Applied Animation-Sets Changing Becuase of Filming- Week 14

Sets Changing Becuase of Filming- 

Week 14

This is one of the shots taken from the final scene where the forest has been burned. Yet now at the beginning, the forest is normal and bright and green, so I need to add foliage. This was why the sets were really hard to do, becuase I needed to wait until filming had already begun, until I could finish what I had started.

For the foliage, I had real trouble deciding what would look good and how they should be constructed. I ended up thinking about sponge, because of the texture it would give and how from a distance it could look fairly natural. For this I ripped up the sponge, with the help of one of my team, into irregular shapes to give different formations to the foliage when it is on all of the different trees. I then dyed the different formations with green ink as this would soak in, giving it different colours and would keep the light texture on the surface, whereas acrylic could have been too heavy.

When painting, I had a brush that had been used for red dye previously, this meant that different sponges ended up different colour. This was something I really loved, because tree leaves aren't the same and they are all different tones when you look closely. So this was something I wanted to keep in, even when the leaves were quite brown, as it adds to the realness of the forest itself.

Here are some of the first batch, as you can see all of the colours vary from each formation. So this should amount to the trees having different looks and individuality about them.

Here are all of the pieces together, I dont think there will be enough but I am letting these dry and seeing how far they can stretch so we can have more room. I have also painted some rope brown as the vines for the larger tree as this is something I have been wanting to do from my original sketches. Here you can really see the different colours, and even when the dye has soaked in leaving some yellow, it just looks like bright green tones within the foliage itself.

Here I have made a start with adding foliage onto the larger centred tree. This really brings them to life having colour and life on their branches so the sponge has worked amazingly to give the set some personality. I have also added one of the vines around one of the branches to it curves around one of the top branches and comes down to one of the lower ones. So the rope it light, it has dried in an off shape. This is why I am weighing it down with a roll of tape so the formation can look more realistic and natural.

The tree is really taking form at this point and I have added some height to the main tree, as well as to some of the smaller ones. The sponge is working better than I thought it would so this is lifting my spirits greatly, as I am not 100% happy with set 1 as it isn't in my normal style, but in the style of one of my team mates, so this is what it will be like in the industry, so it is letting my get used to what others want and how to work with what they are expecting.

Here is another view of how the shapes are all adding to the slight Dr Seuss style tree with the bubble like shape. I am so happy it is coming together at this point as I was worried becuase we have had to wait till the dead scene was out of the way so this is good to have started now.

Here is what the big tree looks like, I still need to weigh down the vine more with a heavier weight, but other than this, I am very proud of how it is looking overall. It just shows how much a tree can change when different elements are added to them.

Here is the set so far, It isn't complete yet but I have made a start on the smaller trees and the bigger tree is nearly done. The reason for it not being done in the trees, is that I have run out of sponges. So I have to take time to make more. But I am happy with it so far, So I hope to continue and finish the set to a good standard, as I dont want to let the team down.

Now adding the grass has transformed how the set looks and feels overall, it brings it to life and gives it a feeling of location. I have also added in small shrubs and life on the ground to add more of a forest feel also, as it would feel quite bare without them. If I had more time, I would have wanted to add more trees, ground life and just more detail to this set, but because of time, I cannot make this set any more detailed.

For the background, becuase of the red one when the forest is on fire, we needed to go abstract again. For this I ripped up sheets of blue paper as well as printed paper we found laying around. I did this with one of the other team so we could work together to get this element done. She had gouache, and I had watercolour, so it looked really nice to mash the two colours and textures together to make this background as good as we could make it.

This is a view from above showing the different colours and the different shapes we have been able to create overall. I then suggested we add clouds, and to make them fit with the theme, I said to use cotton wool as they can look like natural wispy clouds when done right.

These two images below were when I was experimenting on texture and which would work best for what we were trying to create. The top is normal cotton wool balls, as I thought they could look like 3D bubbly clouds, but they look too formed and thick. So I created the one below which looks so realistic and I loved the overall effect I was able to create. So I went with the bottom cloud, for this I made the clouds and glued them down with my team mate. So I was happy to have found they work so well for clouds, so I will keep this in mind for the future if I need to do a background.

Here are the two together, where the top one is clearly better than the other, so this was a clear decision.

Here is what the finished background looks like, which I am really proud of overall. The clouds really make the piece so this was really good to see and made me happy to have created it as a duo. So this will go at the beginning for the opening shot, as well as when Marie looks out of the tree to see the digger approaching before the forest fire.

Here is the completed set 2 and how the colour of the foliage really makes the trees come to life, all it needs now to bring in more colour and life, is the background and some natural lighting to show the forest all happy and green.

Here we were setting up the lighting and background. We needed to put the camera, where the base sides couldn't be seen. Yet when zooming in to get rid of this, you lost too much of the trees so this was a real struggle to get right. For lighting, one of the team set up the camera and focused it, while I moved the lighting and lowered it, or brightened it, to get it right where we wanted it.

I love this picture as it really shows the set and how it looks overall. It was annoying that when zoomed in correctly, some of the trees get covered because I am so proud of how they turned out and want to show the work that went into each individual one. But this is the price to pay for set deign, all that work and it might not even be showed becuase of the camera shots and angles. This is something I need to get used to and understand more. With the background behind the set and the lighting being corrected, you can really see how much the blue behind can help in the atmosphere of the whole set.

Here was the show we had to go with, where Marie was looking out of the tree, so she was looking down at the diggers and other trees. I think its a good shot to go with becuase it makes sense with her being high and looking out, so I am happy I then moved the camera to this point after faffing for so long, as I understood what we needed and what illusion we needed to create. So this shows how much I have personally learned so far in this project so it is really helping me bridge my way into 3rd year.

This is the digger scene, where you can see where we have messed with cinematography and illusions by turning the set around to make it look different from the main set, as well as making the whole set look smaller by placing the camera so high as to show Marie looking down. With me and a team member animating the diggers, I did the two on the left, and her the one on the right. Im not happy with this scene though. I love the camera placement, as well as the set, background and even how the diggers move. Yet we didn't notice the camera moving until way after as it looked so small on the screen so we didn't notice it. So this was a big blow to us and really annoyed us and our hard work, but this was part of the learning and how you need to be so incredibly careful with the camera, set and lighting, not to move anything.