Upon watching the film it basically showed us how a scene in a film its put together and it all begins with an idea called a screenplay, this I felt makes sense since from experience some of my stories began from some simple sketches but in the hollywood world it begins with a simple piece of writing be it a book or script such as Star Wars from the mind of George Lucas who wrote the story and it was then proposed to the studios and placed into production. The movie process is a pipeline of components like a clock and its gears and the next gear in the works was that the concept artists. They would begin brainstorming ideas and artwork pieces and scene ideas for the film and then show them to the director of the film who is in charge of the production and makes sure its mapped out according to his design or layout in this case George Lucas. He looks over the artwork and gives feedback to the artists on his thoughts and whoever work was the more useable in the movie would be used in the film. There are many concept artists working in this department so if one artists work doesn't get picked for the film there is a good reason behind it and its not because it wasn't good enough or anything else its to do with the fact that it needs to fit into the theme of the movie.
This was something that I could respect as I've had experience in this matter. The designs would go over a period of months and the script would then need to be refined draft after draft until a final version was perfected once he got a handle on the environment and what he was working with. The process then moved to the vis department who takes the artwork departments designs and converts them into a 3D visual storyboard these would be the rough CGI elements of the story creating a run through of the film that show us the characters movements and positioning within the sequence, this I've seen before in films like ICE AGE or Transformers Revenge of the Fallen for example. The team would have meetings to discuss about the scene to see if anything needed to be altered or added to the scene it was essentially like as the video put it "Compiling a shopping list."
I began to relate to this matter as in one of my fan stories which was inspired by some fan fiction that I follow on the internet I altered ideas throughout my rough script and story ideas so that I'm not ripping off that persons work and adding my own elements inspired by books I've read or movies that I've watched the same would apply to my own story creations. The central hub of the operation was the production office where in the crew they team people up who they feel can work together and know where everyone is meant to be and that they show up on time for their work and task. I was getting more and more interested in this video and wondered if this was what was going to happen at a later stage of the course. However the film crews bodies are like a car engine "Food is fuel you get picky about what you put in the tank your engine is gonna die" (Disney's Ratatouille 28th June 2007)
This was where catering would play a role in the film making process to feed the crew as some team members are apparently at the studio for nearly an entire day and the catering staff have five hours to feed a crew of seven hundred people. Food for the crew seems important as it would a university student or a normal worker to keep ourselves energised and not try and go for hours without food just to get the work done. I was very intrigued with one element of this video which was the model building element of this production mind map. What took my interest was that soon we would be doing the element of set design in this modules mini briefs and productions like this use model building to craft together the sets as some elements like the station on the planet the scene takes place on didn't exist in real life so its a combination of sets and computer effects and make these sets look related to the scene and its environment.
What I didn't approve of in this film that when the sets had served their purpose they would be torn down and placed into cold storage never to be seen again and this to me seemed to be a waste of the set builders creative work and modelling skills if I was in their position I would have them archived in a studio so that future generations could see and learn from the past. The idea of the sets was to get an idea and see how it would work in the design process. Next was the world of props, these are tools or gadgets that actors handle in the movie an example of this would be one of the key elements of the films franchise the light sabers which are made of rubber but are crafted by hand and very intricately as well given the designs and structure of the handles the light element would later be added in CGI and visual effects. In the prop making the makers are free to make what they choose within reason of course.
To aid in the environment of the scene hair and makeup was an element for the actors to show their current state in the scene be it injured or tired this adds the dramatic flare to the characters. In this instance since the characters were in a hot volcano environment the characters would be sweating so make up artists it seemed used a spray of water on the actor's faces to capture the essence of sweating.
I was very surprised at the size of the process that went into one small scene in a movie and it made me wonder if this was what it was like for an entire film and making sure that it was completed on time so that the film would reach its premiere date. In the wardrobe department I was amazed to learn that there were costumes being made by over 80 people and each costume had to communicate an emotion and react to the character on set in this case the fabric being burnt or melted by the raining lava and even the smallest detail is never overlooked by the production team. Concept art wasn't the only area of the script where the film would come to life the next element was within the actors themselves who bring the characters of the script to life communicating their personalities and back story making the audience feel for them and understand more about them in their emotions if the audience doesn't feel anything the film would automatically mean nothing to the audience at all rendering the film a failure.
From looking at films I remembered another element of live action films and that would be the stunts in the film be it flying off rooftops or sword fighting. Though some actors do their own stunts stunt men are usually required. All the stunts are acted out first before performing the actual stunt whilst filming this would in turn prevent the need to reshoot or even miss marks. What I learned from this was that the actors faces would then be mapped onto the stunt doubles faces which made the viewers believe the actors were doing the stunts this was something that I didn't know. The director is always on set making sure that all the elements come together and run like clockwork and realise the ideas of the cast and crew and even help to organise the rehearsals and casting of the film to see which actor is best suited for the job in hand.
Cinematography: Cinematography was an element that I wasn't familiar with and I learned it was where the cinematographer goes through all the scenes and then they can work on the lighting for the scene in this instance the lighting around a volcano. There were many crew members involved in this process like the gaffer who was in charge of the lighting rigs and shooting the light at different angles whilst the camera crane would guide the camera around the set to capture different dynamic angles of the scene be it from a birds or worms eye view. The video assist would aid in going through the playback of the film and even cut out a few things that aren't needed under supervision of course.
In this film sound is an important element be it the characters dialogue or the sound effects of the background this was something I remembered from the making of from behind the scenes features from films where they combined elements and mixed sounds to produce the sound effects that we hear from light sabers or the environment around the actors.The most difficult element was the effects and the editorial element of the sound which helps to shape the communication of the film and the settings.
Throughout the production of the film I did realise that it would be a long production process before we could see a finished product and in compiling elements such as the lava erupting on planet Lustothall as the duel takes place then the lava crashing down onto the support beam many of these elements are used in the computer but there are times when real life elements are needed such as during the time this film was made a volcano had erupted and the crew went out to take photos and videos of the volcano erupting and even used this in the scene when its all put together.
This was something that we needed to consider in this module and how our behind the scenes elements would be presented and sometimes voice overs aren't always the one element to use but things in action. This was going back to when we were doing our pixelation animations several weeks ago where we used time lapses to show what it was we did and our processes. In some instances students are offered jobs because of the quality of their blogs which was something that we needed to keep in mind for our own blogs within our university or own work which was something that I was told back in college when preparing for uni applications. One thing that we were reminded about is that we couldn't do this all by ourselves we needed to work as a team in order to produce a final outcome. When we do get split into teams we would be using the base room a lot to ourselves so that we may discuss our ideas an plan out our production and see who does what job in the process be it the storyboards, script or animation process.
Back to the documentary filming process the mind map continued to expand on the different elements such as the visual effects or the film production where 150 people work on just the one sequence among thousands much like a jigsaw puzzle fitting all the elements together. In elements such as green screen I learned about one element that marked the positioning within the effect. The element was the white markers on the green screen which was something that I noticed from films like Transformers or Spiderman and I always wondered what they were for and it was to help show a reference within the actors position on the screen to aid the next few processes of the sequences.
In films it sometimes helps to have physical models to aid in the scene sequence such as the sequence where a section of the planet station would be going down the lava stream. The material that was used in producing the model was a material that could break away much like rocks. However one difficult element was the lava of the sequence as it can be quite difficult to re create much like lightning or even water in footage or even animation/illustrations. One way they created the lava was a mixture of syrups or liquids that with an underflow of orange could create a lava like effect. This would be shot in front of a green screen to later be compiled with the footage, if the current position didn't work the footage could be flipped however this would in turn cause trouble. One example of this was the lavas direction on one of the falls which was moving upward instead of downward which most of the group recognised from seeing the films before and I instantly recognised this as a classic movie blooper an element that didn't seem to work or a mistake made within the filming process something seen in many animation series or movies.
I learned that the motion controls within a film captured the movement and even created the feeling of an exotic world within a film to make the audience believe that its real. One element that I wasn't familiar with was rotoscoping which was isolating elements within the green screened footage and then place them against filmed footage with actors or cgi elements. The near final stages we learned was compositing the footage and elements of the scene together into one near final scene which then lead to sound design which was what the audience would hear within the scene which would be gathered from the sound department. This would be where the crew as the audience would watch the sequence to supervise the dialogue of the actors within the scene. In terms of music the documentary then described the next element that I remembered from the behind the scenes footage of The Incredibles both video game and film and that was the score of the very scene that would soon be used and released as a soundtrack for the audience to buy and see the scene act out in their minds.
It took about 100 musicians to put together the score and soundtrack of the film which made sense as there were different instruments and elements used within a films soundtrack for one particular scene to make it sound sinister or in this instance seeing two warriors who were once considered friends and allies duel it out in this scene of tragedy which has the element of pulling the audience into the scene and communicate the scenes feelings. I could recognise this as when I listen to soundtracks from some of my favourite movies I can see a scene unfold in my mind such as the Define Dancing music from Disney's Wall.E which was what inspired a scene from my Artist and the Mermaid story. Its like music is writing the scenes in their own right.
Finally was the screening of the scene the creators and animators seeing their creation come together in one final product for the movie and their work culminating into this contribution to the project. I felt like it was seeing all the time, struggles and resources to put just one scene together in one whole film. Looking back on this lesson I would think this has given me some insight into how much time and effort was needed into making one scene in a million for one film be it in live action or stopmotions and it showed why the films took such a long time to come out into the cinema for all to see. I wondered if at some point in this module we would be getting the chance to show the culmination of our work, but one thing I did learn was what to consider when we split into groups to put together our animation work for the city project like where to start and what to suggest to the group discussion.
In conclusion the lesson and the knowledge that I have gained could help me in my own development in understanding my area of expertise and even aid in my other uni projects such as the two week research project that Johnny has us doing for animation context as a starting point even aid in my visual research and I may consider watching more behind the scenes footage from DVDs that I watch at home in my spare time.
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