Unit 64 - Motion Graphics and Composting essay.

I'm researching about how the filmmakers used the Special Effect (Known as SFX)  I choose the film called 'Hugo' "Hugo is a 2011 3D historical adventure drama film based on Brian Selznick's novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret about a boy who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris."
This film won five Oscars 'Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Sound Editing'

Hugo is Scorsese's first film shot in 3D, of which the filmmaker said "I found 3D to be really interesting, because the actors were more upfront emotionally. Their slightest move, their slightest intention is picked up much more precisely." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_(film)

I'm going to explain all of this photos with SFX methods.

At the start, I can tell that scene is full of CGI objects. My guess is about 10 to 20 3D artists to created each the objects for example, they can make everything like the dust to earth. The 3D artists chose the sky image as 2D object because they make the computer ram's free space for the 3D objects. When The 3D objects' colour did not match other colour then the 3D artists use 'curve tool'. It can adjust the colour to match with other the colour and to make them looked realist. You can find 'Curve tool' in After effect or other SFX maker software. This camera's flying movement was creating by the 3D software in the computer. It's impossible for cameraman to do it on their own skills.

When the camera get closer then you might see the 3D objects with low detail change them into high detail. If the 3D artists put them with high detail from the start. They can cause rendering too long like 11 hours for 1 scene, getting errors or making the camera moving lagging. The steam from the train was creating by the 3D software. They looked unreal if they put cloud clips into it. Because the cloud clip is 2D object so that mean they look like cardboard then the camera move.

When the camera go into low mid air, you can see people walking and steam. It would be hard for the 3D artists/SFX editor see where the steam get light come from. 

 They switch to the light only mode, it help them to see where the light come from and to adjust the light and the steam. After Effect or 3D software can do it.

Some SFX editors used After Effect to remove the green screen background. The people clips follow the camera's movement at same time by using Tracker in After Effect or other matchmoving softwares. You can see blur on the people clips and other 3D objects. I can tell that they use 'Motion blur' when the 3D or 2D objects are very blur if the camera movement  is speed up. They are a bit blur when the camera movement is slow. The people clips are not just front on the layers. Some of them are behind the steam or the people clips.  

You can see the green line on the 3D objects. These many green lines show you that they are high detail. 

When the camera go into the heavy steam. The viewer can't see what is behind the heavy steam. The editor cut it and put 'fade out' effect in. It make the scene 1 fade into scene 2. So this mean it can trick the viewer thinking it is keeping filming all way here from the start. The scene 1 use the camera's fly movement from the comptuer and the scene 2 use the real camera movement on the large crane-car.       

 

 I can tell why the editors cut it into the 2 scenes. Because their computer rams can't handle lots of 3D objects. The scene 2 have lot of 2D objects than 3D objects. If they did not make the 2 scenes then they cause their computer froze.  

 This area is artworks, their sizes are same as kid's playhouse. they try to recreate the shot to match with the famous photo of the train crash. SFX editors adjust the colour and remove the green screen. They put the image of cloud behind the building in the layers.   

 There are two different shots, one main shot use by the professional camera and one small shot use by the action camera known as 'GoPro Hero' camera. They show you what is different between these shots. The small shot show you that green screen is behind the window and the wall behind her.

 When camera turn to her behind. Then the small shot show you the wall is moving away for giving the camera free space to film at her.

Unit 38 Soundtrack Production for the moving image.

Pick 3 different film clips from Youtube.
Analyse how sound is mixed, panning and how it is editing.
Where is panning used?
Which sounds are mixed in?
Has Foley been used?

Children Of Men

Mixed sound
Music from radio, car sound/ engine and people talking. The sounds make you feel that you are in the car.
Panning
for example, the lady point at the car with fire and then the sound pan to forward at the car with fire. You could hear lady shout behind you. The camera keep filming at them by around movement to create the sound panning. You hear the sirens from quite to louder when the police car pass to us.
Foley
Gunshot, window smash, people yelling, blood drop.
Editing

Heat (1994)

Mixed sound
The voices are muted or lower. In the Office sounds are louder by the chairs, desks and computer. The actors are yelling.  The level were mixed on a mixer of sounds in the office.
Panning
The nosy sounds is bit lower is when the camera is not looking at the actors' shooting. But they are louder when the camera is looking at the actors' shooting. The street sounds are louder. There are less dialogue. It's a large space to pan.
Foley
You can hear the bullets hitting on the floor and hitting on the cars' body.
Editing

Paranormal Activity 3 "Toby in Sheet" Scene

Mixed sound
The camera was on the top of the fan.
The fan nosy was create creepy scene. It mixed with the young teenage girl's foot step and the light flicking sound.
Panning
The fan keep move from west to east and then east to west. All the sounds are depending on what the camera see for example, the camera look at the young teenage girl write on the paper with pencil then pencil sounds was bit louder.  
Foley
Pencil sounds, kind of drum when Toby was gone in the sheet.
Editing

LARP: Journal

November 6th:
Richard showed us Superheroes documentary in channel 5. we then talked about real life people and their strange hobbies.

Me and Jonny talked about what kind of documentary that we want to make. Jonny was the one who picked the idea called Larping. I decided to go with his ideas because he was passionate about it and had lots of knowledge.
Jonny showed me what is larping in the website because I had no knowledge. He talked about weapons, costume, game rules, events and friends' hobbies.

November 13th:
Richard gave us little instruction, we had to make a film in between 2 to 3 mins.

Me and Jonny were doing some research about Larping.

I learned that LARP stand for 'LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAY'
Jonny to meet most people who are into Larping action.
Look at history of how it began.

Jonny was making storyboard concepts and showed me what he wanted.

November 20th:

We thought we were using stereotype looking people and stereotype Larp characters.
Me and Jonny had ideas,
a person wearing a hoody (teenager "Chav") wear a costume with a hood. (Assassin)
Dustbin man = High VIX jacket (Barbarian)
Kitchen worker = white coat/hour net (Healer)
Jogger (Archer)
Business man (Knight)

Jonny showed the website called Lorien Trust, it is company who sell weapons, costume, amours and make ups.

We planned to interview Jonny's friends and to film at Larping action.

Pre-production was starting,
I was doing health and safety, Call sheet and Cast list.
Jonny will film at one of the larp event.

November 27th:

 Jonny did a rough storyboard.
I looked for the font and found "Deutsches zierschrift" So I gave the font to Jonny.
Antony was doing shots?
Jonny can get the costumes for next weeks filming.
Jonny will colour the font at home.


December 6th:

Sean gave us a lift by using his mini bus. He took us to 'Hunter's way' road. I set the camera up and checking it. However the problem is the camera was not working with my SD Card 10 class and the tripod was unstable. We went back to York College to get other SD Card 8 class and replaced the tripod with better stable. We went back to 'Hunter's way' again.

I take the role as cameraman and actor.

When we finished the filming so we went back to York college and then we acted in the green screen.

Film Project (Shaun of the Dead) Unit 38

Me and Jonny joined up to make Foley sounds for the film, 'Shaun of the Dead'.

When Jonny was not here, I went outside and I was looking for the sounds. (soft winds and footsteps).
 I made few sounds so far outside. There were problems trying to get the right wind sounds because it was a noisy environment  with sounds like the cars, leaves rustling mixed in with the strong wind. I would not be able to get rid of the extra sounds digitally.

I went inside of York College. I looked for the sounds (footsteps indoor, fan noisy, hitting the wall with the shoes). I went to the small shop called 'Duets'  to use the real fridge. It created the sounds for fridge's opening and closing. However at editing, I could hear there were two people talking behind fridge opening and closing. I decided to remake the sounds. I went to the downstairs because it was quite and empty.   I tried to make a sound like the character's shoes as they hit the roadblock. However during editing, the sound was like a bit echo. I went to the office to get the fan and used it to make a sound like a fan sound. I used my voice to make a sound for Zombie's groan.

Jonny was here, he listened all of the sounds that I made. He gave me a feedback and decided to remake the some sounds that I made. For example, footsteps indoor sounded a bit like a splash. so we used a different flooring and found concrete made a similar sound. We also re recorded the sound when the character trips by using our shoes against the wall outside the college.
Jonny knew a  room which was very quite so we went to that room. Jonny used his voice for 'yelling-running man's' character sound. I made the sound like slipping on the blood by rubbing my shoes on the floor to create the sound. I had a idea and I told Jonny that I used my hand to scratch my head. It created the sound like the character when he scratched his head. I used whistle to create a sound like a car alarm.

At editing, we did not use EQ, Pitch and Reverb because I don't have a skill to do that. I need to learn how to use them. This is something I will do in the future.

We worked well as a team. Jonny and me divide the tasks between us and we listen to each other's views and take on board any positive criticisms.  Jonny can help to fine tune the sounds I have made and that is a good thing to do so we produce some quality work. However, if all of members are here then teamwork would be the best and with good time management we could complete the work earlier.

Cyber-bullies and Swearing videos for police evaluation

We were given a brief by the police, who visited York College's classroom. They wanted each group to make videos which are 2-3 minutes long, and then combine their videos into one.  They are aimed at young children about 12 to 14 years old who are learning about Anti-social behaviour.

My group choice was 'Misuse of Social Media' because I believe most kids have a lack of knowledge about cyber-bullying and new technology. So I used my best skills to make special effects to make this video a big selling point.
My group (Cyber-bullies) were me, Jackie and Naomi. My co-group (Swearing) were Jonny, Regan, Connor and Nyall.

Cyber-bullies

What I did (Pre-production): 
Risk assessment
Script  shot list.
Research, Notes and ideas for anti-social behaviour
Contingency plan

I created the Risk Assessment and Contingency Plan without any problems. When Jackie was not here, I found it a struggle to make the script shot list, so I worked with Naomi to do the storyboard and script. I put lots of my ideas into my Research, Notes and Ideas blog. I wrote about the Text message effect style from Hollyoaks. I researched facts about Cyber-bullies and taglines and then got the idea of how to create the quote.

What I did (Production)
Asst. Director
Cameraman
Camera works
Help other's equipment

Jackie asked me to be 2nd Asst. Director. During filming, I watched how Jackie directed the actress, cameraman and camerawork. After that, I helped Jackie to improve the camerawork. For example, Jackie used the zooming in on the actress in the close up shot without blur background.  I recommended her to use the Canon camera's lens which can use the close up shot with blur background, because I wanted the viewers' focus on the actress' emotion.

Jackie tried to make the camera focus on the actress with her phone on the medium height level. However, I prefer to use very low height level to look up at actress' face beside her phone with soft focus, because I thought it would create tension in the scene.

I chose York College's stair as a location because it showed the character's loneliness as the location looked empty.  I put the camera on the 4th floor to film at the actress walking downstairs. I made the camera pan down slowly as if to follow her out of the building.

What I did (Post-Production)

My role as Editor and SFX.

I edited the clips carefully because I looked for the best scenes' place for adding SFXs (Text messages).

I followed what Jackie wanted; for example, she wanted the text message to look like Apple's green text message. I create Apple's green text message in After Effect, by using Shape tools, colour and Apple's font. After that, I reviewed the text messages effect, and I decided that to make the words shaky and creepy in the text message. I made the text messages move like a fly around the actress for example in the 'downstair scene' and 'York museum scene'. I made the text messages look 3D by using After Effect and then following to actress, for example in 'the corridor scene'

.

Sometimes there were time management problems because I finished my editing role a bit early and the rest of the group were not ready to add the Foley sound, so they had to go out and record the sound earlier than the plan said.

I realise that the next time I film with a group we must copy all the pre-production plan to each member. This will mean we have copies of risk assessments, health and safety rules; scripts, storyboard; script shots and permissions all prepared for the group. Then we will not waste time asking which member did which work.

Communication with the other people was good; they kept in contact with me at all times. 

I think that we completed the police's mission because the videos can be shown to 12 to 14 year old young people, and the message is clear that if you bully him/her it is wrong. It lets them see what can happen to someone who is badly affected by cyber bullying. The film gives them knowledge about cyber bullying.

Swearing

I got the text from Naomi,and she told me that we planned to make a film on Tuesday.
I joined the group to make a film about Swearing. I looked at their pre-production folder and then I was bit confused because some of work was missing, for example the roles list, locations and permission. I was not sure which role I should take and which location we would film at. The storyboard was a good concept, however, I didn't understand what the detail of the story was about. I asked one member of them to explain it and what my role was.

What I did (Production)
Asst. Director
Asst. Cameraman
Camera works
Help other's equipment

During filming, Regan asked me to be Asst Director and Asst. cameraman. Regan took the role as Director and cameraman, so I watched while Regan directed to the actors, cameraman and camerawork. I helped her by adjusting the camera work to improve it. I made sure the camerawork was following the storyboard; for example, I looked at the storyboard and it said that we needed a specific wide shot with bit high height level. However, this camerawork was not my signature's camerawork, so I changed the camerawork from wide shot to close up shot. The wide shot of 3 actors was a bit bland because the background was more detailed than the actors. I chose the close up shot because I wanted the viewers to focus on the main actor's emotion.

The man caught us filming at York Museum Gardens. He told us that he was in charge of this. My group were unaware of the law and didn't have legal permission.

What I did (Post-Production)

My role as Editor.

During editing, I encountered some tricky technique problems. For example, the Nyall scene was shaky when Regan filmed him whilsy walking around him like 360 at the same time. But the bumpy grass made Regan unbalanced. So I added the effect called 'stabilizer' which could remove 'shaky'. 

I addes the 'blue' colour on some scenes to help the viewers to identify two different scenes. (The present scene is normal colour and the future scene is blue)

Communication with my group was quite good; however, Pre-Production was unprepared.

Foley Evaluation Unit 38

Before I was with Jonny, I chose the idea ‘Akira.’ However, Jonny chose the idea Princess Mononoke. So I decided that I would go with his idea because he seemed to have alot of knowledge about medieval history. I think our plan needed to do better because we didn’t write very much about what kind of objects that we need to make sounds. I agreed with 95% of his ideas about making the sound in some ways. We could have done more research into sounds and practiced them more.

When Jonny was ill, I found it hard to make the sounds on my own and with my note taker because I have little knowledge about medieval history and, this made me slow down during editing sounds.  When I let Jonny to take my role as Editor, he doesn’t know about how to use Sony Vegas Pro on Window 7 to edit it He uses Final Cut Pro on Mac. I decided to teach him about it.  Jonny forgets to make sounds with a real bow so we used the elastic band to create the sounds. Some object that we found  hard to find, for example, punch on a big piece of meat for the scene where the man’s arms fly and hit on the tree. We decide to punch/slap on our arms to create the sounds. It worked well.

In real life, I think it would have taken us three days to create all the sound. We would have had to find and buy the equipment to make sounds and have the animation on a big screen to match the sounds to the scenes perfectly.

The part of scene about horses running; I think the sound needs to improve because the sound was a bit too low, slow and pace of beat was wrong.  At first, I uploaded a sound track of horses’ hooves but Gary said, ‘try to do it yourself’. So I used the flat of my hands on my chest to make a galloping sound. It fitted into the scene quite well but I know that, if we had more time we would have improved it. We need to spend longer on researching sounds. For example, by watching more film clips and instructions on Foley sounds from Youtube.

We had no problem from editing however; we could not find special tools to make the sounds echo. We need to research how to do it when we do next project. We could look at yahoo answers or professional advice blogs. 

Research, Notes and ideas for anti-social behavior

Research, Notes and ideas for anti-social behavior

At York College, North Yorkshire police want us to create a video to rise the kids' awareness of Anti-social behaviour. Every group picks different subjects video like Shouting and Swearing, Littering for examples.

Our group choice was 'Misuse of Social Media' because I believe most kids have a lack of knowledge about cyber-bullying. So I used my best skills to make special effects to make this video a big selling point.       

We use this effect “text message” in Hollyoaks style. (Below photos)

 

 

 

Cyber-bullying Info graphic example video:

http://vimeo.com/46912852

I suggest that we don't need to do animation but we use the live actors in this video with full of effects (text message, photos/video uploading and Youtube, Facebook, Twitter theme (Not logo)

We might use the facts about cyber-bullies as taglines
For facts example:

1 Nearly 43% of kids have been bullied online. 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once.
2 70% of students report seeing frequent bullying online.
3 Over 80% of teens use a cell phone regularly, making it the most common medium for cyber bullying.
4 68% of teens agree that cyber bullying is a serious problem.
5 81% of young people think bullying online is easier to get away with than bullying in person.
6 90% of teens who have seen social-media bullying say they have ignored it. 84% have seen others tell cyber bullies to stop.
7 Only 1 in 10 victims will inform a parent or trusted adult of their abuse.
8 Girls are about twice as likely as boys to be victims and perpetrators of cyber bullying.
9 About 58% of kids admit someone has said mean or hurtful things to them online. More than 4 out 10 say 10 it has happened more than once.
11 About 75% have visited a website bashing another student.
12 Bullying victims are 2 to 9 times more likely to consider committing suicide.

At the end, I suggest to use powerful quote like “As we watch this film… A person is cyberbullied every 2 minutes”  This might make a huge impact to young kids. Or  “Don't Stand By - Stand Up!”