Recent News in the VFX Industry

The article in the image from 3D Artist magazine

Article found on Pg 106

 talks about how job losses are the result of some VFX companies outsourcing work to cheaper countries. 

The movie 'The Good Dinosaur' which was to be released this year has now been pushed back due to the director Bob Peterson leaving, reasons not mentioned in the article.

http://www.rotoscopers.com/2013/10/26/first-poster-pixars-the-good-dinosaur/

Others say that wages in India are rising so this may not be the case anymore for VFX companies to move their work there, there is also a rise in the number of VFX companies in India without enough artists to compensate for the growth.

I found this topic interesting because I think there is not a problem moving work to other countries as long as it does not compromise with the quality of the work being produced, however, if artists in the other countries are not getting work because it is being moved elsewhere then they are left in a hole which is unfair so I think there needs to be a balance because the work being outsourced to reduce the cost should not be a big factor that affects the loyalty to the other companies workers.

Music

The music I shall be using for my video will come from different songs because I am going to be more playful but picky by cutting and editing songs so I only use the parts that are effective and important.

Most of the foley sounds that I did with my test shots were not used because they didn't work with the video and I had extra foley sounds from final shoot so I used them instead. I am glad I did experiment with collecting the foley sounds and they can used in the future and manipulated to create different effects but it did help me know what other sounds instead I wanted.

I was not sure if I was going to add a background music but watching the video, it does help create a sense of horror or something bad is about to happen so I used a mixture of suspense style music because certain songs were better than others.

I am just referencing the sites of where I got my sounds from, the links are below:


 rain sound: http://www.freesound.org/people/thedapperdan/sounds/199926/   

white noise: http://www.freesound.org/people/theundecided/sounds/165058/


The links below are the sounds I used to create suspense in my video.

ghostly transition: http://www.freesound.org/people/pcruzn/sounds/204819/ 

horror ambience: http://www.freesound.org/people/klankbeeld/sounds/137070/ 

Below are more horror ambience sounds
http://www.freesound.org/people/are16ocean/sounds/144981/

http://www.freesound.org/people/RaspberryTickle/sounds/214161/

I also used the sound of a Tornado (synthesized) which I obtained from the BBC Sound CDs, it was from the Weather category. I thought the reason that would work was because the windy sound of the tornado could help enhance the movement of the ghost in the video which quite jumpy so decreasing and increasing the volume on the sound file really helped create that effect and I think it works so well you wouldn't think it sounded like a tornado, instead it would be the sound that you would associate with if a ghost was present. Also, when ghosts are present they create a chilling atmosphere so the sound helped convey that.

Rain in After Effects

After the final crit on Friday, it was advised that I look into adding more special effects to my video so the idea of rain was suggested and it fit well with the theme of the video, I think it adds a scary effect to it.
The videos above are links to the tutorial I followed to add rain to the opening scene of my video, I chose to follow this tutorial after watching others because it included a car which is in my shot and this was helpful because there were areas where I needed to mask out the car so the falling rain would look realistic.

The tutorial itself was very good, both parts were not long and were easy to follow. There was many processes itself to get the desired effect besides just adding the rainfall effect, fog and drizzle are also part of the whole scene so I definitely learnt a lot there as there are many separate components needed to create the look of rain which in reality looks like its just water. There were layers which were added on top of the different effects such as blurring motion. The sound will bring the scene alive but right now I am very happy with the overall look.

The tutorial also allowed me to tweak the certain parts because the shot I had was a tracking shot so I had to keyframe the mask around the car in the scene, it didn't take long to complete the process.

Below is what the scene looks like with the rain effect, the scene is set at night so the rain shouldn't be very visible so I think it works very well. The scene is really short but adding the rain has enhanced it a lot more.



Rain Scene Intro from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.

Which Looks Better?

Ghost Edit from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.

In the video above, is the first edit of the ghost scene I did where I had Meg get confronted by the ghost after it had been seen. I had problems with making the ghost proportional to the shot as I wanted to make it look like it is coming closer. What I learned is that for a shot like this I shall make it a tracking shot with the camera pulling away which would make the shot more effective. I had to keyframe the shot where the ghost interacts with Meg as if its a step away from her, this was very time consuming because it needed to be smooth so I had to make the masking shape very accurate so when played back it look natural.





Ghost Screen Mist from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.

The video above is Meg edited with a misty effect from another footage I had. I changed the colour of the mist to be more green so it has that ghostly effect, the video is a rough look, I key-framed the mist as it moves to be contained in Meg's body so it looks better in a general sense. I did think about enlarging the mist to create like a barrier around her but it did not look good in my opinion.


Just some screenshots below of the masking shape of the mist, I had to duplicate the masks and place one on Meg's upper body and the other on the lower body.

This process was only time consuming because I had to key-frame the mist for the time that the ghost appears.

Title Sequence

I came across this video from the Youtube channel 'Nightmare Kinetics' when I was researching about title sequences for the intro of my VFX video. I was playing with the idea of creating a symbol that expresses the theme of my video but after the watching the video above it gave me ideas to work with fonts and sound effects to create a title sequence that can be done in the time that I have left and still be good.

I did experiment with the idea of using one of the rough drawings of my concept art in my title sequence but in the time frame I have, I may not be able to create something that I like.

I have been experimenting with how I want the title to look like as you can see below in the image.
I have not yet considered the composition of my title on the screen so the images below just show experimenting with shadow texts in Photoshop and the different fonts I considered to have my title in.
I did download a font based on visually conveying Horror though I found it a bit cliche but I have not discarded the idea.

The font that I really liked was LITHOS PRO because I liked the shape of the letters and felt that their expression was neutral, the other font I liked was the one I downloaded which is BIRDLAND AEROPLANE.

I looked at the Art of Title (http://www.artofthetitle.com/ ) website which has many title sequences from movies/TV shows which I found really helpful as they were all different.

The screenshots above are showing the effect of 'Warp' on the text which I am going to add 'white noise' sound to it to give a scary effect as it stretches. I have kept the font the same for the opening and ending credits, it works well. I downloaded the font style from http://www.dafont.com/birdland-aeroplane.font for free and since I have tested it against other fonts to see what looks best, the font 'Birdland Aeroplane' works well.

Final Video Shoot

From the blogpost on my test shots for the video I mentioned what type of lighting I wanted because it played a very huge part to my story.
I think what made me want an orange/reddish light tone to begin with was because I watched the movie 'The Descent' (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/) and the movie though mostly set in a cave had reddish lighting which I felt helped to evoke the fear factor, though that movie I realised is more of a violent movie and does not include paranormal phenomena.



VFX Test Shot 1 from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.

I have posted two scenes from the video shoot, not edited but they show enough to understand the lighting, which is what I am focusing on in this post.
The bathroom scene is where the character encounters the doppelgänger ghost and the colour theory which my tutor informed me about fits in with the theme. The lighting is a blue/greenish tint and that helps to hint at danger or an unsettling event about to take place.

http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com/colors/Colors.html The link is from a website that talks about colour and what different colours are seen as, even though I know briefly what different colours convey, this website reminds me of some points so I think it was a good topic to look at.
It described one of the colour green's negative traits being conveyed as evil, greedy, and ill and the colour blue's negative traits described as sad, lonely and isolated.
I have stated the negative traits mainly because the theme of my video is not joyful but more scary and fearful.


Bathroom Scene Test from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.

The yellow corridor light coming from the room has effected the scene in the video below, the negative traits with this colour are warning, cautious and ill, these all definitely help set the mood of the scene in the short period.

I was very happy with the turn out of the video shoot, I think the shots I have are done very well and any problems that arise during the editing won't cause a huge problem that can't be tweaked.

Corridor Scene Test from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.


Green Screen Shoot

The green screen shoot went very well. I had Matt Burton who helped me set it up and I mainly needed to shoot Meg for a few minutes for when she appears as a ghost at the end. It was not hard to light up the green screen but it was hard lighting Meg, this is mainly because she was being lit from the bottom to create a creepy ghost effect and enhance the mood. I decided to take many different shots so I would have a variety to edit and play with in After Effects.
Overall, filming the green screen was very quick.

Tracking Shot Analysis

I watched the movie 'The Shining' over the holidays because the one tracking shot of Danny cycling around the  hotel is infamous. I decided to watch the movie to see how it was shot. There are other tracking shots that I actually preferred because it made me think about the speed at which the dolly is tracked because during my test shot which is seen below, the track is moving quicker than the subject and the pace of the scene is not corresponding to the storyline. The pace of the story needs to be slow at the beginning because it is setting a thriller mood so after watching The Shining I am going to shoot the scene with the track dolly much slower because I feel it also subconsciously engages the viewer.
In my video below, the track dolly moves very quickly that it does not give the viewer enough chance to analysis the scene and understand the mood that is being expressed. For the 1minute video to make sense in the short period of time, a slow tracking motion will allow the viewer to understand the set the scene is in.


VFX Test Shot 1 from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.




The steadicam's pace in the shot with Danny mimics the bicycles pace so this fits in well with scene, so when I shoot my scene I need the track dolly's pace to fit in with the action going on in the scene which I think it does in the video below.

The video above consists of tracking with sharp cuts back and forth which make this my favourite dialog scene. I also like how the characters are central on the screen, the overall composition is done really well considering that the camera is constantly moving.
Though my video does not have a dialogue scene with two subjects as my character is depicted as being lonely in her flat.


Below I have posted a clip from the video shoot where I have adjusted the speed of the track dolly and I really like the results. The subject is relaxing so the tracking needs to be slow and not abrupt because I am not trying to indicate that there is anything bad about to happen, I am allowing the lighting to serve that purpose instead in this scene.


Tracking Shot from Munirat Plummer on Vimeo.