theothomasvfx-blog

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So unfortuantly my actors for the shoot over the past few days pulled out on me a last minute. This put me in a difficult position and I had to rewrite most of the script on a shot time frame. Thankfully my girlfriend took the time out to come and shoot with me at Cardiff bay, so although I didn’t get a lot of the shots I’d wanted, I still got something which is defiantly better than nothing.

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Grade 2. A cooler grade with less saturation to highlight the somber nature of the muffled audio.

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Her is the first grade for the normal audio. I used a warmer grade to try and display the normality of the shots.

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My work flow for Scene 2. I have again used the same formula. I have two different grades for the varying audio. Screenshots of each to follow.

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Working with 4k footage was proving hard, So I found an alternative method which involves creating a proxy for all my clips which then allows me to edit with downscaled versions of the clips but still renders out to full 4k.

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I was thinking how I could create a muffled sound on the audio, after trying out a few effects I decided to use a Low pass filter cutoff at 750 Hz. This effect worked perfectly and once coupled with a ringing sound, It gave me the exact effect I was after. 

I then added an extra effect on the end to highlight the cut to black.

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Began editing the first two scenes. Decided to edit the project scene by scene and them bring them all together at the end as i’m working with large 4K files and my Macbook may struggle with too much going on. 

The mid range shots are all depicting how it may sound to a person with hearing loss and there for I have edited the audio accordingly, the following screenshot explains this.

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Before the main shoot tomorrow I did a few tests this evening, this is the first scene. Shot with a6300 + Samyang 12mm F2 for the wide shots + Sony 18-105 f4 for the mid shots. All shot in slog2 with a quick grade in post.

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Link to the shot list for my first shoot, which follows the female through her daily struggle. 

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Off the backof what i previously posted, I did some research into getting smoother shots and found this video from a favourite youtuber of mine ‘Peter McKinnon’. He explains in this video how to use the neck strap to make a 3rd point of contact with the camera.  

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Another piece of test footage, also shot with the samyang 12mm f2. This time I tried using 120fps, which is very smooth. I am however struggling to keep the camera from shaking whilst handheld, with little time to work with and access to a gimbal limited I will have to look into other methods of stabilisation for tracking shots.

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Researching hearing loss is interesting as here really is very little content similar to what i plan on producing. This is a good thing as it means my content will be original , however it means theres little to take inspiration from. Here is a comedy piece I found, I feel its in rather bad taste which is why my film will be more true to real life and target emotions rather than humour. 

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Framing/Grade test for the first scene.

Just picked up a Sony a6300 with a Samyang 12mm f2 lens & A Sony 18-105mm f4 lens. Wanted to run a quick test to check the framing for my shoot tomorrow, shot this in slog2 and used a LUT to quickly grade it.

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I used this video to get some understanding on the physical causes/effects of hearing loss.

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Idea & Production Plan

The synopsis for my campaign is to produce a video that focuses on two people between the ages of 18-24 (A male & a female) and display how their battle with hearing loss causes them struggles & loneliness in their day to day life. As the campaign is for a charity I want to make a video that triggers emotions to raise awareness and encourage people to donate/help the charity but in a modern way that doesn’t beg for it. 

In the brief it mentions that the ‘Action on hearing loss’ charity isn’t as big nor does it receive as much attention as a lot of the bigger charities, so this has motivated me to make something that shed’s light on an issue that is so common. 

The main feature of my video is going to use wide angle shots to show the scene to a normal ear and to use close up/medium locked off shots combined with muffled audio & ringing, with a shallow depth of field to show how someone with hearing loss may feel.

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After much contemplation i’ve decided to go with the Hearing loss brief. I had originally planned to go with either the Travel Insurance brief or the Bacardi Brief but both would have been difficult with location & personal needed for the shot. As I work mainly independently with little to no crew I decieded the most Doable brief for me would be the Hearing Loss brief.

The Brief tasks with making a promotional campaign for the charity ‘Acting on Hearing Loss’ its very flexible which is another reason as to why I chose it. There’s also very little existing promotion around hearing loss in general so I figured it would be a great topic to shed some light on. 

I’ve decided to focus my promotion around hearing loss in 18-25 year olds as the little promotion out there already for hearing loss is focussed around the elderly and upon researching the topic i’ve found the hearing loss is very prominent throughout all ages so i’d like to make a campaign to display this. 

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Initial Idea’s

Off the back of my last project which I felt was fairly successful, I want to keep going with the music theme. I really enjoyed the sound sync and cinematography element of it so want to push that further with this project but also include more motion graphics elements. Bellow are some music videos in the style i’d like to move towards.

I love the different approach to a lyric video, They have used a green screen to place the graphics behind the MC and also have tracked all the motion graphics to the microphone which i think is extremely effective. The style on the motion graphics is also very effective as they have mixed up the typography with graphics that sometimes serve as clever metaphors for the bars. (simpleness and the minimal movement, graphics do the talking) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQqw1TrMAl8

There is some great facial projection in this music video, a technique I would like to study/use for my own work. There’s lots of different unique shots used in time with the beat, really like the Silhouette shots in particular. Nice use of typography also in places to emphasise certain bars and phrases. (emphasis on background, close shots show emotion, colour theme, use of patterns and how they’re created)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGN2cnBn3X4

This video has taken a very unique approach, with a very rough 90s style that looks absolutely terrible at times but this is intentional and I like that. Particularly like the shot at 1:06. I actually find this video very clever as the comp is intentionally bad and I feel like thats a very difficult art to master but on this occasion it has been executed very well. The colour and style of the video completely matches the wild and almost out of control sound that the band them selves bring. These are things I would certainly like to test for my video but feel it could be difficult as creating something as rough as this could fail miserably. (enigma that raises interest at the start, weird choppy speed, agressive, speed emphasises the angsty nature of the song, good selection of background images which match the 90s theme of the video and keep the view drawn in) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UHXwXoc53w

This is another video that pushes the style of work i’m hoping to do myself. The music is Very colourful with an array of effects to match the tempo and beat of the song. The emphasis remains on Wiley at all times and the effects are timed very well to highlight certain bars. Clever use of typography, keying and old film effects make this video very visually pleasing. There’s also some nice minimal camera movement timed to the bass of the song which almost creates a sense of loudness and impact. (overlapping, negative, split screen, upside down) 

https://youtu.be/Tr5zkI3J93g

Some really nice camera movement in the first person during this music video. I would assume they used some sort of camera stabiliser to create the smoothness of the pans and sweeps in the first part of the video. As the music video progresses at exactly 1:23 the flow of the video is interrupted as the smoothness is disrupted to create the feeling of fear as the protagonist runs. It has really effective zooms also, it has a kind of warp effect on it which i would be eager to investigate and learn how to apply a similar effect in my video.  Going back to the camera movement, it really creates a sense of energy throughout the video and is all nicely timed with the movement of the MC’s in front of the camera. I also really like the character switch effects at 1:47 and 2:53 whilst its a very basic chop, it’s effective. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oba9M3DaL68

There is really impressive time remapping in this video. There is clever use of cuts to follow the MC through to different locations. They have used the same effect used at the start of limitless (title sequence) which is called fractal zoom, this is definitely something i’d like to learn and use for my video, as when executed properly it can look really interesting. The combination of fractal zoom, clever pans and sweeps, time remapping and various other camera movements really give this video an interesting look that is in keeping with the tempo of the song. (black and white, low angle at 2:33)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fIAjwYhxDY

This music video is a pretty standard video with some nice colour grading and camera movements. There are many nice chops and use of time remapping but the main reason I included this one is for the effect smoke bomb gives at 1.26. The use of smoke bombs are another physical element i’d like to include in my video to create some interesting effects with lighting shining through the smoke. (Close up shots of instruments, weird camera angles and shake) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ornUt6eZZGw