whatever we want, anything that include what learnt this first year. It is an opportunity to advance individual Skills and Abilitiies. The FMP is an opportunety to taking the initiative and personal responability, to be profesional and thinking toward the future. 

It is asked to create a brief by ourfself and to plann every aspect of the chosen creative direction, from concept to screen, to codument pre-production, production and post-production.

Objectives:

- Design my own project

- Utilise resources and hardware/software in the correct manner

- Negotiate concepts and idea with my tutors

- Work from a tight production schedule taht I have planned prior to moving into production

- Work approprately as an individual or within a group

- To apply the knowledge ans skills acquired on the program to date, and produce a piece of work that articulates my ideas effectively usinf the appropirate media.

Assesment Criteria:

- Evidecne and documentation of research 15%

- Evidence of Idea ans Concept Development 20%

- Apporpiriate use of Software/Digital File Organisation 15%

- Demonstration of design skills/filmic language/compositing 50%

Be satisfied with a first year project is always difficult. This project introduced me in Maya, which, how I wrote in one of my post, it’s not one of the friendliest software in the world. I think that when Alias Systems Corporation first developed it, its secret intention was to get mad every 3D artist in the world. (hihi) A side from the “madness“ moments trying to learn how to use this for-me-new software I really enjoyed this project. I find wonderful the fact that I could create everything is in my head with a single software (once i know hot to use it). I’m really intend to improve a lot my skills on this software, I also would like to trying Cinema 4D as I didn’t give it a try in order to have more time to spend on Autodesk Maya. I’m not happy with my final work, there are so many think that need to be fixed. How descrbed in another of my posts, I had a lot of problem on convert a Paint Effect into a Polygon, I tryed to fix it few times but I had to decide if risk to do not render my work in time because I spent all my time trying to fix my work in order to render it in Mental Ray to make it look much better, or, be happy with what I had and have something to submit.

The music I used for my project has been written by Simon James for this project. I asked him to write something that could give the idea of Spring and the same time sincronised with the movements in it.