Major Project: Edit 002

Here is my second edit for my film. I'm trying to create a final edit as fast as I can so my music composer can re-adjust the music he's created for the film so the timing is right. I want to give him enough time to re-write parts if needed and to give me time to really focus on VFX and sound design especially in regards to the whispers. Some changes I made to this edit include:

•  The removal of the line when I see hospitals I see ghouls.
• New footage for the lines when I think of my family I see scars and being Anorexic is rotting.
• Disordered whispers added to the opening sequence (may move later on as it's a test).
• The gem scene has been extended and voiceover moved to make room for disordered whispers.
• Voiceover for certain shots moved so they begin before the shot begins.
• Shots overall have been adjusted - for example an shot was moved to add more space between when I see jello I see vomit and when I see pancakes I see my grandfather.
• For the line when I see other people's bodies I see rejection a black screen cuts into the film. A louder ringing noise will be added later on as it will cut out audio too.
• Some transitions have changed, but this can still be adjusted later on.
• Room shot 006 (third shot of the edit - the one right before pufferfish) has been adjusted/re-rendered.
• The brick shot in the beginning of the film has been removed so the first few shots of the film focus on the room rather than the bricks.
• Some shots have been shortened slightly to keep the duration as close to 7 minutes as possible.
• This version contains re-composited footage so colour correction is more consistent and the vignette, film grain, and edge blurring can be added overtop the whole film so it's cohesive (added on very roughly at the moment). 

I'm happy with how this is turning out, although I am obviously ready to make more adjustments if needed. Once the shots and voiceover are at a point where positions/durations are locked down, I'll be able to hand an edit off to my composer for final music which I'm very excited about. The glitch effects, transitions and other VFX can continue to be adjusted for the most part and the voiceover will still have some wiggle room with timing. 

Major Project: Edit 001

The last two days I've been working the first 'edit' of my film. I didn't feel like I could keep calling it a pre-vis since it has all of my final footage in it. In this initial edit, I experimented using glitch effects as transitions, although at the moment they do not have sound effects to accompany them so they may not feel as integrated as they will further down the line. I also tried to keep in some other transitions (ex. dip to white on the rare occasion or a straight cut where there is a light flicker) so it wasn't all the same and I alternated what type of glitch effect I used to transition so it wasn't repetitive. Here are some things I've noticed immediately that I want to change or things I'm wondering/want to be cautious of:

• Overusing the 'glitch' effect - I try to use the effect only when transitioning between CGI and live action as well as occasionally during a very negative entity. I want to be careful I'm not overusing the effect therefore weakening its impact. Or, I also don't want to use it too little where it doesn't feel like it 'fits' in the film.
• Re-compositing of shots is needed. I want to go back and strip out certain effects such as the vignetting and film grain so I can overlay that on top of the entire edit rather than individual shots. I noticed that during some transitions the dark vignette ring appears and it looks odd. I also hope doing this will help glue the shots together and will also allow me to animate the vignetting during the VFX stage if I want to bring attention to something (ex. focus on the bubbles and not the background) while keeping it all unified. I think this also will help merge the live-action into the rest of the film. I also want to make the overall colour correction more uniform throughout. 
• Some room/flicker shots I want to move around. For example, I think I may move a shot where the light is flaring to where my grandfather's footage comes in so it feels less aggressive and to add more variation too that part of the film. 
• I tried to keep a 'dip to white' effect as transitions for certain shots such as when I see hospitals I feel dead. Would effects such as RGB splitting be effective here?
• I'm rendering out an additional shot that focuses on the bricks to give some more variation as well as a few extra frames of the gem shot so I have a few more seconds of the gem once it has spiked out if I decide it would be useful.
• I may remove the VR digital glitch effect from the footage I use during when I think of my family I feel longing and I may have that glitch effect disappear from the first shot I use around when I think of happiness I see autumn leaves to show that those are positive feelings.
• Some live-action shots still need some more re-filming work to make them feel more 3D. 

I'm sure there are other things I want to change but I cannot remember off the top of my head what I wrote down in my notebook yesterday during editing. While I'd love to add some more shots to space certain parts of my film out more, I'm trying to not increase the duration of my film too much until I know what the music will be like and where/if I can extend the music.

This still requires a lot of work and changes, but I feel more comfortable with where this is going seeing how I can integrate the live-action into the CGI space. Also after this test I'm excited to see how the sound effects will further embed the glitch transitioning effects and bring the entities to life, although I do think I may reserve the removal of other audio/music effect for just the gem to indicate it's importance and sinister character.

Major Project: Pre-vis 003

I decided to put together another pre-vis now that most of my footage has been rendered out. I've included some of the shots I've been testing in regards to re-filming live action as well. I tried to take some previous feedback into account and rearranged some shots so the ones that have flickering lights are paired up next to the live action shots to help with transitioning. These transitions very rough at the minute, I will probably edit my film in After Effects later on so I can make some proper glitch effects to help with transitioning.

I also decided to include the music that I used for my Minor submission just to get a better idea of how things meld together. I struggled to edit it when it was pure silence and my voice because everything felt just slapped together, so the addition of temporary music helped me work on it. I feel better about how this is turning out and I think the music will really help the shots sit together. There is quite a lot I still need to work on, but I feel a bit more confident with how things are looking together and I'm very excited to hear what my music composer is going to come up with. I've already begun setting up a few more shots with animated lights so I suspect the duration may change still.

Minor Project: Creative Development Archive 'Showreel' Progress #1

I've been working on my written creative development archive for the Minor Project submission, but I also needed to put together some of my animation tests so they could be reviewed. I'm not 100% happy with the music, I spent a long time looking through music clips I could use but I couldn't find something I was completely happy with. One of the first things I want to do in relation to my Major project is contact and collaborate with a music composer so I can have music/soundscapes I like.

I also spent some time experimenting with my voiceover, I created several layers of whispers using both my own voice and some found sound effects. I created a few other sound effects for different parts in the video as well. I've already gotten a bit of feedback, I'm going to return to this and adjust several things including the audio levels since the main feedback I got was sometimes it was hard to hear my voice over the music and soundscape...but this is my progress so far. The poem is not in order, since this video is a fraction of the duration of the final voiceover...but I wanted to include some of the more relevant lines in the poem where I felt they could fit.

Minor Project: YPGTTO Showreel Version 1

I've begun putting together some clips to create a showreel for YPGTTO. Even though I did more than texturing and compositing on this, I tried focus mostly on those roles in my showreel. Some clips are progression shots, showing how the scene looked before texturing, after texturing, and fully rendered/composited. For any other shots, I tried to select portions of the film that I was more involved with in regards to adding sign text, texturing, compositing, 3D modelling, and/or digital set building. It took me a while to put together some clips to show the different stages, so this is just my first edit so far. I plan on trying out a few other edits using different parts of the music recording and possibly trying some other royalty free music.

 

Adaptation B: Correcting Light Errors & End Information Font Adjustments

As I was sorting out all of my footage, I noticed a few minor errors in a couple of my scenes. One of my scenes has to be rendered over again, which is my mistake. A few other problems I was able to fix in After Effects. In my opening scene, one of my models was linked up to the lights of a different model as well, causing it to illuminate too early. I corrected this by adding a black solid, creating a mask, and animating the shape and opacity so it didn't illuminate until the correct moment. I've also been trying to decide what font I want at the end, personally I find it easier to read longer pieces of text when they're not in all capitals but that could just be my poor eyesight. I have stills of the different options - the font I used in my playblast, the font that I used for all the other titles/credits in my animation, and that same font slanted.

Adaptatiaon B: Dysmorphia Previs Refined (No Sound)

I went back to my previs and made some adjustments to the title and I added some end credits. I wanted to add a quote about Anorexia at the end of the animation since my project is about that, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and Anxiety. I also made a few little tweaks to the timing of things. As I've been making these changes, I've compiled a folder full of sounds that I've recorded myself or found online, so I now feel ready to go into Audition and build my soundscape.

Adaptation B: Dysmorphia Previs Versions 1, 2, & 3 (Feedback Appreciated)

In order to help me create a soundscape, I put together a quick previs using the playblasts I had made previously. I rearranged the order of my scenes a few times until I found an order I liked. I wanted to create a few versions of my previs using different transitions and orders to see my options. Version 1 and 2 have the same order of scenes, but Version 3 is slightly different. Version 1 has minimal cross dissolves/dip to black...the majority is just cutting from one scene to another. Version 2 has a combination of cuts, dissolves, and dip to blacks. 

Version 3 has a dip to black between each model until the final model, where I begin to use a few cross dissolves as there are three scenes of just this model. I feel the soundscape will be very different depending on which version I choose...personally I like the feel of Version 3 the most because it feels slightly more 'floaty' but in a way that I like...I feel it perhaps enhances the mystery and goes along with the 'stillness' I was aiming for. I also quite like Version 1 because it feels more 'raw' and less processed, but any feedback would be appreciated.

Adaptation A: Submission Post - How To Build A DIY Frankenstein Monster

Reflective Statement:
Going into this project I was quite nervous about it since graphic design and animation are not necessarily my strengths. However, I wanted to do my best and use this project to hopefully improve on these sets of skills that I often put on the back burner. Overall I'm happy with what I have been able to make, despite my nervousness and lack of confidence at the start. I feel I was lucky because I had used After Effects to create VFX for past projects including 'Leviathan', 'Pikatti', and animating my 'Denoria' digital set. I'm happy I was able to learn more about After Effects because I realised early on how useful it can be especially when it comes to cutting down render time in Autodesk Maya by creating VFX in After Effects instead. I feel I could have possibly added more to the sound design, but I didn't want to overdo it due to the 'silent film' aesthetic I was going for. I had a few moments I was very frustrated with my music because I had to spend a lot of time desperately trying to loop it so it could last the whole length of the animation. In terms of design, wish I could have spent more time designing some of my assets, especially the monster. While I feel that the black and white works well for this project because I was influenced by Frankenstein (1931) and Young Frankenstein (1974), part of me wishes I experimented more with colour just to see what it'd look like. Lastly, I'm happy with how the animations came out and I think I was able to blend animation from the Plug-In 'Animation Composer' with my own keyframes and special effects effectively. However, there are parts of the animation that I wish I had more time to figure out, such as maybe having the needle actually weave in and out of the monster's skin as the head gets stitched on. Despite these things, I'm happy with the result and I'm hoping I continue to improve my graphic design skills in the future.

Adaptation A: Sound Design Progress #2

I've decided to add in a few extra sound effects to my animation as I returned to my files to edit the volume and positioning of some of the clips. I added an extra popping sound effect when the Periodic Table appears, which I think helps improve that part of the animation. I also added in a scream sound effect to accompany the blood splatter, which I think works nicely. I've also gone back into After Effects and fixed a few issues with my animation that I noticed - most notably a problem where my monster's head appeared darker than his body during one of the fading out transitions. I'm not quite sure why this happened as it only appears in some of my compositions in After Effects, but adding some brightness keyframes seems to have improved/fixed this.

Adaptation A: Old Film Effects #2 with Music

I decided to type out my 'steps' and string them together in a video. I figured this way I can try to plot out what sort of things I'll need to design. I've also decided to begin looking at some music to try and get some pacing. Out of the music I've found so far, the one I've put in the video is my favourite but I'm going to continue looking and I'll eventually add other sound effects. There is currently no animation on the text, but I've found a few very useful tutorials on Lynda.com so I'll begin looking into some methods of animating. I'll also begin drawing assets that I need, which may in turn remove some of the text that is in this video right now.

Pikatti: Editing & Sound Design Screenshots

Pikatti: Animatic v.3 With Sound

Pikatti: Animatic v. 3 (No Sound)

We have added some new storyboard panels and adjusted some other parts of the animatic such as removing zooms, adding more close-ups and changing the timing of some of the clips. There is currently no audio because some sounds need to now be added and moved around.

Fantastic Voyage: Rough New Animatic

Since I now have my voiceover, I decided to quickly piece together an animatic so I know the new timing better for when I start animating. It only has the voice and is missing the sound effects but I at least have a better idea of the timing/pacing now. I also changed the sequence 0:26-0:44 so there were less scenes where it's just a black screen (in the animatic I just reused some storyboards of kelp and bacteria silhouettes).

Animation & Character: Crit Showreel

From Script to Screen: Test Animatic #1 (Without Sound)

I've put together a test animatic so I can play around with the pacing and timing. I feel as though some of the images in the beginning of the animatic might go too quickly, but I'm trying to be aware of the length of the animatic which is already over 2 minutes. Any feedback regarding the timing in my animatic would be very appreciated. Once I get the pacing down I'm going to have a better look at some sounds to add.

Adobe Premiere: Titles

To practice using titles in Premiere Pro, I added each type of title to my like-for-like animatic. For the dialogue, I used the 'crawl' title but I had them remain stationary.

 

Maya Intro to Pre-Vis: Coverage

Today we completed the Coverage Pre-Vis tutorial, we put the playblasts from Maya together using Adobe Premiere. We did this in two different ways...I definitely preferred cutting the scenes manually (version 1) instead of using the multi-cam method (version 2).

Adobe Premiere: Like-for-Like Mad Max Animatic