C. Holmes

This week we were introduced to the green screen room. Which, I have to say, was a lot of fun. We got into groups and had to create various poses to essentially mess with. The first pose my group decided on was the raptor scene from Jurassic World, and we really went for it, or I did, as you can see from the picture above. I think I’m definitely going to be using the room for any projects, whether they be personal or not, because I think it’ll be interesting to see the finished results.

GUEST: Lola Post

Yes, you read that right. This week, the lovely lovely year two’s decided to treat us with such a classic film. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip. 

Personally, I don’t mind kids films. Because this is what Alvin and the Chipmunks is. It’s a kids film. My course and I are not the right demographic, it’s not targeted at our age category so it’s no wonder most of us held distain for it. For anyone that doesn’t know who Alvin and the Chipmunks are, well, let me put it simply. Three chipmunks called Alvin, Theodore and Simon. That can talk...and sing. That’s basically the premise of each film, and whatever trouble they get themselves into. 

Anyway, moving onto the actual film. I admit, I may have enjoyed it a little. It brought back the memories of when I was a child, and initially when I watched the first Alvin and the Chipmunks. But the effects were more CGI than anything, with most of the visuals coming from the chipmunks themselves. There was nothing really effects wise that screamed out to me, as most of what was in the film was merely just editing magic and animation. As for how it looked though, it looked alright. The film clearly had a high budget as the detail in the chipmunks was high quality, but you can tell that they’re easily placed into a shot. The film had a lot of low angle shots, mainly the floor, and big open spaces with random objects placed in the middle for the chipmunks to stand on. There were few scenes where the chipmunks and a real life character actually interact with each other, it’s mainly one camera looking at the chipmunks then cut to the actor when they have dialogue. Though the few scenes they do interact looked almost out of place; especially at the end of the film where they all climb on Dave. Usually when someone is poking your face, your skin reacts, but with that scene, the actor’s face just stayed the same and there was no real indication that these characters were actually interacting with each other. 

What is there to say about this film? To start off, what?? This left me more confused than at the end of Ex_Machina. Leaving your audience for their own interpretation of events is something that I’m not particularly a fan of. Not since watching this. I honestly have no idea how to sum this film up to someone who hasn’t seen it. 2001 A Space Odyssey is a science fiction film set in space (if the title didn’t give it away) that follows an array of characters and their journey as they try to uncover the intentions of a mysterious black rectangle. Not as hard as I first thought, but for those who have seen it know that the whole film is like three smushed together. 

Honestly, if you couldn’t tell by now, I do not like this film. First off, the story is so slow. It may be because films nowadays are fast paced, but this film starts off so slow. They put such an emphasis on the location, that it’s a good five minutes before we’re introduced to any form of character. When the film finally focuses on space, they show such long shots that the film seemingly uses them to either fill time or emphasise a point. 

The visuals though were great. Space was portrayed as vast and dark, and unknown. This was only emphasised more in certain scenes, especially when one of the astronauts goes out into space to fix the ship. The focus on the character’s breathing relates to this sense that there is nothing else out there with him. It’s the only thing we’re (the audience) is hearing because that’s all we can hear. It’s like that quote from the first Alien film: “In space no one can hear you scream.” But moving back to the visuals, you can tell that a lot of it was matte painting, especially within the first part of the film with the landscape. It’s clearly shot in a studio with actors in gorilla suits. But what I personally liked was how they portrayed space and how the spaceships moved. They used models to create that effect, like nowadays it would be CGI. 

The ending is what truly confused me. I have no idea what happened, but from what I gather he found the Monolith and turned into a space baby? It’s open to interpretation, but one of my classmates told us that he found something online that said he was breaking the fourth wall. I don’t know, it felt like it was breaking the fourth wall, it was colour trip. 

This week I was introduced to the term ‘dailies’ i.e get ready to get roasted. Dailies are used for everyone to show progress in their work, and for them to receive feedback and suggestions on how to improve. These sessions are used within the VFX industry and are something I’m going to have to get used to. I have to be honest, I’m not a big fan of going up and presenting my work, I feel exposed being right at the front. But knowing that everyone else is going to get “roasted” too made a little bit more easier to bear. 

Overall my feedback wasn’t actually that bad. The work I had to show was..in my own words, feeble. But what repeated itself was that I describe things too much? What I mean is that I give an explanation but it isn’t opinionated, it’s just blurting facts. So in future I’m definitely going to be giving my own opinion more, analysing how I’m going to improve in the work I’m doing and how it’s going to benefit me. 

GUEST: Hayes-Davidson

This week we had a visit from Hayes-Davidson. Hayes-Davison is a architectural visualisation company that, in their own words ‘We visualise unbuilt architecture using technology and artistry. Our clients are architects, developers, planners and city authorities. We understand how buildings are perceived and we know how people will react to images.’ [x]  

Founded in 1989, HD focuses on learning and developing, with their aim to make images as beautiful and realistic as possible. I enjoyed their visit, it was interesting, not something I personally took an interest to career wise but the work that they do was interesting. The tips they gave us were beneficial and relate to other fields within the industry.

Visualisation –– Imperfections added to images to make them more real

This week I learnt about Howard Gardner and his ‘Five Minds of the Future’ and the ‘Eight Intelligences’ 

The Disciplinary Mind: The mastery of major schools of thought, including science, mathematics, and history. At least one professional craft. 

The Synthesising Mind: The ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to others. 

The Creating Mind: The capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions, and phenomena.

The Respectful Mind: Awareness of and appreciation for differences among human beings and human groups. 

The Ethical Mind: Fulfilment of one’s responsibilities ad a worker and as a citizen.

Reading through these ‘five minds’ non of these really apply to me, but if I had to choose then The Creating Mind is the closest to what I am. 

Logical / Mathematics: Organisational, good at logical thinking, mathematics intelligence. 

Verbal / Linguistic: Good at poems, reading and writing, good at storytelling. Good at learning new languages. 

Interpersonal: Understanding people’s emotions. Motivate other people, communicate well with people. Empathetic. 

Body / Kinaesthetic: Good at handling and moving your own body. Dancers, actors, sports players.

Musical: Able to interpret sounds, rhythm. Play an instrument. 

Visual / Spatial: Seeing in your mind’s eye. How well can you read a map? Can you visualise a maze? 

Intrapersonal: How you understand yourself. How well can you control yourself? Your strength and your weaknesses. 

Naturalistic: Hunters, fishermen, chefs. Biological scientists. In tune with nature.

Honestly? I think just eight intelligences is rubbish. There are so many people living on Earth, we can’t categorise them all into eight sections. Everyone is different, and looking at this list I don’t see me. I’m not good at poems, I’m not a biological scientist. Not only that, some probably fit into more than one category. VFX artists, basing only on these eight intelligences, I’d personally say they’d fit into visual. Only because you have to visualise a scene, how you want your work to look, or how you think it should look. But then they could also fall into logical. The reason for that is because you have to be good at logical thinking, and organising yourself around the long hours of work that is needed.

GUEST: Mike Ellis

The first guest lecturer this week was Mike Ellis. He’s worked on films such as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Cloverfield and Prince of Persia, the latter of which he showed us the breakdown for. I found his talk interesting, and I particularly enjoyed the rough 3D scenes from Prince of Persia that looked like they belonged in an early 2000 game. He also explained on set data: 

Camera Information –– Position, lens size, focus and aperture. 

Accurate measurement of the set

Photography of set –– Reference

Photography of set –– Texture acquisition, HDR images

Environment lighting pass

Colour reference chart 

GUEST: Josh Parks

Find two images, one of a landscape shot during the day and one of just the night sky. With the landscape image selected, reduce the saturation using the hue and saturation tool. Clicking the drop down button in that window, you can change the colour of what you adjust. Take the red out of the image more than anything else, as the darker it gets, the colder it gets. Don’t take all the colour out as it’ll obviously be fake. Lower the brightness down, and adjust the contrast layer until the image looks like a night setting.

Next, sky replacement. Switch off the previous layers so we’re just left with the original image. Place your night sky image into the scene. Adjust/size it make it fit over the day sky. Double click the new image, and you’ll be given a new window. On the first drop down, change the blend setting to blue. To give more subtly to the image, press alt on the slider and the adjust it so that the night sky image replaces the blue day time.

(Optional: Add a matte to the night sky image. Choosing the paint tool with a decent size brush, the colour selected black, you can paint over parts of the image that you don’t want to contain the night sky.)

This week we were introduced to the burn tool. Though having minor experience with it before, it isn’t exactly a tool I would particularly use on my work. Not until now anyway. We were given a screenshot from Interstellar (as shown above) and went through how we could use the burn tool to essentially remove things from the picture.

Process: Select the burn tool at the side. Hold down alt, and then click onto a part of the image you wish to clone. Adjust the softness and the hardness of the brush so that the cloning process comes out a lot smoother.

It took me a while to get used to it but after I felt confident that I was doing an okay job, I had fun with it. The Interstellar image was fun to experiment with, especially since the floor was a little tricky to do without constantly repeating yourself. We were given another image (shown below) of a town. Now somewhat knowledgeable with the tool, I didn't have any trouble with removing the people. 

Stretch and Explore

Express

Developing Craft

Envision

Understand Community 

Observe 

Engage and Persist

Reflect

1. Stretch and Explore

I think what this means is basically going out of your comfort zone. Explore different methods out there, find something that works but don’t be scared to try things that could actually be more beneficial for you. Go to workshops, use new software and equipment. Go out of your way to use tools that you wouldn’t normally use. How else are you going to learn? 

2. Express

I had a little trouble with this one, but personally I believe it means expressing yourself. How do you express yourself? Is it through your work? How else can you express yourself? Express yourself in a way that other people will understand, that will admire. 

3. Develop Craft

It’s fairly obvious that no one will get anywhere in life without developing skills. It’s a fundamental need to survive. So, develop skills that you already have. Push your knowledge, and improve yourself. Progression is a good thing, don’t be scared and don’t be scared to develop your own skill. 

4. Envision

Envision how you want things to look. Is it visually appealing to you? How do you plan to do make it so? Envision yourself planning these things, and you’ll be close to completing it too. 

5. Understand Community 

Having an understanding of what other people do within the industry. It’s not only respectful, but it allows you the chance to make connections with these people that are in the industry. Link in with them because you never know, they might just help you get a job. 

6. Observe

Observe everything. Observe how VFX is made. Watch breakdowns of films, observe how different industries use different software, and different methods. Observing other people and how they work will greatly benefit you when and if you get into the industry. 

7. Engage and Persist

Again with this one, I got a little stuck. This is my own personal opinion of what this means, may not be true, but it’s what I’ll stick with. Engage yourself in what you’re doing. If you truly want a career in the VFX industry then engage in the work you’re doing. Distractions are everywhere now, especially with technology an the internet, but persevere through it. If you really want it, and you really want to do the best of your abilities then do it. 

8. Reflect

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A new addition to the film club this week (though not officially) was the film Hugo. The film is based on the book 'The Invention of Hugo Cabret' by author Brian Selznick, which follows a young boy named Hugo (Asa Butterfield) and his life living inside a train station. As the story progresses we're introduced to other main characters such as Georges Méliès himself (Ben Kingsley) and an array of historical references, which of course was one of the reasons as to why we watched it; with the relevance the film has to Georges Méliès and his work on early cinema. 

There are numerous historical references within Hugo, the main one being Georges Méliès. The film tells the story of his life, though the story's narrative led to a rather happier ending than it did in real life, most of what was told in Hugo was correct. Méliès was a filmmaker, originally a stage magician, but he became interested in film after seeing a demonstration of the Lumière brothers' camera. After they wouldn't sell him one, Méliès built his own and eventually started his own film company where he produced over 500 films. It was due to bad investments, and the war that led to his company collapsing and what pushed Méliès into burning most of his films and props. Méliès then vanished, and was later found working as a toy salesman at the Montparnasse train station in Paris. He lived out the remainder of his life there and later died of cancer in 1938. 

This week we took a trip to Norwich’s castle. 

The main purpose of our visit was to look at Rayleigh scattering. Rayleigh scattering basically refers to the scattering of light, and what makes the blue sky well...blue. 

What is a pixel? A pixel is a single point in a digital image. Short for Picture Element ( Pic X El ) pixels are what make up images, and depending on the quality and the size of the image, also depends on how many pixels are actually there creating what we see. 

There are currently 256 shades the pixel can hold, ranging from black to white. Originally early days computers could only manage 1 BIT (Binary Digit) and so the resolution of the images weren’t as focused and good a quality as it is now. 2 BITs meant that the computer memory could display double the number of shades, and so at 2 BITs, though not great, it doubled the amount of colour that was available. 

2 BITs = 4 shades

3 BITs = 8 shades

4 BITs = 16 shades

5 BITs = 32 shades

6 BITs = 64 shades

7 BITs = 128 shades

8 BITs = 256 shades

Each pixel can also have three channels = red, green and blue. 

8 BITs: 

256 shades of red

256 shades of green

256 shades of blue

256x256x256= 16.777 million possible colours! 

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