Production Technology - Assignment 1 - Semester 1

Assignment 1 - Short Film Creation The task itself...

As a part of our production technology module, we were given the challenge of creating a short film, 5 minutes long, using a short screenplay script from the website www.australianshortfilms.com

We were asked to do this in groups of 4 or 5, and the main focus of this task was to prove that we understood the 5C's of cinematography, and that we were able to demonstrate this through various skills that we've learnt over the past three months of being on the Digital Film & Post Production Technology course.

As a part of the challenge, we were restricted from using any form of CGI animation, and the final edit should be produced using the AVID MEDIA COMPOSER. The reason for this, is to ensure that we are focused mainly on capturing clean, and clever footage as well as sound. (Which is vital, for any production)

We were able to use any of the relevant equipment that was available to us through the SISO website, such as the PANASONIC HMC151, lighting, such as the Blondes as well as any sound equipment.

Where to begin?

Our group consisted of 4 people :

Myself ( Sion Campbell)
Giorgia Perini
James Scanlon
Charlotte Blount

From this point onwards, we decided that to have a successful production, that we would have to plan throughly, to ensure that we had a smooth process, and that we were all able to communicate easily.

From our first discussion, we came to the decision that the easiest way forward in terms of choosing a script from the Australian Short Film website, would be to give each other a few days to review any scripts that we wanted to individually, then to present our favourite script.  By doing this, we felt that it would not restrict us, and that it would make it fair for everyone in the group to pitch their favourite.

We decided to use the social media website Facebook to keep in contact with each other in the meantime, therefore I created a private group that we were able to post, discuss anything we wanted to that was relevant to the production. This proved successful, and is something that we used often during our project.

After a fairly difficult eliminating process of the groups favourite scripts, we managed to come to a decision as a group that we were to carry on forward with the script called '' The Good Samaritan ''

The Good Samaritan - Wadim MatusewiczThe original script can be found using the link below :

http://www.australianshortfilms.com/The-Good-Samaritan.html

One of the main reasons we felt that the script was an appropriate one for this task, was not only for it's interesting provocative storyline, but the fact that it included many descriptive elements that would give us a good focus, when it came to the cinematography side of the production.

We also felt that it was a do-able script to produce into a five minute film which was also a vital part of our task, being only 5 pages long. Although it did need some adapting for it to work as a part of our production, it was no doubt a great script to work with when it came to the planning process.

Where next? 
With the decision of the Script out of the way, we were able to now move forward and make decisions on the vital roles on the production such as Director ect.

This was a decision that we didn't take lightly, as it was important to ensure everyone felt they had a fair role, and that they were doing what they felt most comfortable with, which eventually proved to be successful as we had a good working team, with very little problems.

The roles that we had assigned for the production was : 

Director - James Scanlon

Cinematography - Giorgia Perini & Myself

Producing & Art Direction - Charlotte Blount

Sound & Editing - Giorgia Perini & Myself

My personal roles in the production were based on the Cinematography, Sound & Editing, and this being combined with Giorgia. The reason for this, was because in our previous discussions, we were both very eager to concentrate on the cinematography element of the production, therefore it would be equally fair if we both took the role, keeping in close contact, and combining both of our ideas together for the final product.

Presentation - Pitch (10 minutes long)

As a part of the project, it was expected for us to Pitch our chosen script to the rest of our colleagues. The guidelines for the presentation were to keep it within ten minutes long, whilst also showing the process that we as a group went through to analyse the script, to planning the production.

To successfully do this, we decided to split the task into several roles. Within this, I took charge of the Risk Assessments & Health and Safety. The treatment document & The location Recce ensuring we had the perfect locations for filming.

The Good Samaritan Risk Assessment

Although a mundane process, this was a vital part in terms of the planning process to ensure that the project would run smoothly, avoiding any accidents. As we were planning on filming on two separate locations,  I made sure to analyse them separately, as they would require different precautions to ensure that all members of crew and cast were safe at all times. This would eventually need to be taken further when it came to booking out equipment as they required separate risk assessments through the SISO Media Stores. This was explained vaguely by myself in the presentation.

The Good Samaritan - Treatment Document 

Again, a task that could be at times considered rather mundane, the treatment document was a vital role to ensure that we had every possible understanding of the script. To do this, I analysed each page, scene by scene. Taking note of the motivation of each scene, by ensuring we had understood  the mentality of each character and their motives. This was done by also taking into consideration each location, and getting a clear idea of how they should appear. This became a very useful document when it came to the planning process, as it enabled us to get very accurate in terms of character development, choosing the correct locations, and ensuring that the final film would give out the message that the script had intended. This was explained vaguely by myself in the presentation.

The Good Samaritan - Location Recce 

As another part of the task, I took the responsibility of finding the relevant locations that suited the script. Having not being very familiar with Staffordshire and the surrounding area's, this proved to be a challenging task but an exciting one. I had to quickly familiarise myself with certain area's by exploring nearby for the perfect location. We were fortunate to have a mode of transport thanks to James Scanlon, who was capable of driving us to these locations.

Whilst searching for the locations, I was taking into consideration the fact that we were going down the route of film noir, therefore we needed somewhere that would be desolate, dark and mysterious, but still suburban enough to be considered a neighbourhood.

Reflection on Presentation - On the whole I believe as a group that we were successful in portraying and pitching The Good Samaritan in our presentation. I feel that we worked very well together and seamlessly, whilst supporting each-other during the process.

 My only concern was that I felt I perhaps should have spoke in some detail regarding the cinematography of our project seeing that it is a role that I was taking part of, combined with Giorgia. But as the presentation roles, I was given the Health & Safety, Treatment Document & the location recce to discuss, therefore felt it would be appropriate to do this, and just keep in regular contact with Giorgia regarding the cinematography.

As a group I was very happy and satisfied with our effort, and I was very proud to be a part of a group with James, Charlotte & Giorgia.


TEST FOOTAGE 

Digital Composoting Assignment 2 - Street Scene

For our second task for Digital Compositing,  we were asked to do a 'Street Scene' of our own choice. With this task, it was expected of us to display all the skills that we have so far learnt on Photoshop, by creating a realistic street scene, using our own image as the backdrop, and then the incorporation of multiple stock images from the internet.

As I was rather excited for this task, I went instantly to think of idea's, and the first one that came to my head was the industrial revolution. Currently living in Stafford, the town centre has many buildings from the victorian era, which would be perfect to create a Victorian-esque scene, depicting the industrial revolution that took place many years ago. Providing I took a well com-positioned background photograph, I felt that I had many elements I could work with!

Some of the  elements I visualised included... 
Victorian Chimneys
Horse & Cart
Lamp Posts
Victorian Factories
Layers of Smoke & Dust
Victorian Characters With Top Hats ect...

Here is a simple mock up of the idea I had in mind for the project... 

Here are images from the internet that I used as a part of my inspiration for this Task....

   

Here is the original image I took for my street scene...

  

Here is the final image...

  

References - Direct Links to each image used :

Chimney 1

Chimney 2
Chimney 3
Old Fashioned Car

Wall Poster

Power Plant Tower

Cloudy Sky Background

Steel Factory Port Talbot

FINAL COMPOSITION - COMPLETE

Here are the Layers Palette for the composition...

 



  

Digital Compositing - Creation

After creating several idea’s for the ‘ Big Me, Little Me’ project, it was time for me  to move forward and pick one to composite. After much thought, I came to the conclusion that I would do ‘Idea 3’ , which included the tower of playing cards.

I chose this Image because I believe it would be a rather simple, yet effective composition that would not only display my various skills that I have learnt on the course within Photoshop, but also would include a nice array of colour, and lighting.

I began the process by using a Canon EOS 1100D, to take my very first images. I decided to do various angles, at different heights and lengths to ensure that I had the potential to get the right image to composite. I started taking photographs in manual, but unfortunately had issues with the focus, and wasn’t able to work out what I was doing wrong, therefore I had to use Auto Mode on the camera.  The images I took were shot in RAW Mode, with a Bit Depth of 16 & Colour Mode RGB. To take these images, I had to measure the baseline measurements, along with the height of the camera as well as the angles of the photo’s were taken. This was a mundane task, but vital in terms of creating an accurate composition.

Here are examples of the different photographs that I had taken using the Canon EOS 1100D…

From these images, I decided to narrow it down to three of my favourites, then analyse them to see which would be the most suitable for my composition.

These were the three favourite images that I had taken…



 

From these three Images,  I started looking at their possibilities in terms of lighting and colour to see whether they would be suitable for compositing. Although I felt all images had their own potential to become a composition, I found the third image to be more suitable than the rest for this task.

This was the image that I chose. I believe that it had the potential to challenge me on my lighting skills in the green screen room, as well as getting my angles and measurements correctly. Doing these two correctly, would allow Photoshop to become easier for me, as I am not very experienced on the program, and would have difficulty in getting the image correct if I hadn’t taken the photograph to a great standard.
Here below is the META DATA & EXIF DATA for the original background image that I chose…


  

Here are the measurements for this image that I had made whilst setting up to take the photograph :

 

Image Not To Scale

Once having the ideal background image for my composition, it was time for me to head to the green screen room to take the images that I was going to scale down. As I am not very keen to be in front of the camera, I managed to get a good friend of mine Giorgia Perini to be my model for this task, she was great to work with, f which I very much appreciated!

All images that I took were in RAW MODE, by also using manual focus, ISO & manual Exposure.
As I was not using any flash on the camera, It was important for me to get the details right to have a decently exposed image.

To do this, I had to ensure that I had positioned the lighting that I had to work with, in the correct area’s of the green screen room, to replicate any shadows that were to be seen in my original background photo. I did have difficulty in using my previous measurements, but I feel that overall it worked out well in the end.

The idea was to make the image look as if Giorgia was hiding behind one of the cards, therefore parts of her had to be hidden from view of the camera. To do this we had to improvise a little, and I decided to use one of the green screen floorboards representing one of the playing cards. Although entirely improvised, it worked well, and was a great prop to work with.

After taking multiple shots on the camera, It was time for me to reflect on the images that I had, to see if they were suitable. These were the shots that I had taken during the shoot in the green screen room.


  

I eventually came to the decision that I would use this following image as my one to composite with the backround image that I had taken. Below is also the METADATA & EXIF DATA for this image. 

   

After completion of the greenscreen photos, it was time for me to display my skills in Photoshop.
Therefore I opened the  RAW image that I was happy with into photoshop ready for editing.

The first step for me to achieve the image I wanted to create was to KEY the image. I did this by using the channels palette, selecting the appropriate channel from the RGB, and going to the Image drop down menu, and selecting the calculations button.

From here I had to select the appropriate layer from the dropdown menu, as well as the appropriate channel that I was either going to SUBTRACT, ADD or MULTIPLY from. This task had to be repeated several times, using different blends, Such as Subtract or Multiply to get the desired colours chosen.

At this point, you can see that I had Green Spill within my image that I had to get rid of.
 I would get rid of it by using the technique that we learnt in our course called de-spilling. I started off by creating a copy of the layer chosen, then removing the layer mask from it. Then i transferred the layer mask from the original layer, by sliding it up to the new copy. I then renamed the layer as De-spilled Layer.

Going back to the channels palette, I then used the curves button and had to half the output on the Red and Blue channel by 50%, which is the figure 128. To do this I made a copy layer of each the blue channel and the red channel, then used the curves button to lower the output.

From this, I then went onto combine the red and blue channels together by selecting one, and using the calculations option in the drop down menu. From there I used the Add blend mode which then combined both channel layers together, which gave me my average red and blue.

With my average red and blue completed, I followed on to the next step which was to subtract this new Average RED and BLUE from the original green screen layer. This was done using the same calculations method, only using the subtract blend mode instead. From that I had created my spill map.

From this point I subtracted all the green, by using the same technique as before, by using the appropriate channels layer. I copied the new de spilled green layer, and pasted it onto the green channel. This worked pretty effectively in terms of eliminating the green from my image, but still I had a few issues with it that I had to sort.

I sorted the issues out by using the eraser tool, which usually isn't the correct method, but it worked for this particular image.

 

Once I had finished with the despilled layer, it was then time for me to combine it with my original background image of the playing cards that I had taken. This took some time as I did have to change the scale, and also rotate it a little for it to fit in with image correctly.

When I first applied the De-spilled layer, the very first thing I noticed was that the colours didn't match correctly with backround. Therefore I had to change the colours to make it fit seamlessly. I did this by using the Vibrance tool, which allowed me to change the saturation of the de-spilled layer.

BEFORE COLOUR CHANGE

                                                          AFTER COLOUR CHANGE

After getting the positioning, the scale and the colour to match the backround, the next step for me  to do was to create a shadow that would be realistic for the little person.  I had to acknowledge the fact that in the backround image the shadows were all facing the left hand of the picture, therefore I had to match my new shadow to the same direction as they were following.

To do this I copied the original dispilled layer, then used various adjustment layers and the saturation tool to get rid of any colour that existed. I then had to flip the image horizontally then vertically therefore it would make a fairly accurate shadow. I then had to rotate it to match up with the other directional shadows, so it looked genuine.

By this point I was relatively happy with the outcome of what I had, but decided to ask advice and opinion of our lecturer for this module. From this, he brought up some very valid points on how to improve the image.

From the feedback, he mentioned about the colour temperature of the image, as the girl wasn't matching up to the rest of the photograph, therefore it needed to be toned down to a cooler colour.

He also mentioned about a reflection that I had missed out, which involved the foot of the girl. As the surface she is standing on is reflective, in a realistic situation, her foot would be slightly reflected directly where the shadow appear's , therefore that was something I should rectify.

Another point that was brought up, is that when looking close up onto the girl the image doesn't quite blend fully with the background. The original background had far more natural grain, where as the super-imposed image did not. Therefore I made sure to add more grain to the image of the girl so it would blend seamlessly into the image.

The final point that was brought up, was that he would like to see what the girl was afraid of, and what she was looking at. Therefore I had to take one last final image to composite into it. I decided I was to incorporate a large face looking down on her, to emphasise on how small the girl is.

Here is the EXIF data of the new image that I was to incorporate into the composition...

For this image, as I was short on time I wasn't able to use the green screen to take the image, therefore when it came to editing I had to use the quick selection tool to remove the background. I noticed instantly that the colours weren't accurate enough to fit seamlessly in the composition. I had to use the channel mixer along with the vibrance tool to make it more accurate. I also skewed the angle of the image to make it seem like she is looking down on the girl. To get it as close as the original image, I used a final levels tool just to create a slight shadow underneath the chin area, with more light on the nose.

By doing so I managed to get this outcome below...

 As I was rather pleased with the outcome, I decided that I felt that I only needed to add final touches to the image, the minute details.
Some of these details included creating a reflection onto the pack of cards that was in the foreground as it was naturally reflective. So as you can see in the image below, I added a subtle layer over the image that was flipped horizontally, and vertically, then with the opacity and transparency on a low figure. This can be seen in the image below...

 

I believe that adding these small details are vital to ensure that the image was as realistic looking as possible. Other subtle changes were made such as the adding a shadow onto the desk that would be created by the large face looking down upon the girl. I did this by selecting a realistic area on the desk, and changing the exposure to create a shadow, then blending it in using a gaussian blur.

This can be seen in the image below...