Week 1 - Introduction to Visual Narratives
In my first week for visual narratives I was introduced to shooting plans that TV Shows and movies use before they start to act scenes out. An example of a shooting plan is below:
Shooting Plan
The first task that I was given was to take photos of anything using the different camera shots that was discussed in the power point that I watched. I chose to use my dog for the subject matter and the results are below:
Extreme Long Shot XLS
Medium Long Shot MLS
Closeup CU
Very Long Shot VLS
Mid Shot MS
Big Closeup BCU
Long Shot LS
Medium Closeup MCU
Extreme Closeup ECU
The second task was to take a series of videos of the techniques that were shown to me in the power point. I again used my dog as the subject matter and the results are below:
A Pan
A Pull-out
A Tilt
A Zoom
A Combination Shot
Statement of Intent
I chose to study VFX as I wanted to incorporate my knowledge of photography and knowledge of computers and combine it to be able to use both sides of my creative sides together. I also love watching movies and TV shows an have always wondered how some scenes where made. Once I finish the course I hope to get a job in the VFX industry somewhere.
Week 2 - Camera Work
In the first task for this week I had to create 12 shots in moving or edited sequences to illustrate a sort of story like seen with the example below:
Sequence Shots
My Sequence Shots
An understanding to aperture, ISO and shutter speed
Aperture is the size of the opening in the lens when a picture is taken. When taking a photo with a camera there is a hole that opens up at the back of the camera allowing light to travel through the hole and hit the light sensitive paper. The larger the hole the more light gets in and the smaller the less the amount of light can get in. This is measured in f-stops, for example you can get f/2.8, f4, f5,6 etc. By changing these settings you will change the aperture size.
Aperture
Aperture and depth of field are very coherent with each other as by changing the aperture this can have an influence on your depth of field. A shallow depth of field means that only part of the image will be in focus whilst the rest will be fuzzy. On the other hand a large depth of field means that most of your image will be in focus whether its close to your camera or far away
Low Aperture
High Aperture
ISO
ISO is the indication of how sensitive light is to a film. It ranges from 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 etc. If you take a photo with a low ISO the film will be finer the grain in the shots you are taking. ISO is also used in modern day photography as it measures the sensitivity of the image sensor, the same rules apply with this.
Typically, when changing the ISO yhou will need to be careful as if you change it to a very low ISO you must be using a tripod as your hands will move the camera in the amount of time you are taking the photo.
Low amount light - 100 or 200
Medium amount of light - 100 - 800
High amount of light - 1400 or 1500
ISO Indicator
Shutter speed is the amount of time that the shutter is opened for. It is measured in seconds, you can get speeds from 1/1000 to a slower shutter speed of 1/30. If you use a shutter speed that is lower than 1/60 it will be extremely hard as you will struggle to keep the camera still because if you move a little bit the image will become blurry so it is advised to be using a tripod at these speeds. At high shutter speeds there is no need because the seconds are so quick that it could never pick up the movement of the camera.
1/500 - freezing motion
1/8000 - for a fast-moving image
1/2000 - for most sporting photos
1/250 - for aerial shots
Shutter Speed
Shutter Speed Indicator
Exposure Triangle
Week 3 - Forced Perspective
In this week for visual narrative we began to explore the idea of forced perspective and how many people use it to create illusions. For example the image below shows of the illusion of clouds coming out of an air can.
Forced Perspective
We then began developing ides for a scenario with 2-3 characters of a child’s dream sequence that focuses on action. Below is my development of that scenario:
Childs Dream Sequence
In this child’s dream sequence there will be two characters in which one of them is the main protagonist and the other will be the villain that chases him round different dreams. The main protagonist will have to escape into to multiple different dreams to get away from the villain and will have to find a way to contain it and trap it inside one of the dreams that the protagonist goes through. The scenario that will be created here will be of the horror and thriller genre whilst also containing some action sequences. The story starts of with the main character Timothy going to bed with everything being a normal routine and then as he falls asleep, he will notice that he’s not in an ordinary dream as he finds this dream to be much more realistic and feels as if he’s there himself. He gets introduced to the basics of lucid dreaming as he finds out that he is aware of himself dreaming and he finds out that he can control his dreams and do anything thing he wants inside of them. However, he finds out that there is a dark side to his lucid dreams and that there is an anomaly that he can’t quite work out what it is and as he explores his dreams even more, he finds out that this anomaly is trying to close his dreams to leave him with nothing to dream about. The main protagonist Timothy must now find a way to hunt down this anomaly (which is unknown what it is at this time and will be introduced later in the story) and stop its destructive path by trapping it inside a fake dream he creates that makes the anomaly think that its has control of multiple dreams but in fact its in a dream construct with infinitely loops and tricks the anomaly into thinking that’s its doing damage but is in fact in a sort of simulation of dreams.
Childs Dream Sequence Thumbnails
My Forced Perspective Attempts
Week 4 - Photo-Stories
Before I started with my week 4 lecture I began to investigate about photo-stories and how they can be achieved with a few examples below:
The Boy who cried wolf photo-story
In the example above the viewer can clearly see what the photo-story is trying to tell as its the classic tale of the boy who cried wolf. Photo-story's can be done in many different ways as the one above is one of many ways of producing a photo-story.
In today's lecture we dived deeper into how shooting plans are made and the sort of techniques in making these. For the first task today around shooting plans, I had to make my own shooting plan using a scenario that involves two characters, two assets, an environment, clear lighting source and three camera
positions. Below is my shoot plan for my scenario and my three camera shots:
Shoot plan for my scenario
Shot 1
Shot 2
Shot 3
For the second part of the task we were divided into different groups in which I was in a group of three and we had to draw each others scenario but as I was in a group of three I combined two ideas to create one and the results are below with the shooting plan and the three different camera shots:
Shoot plan for combined scenario
Shot 1
Shot 2
Shot 3
Week 5 - Briefs and Creating Stories
In this week for visual narratives, we spoke over the brief in much more detail as we talked about what I need to do for assignment 1 and that I should start brainstorming ideas and also use the SMART acronym. We then talked about creating stories from images by cropping and cutting out parts of the image to make a story out of it. Below is the result for the first task in which I had to chose between two images that I wanted to use as my source image in making the photo storyboards:
Joe Biden political rally
My photo storyboard recreation
Battle of Waterloo painting
My photo storyboard recreation
For the third task we went into breakout groups with one another and swapped our pictures with each other so we could make as photo storyboard from that image, below is the image that I got from Arash:
French Revolution painting
My photo storyboard recreation
Week 6 - The Kuleshov Effect
Task 1 - The Kuleshov Effect
Task 2 - The Kuleshov Effect
Assignment 1 - The Day in a life of a dog
Artist Research
Artist 1 - (Various)
Below are two images that I liked from the game Destiny, these images below are concept art for the game as this means that its what they expect the game to look like in the final version. I found these images quite interesting as they are very sinister and also mysterious looking and that interested me a lot when looking at these images.
Artist 2 - Carter Goodrich
The next two images below are from the artist Carter Goodrich. Carter is a illustrator whose work as been seen widely around the work as he has done lots of work for company's like Disney. The two images below are appealing to me as that I find the art styles that he uses to create his work interesting as the viewer can see that he does lots of rough looking sketches that always look realistic.
Artist 3 - Ryan Woodward
The final two images that I found from the artist Ryan Woodward illustrate to me a sense of adventure with the images as the first one clearly shows two people on bikes and you wonder where they are going and then the second is one where the viewer decides what the image is trying to portray and I find that quite interesting.
Week 8 - The 12 Principles of Animation
This week in visual narratives we got introduced to the 12 principles of animation and also how to make a simple stop motion animation. The 12 principles is something that I have already covered before so in this lesson it was more of a recap for me. However for the first task that we needed to do it was to make a short stop animation of anything you want but for me I chose to do an elephant as seen below in the image.
Drawn Elephant
Elephant stop motion
Week 9 - Applying Skills
In today's lecture were had more of a tutorial lesson rather than learning anything new as we went through what went well with what we have accomplished so far and also thinking about what could we do better.
WWW (What Went Well)
I think that so far with all the work that I have done well I have revisited a good understanding of photography techniques as I have go through the above information about exposure, shutter speed, ISO control, etc.
EBI (Even Better If)
I feel that I could improve by trying to experiment more and not to be a perfectionist all the time as I have not documented enough of my skates above and I feel that by having this it could boost the work of my sketchbook.
Week 10 - Applying skills 2
In this week's lecture for visual narratives, we stayed on the focus of applying skills and refining what we have learned. As in today's task, I went in pairs and chose a script in which I had to create a storyboard as seen below:
300 Script
Week 11 - Thinking Ahead
In this week's lecture for visual narratives, we started to focus on ideas for the final stop motion for the final assignment. To do this we all made powerpoints in which we started to brainstorm ideas and answer questions. Below is the PowerPoint that I ended up making.
Assignment 2 - Animation
For assignment 2 which is the final assignment, I had to make an animation which is from my own idea. I originally came up with the idea of using lego cars to animate a chase scene using a stop motion app on my iPhone but however after thinking over many ideas and how each one will work I came up with the idea of making blue-tac men who fight each other as I thought that by making my models in blue-tac I can model and change them however I want and also animate the movement in the legs and the arms better than a static model.
Above is an example of what I originally had in mind for the animation which included the lego cars.
I then began to experiment with my idea and I started with these two human-like figures above and I just wanted to play out a scene that I had in my head and see how it would look when animated and the results are above. However, after getting the final result of the animation I knew that it still was not refined enough as there are parts in the animation where my hand was seen, and also I did not use a tripod or anything to hold my phone up to record it and it is shown throughout the animation. I also noticed that the movements of the men seemed very quick and not natural enough so that is also something I will need to keep in mind for when I redo this. The background was another issue for me as I found that I ran out of room a lot when making the animation as I was doing this in a crowded place of my table.
Once I finished my first test run of the animation I had in mind what I needed to fix as mentioned above but however, the finished result is seen below. I managed to sort out the background first of all and found a much less crowded space to work with, whilst also using natural light in the background rather than artificial light. I also made sure that the men's movements were much more smooth as I made their movements very subtle with each frame. I also extended the fight scene to utilize more of the frames per second that I was using. I made sure that I was careful with each frame taken as well as this time I managed to get a makeshift tripod as seen above, whilst also making sure that the animation did not feature my hands.