Leanne Stone
Year1 FMP
experimental
camera practice
Through my films, I have learnt a lot about camera angles regarding how different shots work and what they show for the audience. This includes the 180 rule, rule of thirds and the different kind of shots (medium, close-up, wide, establishing etc). I wanted to have a quick mess around also with my camera settings. I won't know how this has properly turned out until I get to view the photos on screen. However I feel this will tell me what I need to look at for actually filming my FMP.
The first thing I knew I wanted to experiment with is the fisheye ball I will be using for the glowing energy ball in my garden. When doing this I realised I need to pay attention to what is reflecting in the ball, this could both be a good chance for some interesting shots when the character reaches for the ball but also difficult in making sure I do not get any reflections of me recording. The shot in the middle is to practice the blast effect on, seeing if this angle works when reaching to grab the ball. I need to make sure that when recording this I have a wide shot so that I can use the wiggle effect to create a more impactful blast. When doing this I used it as an opportunity to experiment with the flash being on and the flash being off. Obviously as I am recording at night this will be different then but that experiment will be more effective when looking at lighting. I did realise with the flash that you can see the highlights on the grass better, it is a lot more intricate and personal. Also the ball becomes more see-through, revealing more of the scene. For any mystery scenes, there should be less lighting over the entire screen. I want to experiment with lighting more in depth which I will do later on.
The images were me experimenting with the rule of thirds and how each position in frame looks and making sure I can confidently focus to these positions confidently. I then experimented with actually filming someone coming into one of the thirds off to left to practice someone coming into focus. This was a lot harder and feel I need to improve on this as this was still quite out of focus when doing this practice. I also took various shots for shot practice including headshots, wide and close-up shots. This way I could properly see the proportions and how this particular camera focuses.
To the left is a video of me first trying out doing a moving walking shot. This is an image I feel with a small silence will be a lot better at night to create a mystery effect. I need to think about how to get the camera held steadier and in what way is the best way to start following my character as they walk. I also need to think more about having a wider shot so the character doesn't take as much space in the frame. This needs develop, especially with lighting but once done will work well with the movement.
Above are two shots I wanted to practice and see how they came out. I have always thought getting a close-up of the feet is a personal and intimate way to build up where the character is going. This really shows how fast the character is going, further building the mood and emotion of the character. A slow step out really highlights the nervousness of a character. However the take I did of the feet here, I was not completely happy with. This is because the focus was not exactly what I hoped for or wanted. However looking to the left, I wanted to see if a shot from the POV from the energy ball being grabbed would be a good idea. I liked the reach out to the camera acting as the ball. This will provide a better perspective when the ball lands. I can switch between different perspectives of the ball.
When recording my last film the lack of focus of my phone and reflection, messed with the VFX shot so I therefore wanted to record a few shots making sure it was in focus and you couldn't see anything behind the scenes.
Overall, I am quite happy with how this small camera theory session turned out. I feel I had improved and can see this as I become more experimental in my shots. I think my main takeaway from this is to really focus on the lighting aspect and I feel the angles will come along with it. Also that focus is extremely important and although I can confidently focus still images, I should try to practice this further with moving pictures on screen. I am happy that I decided to try some different shots as looking at these I feel I have definitely made progress.
When experimenting with lighting, I used a fish eye to see if this is what I would use when doing the flash forward. I like this lens as it creates a more clueless environment and with a darker background and effective lighting could really add to a more dramatic recording.
experimenting with lighting
Before coming to filming I want to practice what I am going to do about lighting. This is particularly as I have a new reflector which I want to see the effects of and also because I will be recording at night, and therefore am not 100% on how to make effect lighting. I want to experiment with the effects I can create here.
daytime
After getting a new reflector, I wanted to experiment with the effects of it in the sun. Below are the results I got from using the silver and gold reflectors.
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I tried out three different lighting shots here. First, I found the direction of the sun and pointed my camera so I could compare the bounce lighting. The first shows the natural lighting without any extra lighting. This is quite bland and dull, I wasn't happy with this lighting as there is no depth. In the middle is using the silver bounce lighting, this gives a better light to the scene with a cooler effect, however amplifying the sun a little better. Finally I tested using the golden bounce lighting, this was by far my favourite. This really lit up my scene and showed great depth in my character. I think I'll be using the golden filter a lot more as I like the depth and the warmth it creates in the scene. I was glad I tested this out now as I know to use this for the day I film. Overall I am very happy with the outcome of the golden filter.
nightime
The first thing I wanted to do was go outside with a strobe light and see if I can portray the ball creating the lighting in someway. I started with the light towards the back corner in my garden as I found the light to be every bright, however directionally this didn't work as it would have proved quite an inconvenient prop when recording, due to it being right in a obvious part of the garden. I also feel the direction would be very obvious when it comes to shadows of my character. Although this was okay I wanted to try a different approach.
Therefore, I moved the strobe to beside the ball, using a step ladder to increase it's height. This way it was towering over and shining as much as possible directly down on the ball. I feel this was my best bet into making it feel as if the light was coming from the ball. The only downside of this being that I would have to decrease my filming zone to the right side of my garden which is okay due to the 180 rule however would be something I need to consider when storyboarding my film.
To actually practice filming with the strobe light, I got my sister to come out and be an actor for me, I got her to do some basic shots that I will more than likely be using in my film. Such as her walking past the camera, through the living room or off the patio. I found the lighting to appear different when recording as to taking a photo, due to the focus needing to consistent. The one thing I did notice when looking back at the footage is that there is a very strong light coming from the left, which is the strobe. This restricts where I can film a lot more than I thought and draws attention to that one spot. I feel it becomes obvious where the lighting is coming from.
I felt the light was very bright and therefore go gaffa tape and after experimenting with where to put it, put it in the centre which greatly reduced the light, giving a more mysterious effect. I feel this will be the best way to portray this lighting as it's just the right brightness to make you feel as if the ball is actually glowing. I think this is my preferred lighting. I quickly experimented with the reflectors and found it didn't do much with the artificial light.
I then took the lighting equipment upstairs and experimented with this, I first tried with the lighting in my room, this includes the LED lights and light by the side of my bed. However these didn't set the ton I was looking for. Therefore I plugged in the strobe and put the tape back over the centre to reduce the brightness. I then pointed this towards the window to allow the lighting to bounce into the room. This gives the effect that the lighting comes from the outside light in the town.
I found the strobe light creating a cool blue effect, and wanted to see if here the reflectors would create a better tone to the room. Therefore I used the golden side to the reflector in front of the light and it created a warmer tone to the room, making a more believable window lighting to the room. I preferred this lighting to the cooler blue. I think this is the lighting I want to use when filming the room in here.
foley + sound experiments
Part of what I looked into in my Secondary research was how to create better foley, the biggest take I got from this for unordinary sounds was to record the unthinkable, therefore I will be consciously looking out for sounds I wouldn't normally take notice of. I want to log what I have found and learnt here.
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The first couple of noises were machines I heard going off around my house. I heard both the laundry and washing machine and felt maybe there are small parts in them that could be good to create that sound of mystical energy when my item comes from the sky. I would layer these with some other noises ideally to create a thick energy like sound.
I realised the sound of the cooker creates a nice energy sound if layered with sounds like the others from the washing machine. I thought having this as an undertone would be effective.
Above is my recording of the ambience outside in my garden of the pond at night. This will be where I am recording at night and therefore wanted to see how good the recording came out. I was worried it might not be as prominent as I hoped however the sound of the pond filter helps to add to the sound a lot. I am happy to get a longer recording of this and use it.
superhero landing practice
In my opinion, the hardest effect I have chosen to include in my FMP is the superhero landing effect. I felt this included the most skills and elements out of the rest of my effects. I am overall quite happy with the first attempt and feel I have learnt a lot from doing this once over. Below is the main video I followed and my final video from my first superhero landing.
This is the main tutorial I followed to complete this effect, it was quite fast paced so I did end up stopping it a few times and having to look up certain things in other youtube videos but overall I liked how short it was as it meant I was spending a lot of time doing my own independent work, rather than being told every little detail. This was good to practice putting into place the skills I had from the top of my head.
To begin this effect, I had to film the footage I needed, this started with me filming my superhero jump, I did this a few times until I got a take I was happy with the landing for. It took quite a few takes to try and get me in shot, I also had to do this quickly as the sun was out, therefore shadows were moving quickly around my garden. I then had to go around my garden and knock things over or make them move for the background effect of the landing, this was harder than I thought as I had to also look at shadows and find things that I could make move without being in front of. This had to be done quickly to make sure shadows didn't move around my garden too much. The last shot was a flick up to the sky from the position my camera was in. Below are two of the original clips aside from me opening the shed door that I ended up using for this effect.
screengrabs
The first thing I came to do when editing was putting the background effects in, I had a very long video will all the different effects in but after much experiment was only able to use the slam of the shed door. This is because I did not think too much about how these would have to be put into my film when filming, I did not execute the filming process properly. I should have given ten seconds before and after creating the practical movement which I did not, I should have also thought more about in what effects my hand would be in front of the object and how I could prevent this as I didn't want my hand in shot. These are the reasons why all but one of the practical effects weren't useable. Therefore I created a mask around the shed door and feathered it a little to get a natural look as the shadows had changed a fair amount. I also used the brightness and contrast effect and also the color correction to create the right shadows and light compared to the original clip. I then had that effect completed after some messing around with where it sat in the timeline.
The next thing I did was add in some stock footage for when I hit the ground. To the right is the two pieces of footage I ended up using for this effect. I inserted the ground impact in, keying out the green screen and scaling to put it in the correct place. I then realised I had to create a mask around where I land so that the ground impact can appear behind me otherwise there was a strange faded layer on top. I felt the ground impact was quite tedious as when adding in the smoke I then realised I also have to make a mask to adhere to the smoke as well. This was quite fiddly. When putting in the smoke I did struggle to get the correct colour with the ground, I ended up using the overlay as the brown I first envisioned didn't fit right. I am not overly happy with this as it does feel unrealistic.
The next step was to freeze frame the last steps of the stock footage I had put in and then edit the start. I reversed the video of me shooting up to the sky and lined it up nicely with the landing footage so it seemed like a single take. I was happy with that. I then had to use the footage of me jumping into the land and cut around, creating a mask that would be on top of the sky so I appear I am coming from there. This too a very long time but the attention to detail was worth it, next time however, I would make sure I was completely in shot. I then chose a blue energy ball and created a tracking dot so this would remain at the same place in the sky. I had to keyframe a few scenes when the tracker lost its point. The small movements were okay as I feel the energy would move slightly anyway.
The last stage was to do little final touches to make this more effective. I started by creating a small mask where the energy ball in the sky touched the clouds to give a more embed feel to the portal. I then got introduced to the wiggle expression. I messed around with this a little, having to zoom into the image as much as possible to create the wiggle effect. I couldn't do any bigger shakes as I hadn't filmed a wide enough shot. This is something that I need to consider when filming for my actual FMP. The very last thing I did was some colour correction. I added more so a red tint to this piece which did a lot more than I thought it would. It really sold the intense superhero landing effect. This makes me want to look into colour correction and what I can do with my final major more to make it overall have a more professional look.
Overall I am very happy with how this effect went, I know a lot about what I need to make sure I do when actually filming for this shot. I am glad I made these mistakes now rather than when filming for my actual FMP as I can make this effect as cool possible.
practicing lightning visuals
When touching the energy ball, I want my character to gain some kind of electric charge, giving them force lightning. Therefore I wanted to practice that sort of electric effect quickly on a second clip, as I know it would take a long time and this was just practice.
The first step was to record the footage of my arm. This was a quick clip of my arm shaking, to add to the visual effect. I then found the above tutorial and tried to follow this as I showed my specifically how to create the lightning bolts myself so I could make sure they fit to my design.
Making the lightning was actually easier than I had first thought. I created a shape layer, drawing with the pen tool a rough curve. I then added an adjustment layer, through this adding the glow and turbulent displacement to make my lightning more random and current like. I used a plug-in called lightsaber v2 which gave a perfect glow that was very easy to play around with. To create the current, I created keyframes so that the flow moved from the left of the bolt to the right. To amplify this effect more, the lightning bolt adjustment layer was duplicated. To make it as if the lightning bolt was actually appearing, I used a mask within the shape layer and keyframed this so in the beginning it only shows the start of the bolt, but within 2 frames the rest comes into shot. I feathered this mask so it was smoother at the end. I then rendered out this bolt as a Quicktime animation using RGB + Alpha. Therefore this will be easier when putting it into my footage.
I made a new composition with my footage in after effects. The first thing I did was use the two point tracking I had learnt when working on my energy ball to track any scale, motion and rotation. This worked well due to the clear places I could the tracking markers on my arm. I applied this tracking to a lot of my lightning however in quite a few it was easier to just keyframe the position as the end of the lightning moved a lot.
Along with the lightning bolt I had just created, I used some stock footage to speed up this practice process and create more diversity in shapes. Putting in the lightning was quite easy, however I did a lot more keyframing than using the trackers as it was easier for each individual strike. I put in a fair amount of strikes changing the scale and rotation each time. This was a process that required a lot of patience as you had to look at each lightning bolt and how it sat in every frame.
The last thing I did to manipulate the lightning was add these glowing blue spots where the current meets the body. I did this by creating a solid and making it into a ellipse shape layer. I then used the color offset to create the light blue and feathered it until it appeared to be glowing. I then duplicated this and put it at either end of each lightning strike. To finish off this effect and give a better quick outcome, I added a color offset to the original footage, adding a blue tint. I then created a quick mask and pathed it around the rope on my wrist. I feathered this mask so there was a slight glow over my rope still, this looked a lot more professional in the final shot, making me think about how I should have the electricity run close to the skin and not over clothes maybe. I then added a quick lightning effect just to make it a little more realistic.
Overall, I am happy with how this effect turned out. I made this one quite short as it was just a practice, but what I had done feels very effective. I like the way the lightning goes under the rope on my wrist and how to edges glow when touching the body. This will be the way I create my lightning strikes, however I will make them all from scratch to fit properly. I also will need to do better environmental lightning where it flashes to what the lightning bolt does. I am very happy with how this effect turned out, with more time it could be very professional.
glow + glow blast visuals
One of the effects I wanted to try out before was how I would make things glow. I need to practice the energy ball. The glow on the arm of the character will be just a toned down version of the energy ball hopefully, therefore I don't feel I need to do the same thing twice. This is something I was unsure about the best way to do but after trying them out, I am a lot happier and confident.
The first step in this effect was to film my footage. I decided to experiment with this photography ball I have and try using it in the effect to add more depth to the energy ball. I was sceptical about this but wanted to see how it would work. I also zoomed in and out, this way I can practice tracking with scale and rotation as well as motion. I was happy with this shot.
I loaded my video into after effects, creating a new composition. The first step was to track the motion that happens in the clip. Therefore I created a Null object and created a tracker for my video. After messing around with the different tracking points for a while, I decided to search the proper way to do this as I felt I was having minimal luck and came across the video embed to the right. This was a short tutorial that was very useful. Although going through each frame individually tested my patience so I had to do it again as I thought I could just let it run by itself the first time. I think I can't do this because of the glass material being harder to track. I had to edit the trackers a fair amount however the track came off very well.
I wanted to create depth in this energy ball, therefore I could use the glass ball to it's full potential. I saw this particular one and decided to loosely follow so I could get the same sort of effect. Below is how I actually made the orb.
The first step to create this was creating my first proper pre-comp. I did this and inside made a new solid adding a fractal noise effect on-top. Then, I used the shape tool to create an ellipse the same size and shape as the glass ball. I played around with the contrast and brightness values, also inverting the pattern as it seemed more interesting this way. I created a more stand out texture to the orb. I then used a new effect called CC sphere. This turned my current pattern into a 3D ball, wrapping the pattern around it. Using keyframes for the evolution and keyframes in the CC sphere I created a movement in the pattern that I was happy with, so the ball had an energy asset to it.
The next step was to create the actual colour and glow in the ball, this was quite simple by adding glow and selecting my colour and then duplicating that solid and changing the values in each effect slightly. This created the glow through the back of my orb. Whilst doing all this I kept editing the values as I went. I then created another solid and added the saber plug-in effect, creating a mask outline. After changing this to get a electric effect. This was then my orb done, I was extremely happy with this outcome.
The next step was to put the orb into my scene. To do this I dragged the comp into my original composition and pick whipped it to my null object I had created. I edited the anchor point and changed the orb to screen, this gave a nice depth and reflectiveness to make the ball feel very present. After looking at it I remembered I need to do something about my reflection, the actors does not matter but mine does. Therefore I create a mask after duplicating the original footage and feathered it, putting it over my reflection. It didn't have to be completely accurate as the orb takes the attention away. I played around with screen, lighten and add until deciding I liked screen best. To complete this I made another solid and turned down the opacity, giving a blue tint and then keyframing it so it appears as if the light is flickering slightly.
Overall, I am extremely happy with how this effect turned out. I think using the glass ball to track and give depth to the ball really helps in giving the idea that it is really present in the scene. I need to make sure my lighting works well with this to really sell the effect and then this will be all ready for my film. I think my only struggle will be doing this at night as the lighting which be much more necessary to sell the effect.
portal effect
In one part of my film, I am planning to have a portal appear to build upon the supernatural powers. Although I have created a portal before, I wanted to create a more simplistic portal as I felt it would fit my film a lot nicer.
I imported my footage, creating a new composition. I then created a null object and created an ellipse mask, attaching the saber plug-in effect to the object. I then changed the saber shape to the layer mask. This created the oval shape. Then changing the blending mode to screen got rid of all the black outline.
I then duplicated the portal to make the portal glow better as I felt the portal was a little hard to see on the lighter background. I then duplicated it again, however deleting the effects and using the black original mask shape to create the black in the centre of my portal. I scaled and positioned the portal, also doing a slight keyframe where it extends from the ground. I feel this could be improve but also really liked the look of my portal.
The final thing I did was create a mask for myself as I jump into the portal. I found this quite simple until I had to try and make myself disappear into the portal. This is because I wasn't completely sure how to create the right shape. I was not overly fussed about getting this right for this take as I wanted to focus on the portal and can spend more time on the mask for myself on the actual final effect. I went with slowly bring the mask in to myself with this, however this didn't create the effect I wanted. This is something I feel alright with and will experiment with more when looking at the final take. The last thing I did was duplicate the original footage again and create a mask so that you cannot see me when I have jumped through the portal already. This was a quick adjustment along with the solid I made to create some environmental lighting from the portal. For quick final touches to finish off the effect, this went okay.
Overall, for what I was aiming to experiment with, I was very happy with the result. The original plan was to go forward with having an image inside of the portal of what is on the other side, however after seeing it with the blue, I knew I would prefer this. The contrast on the blue and black makes for a mysterious setting as to where the character is going. I am happy with the portal and environmental effects, I feel the masking just needs some work. I should look into how in other movies they disappear into a portal as I feel this will help with how I should do the masking.
editing my flash-forward
After collecting all the footage and getting the timings right in my first video edit I decided to start working on my flash-forward however wanted to experiment with it first as I wasn't sure how I was going to black out around the figures feature. Below is the finished practice piece.
To the left is the image I started with. I decided to jump into after effects instead of Premiere so I had more options. IN the end I found quite a simple solution to do this. I created a mask around the hand which I can keyframe in the actual video, and then added a feather effect so the outline of the hand was darker. I then added a colour offset to give a warmer tone to the image. I also added a brightness and contrast effect to darken the actual hand and create a bigger contrast in dark to light tones. Although not a lot I felt this did what I wanted.
Overall, I feel I was able to achieve what I wanted here. I like the tone I was able to get with the effects and also the contrast I created in darker and lighter tones. I feel the mask is a good efficient way to get that quick effect. I do like how this has turned out however I feel there are some things I will change or mess around with on the actual footage. This includes darkening the lighter details such as the button you can see at the bottom of the screen. I may also try using a cooler tone and highlighting some parts on the rings, making them stand out further. This would all be done with colour correction and masks with effects layered on top.