The Pixel Lab

the pixel lab is an interesting resource for me to indulge myself and find out more about the industry. It is an arts / creative resource website.
The website offers free tutorials, interviews with various motion designers (both shown in previous PDP tags i have posted)

http://www.thepixellab.net

Camera Shader C4D Tutorial

I found this tutorial again on Pixel Lab which i thought was interesting and looked into the camera shader effect that has been used in it.

                     
C4D Mograph Camera Shader Part 2 from The Pixel Lab on Vimeo.

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• Camera Shader which will map any camera view onto any surface, improved MoGraph Effectors, and other general improvements and refinements
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• The Camera Shader is a little plugin which can be linked to a standard C4D camera object. It then displays everything that is viewed by this camera. Thus you can e.g. make an object like a TV in your scene show some image sequence over time which is defined by a normal camera. 
  
  Of course you can also just use it to make nice effects like fractals or other funny patterns by directing the input camera to the output shader itself. 
  
  There's the possibility to change the behavior of the camera shader in such a recursion: either the normals of the objects are evaluated only once and ignored in further recursions (see "No effects" - diffusely distributed normals stay diffuse). Or the normals can be re-calculated in each recursion step which causes effects like seen on the images "effect".

Interview with Jake Mathew a freelance motion designer freelancing in the cicago area.

How did you get into your first job in the industry?

Landing my very first motion graphics job was difficult. A lot of students want to become motion graphic designers so there was a lot of competition. It is hard to get a job without a demo reel. But, it is hard to have a demo reel without working any jobs. It was a Catch-22 situation.

So in order to start building up a portfolio of work,  I treated every class project and assignment as a potential spot for my reel. After about a year of grad school, I had enough work to create a 30 second demo reel that I could send to companies. Thirty seconds may sound really short, but I made sure to include only my BEST work.

I landed a job as a motion graphic designer at a local post production company. I spent my final year of grad school working there between classes. The types of projects I worked on at that company were just local and regional TV commercials.

Jakes work:

Tell me a bit about where you work and what they specialize in. Are you at a studio? Freelance?

After I finished grad school, I got a job as a motion designer for the TV channel, Current TV. While a lot of people are not familiar with Current, they have a really talented in-house graphics department and I learned a lot during the 2 years I worked there. After Current TV, I moved to Chicago and have been freelancing at post-houses around the city.

How long have you been in the industry?

About 6 years.

What software do you use?

I use the Adobe Creative Suite and Maxon Cinema 4D for everything I do.

Advice Jake Mathews had to say about getting started and where to focus attention in your work:

While you are in school, take courses that will improve your design-sense. Learn about typography, color theory, composition. Good design never goes out of style.

Build a solid demo reel. Take your best class work and place a few seconds into it. If you have any freelance projects or personal projects that you are proud of, use that. Get a nice web portfolio together. Sending a web link to your demo reel to companies is going to be the way you get a job. Don’t worry about creating a DVD as most companies prefer viewing it on the web so they can easily email it around or bookmark it if they like it. Quicktime files are preferred.

Each year, you should be a better designer than you were the year before. If you stop improving, change something.

Tutorial For C4D Lighting

                                
Tutorial showing how to create realistic lighting using cinema 4d. This was helpful for me when i was creating my 3d realistic text in real footage photograph. I needed my text to look as 'real world ' as possible and so the lighting played a large role in this. This is somthing i need to remember for when i come animating any of my work as lighting can change the way my work looks and how it is perceived.
CINEMA 4D is a 3D modeling, animation and rendering application developed by MAXON Computer GmbH in Germany. It is capable of procedural and polygonal/subd modeling, animating, lighting, texturing, rendering, and common features found in 3D modelling applications.

                     
Another tutorial i found from the Pixel Lab on lighting (again in C4D)
Shadow Casting Lights: A lighting tip for Cinema 4D from The Pixel Lab on Vimeo.

What is motion design

Motion graphic design is a subset of graphic design in that it uses graphic design principles in a filmmaking or video production context (or other temporally evolving visual medium) through the use of animation or filmic techniques. Examples include the kinetic typography and graphics you see as the titles for a film, or opening sequences for television or the spinning, web-based animations, three-dimensional station identification logo for a television channel. Although this art form has been around for decades, it has taken quantum leaps forward in recent years in terms of technical sophistication.

Technology

The elevation of this art form is largely due to technology improvements. Computer programs for the film and video industry have become vastly more powerful and more available. One of the leading program used by motion graphic designers is Adobe After Effects, which allows them to create and modify graphics over time. Adobe After Effects is sometimes referred to as "Photoshop for film." A relatively recent product in the market is Apple Inc. Motion, now a part of Final Cut Studio. Adobe Flash is widely used to create motion design for the web.

Recently, motion graphics design needs more than a few tools and practices to be created smoothly. Tools like Maxon Cinema4D has integrated tools to create Motion Graphics, such as the native MoGraph plugin, or ICE of Softimage that can also be used for similar purposes. While techniques used are heavily dependent on the designer, trends are also defining on which techniques are used, when.

A typical motion designer is a person trained in traditional graphic design who has learned to integrate the elements of time, sound and space into his/her existing skill-set of design knowledge. Motion designers can also come from filmmaking or animation backgrounds.

A New Way Of Looking

25/02/15

A New Way Of Looking 

For this brief i am going to be looking at noticing something i have never really thought of or paid attention to before. I will ask question such as what is it why is it there has it always been there, when looking for my subject matter. My subject matter could be somthing i have walked passed a thousand times and never given it thought.
I will explore unconventional ways in which my subject matter will be viewed, and involve various editing techniques to change the view point of the viewer and atmosphere of my film.
To start off my idea for this project i will take picture and records of things i discover that could be interesting or that spark ideas for my work.
My final outcome of this project will be a 2 minute short film which includes sound and editing technique applied in ways which work well and even emphasise my theme and idea.



In the years between the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalin, filmmakers in the Soviet Union invented a new language of film: one that still inspires filmmakers today. Geniuses like Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein found out how to combine and contrast images to get ideas across, and how the rhythm and pace of editing, and the use of music, could stir emotions.

Most modern films follow the ‘continuity system’ (see Putting it together) so that viewers get caught up in the story and don’t notice the filmmaking. Soviet montage is completely different and offers lots of ways of giving your films impact and making the viewer think about your ideas.

How it started
After the 1917 revolution, fresh film stock was in short supply, so filmmakers learnt by experimenting with found footage (shots from old films), looking at what happened if they put them together in different ways. They found that people would respond to a shot differently depending on what images came before and after it. In the “Kuleshov experiment” by pioneer film theorist Lev Kuleshov, audiences saw a close-up of an actor followed by a shot of a bowl of soup, a coffin, or an attractive woman. They thought the actor was great at looking hungry, sad or lustful – but actually each of his close-ups used exactly the same footage:

                               

The Russian Revolution meant that there was a huge demand for propaganda. Revolutionaries like Lenin thought film was the ideal way to get revolutionary ideas across to people who couldn’t read.

The 'film man with the moving camera' includes practicalling al of the editing and cutting teqniques used in modern film today. It was a film that made the viewer aware of the film being a movie rather than trying to appear to be real life on screen.( i was unable to show an example of this as the only examples i could find were an hour long).


                              
The starting of this video shows in itself a form of film editing and use of cutting to present an overall message all the actions are varied however all cut something with a similar sound effect in one way or another. The video discusses the value of film cutting and editing and the relevance to the way we see films today. The video describes how cinema and film was first talked about in a way where it was described as eventually dining out. The introduction of cutting gave film more depth and made the audience think more by showing clever suggestive connections in the film but also showing other view points of a scene.

When making my short film i should think about camera angles similar to how i thought about them in my first narrative storyboarding task 'making an egg'.
I will think about extreme close ups, low camera angles, wide shots, midd shots, establishing shots (setting the scene), miss en scene of my shot (creating an over all appearance and theme in a shot) etc I will also think about ways in which i move the camera to create different effects for example panning of the camera to show or reveal elements in my film, shaking of the camera (works for representing a point of view fall or intense action) zooming in to something to create a slow focus on the subject.
On top of the this the 'Cutting aspects of my film i will also give good thought to as this can make or break my film with regards to how creatively i can incorporate it in the end.


This video i have placed on my blog shows examples of various forms of video cutting and edits.

Some examples i have looked at:

POINT-OF-VIEW (POV) SHOT: A shot which represents what a character is looking at. It is seen more or less from his/her perspective and thus often increases the viewer's emotional identification with that character. A POV shot usually follows a shot of the person (whose view it represents) looking off-screen. This set up is often referred to as "motivated Pov."
PARALLEL ACTION: An effect created when two or more actions in two or more different locations are presented by CROSS-CUTTING between them. This alternation between actions proposes to the viewer that they are taking place at the same time. Also called PARALLEL EDITING.
PARALLEL EDITING: see PARALLEL ACTION.
REVERSE MOTION: Screen action that runs backwards.
MONTAGE: The French word for editing. In the Soviet Union daring the 1920s and 1930s, montage meant INTELLECTUAL MONTAGE. 2) In Europe, the term is equivalent to editing. 3) In Hollywood, the phrase "montage sequence~ is used specifically to describe a sequence using rapid cuts, often SUPERIMPOSITIONS and DISSOLVES, to create a kind of kaleidoscopic effect and to telescope or shorten the passage of an extensive period of time.
SHALLOW FOCUS: objects on only one plane are in focus, while objects in the background or close to the camera are out of focus

I also found some editing techniques in a library book i read and recorded my findings. The book gives an example of the type of edit and an example (what films it has been used in) and a picture example:

Importance of storyboarding when creating film:

As i have decided to follow a narrative themed film in which i myself will plan, i am going to make sure that my story boards are very accurate in order to keep track of what shots and various angles i will need for my sequence and where everything needs to be how long for etc this will make things easier for me to manage when filming.

Narrative Pairs images:

For my Final idea for this projects i have decided that i am going to create a short story that highlights the forgotten aspect of discarded notes. My idea was inspired by the abandoned sticky note that i recorded when doing my research. I have decided i am going to follow a narrative the focuses on an actor writing and scribbling notes that they will then keep discarding and to express and display  frustration in some way to emphasise this idea of the notes being discarded and the thought of the words the actor writes becoming ungracious in the eyes of the actor leading this person to abandon them.

I will look at unique ways of creating this short film with my use of angles perspective camera movements and lighting all of which will contribute to the atmosphere of my piece.

I have storyboarded my idea in my sketchbook and written about what props etc that i will need and created a shot list for my short film. Some of the story board windows i have altered when i have actually come to filming my short film do to on set technicalities and i decided to change the ending slightly but still end on a shot of the pencil i have done this to leave the film on a more eery intriguing note and suggestive.

My First version of my film with no editing and no sound:

            

This is the final edit of my short film with the added sound:

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The idea of this short film that i was trying to portray was the discarded notes that symbolise memories and personal documentations etc due to writing in a diary  this is similar to the quality and emotion my recordings of the discarded postit note gave which was what lead me to embrace this narrative themed idea for my work. The main aspect of my work relating back to the project brief itself was how i decided to film the film. The brief was for us to capture something in a new or unique way and so i did this by using close up obscure angles and various shots and transition techniques from one scene to another. I also included the placement of short suggestive more dark and gloomy shots where the actor in my film would have rubbed make up and show obvious signs of stress and anger, emphasising the personal quality the disgraced notes hold as the film progressivly shows her getting more and more angry as she throws away more and more notes in which she is pouring her heart into, losing a piece of herself each time she trows another.
The shake camera movements in some of the shots create a more real feel about the film and give it that more personal feel (less staged). Also the editing adjustments i made to the film emphasised the dreamy hazed effect of the nature of the film.

The i i used in the background is called Bad dream by soley. I chose this piece of music to use for my film as its nature is very sort of dazed and dreamlike with a hint of insanity or verge of insanity. This is the along the lines of the emotions and narratives i am following for my film.
I also recorded and involved my own pencil writing sounds for the film as this emphasised the continuous writing of the actor as the audience can not only see but hear her writing with the sound repetitive.
On top of this i also added darker sounds on top of the sole song where the dark pieces of footage were displayed for example when the first scene of the throwing of the paper appears i make dark eery chimes play underneath the song more quietly so they don't over power but again emphasise the dark section and suggestive nature of this part of the film, also at the end of the film i have done the same.
the music i had i made match up with the footage itself for example i lined up a section of the song that says the lyrics i was frightened, with a shot of the actor holding her face in a concerned way. i also left a big pause when the first paper ball was thrown to match up with the camera technique of the pull focus and to emphasise a drag of time and new scene.