Lego Stop Action Movie!

Hello, Alex here. Sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything on this blog. This blog has always been something I do in my free time, and that has evaporated recently.

Anyway, by popular demand, here at least is the Lego Stop Action movie we animated back in January: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbpPFsP_8bc

Great job agan to animators Lily, Alice, John and Daniel L. See you in class!

Monday Film Class Foley Project

Hello. Sorry I haven't been posting class re-caps for the last couple of weeks. I have been spending ever spare moment I have rushing to finish editing the five films that we made with the Big Brothers Big Sisters for our December 15th showing, which has taken away the tie I usually post things from class.

I did however, want to be sure to post the foley project that we did in class last week (12/1). Here is the scene from The Mark of Zorro (1920) with the sounds we added in class. It has not been mixed or edited.

As I said in class, foley is quite difficult and I think this turned out quite good. If I was to edit and mix it, it could end up sounding quite professional.

I'll probably not have time to post much more until after this Sunday's show, but then I'll return to posting as regularly as I can manage.

Monday Film Class Recap 11/16

Last week I began by showing a few humorous videos to demonstrate how so much of a movie's tone or even content can be a result purely of the editing. Editors can take pieces of performances and string them together in such a way to create a performance the actor never actually gave (this can be good or bad; bad performances have been saved by clever editors and great performances have been ruined by bad editing). The context of scenes or shots can be completely changed. There is an old saying in the film world that says that a movie is written three times: first as a screenplay, then re-written during production, and then re-written in the editing.

The videos I showed are all fake trailers that take footage from classic movies and make them seem like they come from a completely different type of movie. The videos I showed were included two children's films made to look like horror films:

'Mary Poppins' re-cut to look like a horror movie.

'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' re-cut to look like a horror film.

And an actual horror movie made to look like an uplifting family film:

Stephen King's 'It' as a family film.

And a brutal, bleak war film advertised as if it were a comedy:

'Saving Private Ryan' as a comedy.

After that we did a 'Jeopardy'-style quiz game focusing on the vocabulary terms from a few weeks ago.

We then broke into groups. Lucas and Daniel G. finished editing the commercial they shot last week (I'll post it soon). The other two groups came up with ideas for commercials and we began filming one of them. We'll film the other one this week.

Monday Film Class 11/11: Composition

Last Monday we broke into to two groups. Elena and her group filmed a short commercial. My group started by viewing a portion of an epsiode of the show Hot Set, wrapping up our discussion of production design from last week. We then discussed composition and did some activities based on this.

In this case, the 'composition' we are talking about is visual composition, not musical (or any other kind) of composition. Composition is the art of drawing the viewer's eye to certain places and also creating a pleasing or dynamic image. Even when looking at a still image, our eyes tend to rove around. However, we are most comfortable when the composition directs our attention to a few specific areas of focus. Otherwise the image can be cluttered or overwhelming.

An example of an image with little to direct your eye.

Directing films is largely a matter of directing the audience's attention, and so composition is one of the most important tools in cinematic storytelling. Framing and composition are an aspect of cinematography, and often is one of the closest areas of collaboration between the cinematographer and the director.

The demonstrate how viewer's eyes tend to focus in certain areas, I showed this video:

You can also view it here. It depicts the results of some researchers who tracked the eye movements of eleven people watching a scene from There Will Be Blood (2008). The spot each person looks at is reprsented by a green circle which grows larger the longer their gaze remains fixed.

 

Watching the video, it becomes clear that people's gaze is constantly shifting, but also that their gaze tends to be drawn to certain areas. (For a much, much, much more in-depth analysis of this video, see here.) 

For an activity, I showed a number of slides of paintings and movie stills with strong composition. I then asked the students to use a laser pointer to show the class where their eye first went and what other main areas of focus the image had. We found that we all tended to look at the same spots.

We then discussed some of the tricks and rules-of-thumb for creating composition that draw the eye to certain areas. I'll mention them in a separate post. Another great resource for this can be found here.

We then used a camera and practiced taking photos with interesting compositions that followed the rules we discussed. These are the one I felt turned out the best:

 

These four pictures all make use of multiple techniques for creating dynamic composition, including the use of strong lines, placing figures according to the rule of thirds, the rule of odds, good use of negative space, and interesting camera placement. To learn more about each of those elements, you can follow the links, or stay tuned for my next post which will go into more detail about composition.

Stills from "Star Crossed," Harmony's Summer Film Camp project

I've been posting a number of behind-the scenes shots from the various films we make in cooperation with the Big Brothers Big Sisters in preparation for the upcoming film screening December 15th. However, there is one other major film project that I'm editing, and that would be Star Crossed, the film produced during the Summer Film Camp this past August. I'll be posting more on that in, the future, but in the meantime here a just a few stills from the footage to tide you over. Also, be sure to check out the photo stream on Harmony's Facebook page for many, many behind the scenes shots from the summer camp.

[Note: these shots have not been "color corrected" and may not fully reflect the look of the final film]

Greta would like to emphasize that this is take six.

Discussing the strange events going on by candlelight.

 

From the Facebook page, here are just a couple behind the scenes photos from the shooting of that scene:

And here are a couple from the final scene. I won't spoil exactly what is going on, suffice it to say that the greenish tint to everything is intentional.

An otherworldly arrival bathes the scene in green light.

"A Night at the Theatre" (BBBS) Behind the Scenes Photos

Here are some photos from the April session with the Big Brothers Big Sisters, when we filmed A Night at the Theatre. These (and more) can also be found on Harmony's Facebook page.

Be sure to check out all four of Harmony's BBBS short films at the U of M Rarig Center, December 15th!

"Princess and the Dragon" (BBBS) Behind the Scenes Photos and Stills

Here are some behind the scenes photos from the July filming of The Princess and the Dragon with the Big Brothers Big Sisters. These (and more) can be found on Harmony's Facebook page.

The castle guards in hot pursuit of the escaping princess (filmed at Historic Fort Snelling):

Filming at Fort Snelling State Park:

Filming a tavern scene in front of a greenscreen (a background will later be digitally added into the green space):

And, of course, the dragon:

Here are a few stills from the finished film:

The Princess and her tutor, the evil Wizard.

 

The Princess learns that she is to be sacrificed to the dragon.

The Princess fights her way out of the castle.

The Princess asks a Woodcutter for help.

The Woodcutter agrees to help the Princess.

The Woodcutter and Princess are ambushed by bandits.

The Princess and the Woodcutter negotiate with the thieves.

Be sure to come to the U of M Rarig center to see the finished film December 15th.