Other than our dance video, i had the fantastic opportunity to work on the set of Laura, Lauren, Katherine and Mollies group film "Elysian" as a Camera Operator.

I was called in as most of the group already had roles (Laura and Mollie co-directing, Lauren producing and making sure everything goes to schedule, and Katherine filming behind the scenes) and big rig such as the EX-3 combined with a glidecam needed it's own crew to handle it.

Setting up the camera was easier this time as we had already done the same rig for our own shoot.

Both me and shahid worked under the strict direction of Laura in order to get the shots that she and mollie imagined. Something that i learned on this shoot was to carefully listen to directions, but also suggest ideas that may fix problems on set.

One of these problems was the lighting. Since the group had originally imagined the lighting as backlit, they tried it out but the light was clearly visible. It was my suggestion then to add two blue lights behind the actors, one off camera at the left and one off camera at the right. This quickly solved the backlighting problem and allowed the group to carry on with the shoot.

Overall it was a very fun experience, and it was nice to work on such a different shoot then ours. Definitely worth it even just for this photo...:

ROUGH EDIT:
After finishing the shoot and all the footage was backed up Lucy started the rough edit in Adobe Premiere Pro, as she felt she would be more comfortable with it. After a bit of initial research i reassured her that it would be possible to convert the project file to Avid Media Composer, our software of choice for Color Grading and Finishing since we had booked the Avid Suite.

CONFORMING TO AVID:

Lucy's Premiere Pro Timeline

Since the rough edit was done by Lucy in Premiere Pro, and the final color grade would be done in Avid Media Composer, we needed a way to get the timeline transferred from one application to the other.

Since Premiere and Avid aren't very compatible when sharing EDL files, we came up with a way to make the premiere pro export as generic as possible, stripping it from custom master clip names that confused Avid.

We did this by exporing an XML file from premiere pro containing all the cuts. We imported that in to DaVinci Resolve, a software package used traditionally for color correction, and is compatible with both Premiere and Avid. We then exported an AAF file from DaVinci, that could be imported smoothly in to Avid.

The Premiere Pro timeline conformed to DaVinci Resolve

The resulting Avid Timeline retained all of the basic cuts and fades. We also exported a video render of the premiere project to verify and fix any errors that occured with the transfer.

VISUAL EFFECTS:
The film required a number of simple and complicated effects. Some of the most complicated shots were the glidecam shots as they involved tracking the movement of both shots, stabilizing them in 3d space and then re-applying one of the camera moves to both shots in order to get a shots with both Amelias and a moving camera.

Also allot of the greenscreen shots required extra hand drawn mattes as due to our quick shoot we didn't have time to cover the floor in a greenscreen.

The way i went about garbage matting the shots was instead of adding the masks after keying the footage, i precomposed the footage and then added green solids to cover up the floor and the light stands. This meant that the keyer would be able to pull a more natural key from the image and other effects such as light wrap would work properly. My keyer of choice was a combination of Keylight and Primatte. Keylight works well with chroma differences, where Primatte can be extremely selective as it also considers the foreground object's colors.

For some of the shots i also tried quite a different way of masking, as allot of shots needed to be done extremely fast. Instead of drawing masks and keyframing them by hand, i used the "Roto Brush" tool that was introduced in the recent versions of After Effects. This allowed a semi automatic masking process that only required some of my intervention to fix errors. I also added some adjustments to the edges of the matte such as softening and light wrapping to hide some of the imperfections of the matte.

Also, towards the last few days a new edit was cut, therefore more shots had to be added. These shots were being created at the same time as the edit, so as a shot would be completed i would hand it straight to shahid to replace in to the timeline.

Here are some shot breakdowns to further show my contribution to the project as an effects artist:


COLOR GRADING / ASSISTING THE EDIT:
To assist shahid in the complicated color grade for allot of the complex visual effects shots, since i was already creating keys and mattes to seperate both sides i created grayscale mattes as separate exports. (You can see these in the breakdown video above)

These mattes were then used in Avid as a Matte Key to isolate specific areas of the image in order to color grade them seperately.

Seperating the two colors in Avid

I also assisted shahid in the tricky job of transferring shots back and forth between the edit, visual effects and the final conformed timeline. Both me and Shahid tried our best to mach lucy's edit, keep everything organised in bins and fix any problems that occurred during the transfer of projects.

With the colors both me and shahid were trying to keep everything consistent, therefore we saved both colors as presets to re-apply on to footage. We also added a filler on top of the main timeline to adjust the contrast globally, and to add a color safe limiter. Lastly we also played around with some external controllers for avid's color correction tools.

Color Correcting in Avid

SOUND MIX / FINAL TOUCHES:
To finish the project as soon as lucy had the sound edit ready she exported each track individualy and gave them to me to do the final mix and mastering.

The tracks were mastered in Logic Pro X, and the adjustments made were equalizing all the tracks to avoid frequency clashes, but to also bring out the best of each sound (for example, lift the "kick" of the heartbeat, give some high end dynamics to the clicks), compress some sounds that were not balancing correctly, adjust the levels using professional monitor speakers and add some further effects such as a slight reverb on the breathing.

The final mix was balanced to -10db peak and -14db average with a -18db test tone, as highlighted by Simon Allmark.

The final sound mixing desk

I also designed a simplistic end titles sequence that literally "reflect" the mirror in the piece.

Shoot day, finally here!

ROOM SCHEDULING:
Booking out rooms has been the definition of a logistical nightmare...

Originally we had booked the 25th of may for g27 with a full equipment list, and two extra days for an audition and a rehearsal in classrooms.

However, despite our early panning we had to work in conjunction with Laura, Lauren, Katherine and Molly's group who desperately needed a studio, to completely rearrange all of our bookings due to all the studios being fully booked.

As a space appeared on the 20th, the underwater dance group couldn't take that space due to their dancer. However, as we could we decided to swap our slot with theirs.

This posed another step of confusion as our equipment bookings had to be swapped over. Luckily we booked roughly the same equipment. However during the process we did lose a couple of sandbags and a c stand.

Also, since Dowan needs a camera for Friday morning, i've offered to swap the EX-3 that we need in exchange with my personal 600D. I'll be giving him a few tips and tricks on Thurdsay for how to use extra software that i've installed on it.

CASTING AND AUDITIONS:
After receiving replies for our film we did two skype auditions and one physical audition. During the auditions we asked the dancers what they would like to input to the project, and also some of the more practical things such as availability.

This is some of the footage we shot during our physical auditions:


We decided to cast Amelia Emma Forest for her contemporary dance skills and enthusiasm for the project.

During our Skype conversation we talked allot about collaboration, and how each art form could feed in to each other.

We also went through allot of the ideas of the film, and how we'd like to structure it.

Overall, as a group we are extremely happy with Amelia, and believe she is a strong motivated individual fit for the part.

REHEARSAL AND MOVEMENT TESTS:
On Monday we booked a room to meet and greet our newly cast dancer, and to try out a few things such as movement, visual effects and costume. This is the result of that day:


VFX TESTS:
To test out some of the more complicated shots we decided to shoot visual effects tests for the pass through mirror shot, but also for the duplication shot.

The way i'm going about creating the mirror shot is using a bunch of adjustment layers in combination with the displacement map effect to create a mirror/glass look. Then the elements that are passing through the mirror are rotoscoped and put above the adjustment layers. The edge of the matte is used to further distort the areas where Amelia is passing through the mirror, as if she is bending reality. My conclusion to avoid needless extra roto work is to shoot it in front of a greenscreen


For the duplication shot, it's just a case of matchmoving both shots and creating a split screen mask.


CALL SHEET:

I also created a simplified call sheet to schedule our shoot, and gather our equipment list and contact details in one place:

 

Well... this has been a busy month...

To start off, as a group we have a synopsis and a treatment, written by Lucy:

• Try using the framing to internalise his restrictive movements
• a thought may be for the first half to let the camera dictate the movements

After our tutorial with Rachel we had the following checklist to deal with before our pitch:

• Storyboard
• Synopsis
• Technical tests
• Description of dancers
• Learning agreements – who’s doing what
• Time Tabling
• Test Shots

• Technical procedures and production practice's
• Reflective, innovative engagement with practice
• Professional working practices
• Effective research and production planning
• Awareness of audiences, contexts and networks

• Perspectives and positions
• Materials and physicals
• Portraits

• Content shaped by materials & technologies
• experiment = challenge the industrial and the commercial
• exposure/ speed/ focus / celluloid itself / surface / lens 1 printing process
• field & frames
• smallest more merits of screen technologies

To further develop our project for the gallery, it was decided to update the visuals with a more abstract and digital theme. We decided upon showing circuitry and roughly relating the concepts that applied to the prototype.

In order to finish building our project, as a group we decided to book a room to facilitate our needs

With Julia and Josh working on finishing the vacuum forming, me and Lauren went to get a plinth that we had given to Chris, the studio manager, for safe keeping (recycled from our studio shoot)



Julia had pleasantly surprised us and went ahead and bought a MaKey MaKey controller kit (mentioned in a previous post as an idea), therefore we could now build our prototype as we had originally intended to.

The way a MaKey MaKey works is it creates a number of circuits between a board, wires and the user's own body. When a specific circuit is closed, an assigned key press is activated.



These key presses are then fed in to the computer using a regular USB connection.

Since the MaKey MaKey by default registers the Up, Down, Left & Right keys, i had to re-assign the key commands in the Quartz Composer project.

With the reconfiguration done, and the plastic brain cut to size, we tested out some of the layout of our final piece, and booked additional equipment (TV & Speakers).

Lastly we went to Homebase as Julia had the idea of forming a base for our brain to help it stand up. Her job was to then assemble the MaKey MaKey in to the plastic brain.



Another idea that we had was the idea of having an led light to light up the brain, to add to the artistic and stylized look we were going for, and to also represent the brain activities.

Continuing on from the last post, whilst Lauren was editing the video, Julia was forming the brain and Josh was editing the audio, i edited the images.

These are the final images used in the project. I decided to go for a very high contrast black and white style to show detail, but at the same time remove some of it.
















This style was achieved by playing with the Highlight, Shadow, Blacks, Whites, Detail and Saturation sliders in camera raw. Then in Photoshop i darkened the edges of the frame, focusing the eye on singular details within the image.



At this point the edited video and sounds were ready. Since the Quartz project was modularly designed, it was easy to just replace the video and image with the new ones.

At this step i watched the following tutorials to help me with what i was about to do next:

The images were programmed to be scanned from their folder, and then play one after another back and forth.


This was then rendered in it's own patch for further manipulation, so that a matte could be added in the original composition to give the appearing effect when the sequence is activated


Now, the sound was to be imported.


Since Quartz Composer does not have any tools for audio, i had to download some from http://kinime.net, a website with free plug-ins and resources, forums, etc on Quartz Composer.

The audio was loaded in to the patch. A series of other patches tell the audio player what speakers to use, and then lastly to synchronise the Audio with the picture the Movie Importer tells the Audio Player it's current position.

The same was done for the distorted sounds (loaded as one pre-rendered clip), but connected to a different toggle.

Now with everything linked in to place, and a few extra math patches and switches added to disable the distorted sound and images when the final video is loaded, this is what the final nodes look like:


This is a quick demo of what the final Quartz Composition looks like when run: