JUST DO IT.

So after a lot of fiddling around I decided the Labyrinth idea was a bit too big for this project and I wouldn't have the time to do it to the extent I wanted to. For my fields and frames project I have intended to work with A Streetcar Named Desire because I know the text so well - it's also a film,  so why not use it for this project?

Examples

North by Northwest, made the same decade as A Streetcar Named Desire you get the picture. Simple opening covering the creative team and key cast members, text fills the screen placed over moving images.

Released on VHS in 1989 this version of Singin' In the Rain offers a similar pattern, huge text over moving image but this time with designated areas. Simple but effective and colourful.

I love this film and it's opening is no exception, Scott Pilgrim has an opening that just completely embodies the film. It get's you into the right mindset for watching the rest of the film because the editing, whilst amazing, could take you by surprise. There are a lot of video game references and pop-ups, this opening just helps you accept that this is the universes this film is set in and it's great. 

What I made and why I made it

 

When it came to making the title sequence for Streetcar I know I wanted something rather simple, clean, elegant and something that would fit with the times and the movie. The original opening
is pretty standard for the time, cursive text over flattering images.

Now the upside to knowing this text as well as I do I have very strong opinions of the characters for instance I hate Blanche, she drives me crazy but I know the authors intentions are for the audience to like her so I gave her a flattering image. I sympathise with Stella but the audience are supposed to be not to keen on her, especially at the end so she get's a rather awkward picture including Stanley and Blanche in the background because during the entire movie she's torn between the two of them (whilst always reverting back to Stanley). And Stanley get's a picture over Blanches shoulder, now Marlon Brando was the heartthrob of the time, women fawned over him even though he played an abusive character. I put this image in because story wise Blanche is always wary of Stanley and you mainly see her perception of him, no matter how many times Stella tries to explain that he's a lovely person the audience only remember what he does to Blanche by the end of it.

To do this effect I went back to 3D layers, separating the images in photoshop before taking them into a 3D space in After Effects. From here you add a 3D camera and go to work maneuvering the camera as you would in real life just key framing the movements instead of recording them. I do love working with 3D layers because you get a great effect pretty quickly.

I am concerned about the quality of the image of Stella but when working with a film from the 1950's you work with what you've got.



For the rest of the title sequence I chose to use a light, the light swings back and fourth, every time the text comes into view you see another credit. I chose a swinging light because it has great symbolism in the play, Blanche hates light, she hates being seen in the light because you see the 'real her' and the real her is past her prime. She does everything she can to not be seen, she goes on dates after 6pm so it's dark out, she puts a paper lantern over the main light so the light is dimmed permanently, her love interest explains it best in ;

"I don’t think I ever seen you in the light. That’s a fact! [..] You never want to go out in the afternoon. […] You never want to go out till after six and then it’s always some place that’s not lighted much. […] What it means is I’ve never had a real good look at you." (9.28-36)"

She also uses the light as a metaphor for love, a love Blanche lost when, warning spoiler, her husband killed himself. She is constantly shielding herself from it because the light shows her reality and reality and Blanche don't mix, she spends the entire play in her own little bubble. Her own little bubble literally becomes the death of her.

After doing that I was left with this.

But it didn't seem right.

When I went to work on it the next day I, by chance, ran into Phil who had a look at it and recommended changing the font to something more appropriate of the time. Now I am awful at typography so even the idea of it freaked me out, but I did it, nothing too extravagant but it certainly feels more like something more suited to the film. I also made the composition into 4:3 because that's what the film was broadcast in - it made more sense to have the title he same, it also made it easier to fill the screen with text because now there wasn't as much screen to fill. 

Final Piece

So this is what I came up with, nothing too flashy but I got to have a go at key framing cameras, something I tried and failed to do last year. I may see if I have time to add some music, ground it some more. But for now - here's the final piece.

So, the Labyrinth is a piece of cake, is it?

For the VFX project I've decided to use the film Labyrinth (1986) because it is so quirky, odd and just interesting. The title itself offers an image - a maze, perhaps I could use that to my advantage here?

I'm leaning more towards animation and text animation since it's something I'm really interested in anyway and would love to know more about, plus it fits the storyline. The entire movie is driven by a book and the very specific words within it, so why can't the title sequence.

I'm thinking of almost drawing the maze and as the maze is drawn the names of the actors appears - such as flipping downward in this screenshot. Or the maze could reveal it etc. I'm trying to remember how we did a certain effect in class but I need to remember the specific name of the effect, something to do with shape paths? I'll figure it out eventually. 

I've drew up some storyboards (however they looked pretty similar to my last AE project, Image Factory) so I'm trying to take a different approach but for now I'm sticking to research however the deadline is pretty close which is terrifying. I'll find some time later this week to start my composition. 

Appa!

Last week in VFX we started piecing together different elements of photos, arranging them in a 3D space and creating a virtual camera to move through that space as if it were a film sequence.

I loved this because I felt like I was creating something that I could actually see myself using in the future - maybe not for this project but certainly for a film title in the future, or even a production company title sequence.

After working on this I decided to try it out with the storyboards for our dance film to make something almost like a trailer. This is the first attempt I had that I'm really not pleased with but I haven't really had a chance to fix it yet - but I'll get there.

Go Mickey, go!

My final elective for Professional Toolkit is VFX in which I return to my old friend After Effects - this is still a touchy subject. 

In our first lesson we took to rotoscoping, something I had personally never done before. A lot easier than it looks but rather laborious if you pick tricky footage, something I may have done accidentally. I chose a piece of animation of Mickey mouse riding a bathtub/bike hybrid, why? Because I could. It was then a case of scoping out what I wanted, playing a few frames forwards and then when the tool went of track, backing up and setting it straight. Something that with footage filmed for this purpose wouldn't happen as often as it did for me. 

My first run through, getting a chunk of him out of the way before going into detail.

After going through frame by frame I managed to get something I was proud of that included a bit of the water splash that was appearing behind him. I then went on to try and motion track him so I could add the co-ordinates to the image behind him and make him look like he was riding through the river. However due to the fact that it was an animation this proved difficult because the track point would be there for a few frames and then vanish, so that idea quickly went away.

I then decided to make the best of it and move, by hand, the background and keyframe it to give it some motion - I also added a displacement filter onto it to make it look less 'perfect'.

Add a bit of colour correct (or anything to make the two pieces look like they belong on the same image) and I exported.

It wasn't until I saw the piece on a different monitor that I saw all the problems at the end that were probably a result of me sitting there for hours staring at it and hoping it was fixed, to the point it became true.

But I really like this technique and I can see myself using it in the future, more specifically in my my fields and frames project.