After Effects 01

After Effects

I'd thought I'd try and create the opening sequence for the film "Al-Kimia" I decided to play around with particles within After Effects  and see what I can come up with, I've been using most of the time the plugin "particular," but because of what was mentioned in class that I wont always have the pleasure of using that plugin all the time, and I would be too dependant on it. I  decide to experiment with the built in features in After Effects, What I created in the following is just an hour of playing with particles, the more time spend time with these features the better I get.

The Result

making of

From: Directing on Camera, Harris Watts (Notes and summary)

Directing on Camera, Harris Watts

Book Notes

Shoot for Editing

Always think about where the final output will be projected, always frame for the screen where it would be most played, (e.g. for television you would do more close ups to see the details).

Always shoot overlaps, the more footage the better for the editor.

Start and end the shot with the main subject coming into and out of frame. You can achieve this by avoiding panning too much.

When shooting cutaways look for parallel action, so when you decide to cut in the middle it can seem seamless (works better for interviews, with short films it’s better to use cutaways)

Although you should film cutaways, avoid using them.

Do a geography shot, make the audience understand the space; go wide just for the sake of sense of space.

Shoot long; shooting long is essential for editing

Allow a 5 second run up so you give more comfort of time for the editor, don’t yell cut until you are sure nothing more to be added, (the cameraman/woman) should know when to cut on their own, if you yell cut to soon you could miss an opportunity)

Never cut if there are interruptions it could be surprising.

(*Personal Note; lots of big blockbuster film have improvisations or errors that are kept on film that ended up as great performances, looking into this I found out the following, Leonardo DiCaprio actually cut his hand in Tarantino’s “Django”. Midnight Cowboy,

The line "I'm walkin' here!".

Only use camera moves if you have a reason too, it should always be justifies (*Personal Note; Track in to create tension, pan down to reveal an object, etc.)

Make Continuity of Direction, don’t cross the 180 line, keep the sense of direction true to the motion, if the character is in a car driving right, make sure the motion is always to the right. (*Personal Note; usually when the character is moving from left to right it signifies something good, and the opposite makes the audience feel slightly negative )

Minimize background noise, if you want it, dub it later

Edit

Make sure you slate in parallel to the script, you can be more detailed with the time code.

Make a cutting order first “paper edit” do everything according to the script, not worrying if it’s too long, after that check the assembly of it all.

Work with an offline edit to keep your edit faster and simpler, when exporting make sure it’s broadcast quality for the colour grading/correcting stage.

Work on detail of the edit; is the shot too long/short? Is the sound not matching? Etc.

Cuts would be less obstructive if you avoid parallel cut, try cutting the sound before the picture, and see how that seems from a fresher eye,

Don’t cut from the same sized shots, it creates a bad continuity, to get the best cut; cut in the middle of the motion, the mind assumes that it is perfect naturally.

Editing should normally take twice the time of the shoot if not more.

Keep in mind the rhythm and pace of the piece, don’t let the cuts be predectible. (*Personal Note; I tried this by watching successful feature films, and every time I never knew when the cut was) the best cuts in films go unnoticed.

Cinematography 02

Cinematograpy

You could always tell if a movie has great cinematography if you can pause at any frame, and it would look good enough to hang on a wall. and this is something I want to achieve with my films, I want every frame of my films to be as beautiful as they can be.

One of my flaws in the filmmaking process is that I rush with camera and point and shoot straight away with minimal concentration on the meaning of the frame. sometimes the rule of thirds isn't enough. I though the best thing to do is to start watching films and concentrate on the cinematography only. look at how the place is lit, how the movie is lit, what tension does the framing create, and how well they work with each other with cuts, the pictures below are some frames I thought worked well in the film, story aside, they were still amazing as a composition on their own. Movies I watched for cinematography.

Casino (1995)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Blade Runner (1982)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Only God Forgives (2013)

The General (1926)

Non-moving Camera

Moving Camera

One of the key people who created such an atmosphere with a camera move, is Stanley Kubrick, and his one point perspective in particular.

Tolerance

Post Casting Decisions

Post Casting Decisions

After extensive research on auditioning dancers and the protocol or the etiquette that comes with it, I have been able to come to a final decision. I had to make the dancers endure difficult and improvisation tasks to see how well they can perform even when I make them fail on purpose. I designed the tests (see previous blog post) to see how they can handle pressure, I had to look for signs of fatigue, repetitiveness of movement, and how obvious they can represent the elements of each tasks. most importantly out of all these factors, is the attitude and how the can deal with instructions. As personal feelings come to this, this is the first time I actually cast an audition, this was a great opportunity to apply all I learned, and by the end of the casting I grew more and more confident. 

Each dancers CV was important, it gave me a foresight on the professional experience, it gave me a forehand on what to expect. however looking at the cv was not the wisest thing to do, it made me think that just because someone is more experienced and had done more work does not justify how good they actually are on set, do they complain? will they trust in our idea? are they even commited to time. so at the time of the audition I had to imagine like I have never had seen them before, and when I told them the elements they had to convince me of each one.

The day of casting, we (the whole crew) expected 3 performers to come in, one of them did not make it, luckily the one that did not turn up has barely had any experience. we where left with two dancers, for the sake of not putting their names online, I'll give them the aliases "Performer X" and "Performer Y"

Buy just by looking at the CV's, I got the perception of:

Performer X

• Very experienced
• Always the lead in her other productions
• Can perform many genre's of dance
• Also a choreographer.
• Experience in front of the camera
• Maybe a little old for the role.
• Hair too short

Performer Y

• Minimal Experience
• BA Graduate 
• Not a lot of camera work
• Right age
• Great looks for camera

After recording the audition and looking back at the tapes I have come to my final conclusions in analysis terms, they are as follows:

X

• Seamless improv skills
• Human like movement (we wanted something that can abide this feature)
• Moves can switch to be robotic at times
• uses legs way too much
• uses the physical elements to her advantage
• can spin around smoothly, however stops suddenly.
• makes a fall look good (even when she nearly slipped)
• can really stretch herself to get  maximum hight
• Not very varied with air like movements
• uses the scarf prop beautifully
•  she can be very creative when given rules and boundaries
• on her toes way too much
• likes to use her hands to hold elements 
• doesn't show too much emotion

Y

• Very fluid
• Can spin very very well
• Great at sliding
• uses all joints in her body, even her fingers
• her face is very emotionless, (Great for the video)
• gets tired too quickly.
• sweat is obvious (will affect Make-up)
• Looks great on camera
• Great posture
• can play with speed very well
• can be very weightless at times
• start stop very natural
• her moves are very repetitive
• cannot tell the difference between air and water through movement

Conclusion

As a conclusion I chose dancer X, as she is the best person to work with in creating a choreographed piece, and because she has been at it for many years, she can teach us all we need to know in terms of past work, and how the usual professional workflow. in a sense, she is not just a great dancer, but a teacher we can learn from. although she as not visually appealing for our specific theme, and is not as fluid as dancer Y, however, with time, we can achieve the looks we want, and because she was the best at being able to repeat a routine, we can almost remake any action without the fear of not being able to do it again.

All my crew agree with the decision as they all seemed to favour X, they all made the decision on the day of the casting, I disagreed however. As a director I have to look at the advantages and disadvantages of each scenario. I have to make sure I can nail down all the pros and cons. although not all the time I will go with what the majority will say in the group, as a director, I have to make sure all aspects of the film work together in harmony. each person has a specific role, my role is to bring together every role and make sure it works. things might be obvious at the time that they might seem good, but as a final piece, does it really? I'm grateful to work with open minded people on this group, who are able to accept any idea and work with what they have, sometimes you need people to ground you and snap you back to what's realistic, even if we don't agree at times, we all want a masterpiece at the end.`

Casting Dancers

Casting Dancers

Important Protocols and Guides

My Producer has successfully managed to bring in dancers for the audition, as a director it is my responsibility to take care of them during their performance, it is also very important how I treat them, so, I took the liberty in researching and recollecting tips and facts that will run things smoothly and professionally. I have made sure that since everyone in the group stick to his or her position and jobs; I also made sure that the producer book out the room and equipment in the right time while handling the financial section. I made sure that the cinematographer also be there to run the camera and to record footage for review later on. I asked the editor to come in and make sure he can handle the files of the camera and take some sample footage to prepare him for the post-production process.

Etiquette

When it comes to a professional environment, every element matters. Moreover, as the job of the director is giving people the respect he/she should deserve for their roles if not more. Last thing to do, as one of the people who make the most important decisions on set is to embarrass anyone or leave them unsatisfied with the working with your team. It is essential you can have a system that everyone can appreciate what everyone is doing.

It is equally as important to get the most out of the performances as possible, to achieve the maximum potential for performances I have come to the conclusion of the following list, the below are my personal techniques as well as tips and guides from other writers cited below.

Rules:

·         Stick to schedule

·         Be 100% prepared for the space of casting

·         Make sure the environment is dancer friendly (soft floor, room temperature etc.)

·         Have water on set

·         Enough time for warm up.

Guides

·         Always give a warm reception

·         Make sure that the performer is confident.

·         Acknowledge previous work

·         Never show any signs of disappointments while the performer is dancing

·         Never Lie

·         Make them feel satisfied with the work they have performed (when declining an act, give advice on how they can improve)

·         Try not to be vague.

To look for in a performance

Set Tasks

·         How well can the dancer follow set rules?

·         Observe how the space of the room is utilized

·         How over under/over exaggerated is the performance.

·         Can the dancer add more to the performance?

Improvisation

·         Can the performer be able to produce great improvised routines

·         Can they think fast on the spot?

·         Is the improvisation obvious?

From “Directing – Film Techniques and Aesthetics 4^th ED.”

Michael Rabiger, Elsevier, 2008.

Stanislavsky is a Russian actor who developed the modern explanation of acting from interviewing the best actors of his time (1963-1939). He narrows down his research by finding the psychological linkages and extracting common denominators.

Justification: each element of the script has be justified; the thought process has to match the body language.

**Give the performer a life and a history to fall back on even if it’s not scripted, this is one of the simplest ways of getting the actor or dancer to imagine being that person they are portraying.

Improvisation: It is essential for the director to understand how actors function with improvisation by doing it him/herself. Some Notable film directors who work with improvisation: “Ingmar Bergman” “John Cassavetes” “Ken Loach” “Mike Leigh”

Give Performers a Set of rules and boundaries to tie/ground the piece together.

Key People and references to see:

Stanislavsky

John Hodgson and Earnest Richard’s Improvisation (Grove Press, 1974)

Viola Spolin’s Improvisation for theatre: a Handbook for Teaching and Directing Techniques, 3^rd ED. (Northwestern University Press, 1999)

Day of audition (26/02/2014)

Instructions.

·         Perform stomp like movement (while in still position and a second time while travelling)

·         Improvise with invisible sand particles, (imagine as if there’s an earthly element to work with)

·         Transition smoothly from a rough walk across the room to a more fluid walk.

·         Fluid dance improv (water like)

·         Be harsh with water, by running then stopping suddenly)

·         Interact with the water element, by throwing water across the room “flinging”

·         Air like dancing smoothly “floating”

·         Rough wind, like someone is pushing you form the elbows

·         Try to defy the sense of gravity

·         Imitate fire (Rough Extreme movement, Sudden yet smooth movements)

Creating the Title

Creating the Title

Final Decision:
When I started designing the Titles, I wanted to stay true to the word, which is why I kept the Arabic word (الكيمياء) as well as the english translation. I had previous experience with graphic design work commercially in the Middle East, I was able to choose an Arabic font that fit with the theme just as well. I also gave the title a latin typeface feel, the beginning a was left deliberately to give off that greek feel. but I left the "A" at to be modern. since we are modernising an old concept it's nice to have three structures of the same word to make a whole new original look.

Colour Palette
There has been four definite colours that represent the four elements, Black, White, Red, and Yellow. however it is still not known which colour represent which exactly.

LINK: A study that links the colour to the element

I decided to mix the four colours to give me a colour I could use for my title and credit sequences of my film. the ending colour was a very clear brown. which was a perfect colour to talk about.

In psychology the colour brown has very symbolic meaning which fits the project perfectly.

LINK

Sizing:

The reason for also sizing the title in this way is to follow modern practices of graphic design that have been applied to modern film.

Collection of links that helped me create the title:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/04/the-art-of-the-film-title-throughout-cinema-history/

http://tomchukfilms.com/articles/art_protitles.php

Naming the Film

Naming the Film

When It comes to theme like the elements, it is important to understand the subject of it before going any further. obviously naming the film "Elements" on its own seemed too mundane and obvious. So as the writer for the peace I felt the responsibility of understanding the history of the subject. it is important to understand the historical side to be able to produce something conceptual for the viewer. at the beginning I had the feeling that the whole film should give off a tribal feel to it, but then again after research I realised that it was much more than that, and it has also inspired  what the project was going to turn out to be. I decided to start of by research the name, and by the end of my research I came to the conclusion of the word "Al-Kimia" which is translated to the modern day study of "Alchemy".

First I had to ask myself the most important question of the whole project, what is alchemy? from the information that I have gathered and understood, was that alchemy was just a philosophical tradition that claimed to give superpowers. these superpowers were achieved by special chemistry. chemistry that involved combination of certain elements that would give eternal living, and is usually associated with the common "philosopher's stone" (which seemed to make its way in popular culture).

Etymology:

The etymology of the word is still completely perfectly known, however, history speculates that it was based on the Ancient Egyptian word "kēme" which in hieroglyphics was Khmi which suggests it meant "Black Earth"

the word was then taken by the Greek and named it "χυμεία", since it wasn't really something you can pronounce it was given the definitive word and greek translation of "chemia". that word has then gone to the Arab World "which is now the oldest word for alchemy that can be pronounced "Al-Kimia" (الكيمياء) and this is what we called our project since its the oldest thing we can refer to as for a name. however it was a huge science study in medieval times. it was then taken from the arabic word and translated once again to the medieval latin word of "alquimie" and then finally to the modern English word of "Alchemy."

The study of the word is very remarkable, because it means it has affected nearly every culture in every single time period.

The study of Alchemy is what defined the four elements and components.