Principles Of VFX
Prince, S. (2010) Through the looking glass: Philosophical toys and digital visual effects, 1934-9688 Berghahn Journals.
Visual effects is a combination of art and science, mixing both to create a photo-realism scene; an example of this is VFX artists creating new environments/” objects in space, their texturing and apparent density of detail.” They do so while maintaining the balance of laws of physics maintaining the properties of light, water, clouds and fire. Creating an environment using a computer generated programe making it look natural to the human eye keeping the properties of photo-realism. Prince uses films such as Jurassic Park and Curious Case of Benjamin button, to show his perception on photo-realism; In Jurassic Park the ability to create dinosaurs in a virtual made environment as well as virtual modeled dinosaurs and in Curious Case of Benjamin button, the use of VFX in order to make Brad Pitt’s character age/ anti age. It’s quite obvious to say without the knowledge of science it’d be pretty difficult to replicate the properties of photo-realism. “Digital visual effects come to us by way of the phenakistoscope”. One of the first forms of VFX comes from phenakistoscope created by Joseph Plateau , an early is made animation device consisting of a disc showing consecutive images though slits which when rotated showed the images in a moving sequence which created the illusion of motion/animation being one of the first forms of visual effects.
Phenakistoscope, Created by Joseph Plateau
Above are a few VFX breakdowns from the two films briefly discussed above in my annotated bibliography
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Prince, S. (2010) Through the looking glass: Philosophical toys and digital visual effects, 1934-9688 Berghahn Journals.
In week one we watched the opening 25min of the film: 2001: A Space Odyssey directed by Stanley Kubrick. From what I gathered the theme of this movie was evolution. The film began by showing life on the planet, showing apes, animals then transitioned into the apes being able to use tools. An extreme close up shot was taken of an ape throwing a bone into the air around a group of apes, and transitions into a spaceship showing evolution. It just shows how much visual effects has developed from 1968 when ‘2001: A space odyssey’ was created to now; you now have movies such as Black Panther with the use of visual effects making everything look so surreal and photorealistic. The use of CGI making models seem so realistic compared the costumes used for the ape’s in A Space Odyssey. Furthermore the time and money getting ready the set, costume, scenery etc...
Has now drastically been reduced being able to create everything at the tip of your fingertips with visual effects/ CGI; just imagine how long it took to create ‘2001: A space odyssey’ and how long it’d take to create a new more refined version of the movie with the tools we have in this day and age.
Thaumatrope, Created by John Ayrton Paris
Zoetrope, Created by William George Horner
Stereoscope, Created by Charles Wheatstone
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Lev Manovich; What Is Digital Cinema?
In this essay Lev Manovich talks about cinema, history and evolution. There are many ways to define digital cinema but it will be forever changing. By this I mean the world of filmography is constantly evolving with CGI and visual effects etc.. Pushing boundaries that have been set making the possibilities of digital cinema endless. At first there were cinemas which would be referred to as ‘moving pictures’, over the centuries ‘moving pictures’ have now evolved to ‘cinema’ has put us in a new era where film makers can create the illusion of whatever their imagination can fathom; making the possibilities be endless achieving an elastic reality. Lev Manovich talks about animation and cinema in his essay; he talks about the transition from “the manual construction of images, loop actions, the discrete nature of space and movement” (Manovich, L) of the nineteenth century moving from animation to digital cinema. “Cinema works hard to erase any traces of its own production process, including any indication that the images which we see could have been constructed rather than recorded.” (Manovich, L) With the twentieth century technology digital cinema gives the ability to create anything without the need of recorded footage.
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Mori M. (2012) 'The Uncanny Valley', ieee robotics & automation magazine, pp. 98-100.
In this bibliography entry I’ll be discussing the Uncanny Valley. The essay I’ll be writing on was written in 1970 by Masahiro Mori a robotics professor at the Tokyo of Technology. He wrote on how he “envisioned people’s reactions to robots that looked and acted almost like a human.” (Mori, M) Masahrio Mori created graphs comparing affinity to human likeness; he used prosthetic hands, myoelectric hand and zombie to explain his theory behind the uncanny valley. The graph shows the different relations between moving and still, the more human symptoms a robot/android shows; an uncanny response is received. Masahrio Mori talks about how movement is a fundamental to animals and human beings and now robots as well. In his graph he adds ‘death’ into it as it resembles the uncanny valley, Yase Otoko mask which bears the face of an emaciated man and represents a ghost from hell is also in the graph which is inferior to the uncanny valley bracket, indicating that people find human like symptoms within a robot/android creepy.
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'Shapes' (2011) The Code, episode 2, 3 Aug. BBC2. Available at: Box of Broadcasts (Accessed 10 Oct 2019)
The clip explains perfect shapes in nature do not exist, most natural shapes we see like clouds and rocks are fractal. Marcus Du Satoy speaks with artist Richard Taylor about Jackson Pollock. Describing the painter, Jackson Pollock’s work may look messy but goes into depth about the different sizes of shapes and fractals, and how everything has a pattern and proportion. If you look closely at Jackson Pollock’s paintings, you can see the different use of fractals. Taylor then visits Loren Carpenter who worked for Pixar, and discusses the use of fractals and computer graphics/ animation. One of the first animations are then shown to use mathematical fractals to create a mountain with computer graphics.
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Kristen Whissel (2014) Spectacular digital effects: CGI and contemporary cinema, Digital Multitude As Effects Emblem
The author writes about the use of number of technologies, “motion capture, 3D animation simulation programs such as massive, digital split- screen techniques, crowd simulation engines and particle animation programs such as Dynamation.” (Whissel, 2014)
He then continues to write about how computer technology is created to increase visual complexity and photo realism and save time and money by replacing thousands of live extras with computer generate substitutes. He also talks about ‘the end’ in movies and how visual effect makers can give the impression of the end of time. VFX companies have also created CGI “armies, swarms and hordes composed of as many as hundreds of thousands of digital beings—what might be called the “digital multitude.” (Whissel, 2014) He talks about movies such as Lord Of The Rings, The Matrix, The Mummy, 2012, Jurassic Park etc… and how with computer generated imagery it can provoke feelings of astonishment and awe giving viewers an experience virtually created.
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Week 1- Introduction to the Module
Visual effects have a number of different meanings, I googled a few and this is what I got:
VES Handbook
"Cannot be accomplished during live-action shooting",
Wikipedia
"Visual effects involve the integration of live-action footage and generated imagery to create environments which look realistic, but would be dangerous, costly, or simply impossible to capture on film"
DVI Group
"Illusions or tricks of the eye created to simulate the imagined events in a story or imagined world."
In week 1 of Principles of VFX, we kicked things off by watching the first 15-20 mins a film: 2001 - A space Odyssey. From what I gathered the theme was evolution, the opening sequence started off showing life on planet earth transitioning to showing apes slowly developing learning how to create tools in order to hunt pray and fight for they're survival; slowly transitioning to humans and then into space in a spaceship. Showing the distinction between early age and a futuristic world in space.
It was interesting to see how VFX began, this film was released in 1968 and the VFX in the film was very limited in comparison to the use of VFX you get in movies today i.e. Avatar, 2012, London has Fallen and many more. I'd say it was more camera shots then VFX in the early age of VFX; my reasoning behind this is because nowadays modelling artists would create a spaceship in a 3D environment such as Maya/Blender etc.. whereas in the early age live models would be used and then with camera techniques it would be filmed to make the spaceship/model look bigger. Using 3D programs save money and mainly time. Below is a very basic image of a spaceship I created in about 30mins with simple shapes in Maya which was taught in 'Digital Toolbox' module; just goes to show with experience/knowledge in modelling what you can achieve is mind boggling.
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Week 2- Notes
In week two we watched three short clips from different films: Sherlock Holmes: A game of shadows, Gravity and Zabriskie Point.
The films all had two things in common: explosions and slow motion. However they were used in different ways.
1st clip (Sherlock Holmes) - A lot was going on in the scene, it was a get away so it was quite on edge all the way through the clip, the use of slow motion added to the mise en scène. The use of slow mo allowed the viewers to get a stringer grasp and in some what have a relation in to what the characters in the scene was feeling, for example 0.50 seconds into the clip a character fires a marksmen rifle at the bunch of characters trying to flee and with the slow mo and camera angle you can see how the bullet just skims past the character; scoring his waistcoat and also how the bullets being fired in the scene graces past the trees.
2nd clip (Gravity) - This clip shows despair/nervousness, the actress doesn't seem like she wants to be there. She stutters a lot and you can kind of sense that she doesn't want to be there from her body language. as the derbis collides with the spaceship; the camera lens is a little zoomed out just enough so the audience can have a feel for what is going on in the scene and as each time the camera moves and the actress is bought into sight you can see the slow mo effect just enough to how she is feeling giving the audience a sense of what she's going through.
3rd clip (Zabriskie Point) - In this clip there is total destruction the scene is totally chaotic and the actress seems to be rather enjoying herself watching the series unfold. The use of slow mo in this clip allows the audience to see in minute detail of what's going on in the scene and take it all in.
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Week 3- Notes
In week three, we watched a Ted talk from Rob Legato- The Art of Creating Awe. In this short video Rob talks about his experience working on hit films such as Titanic, Apollo 13 & Hugo. He also talks about the reasoning behind why he chose to do what he did for example in a lot of his shots he shot with short lenses which puts the audience close to action but also framed it similarly to the long lens shots which gives it a bit of distance. You get to see Rob's thought process behind why he did everything.
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station -1895
The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station is an 1895 French short black-and-white silent documentary film directed and produced by Auguste and Louis Lumière.
(One of the first moving images)
Muybridge was a English photographer, probably best know for 1870’s his pioneering works in the study of motion or locomotion – particularly with Humans and Animals.
(From his study's he released this book which contained images from his studies about human and animal movements.)
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Week 4- Notes
In week four we had a look at how VFX & CGI developed over the years. We had a look at two scenes from the films: Jason & The Argonauts, and Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse Of The Black Pearl. From the two scenes a comparison between two different skeletons was shown one in 1963 and the other from 2003. With the development of VFX artists can now create a skeleton figure from scratch whereas before they would need some type of prop. Below are the two images we used to compare one another two from the two films.
The famous skeleton sequence from
‘Jason and the Golden Fleece’ 1963
Captain Barbossa as a cursed skeleton in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ 2003
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Week 9- Notes
In week 9 we watched the making of Toy Story 1995 and also watched a video explaining Walt Disneys- Multi plane camera. (Videos below)
I believe perspective to be one of the key fundamentals when it comes to animation. The reason why because it needs to be appealing to the audience, if it's not appealing nobody would watch it; that goes with everything in general.
12 Principles of Disney's Animation
1) Squash and stretch
The Squash & Stretch principle is considered the most important principle of the 12. The reason for this is when applied, it gives the animated character or object the illusion of gravity, weight, mass and flexibility.
2) Anticipation
Anticipation helps to prepare the viewer for what's about to happen. When applied, it has the effect of making objects action more realistically.
3) Staging
Staging means drawing the viewers attention on what is important in the scene without making the rest of the animation in the scene irrelevant.
4) Straight ahead action and pose to pose
Straight ahead action involves drawing frame-by-frame from start to finish. If you're looking for fluid, realistic movements.
With the pose to pose technique, you draw the beginning frame, the end frame, and a few key frames in-between. Then you go back and complete the rest. This technique gives you a bit more control within the scene and allows you to increase the dramatic effect of the motion.
5) Follow through and overlapping action
When objects come to a standstill after being in motion, different parts of the object will stop at different rates. Similarly, not everything on an object will move at the same rate. This forms the essence of the fifth of Disney's principles of animation.
7) Arc
When working in animation, it's best to stick with the laws of physics. Most objects follow an arc or a path when they're moving, and your animations should reflect that arc.
9) Timing
For this principle of animation we need to look to the laws of physics again, and apply what we see in the natural world to our animations. In this case, the focus is on timing.
If you move an object more quickly or slowly than it would naturally move in the real world, the effect won't be believable. Using the correct timing allows you to control the mood and the reaction of your characters and objects.
11) Solid drawing
You need to understand the basics of drawing. This includes knowing how to draw in three-dimensional space and understanding form and anatomy, weight and volume, and lights and shadows.
6) Slow in and slow out
The best way to understand slow in and slow out is to think about how a car starts up and stops. It will start moving slowly, before gaining momentum and speeding up. The reverse will happen when the car brakes. In animation, this effect is achieved by adding more frames at the beginning and end of an action sequence. Apply this principle to give your objects more life.
8) Secondary action
Secondary actions are used to support or emphasis the main action going on within a scene. Adding secondary actions help add more dimension to your characters and objects.
10) Exaggeration
Too much realism can ruin an animation, making it appear static and boring. Instead, add some exaggeration to your characters and objects to make them more dynamic.
12) Appeal
Your characters, objects, and the world in which they live need to appeal to the viewer. This includes having an easy-to-read design, solid drawing, and a personality. There is no formula for getting this right, but it starts with strong character development and being able to tell your story through the art of animation.
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Week 10- Notes
In this weeks lecture we chose a VFX breakdown of a film of our choice.
Research and analyze a VFX breakdown-Marvel
Infinity War VFX breakdown & Thanos Breakdown
What type of techniques have been used?
Compositing- In Marvel Infinity War, almost every scene has some form of compositing.
FACS Booth- Facial action coding system (lights and 60 cameras set up), the whole purpose of having a FACS booth is to capture and log a performers facial movements.
Volume Room- Huge empty room, with its own set of cameras around it. Movies such as Avatar and Ready player 1 was created in. Instead of filming in a motion capture volume, cameras are setup and motion capture equipment is set up to the film camera allowing the visual effects team to see how the character playing Thanos would look like live with rudimentary version of Thanos.
Texturing- A lot of time and effort went into texturing, it may seem simple however it’s one of the most key and time consuming element when making a film. An example of this is artists had to add wrinkles and contours to his face and it was all hand drawn; then when Thanos’s face was moving the textures were enhanced so the wrinkles moved to different position giving it a more realistic feel.
Green Screen- A lot of scenes you see within the Infinity War breakdown is green screen, this technique is commonly used within movie making, it saves a lot of time and gives the effect of something being in the background that was never there to begin with.
Modelling- (Environment)- Artist's now possess the skill to create environments from scratch, modelling a complete city within programs such as Maya, Nuke, Houdini. The attention to detail that they give the building is mind blowing. Especially in Infinity War the amount of scenes that 3D environments need to be created, and that's the base of it they then need to be sent to a environmental texturer.
FACS Booth
Volume Room
Green Screen
Environmental Scene
VFX Breakdown Video I Chose
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Essay Question Planning Brainstorm
In lecture we got into groups of three and began to brainstorm startup ideas for our essay, below is a picture of what was discussed.
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Week 11- Notes
In week eleven we had a look at the different James Bond intros and compared them to one another. When it comes to film series James Bond is the most popular film series. We watched a lot of intros from over the years and compared one another and discussed how they developed from the era of special effects to visual effects.
Above are two James Bond intros, from Licence To Kill and Casino Royale, you can see straight off the bat how VFX has allowed not only films to develop but even something as little as an opening intro; which is famous upon the 007 franchise.