Week Ten - Final Progress and Concessions
3D lit branch, wall scorch, and sparks. Wall scorch might need more attention
I yield, I yield! In weekend nine, I used a variety of different techniques to enhance my heat vision sequence.
I went back and counted through my full project. In total, there are nine unique VFX shots that require different complicated techniques and methods to pull off. This would mean essentially, I would have to complete one full shot for my project a week. Some are easier than others and are feasible, like one off compositing effects for the igniting and de-igniting eyes for the heat vision sequence. However, some of these require perhaps more than one week to nail, like the arm stretching effect which combines delicate compositing with carefully crafted FX work, modeling, lighting, and animation. However, none of this is considering the work put into production, which took place this quarter.
Making Concessions and Learning from Failure
With all this being said, it is improbable that I get all of the effects nailed and finalized in one quarter. I knew it! "How Superheroes Do Their Chores" was only conceived with the timeline of two quarters in mind. For shame... Maybe if I had captured all of the footage before week one... maybe. But I only got my footage at the beginning of week 3, and didn't finish capturing until the end of week 6. With the remainder of the time I have to work on "How Superheroes Do Their Chores," I've decided to dedicate myself to making the heat vision sequence the best it can be. I've said I would get this done maybe two weeks ago, but the more I worked on it, the more complexities to the shot revealed themselves. This is common with projects such as this. Unforeseeable problems are inevitable!
Week Nine
Week Eight
We've achieved final on the toothbrush telekinesis scene! It's delightful. Have a look.
I've fixed all the frame errors with a thorough process, and I spent time tweaking the grade on both the shadow and the toothbrush. Additionally, I've added a subtle shadow on the back wall, adding to the integration.
When creating the heat vision effect for shot 3 of the sequence, the one where Austyn is facing the camera and actually performs the action of trimming the hedge, I saved this render from Houdini. I thought it looked pretty neat, which is a good sign in VFX.
What I'm doing in Houdini is getting a nice 3D animated alpha channel to use in my comp. A method I might consider exploring in the future is animating it statically, then tracking it onto my actor's face in Nuke. Currently, I'm hand keyframing the beams to match his eyeballs.
Yo... check this out. The SFX editor, Sam, delivered some pretty incredible sound effects in preparation for the final cut of my heat vision, city pandemonium, limb extension, and super speed effects.
Okay, I won't spoil all the sound effects by playing them out of context of the video, but you've gotta hear at least one. Here's what Sam's done with the heat vision.
Week Seven
Now that I have all the footage I could need for my project, it's high time I start finishing these shots!
As a digital media warm-up the day I put in the most work in my project, I made this advertisement for my buddy Jackson's VFX senior project. This advertisement is to appear as an "Easter Egg" on the wall of his subway car, populating his scene. This superhero guy was my first practical
useage of AI art, using Midjourney. The results were surprisingly suitable for my uses! I had fun creating this fake advertisement for a landscaping service that uses superhumans as employees. Now that I was warmed up, it was time to tackle my own VFX shots! Starting with the super stretch lightbulb scene.
Week Six
Reshoots! Like mentioned previously, I used some sage advice from my filmmaker roommate to frame my third major effect in a more pleasing way.
Week Five
This video shows my progress for How Superheroes Do Their Chores, now that we're halfway through the quarter:
Week five unfortunately did not yield as much progress as previous weeks, or at least not as much as I would have liked. There's another class I'm apart of, a 560 collaboration class, that very, very demanding of my time and attention- given the collaborative nature. In that class, I'm the head of my team's entire CG and Compositing sector. Other teams have 4 talented and committed members, my team has, well, less. It's a large tax on my time. I would like nothing more than to be able to sit down with How Superheroes Do Their Chores and muscle out some beautiful shots with my photography, but every time I sit to do work, the mountain of work needed for this collaborative class shoves its way to the forefront of my mind. Working on HSDTC means not working on the other project, which means letting my team down, it's taxing and is directly leading to the diminished quality of my current project.
That being said, let's get into my progress for week five! In week five, I used compositing techniques to make a shot that I am really proud of:
This cool "ignite" effect for my heat vision sequence is made with a series of animated, highly customized lens flares!
Of course, this eyeball ignition is only one piece of the overall sequence, but it's an important foundational piece.
The other important update made in week five is the first iteration of my toothbrushing animation. Now, this part took a lot of hand keyframing to make it match both the positioning of the back of Austyn's head, as well as his teeth in the mirror reflection.
You can see all the keyframes in the timeline, here. Each one of these was handplaced. However, there's still work that needs to be done on the animation. For example, the very first of 3 brushing directions (from the right, from the left, tongue) moves way too slow to be realistic. Furthermore, the jarring flipping around when it first rises from the sink might match the actor's eyeline, but the motion is too fast and stark to be pleasing for audiences.
There's still a lot of work to be done, especially since Professor Joe convinced me that this project, which I had anticipated being completed over the course of two quarters, should only take the remainder of the one! Imagine that, cutting your deadline in half! But I do love working on this project, I only wish I had the time and mental capacity to draw my focus away form the collaborative class.
Week Four
In week 4, I continue my work on the animation and integration of the telekinetic toothbrushing sequence. My experience with integration dictates that a good HDR will make the lighting process a lot easier, not only for gaining accurate reflections, but by showing the precise locations and temperatures of the lights in my scene.
So, I set up my chrome ball on a tripod and took several photos with different exposures on location.
To make my job even easier, I fully tightened up my sequence for both the telekinesis portion and the heat vision portion of my project. See below.
Making frame sequences from this cut to use as camera image planes in my scene will make it easier to nail down the animation.
I'm also pleased to introduce the sound designer for How Superheroes Do Their Chores- Sam Ostrow! As a result of Monday's presentation, Ostrow reached out to me via email and expressed his interest and excitement to help add sound effects to my project. His portfolio is surely impressive, and he will surely be able to add a lot to this project, soundwise, that I am simply not capable of. He's also interested in seeing a bit behind the curtain on the VFX process.
Week Three
Officially, VFX and post production has begun on How Superheroes Do Their Chores! I started where all good pictures start, shot 1! Shot 1 in HSDTC involves the main character walking into their bathroom and using telekinesis to lift their toothbrush into the air and brush their teeth. Austyn gave a spirited and believable performance, but he moves his eyeline around quite a lot. It's gonna take some careful animation to make it track his eyes. So, I began modeling the toothbrush that will go on to become CG.
I bought this toothbrush at a Walgreens. It was the simplest design they had, and it was just the right color for my protagonist.
Using these reference images, I went ahead and created a model of the toothbrush.
The next steps, obviously, are to work on my shaders, then the animation, then finally the lighting and integration. The textures that are on there right currently are simple and are meant to represent the color. Now, the protagonist, who from now on I will call Hero Guy, does cross over the camera, so that will take some rotoscoped masking later down the line.
Another very large step I took between class 6 and class 7 was presenting my VFX short film to the sound design department to see if anyone wanted to help me out with sound later down the line!
I was a little bit nervous walking in there, as I only briefly been to Adler hall once before on a tour several years ago. However, there was a kindhearted substitute teacher there who had trouble pulling up the Zoom meeting for the other students, so I had plenty of time to calm down and get comfortable before my pitch. Here is the visual aid I used to guide my presentation:
Overall, the pitch went really, really well! Better than I thought, actually! The professor went through the two pitches that came from students calling in on Zoom first before getting to me, so I gained a sense of what the class was looking for. The sound design students responded well to my tonal adjectives. I introduced myself confidently, told them a little bit about my minute-and-a-half long VFX film, and strode through the rest of the presentation.
The only snag I faced during my pitch was that the video buffered quite a bit, essentially doubling the length of the video and butchering the pacing.
My most valuable takeaway from their several enthusiastic questions, besides a sound designer potentially working on this project, was that I should think about the audience I plan to show this to. In order to get music from their libraries, they stressed that I can't be making any money off of this, and should generally avoid submitting it to film festivals. They had some great suggestions, too, like I should consider a goofy wobbly theremin noise with the floating toothbrush to increase the zany factor.
I was, and am, very grateful to gain new, non-VFX perspectives on my short film as it stands. There were a couple laughs at the reveal of the bottom of the To-Do List, which means that my message is coming across as intended. The substitute professor understood and appreciated the simplicity of my project concept; much to my relief, as I also think that's one of, if not the, most beautiful aspects of it.
Finally, I conceded that I might need extra help with production if I want How Superheroes Do Their Chores to be the best it can be.
My roommate and close friend, James Mahoney III, is a SCAD film senior who has worked on multiple senior theses as a Director of Photography. I showed him my first cut with my footage, and asked him what he would do to improve the Lightbulb scene.
Immediately, James started firing off some great pointers. Firstly, he said that my lighting has no real motivation. Why on Earth would there be a spotlight coming from the kitchen, pointing towards the top corner of the living room? It seems so obvious now, I can't believe I didn't catch it before I started filming, but why is there a strong shadow on the ceiling? It went like this, one after another, though I did manage to take notes.
My handwriting might not be the clearest, but this essentially says that I should think more about my lighting. Not only should the room be well lit, but the direction of the lights should make sense for the story. Luckily for me, James agreed to help me reshoot this shot sometime this weekend!
Week Two
The weekend between week two and three was all about production! Gathering supplies, renting equipment, keeping in touch with my actors. After a roughly 2 hour shoot on Saturday the 21st, I made the call that we had enough footage! Austyn, my actor, was a total champ, took direction well, and I think made it his own. I met Austyn in an improv class, and my film would not have as much of a comedy kick without his special comedic talent.
The next day, I gathered all of the footage and cut it together to nail down the timing. When making VFX shots, it's really important to know exactly how many frames you're going to be working with. One of the worst things that can happen here is to take a shot all the way to completion, only to find out that it will never be seen by anybody. I added the same rudimentary animations that I included in my Animatic. Here's how that turned out:
As it might be plain to see, there are some problems with the footage here. In particular, the lighting and composition for the stretchy arm shot is not pleasant to look at- borderline grotesque. Also, the lighting for the shots of the To-Do List were not well lit. I could composite something with better lighting to a better effect. All that being said, I am fairly happy with the timing, and am ready to move forward with post production and planning reshoots.
Week One
In the first week, I managed to create a more concise storyboard using real photography of the real locations at which I am going to shoot.
Our story follows our protagonist completing their to-do list. These include brushing their teeth, trimming the hedge, and replacing the lightbulb.
Only after completing the first three tasks is it revealed that the last thing on our protagonist's list is to save the city! Jeepers! Moral of the story is to prioritize the important things first.
5 Effects shots:
Floating Toothbrush (CG hard surface model integration)
Heat vision (FX, integration, facial track, CG hedge)
CG Limb extension for replacing lightbulb
City/Fire composition
Motion blur speed effect
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