How film conventions are used to stand the character out from a crowd scene?

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Bibliography

1. Kenworthy, C. (2012). Master shots : 100 advanced camera techniques to get an expensive look on your low-budget movie. Studio City, Ca: Michael Wiese Productions.
2. Mercado, G. (2019). The filmmaker’s eye : the language of the lens : the power of lenses and the expressive cinematic image. New York, Ny: Routledge.
3. Edgar-Hunt, R., Marland, J. and Rawle, S. (2018). The language of film. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
4. Cocks, G., Diedrick, J. and Perusek, G.W. (2006). Depth of field : Stanley Kubrick, film, and the uses of history. Madison, Wis.: University Of Wisconsin Press.
5. Carucci, J. (2013). Digital SLR video & filmmaking for dummies. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
6. Jennifer Van Sijll (2005). Cinematic storytelling : the 100 most powerful film conventions every filmmaker must know. Studio City, Ca: Michael Wiese Productions.
   

Filmography

1. Gandhi [film]. 1982. Richard Attenborough dir. UK: Columbia Pictures
2. The Natural [film]. 1984. Barry Levinson dir. US: Tri-Star Pictures
3. No Time To Die [film]. 2021. Cary Joji Fukunaga dir. UK: Universal Pictures
4. Closer [film]. 2004. Mike Nichols dir. US: Sony Pictures
5. The Grand Budapest Hotel [film]. 2014. Wes Anderson dir. US: Fox Searchlight Pictures
6. Lost in Translation [film]. 2003.Sofia Coppola dir. US: Focus Features
7. The Verdict [film]. 1982 . Sidney Lumet dir. US: 20th Century Fox
8. The Artist [film]. 2011 . Michel Hazanavicius dir. France: Warner Bros
9. Eyes Wide Shut [film]. 1999 . Stanley Kubrick dir. US: Warner Bros
10. Soul [film]. 2020. Pete Docter dir. US: Walt Disney Studios
11. The Pursuit of Happyness [film]. 2006. Gabriele Muccino dir. US: Sony Pictures
12. Dunkirk [film]. 2017. Christopher Nolan dir. US: Warner Bros
13. Strangers On A Train [film]. 1951. Alfred Hitchcock dir. US: Warner Bros
14. Ocean’s Eleven [film]. 2001. Steven Soderbergh dir. US: Warner Bros

The comparison of established technology and emergent technology on Chroma Key and Rotoscoping.

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Chroma Key

Established Technology

Emergent Technology – Virtual LED Panel

However, with emergent technology, a giant, high resolution LED panel is replaced instead of green screen. It allows directors, actors and production crew to visualise the setting during the production stage. Basically, it makes no different with a realistic on-site shooting, and even more, vfx artists can manipulate every pixels on the background artificially as early as production period.

According to Charmaine Chan, the lead compositor in Industrial Light & Magic, she used to chroma key with uneven green screen background frame by frame precisely, but with LED panel she worked with production crew simultaneously in the studio. The benefits of using it also included remaining edge details, natural color fringe in the result.

What is also worthy of our attention is that, the emergent technology established its convincible result on reflective objects. For instance, it is capable to reflect the true color lighting of what environment behinds the metallic helmet in movie of The Mandalorian. In other words, this alternative method avoid the green”spill”, which means the green edge on the objects that usually being projected by the green screen.

With this line of thinking, it is believed that the practise of using green screen in film production might diminishing as years pass, as it reflects itself as a better alternative of the established technology.

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Rotoscoping

Established Technology

For animation aspect, roto technique is using to trace over motion picture footage one frame at a time to produce realistic action.
Then, silhouette is created that can be used to extract that object for another background in scene.

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The original three Star Wars movies are definitely classic examples for this  traditional rotoscoping, VFX artists create glowing lightsaber effect with a matte based on sticks held by the actors.

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In my self-practice of rotoscoping with Nuke X 12.2. As a beginner of using Nuke, it took me almost 7 working days for a 4s output.

Every frame needs to be pixel-perfect, which required huge manpower and hours to work on it. In VFX industry, this kind of specific professional job task is the role of roto artists, who employing by studio to work on matte footage.

Emergent Technology – Machine Learning

However, with emergent technology of machine learning, RunwayML appeared to be a time-saving tool for vfx artists to obtain the same results instead of rotoscoping. With machine learning, the objects can be painlessly identified and altered frame by frame accordingly for being background masked out.

Referring to the Youtube video created by Boone Loves Video, it indicates that every users can learn to apply this technic with only basic knowledge of using adobe software as assistant. It also mentioned that the up coming version of RunwayML is expected to perform even further ahead, while it is only a new launch platform in its developmental stage.

In sharp contrast with my previous rotoscoping experience, I only took less than 10mins to get a satisfied result from accessing RunwayML.

That is no doubt that this ever-changing post production industry will persevere to flourish, and every video creators certainly noticed the positive sides of this emergent technology.

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Reference

1. Christiansen, M. (2009). Adobe After Effects CS4 studio techniques. Berkeley, Ca: Peachpit Press, Cop.

2. Rl, P. by M.F., artist unknown; cropped/retouched by (1915). English: Patent drawing for Fleischer’s original rotoscope. [online] Wikimedia Commons. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_patent_1242674_figure_3.png

3. Vincent, J. (2019). Creators now have an easy way to incorporate AI into their workflow. [online] The Verge. Available at: https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20682307/ai-machine-learning-easy-to-use-models-creatives-runway-ml

4. InFocus Film School. (2017). Filming With Green Screen: Everything You Need To Know. [online] Available at: https://infocusfilmschool.com/filming-green-screen-guide/.

5. Vox (2020). The technology that’s replacing the green screen. Vox. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yNkBic7GfI.

6. Boone Loves Video (2021). [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBkDdZYPj64.

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Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

Settings & Props
In a mineral cave, with shinning quartz stone on wall

Costume, Hair & Make Up
Wearing their pyjamas with dirts. A scar mark on Mr Fox right side of his face after being slapped.

Facial Expressions & Body Language
Mr Fox teared up after being slapped, and Mrs Fox shows her impatient to Mr Fox by snapping his face, and start tearing eyes while she is complaining.

Lighting and Colour
Soft light with yellowish and warm color, light direction comes from bottom.

Positioning of characters/objects within the frame
It is a two shot to show only the main characters to face each other, none of other characters are included in this scene of their private conversation.

What role does the shot choice (Cinematography) play in the scene
Using close up shot is a way to let audience to have physical proximity with Mr and Mrs Fox’s facial expression. And it externalizes both character’s inner world, the immature of Mr. Fox, and the disappointment of Mrs Fox.

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Anomalisa (2016)

Firstly, the two main character situated in the centre of the frame, composition is quite symmetrical and balance. As their facial expression demonstrate their anxiety and frustration, it depicts both character resonate their emotion to each other equally.

Moreover, it is a high-angle shot for showing the two main characters lying on the bed. The camera looks down on them and it points visual cues make audience get a sense of vulnerability and powerlessness for the characters.

Also, creating a warm and harmony household environment through the use of soft, orangish lighting. Every details in the empty space of the room is in focus which underscore a scene for audience to take a visual rest.

Regarding of costume, the characters are wearing outfit for outdoor instead of pyjama, the female one even seems to cross her arm as a symbiotic meaning of protecting herself, demonstrating the unease atmosphere. It communicates with audience their uncomfortable about the place they are staying.

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Rebecca (1940)

Duration: 31:04 – 34.07 in link

Can you describe the relationship between the characters?
How do we know what the relationship is?
Can you describe how the mise-en-scene works together to tell us what the relationship is?

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This scene illustrates some kinds of conflicts between the relationship of Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca. Audience is able to anticipates their collisions with the scene as below.

Mrs. Danvers leads the camera movement once she appeared in the scene, camera continues to follow though Mrs. Danvers until she was placed in the centre. It demonstrates that she owns her the dominant position in this scene.

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Mrs. Danvers shows her arrogant attitude to Rebecca as her face was placed at the top area of the frame and then looks down to Rebecca, even she is a maid and Rebecca supposes to be a guest.

This situation aggravated by camera focus on Mrs. Danvers with a narrow depth of field when she moves from foreground to background, and let Rebecca out of focus. It guides audience’s attention to respond to the focused subject. Therefore, Mrs. Danvers still obtains the attention and be the dominating character.

It is equally important to take a glance at the fact that Mrs. Danvers takes up the right hand side of the whole scene. A certain distance remained, even they stay around in the room or walk in the corridor. In this way, protagonist (Rebecca) stays at the left, contradicting to the antagonist (Mrs. Danvers) remains on the right side.

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The Breadwinner (2017)

What type of shot is it?
Middle shot

What is the camera angle?
Low angle shot

Where is the character located in the frame?
Centre of the frame

What is she wearing?
Yellowish clothing with red bright color burqa, a type of headwear

What is the depth-of-field?
Deep depth of field, large area in frame is in focus

Describe the colour palette?
Mainly yellowish and brownish color, low saturation for background.
But, high contrast color, redish, yellowish greenish for the main character.

Describe the lighting?
Hard lighting with harsh and deep shadow

Week 04 Research activity

It is an analysis of 4 stages development for movie, Weathering With You, in term of hand-drawn animation which received four Annie Award nominations of ASIFA-Hollywood, and was selected as Japanese entry for the best international feature film category at the 2020 Oscars.

Weathering with You (Japanese Title: 天気の子 )
July 19, 2019 (Japan)
112 mins

Directed by	Makoto Shinkai
Cinematography	Ryōsuke Tsuda
Starring	Kotaro Daigo Nana Mori
Music by	Radwimps

1. Clear narrative vision

It is a journey of an ordinary high-school boy, Hodaka  who has escaped away to Tokyo and meets a girl who appears to be able to manipulate the weather. Hina called herself “Sunshine girl”, as wherever she located, there will be sunny day for them. They spent their time together and developed a kind of love relationship.
One day, Hina disappeared without a notice. Hodaka tried to tackle every obstacles and started looking for the secret of his girlfriend.

2. Strong terms of reference

Shinkai designed and referred every shots from the reality angle.
The style of Shinkai is well-known for using Japan urban reality scene as reference.

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3. Ideation & Design workflow

Based on previous success of Shinkai’s earlier works, 5 Centimeters per Second (2007) and The Garden of Words (2013), his work on Your Name (2016) also gained critical acclaim and commercial success.

Regarding of the global climate changes issue, Shinkai put his concern incorporate into the film, including his own wishes to arouse audience’s attention and contribute to his own community.

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Pre-production

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Production

The term ‘production’ has come to be used to refer to execute director’s plan with drawing, shooting and editing in hand-drawn animation.

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Post Production

Post Production refers to coloring, vfx, dubbing, music composing, and rendering.

In contrast to Western industries which colour management is mostly the final stage for post-production, Shinkai decided the colour palette as early as the compositing stage. This, in turn, allowed whole production team shared a sense colour in use.

4. Technical Research & Development

Evidenced by Ijyumi, the VFX artist in this movie, Adobe Photoshop and Aftereffect are used as the main software, with her wacom tablet to add layers for line drawing, coloring, highlight and shadow to create at least 7 layers for one single raindrop.

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Budget and manpower

There is a multitude of views about Japanese animation production as an auteur-driven industry. Although there are good arguments in favour of the whole storyboard has drew by director’s his own, as remaining the style of Shinkai, some people have a different view for its drawbacks. Within 6-month production, in Shinkai’s own words at the interview by Polygon in 2019:

“For both Your Name and Weathering With You, production was pretty hard. What’s happening in animation in Japan is that there’s not enough people, there’s not enough time, and there’s not enough money.”

According to the description provided by Shinkai, Japanese animation industry was facing insufficient situation of lacking of systematic working condition for production crew. Shinkai also stated that he tried to improve staff retention with organic food, massage therapist and acupuncturist in studio.

It shows the fact that the production stage in Weathering With You has faced challenging situations before every pieces of art work being confirmed eventually.

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Reference:

1. Alekseenko, A. (2019). ColorEdge Monitors Used for Production of Director Makoto Shinkai’s Latest Animated Work Weathering with You. [online] DisplayDaily. Available at: https://www.displaydaily.com/article/press-releases/coloredge-monitors-used-for-production-of-director-makoto-shinkai-s-latest-animated-work-weathering-with-you [Accessed 25 Dec. 2021].

2. Toh, A. (2021). Weathering With You: 15 Real Life Locations in Tokyo. [online] Mipon. Available at: https://mipon.org/weathering-with-you-pilgrimage/.

3. ワコムタブレットサイト. (n.d.). 映画「天気の子」VFXクリエイター特別インタビュー｜ワコムタブレットサイト｜Wacom. [online] Available at: https://tablet.wacom.co.jp/article/tenkinoko-interview [Accessed 25 Dec. 2021].

4. McLean, T.J. (2020). Global Hit Toon “Weathering With You” Signals Climate Change for Japanese Anime. [online] Variety. Available at: https://variety.com/2020/artisans/production/japan-weathering-with-you-anime-1203467424/.

5. Toon Boom Animation. (2019). Make it rain: 5 facts about Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You. [online] Available at: https://www.toonboom.com/make-it-rain-5-facts-about-makoto-shinkais-weathering-with-you [Accessed 25 Dec. 2021].

6. Born Digital (2019). Monthly CGWORLD + digital video vol.254. October 2019 issue ed. Japan: Born Digital.

7. Weathering with You Official Art Book 新海誠監督作品『天気の子』美術画集 (2020). Shinkai makoto kantoku sakuhin tenki no ko bijutsu gashu. (n.d.). Kadokawa, Kadokawa.

8.Weathering with You. (2019). Japan: Toho.

9.Shinkai, M. (2019). Tenki no ko Weathering With You Official Book Guide Character Design Art Cast Interview. Japan: Kadokawa.

10.GKIDS Films (2020). Weathering With You [Official English Dub Trailer – GKIDS] – January 15. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps8qwWG8Uio [Accessed 28 Nov. 2021].

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There are three main topics I would like to study on it. For this, I prepare a few slides for my tutor to understand what I briefly think about them. With the 1on1 individual session, I can be able to ask for opinions and then clear my mind to start work on it.

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Topic 01

How the 12 principles of animation still being applied in today Disney VFX ?

I have been fed with Disney movie since I was a toddler. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Beauty and the Beast, 101 Dalmatians, Toy Story, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Jungle Book, The Aristocats, etc. I can name them on and on. Therefore, 2D hand drawing animation is my all-time favourite topics to study on it.

When I learnt the 12 principles of animation, I can always related to a multitude of Disney movies as examples. As 12 principles of animation were first released in 1981 by the book ‘The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation‘ , I was wondering, even in the year of 2022, are the animators of Disney can still be consistently follow the principles and apply them in movie?

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Topic 02

What makes an appealing character design in animation?

We can all distinguish between adorable and basic characters by our own tastes. However, when it comes to a research to analysis what exactly matter with character design. There should be way more details to focus on. Maybe somethings such as, clean lines and easily readable features, there’s knowing what to exaggerate and what to minimise, how to give a hint of depth and background and what to do to develop personality.

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Topic 03

How to stand the character out from the crowd with cinematography?

Slides to show the movie examples that I capture as crowded scene. I may collect a wide range of examples and start to divide them into categories to see how their work with cinematic storytelling.

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Sum Up

So far, topic 1 is not quite recommended by my tutor, as the contents are expected to be way more than I can handle in this limited time.
So it is more suitable for me to continue working on topic 2 or 3.

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Week6 – short comparative analysis of two comedy movies.

Genres is the catalogue of movies. When we divided movies into genres, it is easier for audience to expected what elements will they see in the movies, as there are certain amount of elements in common within a single type of genre. Nowadays, the boundaries between each genres of films are quite vague, and it can be further defined as “sub-genres”.

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In this analysis, the following two movies demonstrate what comedy genre is, as a general genre for audience to expect.

Cambridge Dictionary defines comedy as 

“a type of film, play, or book that is intentionally funny either in its characters or its action”

Storyline

Ted
Ted is a teddy bear, who John Bennett wishes to come to life in his 8 years old. They have grown up together, smoking weed and watching tv, until John met his girlfriend, who wanted to end their brotherhood. John faces a dilemma between choosing friendship and romantic relationship.

Meow
A alien cat, Xixili, was being sent to the Earth for a mission of destroying human being’s society. He accidently arrived a family which welcome him so much that he might change his mind a lot and get use to live with human as family member.

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Similarity

Unexpected and unusual story backgrounds
Ted came to live by a 8-year-old boy wish. And Xixili came from the Planet of Meow.

Happy and warm ending
Ted and John remained to be brother together. And Xixili came back to his own planet with his evil plan abandoned. Both made audience laugh with tears.

CG figures as main characters
With appealing character design, both animal-oriented figures gain audience’s love, and make them feel comfy.
And both vfx aesthetic remained consistency, did not supplant or overshadow the main idea of stories.

Hilarious, exaggerated plot
Ted and John sang Thunder Song to deal with their fear of thunder, even when John has already being an adult in his 30s. And Xixili pretended to be the daughter’s mother in a parent-teacher meeting for school, but still acted like a cat with his natural reaction to catch a bird in front of school teacher.

Starring by well-known actors
Starring by Mark Wahlberg as John Bennett in movie Ted. And in Meow movie starring by Louis Koo as Lung, the father.

With the experience I have gained so far in my journey to become a motion graphic designer in Hong Kong, I am getting more aware of the skills and knowledge that I would like to improve on. With my education background majored in Digital Media, enabled my design thinking process to mature in all-round aspects, I would like to get involved in VFX industry and become a digital compositor.

From gathering insights through pre-production brainstorming to presenting final rendering, VFX is a pathway built for people to reflect on social media culture, immersive entertainment experience and virtual reality technology. Beside software skill, film language is of utmost important for me to communicate with my fellows in the industry. Furthermore, with the research I am going to study, I am able to absorb all masterpieces of works from the industry predecessors, with proper guideline from my tutors in this master degree programme.

Under this line of thinking, I might tended to research on animation, motion graphic study, or Disney culture, etc, as I suppose they are the major influences for all kinds of entertainment industry in worldwide.