MY THOUGHTS AND STRUGGLES.

This project is one of my greatest achievements in my studies. It tested me on many aspects in my studies. As from the first submission, I realized that it was the most demanding module this semester. However, the amount of work was never a problem. Being a science student, I was fascinated by the VFX breakdown that our lecturer, Mr Jirad Jhuboo, displayed on the projector. It included most of my favourites MARVEL and DC films. It was at that particular moment, I was determined to produce something of similar style. Little did I know how much work and effort the designers and animators of films like Transformer or Avengers put in the movie production. I know it was hard work but one thing was not still uncertain: HOW HARD IS HARD?!

I was soon to find out when the first assignments started to hit the pedestal. At that time, I had zero experience concerning the softwares to be use during my studies in Design. Consequently, I was intimidated by standard of the class. It was my first semester and I was surrounded by classmates who kept talking about layers and renderings, which made no sense at that time. While others did montage for their thumbnails, I was sketching (and I am glad that I improved a lot), brainstorming, searching for inspiration on the Internet; one thing was for sure, I was not going to supplicate. I had many sleepless nights. I sometimes had health issues. Nonetheless, whenever I look back at the semester, I don’t regret the time I spent in pushing myself to the limit instead of sleeping, because right now, I am having a great sense of satisfaction when viewing my final render. It does not match a great Micheal Bay movie, but I don’t recall pressing the replay button like I have been doing with my rendering just a few minutes ago.

In addition, the greatest struggle I had, was to film on a green screen. I had to watched out for the lighting, shadows, camera angles for the subject to not get out of frame. My video is mainly a fight scene and I tried to make it as fast paced as possible. It was very difficult to film the scenes on a 3.5mx3.5m green screen. My project would have definitely become better if it was shot on existing settings but I asked myself what would my other fellow classmates do. I tried not to follow the masses and it was a quite challenging but enriching experience. I also imparted the knowledge I acquired in relation with chroma keying with some friends. One thing I can be sure of it that I will never forget what I learnt as the amount of time I had to re-do something or correct my own mistake is very high.

THE THINGS I HAVE LEARNT.

After Effects was the software I hated the most. But Mr Jirad taught us about the basics, things went down the spiral. It has been my favourite software until now. I remember editing my Animatic for hours. I was taking everything into consideration, every little detail like a micro second delay of a panning. I can’t wait to learn more advance tutorial to implement in my future assignments.

Moreover, I learnt the importance of brainstorming. I now make sure to brainstorm as long as I can and pick at least the 20th idea. The realm of compositing is very fascinating as well. My perspective of viewing things has greatly changed, especially in the movie theatre. Everything I watched, any piece of motion graphic or even YouTube videos arises questions. These questions are then answered by research. I have also learnt to look for visual inspiration. I remember playing the Hitman video made by Freddie Wong and least ten time. Although, the cinematography and compositing techniques were top class, there was something that kept me riveted to the video. I finally realised that it was the acting that made all the difference. This is what pushed me to do a sword fight as the main focus in my composition because my brother, who is one of the most reliable person, is a great athlete. I avoided the delivery of dialogues. This is because it is difficult to find someone who can at least stand on front of a camera to act, let along deliver lines. To be honest, my final composition did not come out as I expected, however, the action is one thing I really wanted to put emphasis on and it finally paid off.

HOW I CONSTRUCTED THE PROJECT.

 First of all, I had numerous ideas that were a result of brainstorming. However, I had to look at the practicality of the realization of every idea. Inspiration came from Batman and Ironman, however, I don’t have a The Wayne Enterprise or Stark Company at my service. I sticked to a ‘low’ budget sword fight with Katanas used for display and demonstration only. Having a rough image in my mind, I started storyboarding. I had difficulty expressing the visual images in my head, as I wasn’t being able to draw well. Thus, I decided to photograph my actors on a green screen (whose availability was not mandatory) and to use the pictures as submission. When receiving my feedback from the lecturer, Mr Jirad, he told me that there was the possibility of me drawing the backgrounds instead of merging two live footages together. He advised me to vectorise the background. I had trouble with the pen tool at that time, therefore I tried to do it on Photoshop. I used a Graphic Tablet to draw. I was warned that it was not going to be easy and after A LOT of practice, I was finally being able to draw. Once the backgrounds ready, I dived into filming footage. I did a few video test and finally, I had a 10 hours cumulative of shooting, in one day, with my actors. Their patience was DIVINE. I was passionate about what I was doing and so were they. Once all I was the footage done, advised to put a climax  to eliminate the typical mainstream fight scenes. Mr Jirad gave me the greatest inspiration ever of climaxing the video by waking up one of the actors. It would just be a dream. I gladly took it and further meditated on it. I believe it would go well to show that the weaponry used would be with the protagonist to end it in a dramatic manner. Last but not least, the footages were imported in AE and the final composition was obtained after arduous and painstaking amount of time and effort.

P.S. I would like to thank my lecturer Mr. Jirad Jhuboo for giving such great ideas, advices, encouragement and support. He has been a guide, an inspiration, a mentor, Captain America and he was with me until the very end. Gratitude, Sir.