This blog post is in response to the final question, "So what?" Over the past few years, I have taken a few film courses and have participated in small, locally produced independent films. Before taking this class, I had already developed a sense for critiquing films, and I felt I had a pretty good understanding of elements involved in great movies. However, I found during the duration of this course that I was able to develop a healthy respect for the art of filmmaking itself. Though I was already familiar with some of the course material, this course opened my eyes to various techniques and methods used in filmmaking and allowed me to get a glimpse of the possibilities of what filmmakers can achieve.
The art of motion picture production has certainly come a long way, and with each new year more films are produced that spark the imagination to what can be done.
Producing a movie, no matter what genre or subject matter, requires the full commitment of the people involved in the production if they hope to produce a film worth watching. This class has taught me about the time and hard work neccessary to bring a film to completion. It's become evident the film industry is not a field for everyone; much sacrifice and emotional strain is required of those who wish to be successful in this field. I'm appreciative of the knowledge I have gained from this course on the subjects of pre-production, production, and post-production. This knowledge has given me a much greater understanding of these processes and I'm thoroughly confident this knowledge will benefit me throughout the rest of my studies and in my future career.
I still maintain the goal I set when I first started to study filmmaking: to one day become a casting director in the film industry, though just being able to work on a legitimate film production in any capacity would be amazing. Though casting directors aren't required to aid in the technical aspects of filmmaking, their role is critical in making sure the story gets told by the right people with the right amount of talent. I've always been a firm believer that learning new things daily is of upmost importance, and this class has definitely taught me many new things about filmmaking that I hope to be able to appy to my own work in film.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Each year as new films are released, I'm always amazed at new advances and groundbreaking achievements in CGI work. Not that I'm a huge fan of excessive CGI effects(I'm much more impressed by effects shot in camera), nevertheless I can appreciate the amount of time and work that goes into the film during post production to achieve those effects. If the effects are pulled off right, they can greatly contribute to the overall look and feel of the film. In my opinion, The Lord of the Rings trilogy boasts some of the most impressive and stylish CGI effects of any film to date. More specifically, the post production logistics of producing a film such as The Fellowship of the Ring could be enough to make you pull your hair out. However, with the right crew of capable people all coming together with the goal of making the film a reality, a masterpiece of cinema can be the product, even with a lot of CGI work at play.
An outstanding example of the capabilities of CGI can be found in the creation of the character Gollum.
In order to create Gollum for the film, it was first neccessary to decide what he was going to look like. This decision was a collaborative process between the director, the animators and the artists. They spent months mulling over various physical details of the character and outlined what look to give his face, his height, his shape, his hair, his skin color, etc. The decisions were made and the team came to a conclusion on the overall look of the creature. Over the course of the three films, Gollum's appearance actually changed slightly as the technology advanced and the animators grew more savy with the systems.
Next the team at WETA Digital, the effects team who worked on the trilogy, built a life-size sculpture of Gollum and scanned it into the computer program using lasers. This was an essential step in the process in order to create a computerized 3-D model of the character. Once they had the body created, the team created the character's skeleton, or the articulated framework for the model, in other words. The team also added muscle tone to the framework. This gave the team the ability to allow the computerized character to move with his framework the same way a human body moves in relation to its muscles and bones.
After having an established model to work with, the effects team created a way to control it, much like the way a puppeteer controls a marionette. The team developed "sliders", or a system by which to move individual bones and muscles. In regards to Gollum's face, where detail in the movement is most needed, even the creatures wrinkes and his wisps of hair had their own sliders. Using such sophisticated technology enabled the animators to bring the character to life. They were able to control how he walks, runs, interacts with other characters or objects, etc. For the more detailed and advanced movements, the team placed a series of sensors all over the body of Andy Serkis, the actor who voiced the character and provided the body movements. Using the sensors, they uploaded the movements into their model to bring the character a human-like quality and fluidity to his movements. The final touch was adding clothing and skin tone to the character, complete with pores,blemishes, little hairs, scars, wounds, etc. The genius of the creation is all in the details.
This kind of technology is continuously advancing and it is extremely expensive. The Lord of the Rings was an expensive movie to produce, and the post roduction aspects proved time consuming. Through the tedious efforts of many talented artists and animators, the CGI effects in this film proved to be mind blowing. All in all, the film makers and effects artists involved in this film successfully crafted an unforgettable work of art and managed to tell a compelling story simultaneously.
Web site used can be found at: http://express.howstuffworks.com/gollum2.htm
An outstanding example of the capabilities of CGI can be found in the creation of the character Gollum.
In order to create Gollum for the film, it was first neccessary to decide what he was going to look like. This decision was a collaborative process between the director, the animators and the artists. They spent months mulling over various physical details of the character and outlined what look to give his face, his height, his shape, his hair, his skin color, etc. The decisions were made and the team came to a conclusion on the overall look of the creature. Over the course of the three films, Gollum's appearance actually changed slightly as the technology advanced and the animators grew more savy with the systems.
Next the team at WETA Digital, the effects team who worked on the trilogy, built a life-size sculpture of Gollum and scanned it into the computer program using lasers. This was an essential step in the process in order to create a computerized 3-D model of the character. Once they had the body created, the team created the character's skeleton, or the articulated framework for the model, in other words. The team also added muscle tone to the framework. This gave the team the ability to allow the computerized character to move with his framework the same way a human body moves in relation to its muscles and bones.
After having an established model to work with, the effects team created a way to control it, much like the way a puppeteer controls a marionette. The team developed "sliders", or a system by which to move individual bones and muscles. In regards to Gollum's face, where detail in the movement is most needed, even the creatures wrinkes and his wisps of hair had their own sliders. Using such sophisticated technology enabled the animators to bring the character to life. They were able to control how he walks, runs, interacts with other characters or objects, etc. For the more detailed and advanced movements, the team placed a series of sensors all over the body of Andy Serkis, the actor who voiced the character and provided the body movements. Using the sensors, they uploaded the movements into their model to bring the character a human-like quality and fluidity to his movements. The final touch was adding clothing and skin tone to the character, complete with pores,blemishes, little hairs, scars, wounds, etc. The genius of the creation is all in the details.
This kind of technology is continuously advancing and it is extremely expensive. The Lord of the Rings was an expensive movie to produce, and the post roduction aspects proved time consuming. Through the tedious efforts of many talented artists and animators, the CGI effects in this film proved to be mind blowing. All in all, the film makers and effects artists involved in this film successfully crafted an unforgettable work of art and managed to tell a compelling story simultaneously.
Web site used can be found at: http://express.howstuffworks.com/gollum2.htm
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Inception stunt work
Derek Ence
Comm. 2660
Paper #2
Stunt
Coordination
These days it’s hard to find a film
that does not contain some type of stunt work in some degree. Many times
audiences and critics are quick to overlook the amount of skill and talent
involved in making these stunts run smoothly for the finished product, since
the stunt performers are generally not in the spotlight. The films of
Christopher Nolan have become known not only for featuring mind-bending
storylines, but also for displaying mind-bending special effects and stunt work.
The film Inception is a prime example
of what Christopher Nolan can do with a film crew when given the right budget.
With an original script that called for some extensive action sequences, it was
necessary to hire a top of the line stunt team to pull off the dangerous feats.
To give you an idea of the amount of
work that went in to this film to pull off the incredible death defying acts,
the stunt crew was headed by two stunt coordinators. According to imdb.com, the
movie required around 90 stuntmen on the crew to make the film. Though many
actors now try to perform at least a portion of their own stunts, in order to
make them look as authentic as possible, the more dangerous and physically
taxing jobs are more often handled by trained professionals. The stunt coordinators
are the men or women who take responsibility for the safety of the stunt crew
and at times the actors. They have the most experience in the stunt field and
are specially licensed to be able to coordinate the stunts effectively. If not
for these brave men and women, great directors such as Nolan would probably
have heart attacks at an early age for fear of physically damaging the acting
talent.
The scene from Inception which stood out to me was in my opinion one of the most
incredible fight scenes from any movie ever produced. I’m talking of course
about the hallway fight scene that takes place between Arthur, played excellently
by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and one of the subconscious “projections” Hell bent on
stopping him while in the second dream layer. While sleeping, Arthur gets in a
car accident and the vehicle roles, altering his dream state. In his dream, he
is about to face off with an enemy when suddenly the hotel hallway begins to
turn over and appears to roll just as his body is doing inside the van. Arthur
and his enemy slide and roll from wall to ceiling and from ceiling to wall
while carrying out their struggle. Eventually they crash through a door into a
hotel room and continue rolling throughout the spinning room. Arthur winds up
gaining the upper hand, gets his hands on a gun, and kills his opponent just as
the rolling van comes to a stop.
Obviously pulling off such a scene
was going to require a tremendous amount of work. The fight scene was all shot
in camera with no added CGI effects. To create the scene, effects coordinators
and set designers built a vertical shaft and built the inside to look identical
to the fancy hotel hallway from the film. The camera was placed facing up to
give the shaft the appearance of being horizontal and level. Stunt coordinators
rigged up the actors on the inside of the hallway to give them the appearance of
being able to stand or slide on the floor, walls, and ceiling of the artificial
hallway and hotel room. The hallway and room were rigged to be able to spin in
place, while the actors and stunt performers were dragged by their cables
across the surfaces during the intense scuffle. Gordon-Levitt actually
performed a great deal of his own stunts for the scene for more authenticity,
but his stunt double, Andy Bradshaw, took over for the more painful shots, such
as breaking through the hotel room door and crashing into the opposite wall.
The scene turned out fantastic. Nolan, his stunt crew, the special effects
artists, and the set designers managed to take a fight scene and turn it into a
truly stunning piece of modern filmmaking.
As mentioned previously, stunt
coordinators and performers are not always given their due credit, but it seems
the industry is beginning to take more notice in their work. I’ve read rumors
from various online sources, such as rottentomatoes.com, that the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has actually been considering the creation of
a best stunt category at their annual awards show. The addition of such a
category would certainly be welcome, and it would definitely be a step in the
right direction at giving stunt performers their due recognition.
Comm. 2660
Paper #2
Stunt
Coordination
These days it’s hard to find a film
that does not contain some type of stunt work in some degree. Many times
audiences and critics are quick to overlook the amount of skill and talent
involved in making these stunts run smoothly for the finished product, since
the stunt performers are generally not in the spotlight. The films of
Christopher Nolan have become known not only for featuring mind-bending
storylines, but also for displaying mind-bending special effects and stunt work.
The film Inception is a prime example
of what Christopher Nolan can do with a film crew when given the right budget.
With an original script that called for some extensive action sequences, it was
necessary to hire a top of the line stunt team to pull off the dangerous feats.
To give you an idea of the amount of
work that went in to this film to pull off the incredible death defying acts,
the stunt crew was headed by two stunt coordinators. According to imdb.com, the
movie required around 90 stuntmen on the crew to make the film. Though many
actors now try to perform at least a portion of their own stunts, in order to
make them look as authentic as possible, the more dangerous and physically
taxing jobs are more often handled by trained professionals. The stunt coordinators
are the men or women who take responsibility for the safety of the stunt crew
and at times the actors. They have the most experience in the stunt field and
are specially licensed to be able to coordinate the stunts effectively. If not
for these brave men and women, great directors such as Nolan would probably
have heart attacks at an early age for fear of physically damaging the acting
talent.
The scene from Inception which stood out to me was in my opinion one of the most
incredible fight scenes from any movie ever produced. I’m talking of course
about the hallway fight scene that takes place between Arthur, played excellently
by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and one of the subconscious “projections” Hell bent on
stopping him while in the second dream layer. While sleeping, Arthur gets in a
car accident and the vehicle roles, altering his dream state. In his dream, he
is about to face off with an enemy when suddenly the hotel hallway begins to
turn over and appears to roll just as his body is doing inside the van. Arthur
and his enemy slide and roll from wall to ceiling and from ceiling to wall
while carrying out their struggle. Eventually they crash through a door into a
hotel room and continue rolling throughout the spinning room. Arthur winds up
gaining the upper hand, gets his hands on a gun, and kills his opponent just as
the rolling van comes to a stop.
Obviously pulling off such a scene
was going to require a tremendous amount of work. The fight scene was all shot
in camera with no added CGI effects. To create the scene, effects coordinators
and set designers built a vertical shaft and built the inside to look identical
to the fancy hotel hallway from the film. The camera was placed facing up to
give the shaft the appearance of being horizontal and level. Stunt coordinators
rigged up the actors on the inside of the hallway to give them the appearance of
being able to stand or slide on the floor, walls, and ceiling of the artificial
hallway and hotel room. The hallway and room were rigged to be able to spin in
place, while the actors and stunt performers were dragged by their cables
across the surfaces during the intense scuffle. Gordon-Levitt actually
performed a great deal of his own stunts for the scene for more authenticity,
but his stunt double, Andy Bradshaw, took over for the more painful shots, such
as breaking through the hotel room door and crashing into the opposite wall.
The scene turned out fantastic. Nolan, his stunt crew, the special effects
artists, and the set designers managed to take a fight scene and turn it into a
truly stunning piece of modern filmmaking.
As mentioned previously, stunt
coordinators and performers are not always given their due credit, but it seems
the industry is beginning to take more notice in their work. I’ve read rumors
from various online sources, such as rottentomatoes.com, that the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has actually been considering the creation of
a best stunt category at their annual awards show. The addition of such a
category would certainly be welcome, and it would definitely be a step in the
right direction at giving stunt performers their due recognition.
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