Notes on the History of Compositing

Compositing is when various images are used to create an illusion that the elements are a part of the same scene.
Un Homme De Tetes (The four troublesome heads)

• Melies 1898 film used a double exposure technique to create the composite shot. 
• Parts of the exposure where matte paint is used (black).
• Melies is a pioneer of visual effects.

The Great Train Robbery 

• Edwin S. Porter created this film in 1903 using matte painting technique that Melies used.
• Porter used double exposure.

Matte Paintings

• New techniques for augmenting sets were developed in the 20th century.
• The 'Glass shot' was developed by Norman Dawn, it was a plate of glass he started on.
• The problem with this technique was that the paintings needed to be ready on set but Norman Dawn got round this by re-exposing. 
• The technique has been used since the early 19th century. 

The Glass shot 'Soldier Jack'

• Cheaper
• You have limited movement of the camera. 

Black Screen

• Frank Williams patented the 'Black Matting' process in 1918.
• The process used a black background and exposure.

'Sunrise: A song of two humans' (1927)

• Ground breaking when it was first shown to the world. 

Blue Screen

• A major issue of the black screen process was that shadows were lost.
• The Dunning process used coloured lights to identify subjects (yellow)  and background (blue) enabling a clean separation. 
• It can only be used with black and white films.
• Colour film was becoming more affordable to make.
• In 1940 Larry Butler devised a process that would allow the creation of travelling mattes. 
• Three strip process, they are combined using an optical printer. 
• The best method until the 1950's. 
• Petro Vlahos invented the 'Sodium Vapour process'
• Sodium Vapour lights= 589.3 nm/s
• With this information Vlahos created a special camera film. Which has a prism within it.
• Only Disney has these cameras. 
• It wasn't very cheap to rent off them.
• Vlahos spent 6 months working on improving the blue screen method, eventually he developed the 'colour difference matte process'
• The colour difference matte was so successful that it remained popular for the next 40 years. 
• Technique developments meant that effects could be processed faster but very little changed until the      advent of digital compositing.

Blue becomes green

• Green became more and more popular colour to use green screens. 
• It was easier to lights than blue, green registers brighter on electronic displays and was a less common colour in clothing/ costumes.
• Many digital camera sensors capture twice the amount of green as they do blue or red (bayer pattern) making it easier to key a green screen. 

All images and videos may be subject to copyright. 

Lecture 2- Consumerism: persuasion, society, brand, culture

Here are the notes I made on lecture 2 and the Context of Practice lesson notes about the lecture:

Learning new equipment

We have been given a lot of inductions to help us learn all the assets we need to create a VFX video. So far there has been After Effects inductions, DSLR inductions, Using the Dolly and the Crane, Premiere Pro induction and using the Green screen equipment induction. I believe I now have more confidence in myself in being able to create a VFX video. When I was first told that we was making a visual effects video, I must admit I was worried as I have never done anything like this before especially when I watch the Star Wars documentary, as so much goes into it, much more than I ever thought. Now that we have been learning all the different things that are needed to create a visual effects video, I don't feel as scared, now I feel more like I can do it. However my video will not look like Star Wars as that is way too advance for my skill set, hopefully I will be that good in the future but for now I am only a beginner.
Here are some notes I mad from the inductions.

Introduction into After Effects lesson 2 notes

We had another lesson helping us to learn more abut After Effects. This lesson was very useful and I learnt a lot from it. We combined using photoshop to manipulate an image them moving it over to After Effects to do more experimentation with the software. Yet again I wrote notes on what we did and new buttons we used and what they are for. As you can see we learnt a considerable amount which I am very happy about as I found it very useful.

Transmedia Storytelling

Today Mike was talking to us about transmedia storytelling. Transmedia storytelling is a technique of telling a story across multiple platforms. There are advances in technology that have allowed us to expand on to different platforms such as Mobile devices, Internet and online gaming.
We mainly talked about Henry Jenkins "Transmedia 101". Henry Jenkins is a professor of media studies. Here are my note I made on this talk.

I am going to take a closer look at Transmedia story telling as there is so much with in the meaning and I am keen to learn more about it.

My Idea Part 2

You may have heard of my initial ideas from the my idea blog. Well I am now further in to the development of my idea. I have come up with using plasticine stop motion to create the flower animation. I got to this as a final idea as previously I was look up plasticine animation and came across "Paradise in Plasticine" which is a garden created entirely from plasticine. Although it isn't animated it still caught my attention due to the different type of flowers and vegetables created. The modelling clay is very colourful and I want my flower to stand out and be bright. So I believe that plasticine will help me to create the brightness easily. Another thing that helped me to decide to use stop motion was when I was researching videos of flowers growing, many of then was created using stop motion or a time-lapse. I thought the stop motion ones really created a nice affect as it looks simple but beautiful.

Here are a few of stop motion/ time- lapse animations of flowers blooming;

I have recreated my storyboard in photoshop to give a much better idea of what will happen and where. It is much clearer than the first one. I have also added colour to show a rough idea of the colour scheme I am going for.

I have also created an animatic from my storyboard which show the pictures in movement. This also allows us to see a much clearer idea of what will happen and when it will happen.

All imagery and videos may be subject to copyright. 

My Idea

My original idea is that I will have a small delicate flower forming from a seed. It grows slowly to form into this big beautiful flower. This flower is then destroyed with in a couple of seconds by a meaningless walk of a human. The person just steps onto the flower without thinking twice, and all your left with is the flower completely destroyed. I haven't quite thought out how I will be making the flower. I have been leaning toward it being computer generated. However CGI isn't really the sort of animation I want to work on in the future. I have drawn a storyboard to present my initial ideas.

I have also been drawing some concept art for the flower. Its not much just basic outlines of different types of flowers and crushed flowers. I started off with a small mid map of ideas.

Norman McLaren

Norman McLaren is a Scottish/ Canadian film maker. He sees himself more as a Canadian although he was born in Scotland due to him working and living in Canada. His film "Neighbours" was awarded an oscar which was a shock to the audience as it was a canadian film that included McLaren different way of making film in it. "Neighbours" is a human statement which reveals human nature for violence.  He painted picture on the film rather than take photographs. Whilst he was growing up he came to realise that he wanted to work with moving imagery rather than still imagery like painting and sculptures. In his teens he came across Jazz music and liked it very much, so much that he wanted to interpret Jazz music with visuals. He decided to work straight onto film, by painting with inks. He is in love with the motions, movements in film. McLaren said "Animation consists in a film where you can stop anywhere and make an adjustment" This is pretty much saying that animation is easily malleable compared to film. Film can not be altered as easily as animations can be. He tries to use music as a type of commentary. The results that turned out for him seemed like music to him.

I quite like the way he has used pixelation and stop motion in one film. He uses mixed media rather than keeping to one all the time. I also like the way he has gone about it in "Neighbours" as he is using comedy to present human natures problem. With the main theme being violence. I would suggest watching the full video of "McLaren's Negatives" animation short documentary to hear about his inspirations and his technique.

Videos may be subject to copyright, they have been collected from Youtube.com