Y3 pitch

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1zhCKEl11k85pHuQBZoCSaUnqWfYWRhGmV9zMWj6Gggk

so many hours spent, gone, and we are not done with it. THE CURSE OF THE ANIMATION

There is a saying: you always need more for animation.

You feel like there's always something to improve and it's true.

Raw hand drawing

Primary colouring

Overlay coating 

After doing composition/ transitions in AfterEffects, we went back to Photoshop for colouring. I coloured over 10 drawings with brush tool. Then with an overlay, created the hand-coloured style. I am really happy with the result. The whole colouring process is roughly one hour per drawing.

We call it sweat shop

We came back to work on stuff together at the end the production. We need to consider everything together. At the same time, same room, we fine tune the character, the compositions and the music.

Ableton Live 

Minimalistic is what we want and we used only the piano. It took two days together with editing to complete the soundtrack.


I am happy for where the project stands right now but I can see there's a lot to improve for a festival competition level. We will put it on pause right now for a break and come back in a few weeks and see how we feel about it.

Making the Compositions

One of the composition in Photoshop 

Rough sketch 

After doing the storyboard, we went out for a few photo days to take all the photos we need to do the compositions. Two of the days for locations stuff like buildings and street. One of the days for objects like teddy bear, dog bed, toy cars... We had on our hands a list of photos to take and planned our photo days through.

Four of us, one tripod and camera

We chose the buildings we like and planned on the angles to take the photos. The tutorial with Peter was comforting as he encouraged us to experiment with the photos but at the same time be mindful of the positioning of the camera. 

We were drenched in rain and shoes covered with mud

It felt like the last project in 1st year again. We were pretty much exploring everywhere to look for elements that we might include in each compositions. 

Someone wants to be in our project...

As for the objects, we were taking photos in Jay's house. The objects were laying on with papers for better results in cutting them out in photoshop. 

He just sat on one of the paper when we were didn't pay attention to it. He stayed for a long time as well. Just like he knew what we are doing and he's ready to be part of it. haha

The white sheets helped a lot. In photoshop, the very first thing we do is to cut out the elements one by one. The last thing to do in photoshop was to put all the elements together, mix and match, stop when I am happy with the composition. Cutting out the objects was way easier because of the sheets. We just need to use quick selection tool. For the buildings and other stuff in the environment, we had to cut them out manually, pixel by pixel. It took a long time in preparing the elements than putting them together. 

the process

When it's done in Photoshop, we brought it to AfterEffects. The full layout will be shown in AfterEffects with layers. From then on we can animate the movements. 

VFX Title Squence Development

Cornwall March, 2017. It is just so pretty, everywhere.

After the lesson, I decided to use the 3D space to navigate around the elements.

The order of the title sequence will be:

(Name of the Studio)
(Name of Production Company)
A Film by (Director's name)
Staring (Name)
Owl Man
Featuring (Names...)
Casting by (Name)
Music (name)
Production Designer (name)
VFX Maisie Mok
Edited by (name)
DOP (name)
Producer (name)
Base on the Owl Man mystery in Cornwall


The outline:

-moving forward on pavement in the woods
(Big name)-  Chio Studio
                  -  Legend Production

-sign post flips
   from A Film by
   to      Ruth Westwood

-still moving forward sees the church and graveyard
  zoom in on the graveyards and see
Staring 
Tony Haway 
  
-Owl Man fly over the screen revealing the film title Owl Man


However, there's not enough time for me to do all of that.

So the real outline is the following...

into the woods then reveal - (Name of the Studio) 
pan to reveal - (Name of Production Company)
Sign post - A Film by (Director's name)
Video - Staring (Names)
owl man sketch revealing - Owl Man

I would love to have the credits on sign posts

The project is mainly for me to explore in the world of VFX despite not knowing to well of it. The reason why I chose Owl Man as the theme and "imaginary movie" is because of my work experience in a similar project that is on going. I can't give out too much detail but I just want to have fun with the myth. I actually went to Cornwall as well for a UCAS event but I missed the bus to the church where the sightings based. I didn't get to go and see if the Owl Man is still there haha.

It was quite difficult to do the project due to my skill but I am happy I finished it at the end. Looking back, I don't think the colour purple was a good choice... I should've at least chosen a different shade of purple, a darker purple. It is too bright.

Drawings by the teens who claimed to saw the Owl Man, top one is used in the project

Art work found on google that I was planning to use

The video at the end was taken from Getty image by searching Cornwall. I cropped out the logo and added a cartoon effect on it. It's in black and white just like how we perceive the history. 

Last, owl man sketch revealing the Owl Man title haha! 

Filming Dance Film

It was a surprise to have received Sugini's invitation to film their dance film but I am very happy to help with that. I like their concept and their dancer Grace seems really cool when we met in the pre-light.

In the pre-light I told them how to set up the GH4 and told Sugini more details about using it according to my experience with it in my Maps & Networks.

In the filming days it was quite straight forward, doing what camera operators do and listen to Sugini. I really enjoyed the lighting and the dance. Everything looked nice in the camera. Ethan and I worked closely together. We agreed that I will be working on all the still shots and Ethan on the moving shots. I am not a fan of managing the heavy shoulder rigs.

I loved the jib. This is one of the test. 

The red outline of Grace showed us she's in focus. We asked Grace to stand in frame so that we can focus on her final position.

We spent quite some time in setting up the equipments, especially the jib. It was all worth it.

Mental Meltdown

The meeting with the dancer came to a conclusion that we are not going to do the dance film...

We were very happy that we have someone to meet up with very early on in the pre-production process. We also had our green screen room and equipment (EX3) booked for a week to do the shoot. What's left is the dance studio room too book but that requires confirmation of the dancer.

I felt a bit sad not doing the dance film but I also believe it is better for our showreel. It is the fact that we all wants to spend more time in post production, building our fantasy world. The dancer was really nice though. We will send her an apology.

VFX Project Lesson Practise

First, we familiar ourselves with the 3D space and camera in After Effects(AE) by making a 2D picture of a room into 3D.

We need to use Photoshop to create these panels before importing them into AE.

The vanishing point tool is quite difficult to control.






Then we created some shape layers in a 3D environment and try to get the camera to navigate around them. It was so fun and I learnt a lot more about the 3D space.




Last we used lots of pictures and composite them into a fantasy environment. It gave me lots of ideas in this unit and also the Fields an Frame unit.