Hi,
sorry for the delay, yesterday was crazy!
Back to it…
EDU3D:
Wow, great job with the film. Lovely art direction & feel for the emotions. Well done! I don’t know how many people that could stay focused for that period of time.
I think you’ve done a lovely job & I think it’s more a question of taste at this point. Some things I might have explored are:
- more asymmetric framing - there’s quite a lot of single shots of the boys that have them dead centre rather than off-centre, which means when you cut between them there’s not much of a visual difference between the shots.
- break it up more - at 11 mins, it’s a pretty long film & it seems to feel like the same pacing most of the way - like one long sequence, despite the temporal transitions.
It might have been interesting to try to break up the visual pacing more, & find more “sub-sequences” to allow slowing down, resting, then ramping up again. Then varying the types of framing & movement/speed of camera & the pace of the cutting in those different areas.
To me you’ve got 5 sections:
Prologue: history of the boys birth
Act 1: set up the growing conflict, climax with rooftop
Act 2: retreat of brother & meeting his mentor/friend, climax with approach to cemetery
Act 3: confrontation in cemetery & resolution of differences
Epilogue: End-story of the other brothers.
For each one of the sections, you could work out the arcs that runs through it & how to vary the pacing/intensity/colour temperature/framing etc compared to the others.
I think in a 2 min short film you can tend to keep a consistent tempo, but at 11 mins you might find it useful to treat it more like a mini-feature. At the moment it feels like several camera moves are repeated quite often throughout the film (eg crane-down-tilt-up) & I’m not sure if they are visual callback to other shots or there’s a thematic connection between the specific shots? Again it might have been interesting to remove virtually all camera movement in one section & shoot much wider longer shots, then bring it back the movement & tighter shots later to connect or contrast against the beginning…
It’s a good film, so really these are just a few thoughts that may or may not improve an already enjoyable story. In fact you might have already tried them & found them not appropriate. Again, congratulations, nice work!
XERVIA:
The way it tends to work with TV commercials is like this:
Most clients that are wanting a TV commercial have a specific advertising agency that handles there complete marketing campaign in the various media (print, radio, TV, billboards etc), so that everything is integrated & consistent. The angency generally comes up wiht the basic idea for the TV commercial (let’s say a set of 10-20 story boards for a 30sec commercial) & gets bids from the production companies & post production house/studios. If it’s all CG it might go direct to a post house, but if there’s any live action shots it usually goes to the successful production house, they refine the idea & may choose the post house/studio to supply the CG elements & do the compositing etc. Depending on the content of the commercial, the agency creatives & the production house creatives, the artist/creatives at the post house/studio may or may not get to have much creative input - it all depends. I hope that answers your question.
TOKARU:
It’s eally hard fo rme to say the path to producing, some artists turn producers, but most producers (in animation/commercials) tend to have started in the area of production management/coordination etc. The role of the producer can range from very creative to mostly admin & management to make sure the project can be finished.
I have considered working in games, as that side of the industry is ina very exciting place right now & should be doing amazing work over the next few years. However right now I’m enjoying doing feature films, as I like the focus on storytelling & filmls potential to tell (relatively) long, complex & compelling stories. I like the work of many different directors: Orson Welles, Sergio Leone, Frederico Fellini, David Lynch, Luc Besson, Martin Scorcese, Ridley Scott, Ron Howard…the list goes on.
SHERORAUF:
I think (roughly) that Flushed Away took about 18 months in the production phase & probably another 18 months in pre-production(???)
I’m not sure on the exact numbers of animators & modellers, as they are different departments & I didn’t meet all of the artists in these areas. I’d guess overall (could be totally wrong on this!) there’d be 20-30 modellers who work on it at different times & maybe a similar number of animators.
I think the most difficult (& rewarding) shots were in “Meeting the Toad”. Technically they weren’t difficult but from a creative perspective they were extremely importnat in setting the tone for the rest of the film as our “hero” meets the “villian” for the first time. we put a lot of thought into these & did a lot of restaging of the scene to get it more dynamic & interesting.
GRGEON:
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It’s very dependent on the specific project & the studio. Sometimes you’re doing exactly the same thing, other times very different. As a rule of thumb, a lot of previs work (in Live-action VFX films) is more focussed on how to acheive the shot, what CG will be needed versus what will be fabricated set/props, how it needs to be shot, how the set design will have to go etc. Again, as a rule of thumb, in layout (for animated features) it’s more focused on the characters: how the character is framed, the basic posing, the cuts during dialogue, how the characters should be restaged, the camera movement to support the narrative & how the camerawork flows across the sequence & the whole film (remember in layout for animated films, you layout every single shot, not just the complex VFX/action sequences). Also previs tends to be about producing reference & material prior to production whereas layout nurses the shots all the way through until final render, fixing, changing things, adjusting cameras post animation etc along the way. In the past, previs has tended to be more about action, layout everything. These days however the lines are very blurred, what one place calls previs another calls layout. The basic talent you look for for both is good filmaking.
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Tough question. Maybe, Three colours:Red (every shot seems to framed/lit etc for specific reasons, so much subtext - genius)
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Hmmmmm. Perhaps Dr Zhivago (about as epic as it gets)
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See above somewhere…
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At DreamWorks there is a layout department (Rough & Final layout) of about 20 people. Although I’ve worked with people from most of the previs companies, at the moment I like to setup & supervise the layout departments & cinematography for feature animation studios.
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I loved Monster House. As I understand it, the “wheels” system at Sony is used to layer hand camera movement over the top of the animated layout cameras. It looks wonderful on the trailer for Surf’s Up. I can definitely see a lot more of that kind of camera work as the genre of animated films expands & more contemporary or edgy projects demand different styles of camerawork & cinematography. Exciting times eh!!
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I do very rough, sketchy boards - just simple figures & eyelines to work out basic framing & graphic properties for key shots, then I quickly rough in the basic movement of the sequence as a master scene & then I put in shot cameras to work out all the individual shots. I keep it real loose at this point - just snap poses on characters etc - stuff you can delete & redo in minutes without thinking about it. Something like Hamish McKenzie’s “zooShots” (check highend3d.com) is a great publicly available tool to do this kind of thing.
ANIMATEDP:
I can only speak for myself when I say the best thing after a good reel is a positive attitude. Things usually go wrong in CG production & I’d much rather have a decent artist with a can-do, no problems attitude than a great artist who huffs & puffs & seems reluctant to change or redo anything when the request comes in.
HELLOP:
- Stealing from my other reply…
As a film-maker, always ask yourself these questions:
a) What is the purpose of this shot/sequence in my story? (Why is it in the film?)
b) How do I best convey that to my audience through the acting, dialogue, lighting, camerawork, colour scheme, framing, music etc etc
Different people make totally opposite choices. Maybe warm light, long lenses & tight framing means safety, happiness or maybe those same things mean heat, discomfort, danger. As long as you’re consistent about it, it means what it means in your story. Sometimes you may have to look beyond the dialogue when working out the message of a scene. Sometimes characters lie or even unconsciously say things that are different to what they are feeling - sometimes you want the audience to be aware of that, sometimes not.
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Depending on the show & the sequence I may be at the launch to story (to get invovled in discussion before the boarding starts). Mostly I don’t get involved in the first pass of boarding, but once there’s a rough pass I’ll be involved in dicussing it, putting forward ideas, improvements, pointing out potential problems or what might look good on boards but won’t work too well in 3D etc etc
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Those things help, but aren’t pre-requisites. I just look for good film-makers. I think it’s much easier to find a good animator, good modeller, good lighter etc than it is to find a good CG film-maker as unfortunately most CG schools don’t teach good film-making. Just good camera skills are very difficult to find in 99% of reels. That’s why a good short film counts - even if it’s 10 shots long. The film-making shows through. If just the camera work & editing shows motivation & thought then I’ll be telling HR to put the person on the must contact list.
a domani, a demain, bis morgen, hasta manana…
Brad
