Thursday 2 August 2012

Heli Test



Mutiny Bike co has to be my all time favourite when it comes to their edits. The compositions of their shots and cinematography is unmatched in bmx scene.
The reason i chose this video to look at was there risky but ingenuitive idea to attach a 7D to a RC Heli cam. Watching this short edit and the smooth panning action of the Helicopter reminds me to think outside the box and differently in my filming techniques. Showing people a view/angle that they have never seen before make successful film. Even as simple as riding a small bike.

'One step forward'




The first time i saw this short film i was stunned. It made me feel very good about myself for the rest of the day seeing such kindness and joy in such a short space of film.
Playing the film in reverse offered a fun and different way to view this love story. Creating suspense and tension of what exactly happened for this man to behave so erratically, whilst performing the oddest tasks with a beaming smile on his face.
The conclusion to the story is beautiful and admire the crews work in this film for telling such a simple everyday story in such a unique and beautiful way.

'Host' teaser trailer



Love the cinematography work gone into this small teaser trailer. Camera work is effective creating tension and developing a sense of mystery drawing the audience in. It has always been my ambition to have made a short film. Looking at trailers like this gives me a clear example of what I should be aiming for and what I can achieve.

Outlook cameraman

We pitched for a film making competition for Outlook Festival during the process of pitching for Outlook we had to come up with a document stating what our intuitions were when we come over, budgeting  financial information and what range of equipment and talent we have at our disposal.

On behalf of Onefilm who had a press pass to Outlook Festival, I have been asked to film on a gopro hd hero 2 around Outlook.


RAW video

From the start of film editing there has always been destructive editing. An image is only ever destructive had it be altered in any way such as splicing film reels. Any alteration of digital footage can be classed as destructive editing.
RAW films specific to filming on Red cameras uses rmd files in the same way that photoshop use xmp files. rmd and xmp files take the main information such as white balance, colour levels and exposure. The computer then uses this information to adapt the file in a live environment without actually effecting the properties of the file. Thus leaving us with the master file completely undamaged until satisfied with the result.
This will help me in a filming situation with saving hardrive space, the RAW file will hold all the colour grading information from the camera allowing me to alter and experiment without effecting the original image. Making it full reversible. 

PlanetSide 2



PlanetSide 2 is the first MMORPG first person shooter. Not only will it featuring up to 2000 players in one map it is also free! It's the first of it's kind to have a first person shooter battle that large. The start to a new wave of MMORPG?

The cinematic trailer although not actual game footage was well constructed and modled. Giving the piece great tension in the dramatic one shot camera angle panning through a large battle scene.

Avid6

I have been looking into new none linear editing systems due to the release of the new Final Cut Pro. I have been doing research into up and coming editing systems. And so have looking at success of Avid. Avid being the largest and most prominent force in the post production industry in terms of editing in the tv industry. The new Avid6 has been redesigned from the ground up using 64bit architecture. Avid have also introduced a new support for Apple pro res,  as a way of undercutting Apple. They have now  introduced new feature that allow you to create 5.1 and 7.1 directly within media composer. Which will allow you to pan around developing atmosphere in your sound design.
The new feature of managing and editing stereoscopic 3d project right in avid with a new set of editorial tools and workflows.

The film industry is adapting and different softwares are being used for different levels of production for example an up and coming piece of software that isn't well established is Adobe Premiere as this seems to be attracting attention from industry leaders.



Wednesday 1 August 2012

Meet Meline

Meet Meline is a beautiful short animation. The texturing in it is stunning with beautiful vibrant colours that seem to match pixar. The modelling of the girl is genius and can imagine took a very long time to key frame everything.



Whilst watching Meet Meline the making of I realised that the whole thing was done on Maya. It made me think just how far Maya could take me if used properly. It set off on jumping back on to the programme and started to see what I could make. Here are some screen shots from Meet Meline with some ridiculous modelling 









  

OUTLOOK FESTIVAL 2011 Official Video




I wanted to review this quickly due to the Cinematography of the first minute of this video.
The shots are amazing with glistening sun coming off the water on his body. The composition of these shots have taken a lot of thought





I also liked the use of slow motion in many of the shots. Gave a great atmosphere to the shots and emphasised the scorching heat of the sun against the guys body and the rippling water




Glidecam

Since i've been back i have started filming with a good friend from home. He has a glidecam xr-2000. Mastering the glidecam took a while to get right but once you succeed the results of a smooth pan are brilliant.

Here is a photo a screen shot of me panning the glade cam across the group.


The glidecam is an extremely useful bit of Kit and will have to invest in one after the new camera

London 2012



Watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics this week was breath taking. Danny Boyle performing the biggest live scene changes ever attempted emphasises the amount of work and effort put into the games with the media. Watching the ceremony made me think and wonder what the broadcasting process was behind the games.

And this is it. This is the control centre behind the Olympics games. The room is split into three sections Contribution, Distribution, Transmission. Contribution collects all the feed from the live playing fields during the games. At this point the directer will be sitting with a vision mixer, controlling which feeds are played and which feeds are cut. It is also where everything come together so the graphics on who is first in the swimming will be added here.



Next is the Distribution. Distribution is where all of the feeds are sent to be forward to other media outlet plat forms such as live internet streams via Satellite



James Perryman

Filming a short bike edit for James Perryman at the moment. Hopefully finished very soon but here are some screenshots



Equipment

Over the past couple of months i have spent a long time thinking about the importance of equipment and how it will effect my life after uni. Although Leeds college of art has a wide selection of filming equipment at my disposal I need to build up a decent camera and light set up in order to grasp employers attention. I have been told by a few film makers that equipment in the commercial world is key at first glans. So i've been searching the internet on what this year i am aiming to purchase ready for my third year.

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/index.php?t=product%2Fblackmagic_cinema_camera

  • The Blackmagic Cinema camera is an established proffesional video device manafacturere 
  • Integrated software
  • Colour graded software
  • Processess its video through dnx and pro res codex. Which are the two main codex.  DNX for avid and Apple pro res for Final Cut. Which would cut work load down with no transcoding of footage 
  • Because its blackmagic it's also intergrated into davincii, which is a professional colour grading and finishing software. Which is large US at the moment.  
  • 50mbps broadcast spec, which means the footage is at broadcast spec  
  • 422 colour space
  • I could also use my Canon lens from my DSLR since its an efs lens moun
The only main problem I could find was that it only films at 30fps, which is still industry standard but could not film any slowmo. The camera will be released next month. Hoping the reviews will be good and will try and pick one up around July next year.

I am also aiming to pick up these Dedolights

http://www.creativevideo.co.uk/index.php?t=product/dedolight_kit-3adv-12

This all amounts to a serious sum of money, a student that is already in debt. But all this will be an investment to the future.



SickWithIt

This year whilst living at my halls i've met a couple of people studying at Leeds Met that have started up a clothing company called SickWithIt. Although they are only small they have produced freestyle dance and free running videos. Shane who's featured in the picture below and the founder of the company told me that he's putting a Skate team together and asked if I could assist in the film of the video. Along with Ben Carrigan and Adam Risino who both work in post production are assisting Shane in the production which will hopefully be finished by the end of August.
For now i will leave you for some photos that I took of Shane. I hope this will give you an idea of whats to come-



WHP 2012

The Warehouse Project is a series of club nights organised in Manchester. The night have been running from 2006. Changing venue each year. It runs from September through to New Years Day each year plus occasional one off dates such as Bank Holiday weekends.

As the venue moves year by year prestigious production companies with Manchester have made video after video of the different venues and nights. The latest venue for the 2012 Warehouse project has since been released and is an amazing piece of work.


WHP2012 from The Warehouse Project on Vimeo.



The composition of the video is extraordinary. With a lot of detail gone in to the lighting and exposure of the shots. One aspect of the video i did like was the mirrored filter used in the post production on certain shots such as these -






This is one of my favourite shots from the video  with mirrored filter of the shot with overlapping low opacity of the lights moving almost in synchronisation of the crowd captures the raw energy and atmosphere of the club.











The mirrored effect gives a 'trippy' and almost hypnotic feel entrancing you into the video. Another video where i've seen this technique used before is in a music video by an Artists called 'Mmoths' with track entitled 'THNX'







The Song is very relaxed and ambient and fits these stunning wildlife scenes mirrored together to make an odd, almost alien surroundings. I hope to one day use this technique in a piece that calls for it. 

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Cinema

Me and Chris Lloyd for our ppp decided to take our initiative and work together in our own project. The idea was to bring everything we learnt over the year in to one project about the whole year. And so we decided to modle a cinema projecting two films that we had made about two different sides of the year.
Unfortunately we have come across technical errors with the cinema but all assets and media media made for the project are ready to go. Here are the results as followed






Services and sectors

Services and Sectors

Uk economy
-7th largest in the world
-3rd largest in Europe
-one of the most globalised countries
-London is the largest financial centre equal with New York
-Largest industries - aerospace pharmaceuticals, north sea oil and gas

What is am industry sector?
-An area of the economy with related products or services
Four sectors:
-Primary sector
-Secondary sector
-Tertiary sector

Public sector - publicly owned or state owned
Private sector - privately owned and usually run for profit
3rd sector - voluntary, charity, community owned business. None profit.

TSO's (third sector organisations)
- independent from government
- are 'value driven'

Sectors
- agriculture, hunting, forestry and fishing
- construction
- production industries
- service industries

Media Consolidation






Thursday 10 May 2012

Game Assets

This project has made me think a lot about game design and the amount of time and effort put into a project. My main asset for my environment was my warehouse. For my research i looked at concept art from different games which I believed matched a similar atmosphere to my game environment.


This is a perspective plan of a barracks from Battlefield 2142. This picture helped me a lot, giving me guidance on what is expected form a good game assets and stages in which you do it. The picture shows us a poly count of the the barracks, which is useful since i was supposed to be keeping an eye on my polly count and making sure its low. So this was a good basis for me to work from.





To further my development i also looked at 'Halo Reach' concept art, i liked the futuristic architecture in the game and drew a lot of inspiration from the Halo series.



Scenography


Crash site

Here are some screen shots from my final environment.






Game and sound design

Sound design I believe is one of the most important factors in making a game what it is. I believe that sound and music subtle or not creates the tension and leaving you on the edge of your seats bringing you back to the game again and again.

For my environment i tried to make a sense of chaos in the atmosphere. When you enter the scene an alarm in the warehouse instantaneously activates, you can hear the sound of a distant fire and the low humming on machines in the warehouse. If you walk over to the crash site the fire gets louder and louder and mixed with the alarm whaling in the background you get a sense of mayhem in the environment.


One game that certainly helped me with my initial research and inspired my sound design is the game 'Amnesia'. Amnesia is a survival horror game by Friction games. The game features a protagonist named Daniel who explores a dark and forbidden castle. The game was well reviewed, winning several awards at the Independent Game Festival. The sound design is so well renowned for the game that the game soundtrack is available for purchase and very popular.

Being set in a forbidden castle you can imagine the music being very creepy and aerie but Amnesia take it to the next level. The music in this acts as a sort of guide, evolving you in the music as you walk through this desolant castle following a petrifying cry for help for clues.