(Term 1: Week 14)

Advantages of Real-time Rendering in Animation and Visual Effects Design

Introduction

The world has reached technological advancement where real-time technology is possible to reinvent the entertainment production techniques. The industry must undergo a new paradigm shift. The next evolution in content production must adapt to the more flexible and interactive technology that can produce higher quality results in extremely short time.

Since the very beginning, the animation and visual effects production process were almost linear in nature and basically consisted of five phases of production which are development, preproduction, production, postproduction and distribution. Each phase had to be ready before the production could continue to the next phase. It also suffers with the delay to get immediate results from the current time-consuming rendering technique known as off-line rendering. In traditional workflows, any significant change to characters or camera angle might send the production back to square one to reproduce the work and visual render.

In other aspect, the artistic demands are also increasing. Previously impossible visions, from virtual world to photorealistic digital humans or beasts, directors are competing to come out with unique new ideas in their masterpiece. But with all that demands, tight schedules and budgets, the mantra of “fix it in post” resulting pressures on the visual effects production around the world. It is common for artists to feel frustrated with long working hours and turnaround time.

What is Real-Time Rendering

Real-time rendering is a technology designed to quickly process and display images on screen. It can be referred to basically anything related to render but most often synonym to 3D computer graphic and computer-generated imagery (CGI). There are actually many real-time engines available in the market for free and commercial such as Unreal Engine, Unity 3D, Blender’s Eevee and CryEngine. Video game creators have been using this technology for decades to create interactive games that rapidly renders 3D visual while simultaneously accepting user input allowing user to interact with characters and virtual world in real-time.

Real-time rendering and offline rendering are the two major rendering types. The main difference between the two is speed. Offline rendering is popular among animation and film production because of its capability to produce realistic renders, despite having to sacrifice time. But as real-time engines become more capable in producing realistic imagery in shorter time, designers starting to recognise this technology and begin implementing it in their workflows. 

As a brief comparison between rendering method, offline rendering such as Mental Ray and Blender’s Cycle use a technique called ray tracing, which render realistic images using a method that almost identical to how real lighting works. It cast multiple rays of light and bounce around the scene to reflect, refract, or absorb by objects. Since there are many probabilities along the bouncing route and one ray from one pixel is not that accurate, it casts additional randomised rays from that pixel and averages the result. This whole process takes a lot of processing power and time to calculate.

The method used by real-time renderers such as Unreal Engine and Blender’s Eevee on the other hand are designed to ease the processing burden by using a process called rasterisation. The technique can be described as image manipulations where the 3D geometry is projected onto a raster of pixels that make up 2D image. Every pixel color is determined by shader based on surface normal and light position. Image edges are then anti-aliased, and occlusion is determined by z-buffer values. To make the output look nice, additional trickery is added such as light maps, shadow maps, blurred shadows, screen space reflections, and ambient occlusion. Real-time render uses approximations on the behaviour of light and will not be as accurate as off-line render. But modern real-time engines are getting more powerful than ever in which they can now doing hybrid rendering to do real time ray tracing with minimal sample and very few bounces to render only reflections and shadows. It then combines machine learning denoiser result with rasterised diffuse and other passes to get a nice final result.

Benefits for Production Workflow

In short, it is about interactivity, time and cost. One of the biggest advantages in using a real-time platform is that all departments are able to work immediately and simultaneously. It is now just ‘production’, and the term ‘preproduction’ is a thing of the past. Pre-visualisation works can be changed and updated with refine versions without needing to start from scratch in a new phase of production. 

Review cycle is fast as directors can give feedbacks in real-time and is no longer remain several days or weeks behind artist’s works as the production does not have to wait for painfully slow renders. Creative decisions can be made faster and artists can progress quickly with up-to-date direction without any delays between design iterations. This can prevent the loss of valuable production time and resources. 

Because of the less time intensive in real-time environment, artists can pitch and quickly experimenting their ideas to test out hunches and concepts in a way they cannot in traditional offline workflow. This will empower the director with additional idea perspectives as well. Early development process like script writing also can take advantage of the technology to use previs (revisualisation) to look at the sets, the characters, and all the assets to create a great script.

All of this would never have been possible without real-time technology, as it would have taken far too long to create unnecessary versions of the scene and ultimately too much luxury in terms of cost and time. With real-time rendering integration, directors, designers and clients will be able to instantly see how the end result of a project will look like. They will have complete control to experiment with any ideas and making changes to things like characters, lighting, and camera positions as they work, and avoid having to wait for lengthy rendering time.

Benefits for Visual Creativity

Real-time rendering is being integrated in visual effects and animation to create virtual production, digital humans, animated series, and commercials. It is clear that this is not a distant dream or possible trend but the future of filmmaking.

Epic Games, the creator of Unreal Engine, reveals how their engines are enriching production, enabling interactive storytelling and real-time production. Broadcasting companies have achieved a new level of quality and creativity by connecting broadcast technology with real-time engine for environment. Virtual sets eliminate high costs associated with physical sets and complex scenes can be shot live, without requiring extensive post-production, further driving down costs. 

In weather news for example, special effects and CG elements like rain and flood can be added to a scene instantly and can interact with weather-caster in real-time allowing for greater flexibility with creative decision making. In 2015, The Weather Channel introduced this kind of immersive mixed reality experience to better explain the anatomy of a hurricane.

In 2017, The Future Group uses Unreal Engine and Ross Video technology in combination with its own interactive mixed reality platform to produce Lost in Time, an episodic series in which contestants can compete, navigate and interact with the spectacular interactive virtual environments in real-time.

In the same year, visual effects studio, The Mill produced a futuristic short film called ‘The Human Race’, that features the 2017 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 in a heated race with an autonomous Chevrolet FNR concept car. For this film, live video feeds and data were fed on set into Unreal Engine together with The Mill’s Cyclops virtual production toolkit. CG car was then overlaid on top of a proxy vehicle covered in tracking markers called the Blackbird. The use of real-time technology gives the viewers the ability to customise the car in the film as they watch it. This hybridisation of film and gaming open possibilities in interactive creative storytelling. A film that you can play.

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One of the most outstanding use of real-time rendering in full production is Zafari in 2018, a charming 52 episodes animated series produced by Digital Dimension. The series revolves around a cast of quirky critter characters who are born with the skin of other types of animals. Zafari is the first episodic animated series to be fully rendered in Unreal Engine.

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The team was looking to create stunning visual effects with global illumination, subsurface scattering, motion blur, great water and lush jungle environment, while without being overly expensive and time-consuming to render. The animation also features dynamic simulation for character furs, trees and vegetations. Traditionally is not a simple task, but the studio was able to achieve that with the help of real-time rendering technology. Digital Dimension stated they can do 20 test renders within half an hour as compared to 2 in a day using previous iterations of the pipeline. This is the major benefit of using a real-time engine compared to reliance on a render farm in which shot iterations can be turned around extremely quickly.

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One of feature films that has taken advantage of real-time rendering was Rouge One: A Star Wars Story. Industrial Light & Magic’s Advanced Development Group (ILM / ADG) was using Unreal Engine to make photorealistic renders of the beloved, sarcastic droid K-2SO in real time and bypassing the pre-rendering process. The droid had some great scenes and stole the hearts of millions of Star Wars fans. The group has its own render pipeline built on Unreal called the ADG’s GPU real-time renderer. ADG develops the tool to expand and enhance the creative process of storytelling through real-time rendering of visuals that approach motion picture quality, as the other scenes of the film was rendered using the standard offline render. By comparison, the real-time render scenes are very much identical to the shots that was rendered using offline render. By using the technology, the team was able to see the character on screen during shooting with added benefit that they could visualise the data in camera on set with virtual cinematography. The film also used real-time virtual sets using a system called SolidTrack which allows the team to build geometry of what is going to replace on the blue screen. It generates real-time graphics to get a representation of what the final set extension’s going to be.

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ILM continued pursuing the usage of real-time rendering in the Solo: A Star Wars Story production. The team used StageCraft VR, a new virtual production system that powered by Unreal Engine to design and understand the scene physical dimensions when it came to previsualising the stunts. Working with real-time assets in a virtual production environment means that the team can move things around and play with different aspects of the sequence. ILM stated that the ability to work creatively in real time brings out something that is impossible with cumbersome, slow, pre-rendered assets.

These are just a few examples of real productions taking advantage of real-time rendering, with many more are expected to start embracing the technology and get creative with it.

Conclusion

Real-time production pipeline has many advantages that can save tremendous amount of time and cost while still maintaining high quality result. The technology is now powerful enough to produce high visual fidelity to match the aesthetic style of the creative vision. 

Real-time rendering allows creator to achieve shots that are otherwise unachievable and to obtain them quickly. And since the quality differences between offline and real-time rendering are getting closer and generally indistinguishable, we may see more major productions around the world to invest in real-time engines and standardise on new tools that make it easier to integrate the technology with existing pipelines.

The idea of hitting render and see the entire shots popping out in seconds may sounds too good to be true, but this is the power of real-time filmmaking. The future of content creation in a world where storytellers are not restricted by technology but empowered by it. A world where the only limitations are creativity and imagination.

References

Sloan, K., 2017. Why Real-Time Technology is the Future of Film and Television Production, pp.3-13.

Moller, T., 2018. Real-Time Rendering – Fourth Edition, Chapter 2: The Graphic Rendering Pipeline, pp.11-14. 

Evanson, N., 2019. How 3D Game Rendering Works, A Deeper Dive: Rasterization and Ray Tracing [Online] Available at: <https://www.techspot.com/article/1888-how-to-3d-rendering-rasterization-ray-tracing/> [Accessed: 10 January 2021]

Unity. Real-Time Rendering in 3D [Online] Available at: <https://unity3d.com/real-time-rendering-3d> (Accessed: 10 January 2021)

Unity. Real-time filmmaking, explained [Online] Available at: <https://unity.com/solutions/real-time-filmmaking-explained> [Accessed: 10 January 2021]

Novotny, J., 2018. How Does Eevee Work [Online] Available at: <https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/120372/how-does-eevee-work> (Accessed: 10 January 2021)

Mirko, 2020. The Main Advantages of Real Time Engines vs Offline Rendering in Architecture [Online] Available at: <https://oneirosvr.com/real-time-rendering-vs-offline-rendering-in-architecture/> (Accessed: 10 January 2021)

Lampel, J., 2019. Cycles vs. Eevee – 15 Limitations of Real Time Rendering in Blender 2.8 [Online] Available at: <https://cgcookie.com/articles/blender-cycles-vs-eevee-15-limitations-of-real-time-rendering> (Accessed: 10 January 2021)

Failes, I., 2017. How Real-time Rendering Is Changing VFX And Animation Production [Online] Available at: <https://www.cartoonbrew.com/tools/real-time-rendering-changing-vfx-animation-production-153091.html> (Accessed: 10 January 2021)

Pimente, K., 2018. Animated children’s series ZAFARI springs to life with Unreal Engine [Online] Available at: <https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/animated-children-s-series-zafari-springs-to-life-with-unreal-engine> (Accessed: 16 January 2021)

Failes, I., 2017. Upcoming Animated Series ‘Zafari’ Is Being Rendered Completely With The Unreal Game Engine [Online] Available at: <https://www.cartoonbrew.com/tools/upcoming-animated-series-zafari-rendered-completely-unreal-game-engine-153123.html> (Accessed: 16 January 2021)

The Mill. Blending live-action film and gaming for Chevrolet [Online] Available at: <https://www.themill.com/experience/case-study/chevrolet-the-human-race/> (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

Bishop, B., 2017. Rogue One’s best visual effects happened while the camera was rolling [Online] Available at: <https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/5/15191298/rogue-one-a-star-wars-story-gareth-edwards-john-knoll-interview-visual-effects>(Accessed: 18 January 2021)

Seymour, M., 2017. Gene Splicer From 3lateral & ILM Rogue One on UE4 [Online] Available at: <https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/gene-splicer-from-3lateral-ilm-rogue-one-on-ue4/> (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

Morin, D., 2019. Unreal Engine powers ILM’s VR virtual production toolset on “Solo: A Star Wars Story” [Online] Available at: <https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/unreal-engine-powers-ilm-s-vr-virtual-production-toolset-on-solo-a-star-wars-story> (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

Polinchock, D., 2019. The Weather Channel Uses Immersive Mixed Reality to Bring Weather to Life [Online] Available at: <https://www.mediavillage.com/article/the-weather-channel-uses-immersive-mixed-reality-to-bring-weather-to-life/> (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

Lumsden, B., 2019. Virtual Production: The Future Group pushes XR to the limit [Online] Available at: <https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/virtual-production-the-future-group-pushes-xr-limit> (Accessed: 18 January 2021)

(Term 1: Week 8-13)

In this week class, Luke asked us about our research topic for 1500 words essay. I proposed to make a research about real-time rendering as I’m really interested in that topic because it’s getting more popular and advanced nowadays.

I was involved in using a real-time rendering, Unreal Engine when I was working to produce a game with my friends about 2 years ago. I was the animator for the in-game animations and cinematics for the game. The game visual was not designed towards a realistic look, but I was blown away with the power of the engine which can render almost everything I threw into the cinematics in real-time such as fog, reflection and volumetric lights.

As I was getting interested with the engine and searching online for tutorials to improve my knowledge with Unreal Engine, I found out that the game engine is getting popular in actual film and animation productions because its capability to produce realistic rendering in a shorter time compared to offline rendering.

Back to my research topic, at first I want to focus on the method used by real-time rendering of how it can optimise the processing power and rendering time compared to other rendering type. But I think the research will results in to have too much technical jargons, terms and algorithms that I myself don’t understand as I’m not into programming.

Luke said that real-time rendering is such a massive topic. So he want me to narrow it down to how it use to produce effects (VFX) or how it use in virtual production.

After that I was thinking for few days about my topic because I don’t want it to be too big and too small either.

Early Research

Title:
– Real-time Rendering Method in Virtual Production
– Real-time Rendering and How It Can Benefit Visual Production
– Future of Visual with Real-time Rendering
– Advantage of Realtime Rendering in Visual Creation.

Question / research scope:
– What is Real-Time Rendering
– Technology for fast rendering
– Brief history of real-time rendering
– Has been around for decades in games
– Method / how it works
– three conceptual stages: application stage, geometry stage, rasterizing
– Type of real-time engine
– Integration in production
– What are the benefits
– Time
– Cost
– Previs for script writing, set building, motion capture, animation
– What is the future of rendering? Can it compete with another render?
–

Early references:

I found a book titled “Real-Time Rendering, Fourth Edition: (4th New edition)” by Tomas Akenine-Moller, Eric Haines and Naty Hoffman. Its really going in-depth and very technical too. Its not really suitable for my short essay, so I may use this book just for basic references only.

https://www.techspot.com/article/1888-how-to-3d-rendering-rasterization-ray-tracing/

https://unity3d.com/real-time-rendering-3d

https://unity.com/solutions/real-time-filmmaking-explained

https://www.designblendz.com/blog/what-is-real-time-rendering-and-how-does-it-wo

https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/tech/how-real-time-game-engines-are-enhancing-production/5124990.article

https://80.lv/articles/integrating-real-time-rendering-into-film-production-pipeline/

https://unity.com/solutions/real-time-filmmaking-explained

After more thinking and looking at various references, here are almost the final outline for my research essay.

Research Outline

Title
Advantages of Real-time Rendering in Animation and Visual Effects Design

Introduction (200 words)
– Problem in production in terms of rendering time, cost, etc
– Solution with real-time rendering
–

What is Real-time Rendering (300 words)
– Description of what is real-time rendering
– Brief example of how real-time engine works
– Maybe compare to off-line rendering
– Example of real-time engines
– Not too technical
–

Benefits to workflow and creativity (900 words)
– Can see result in short time / instantly
– Fast review / feedback cycle
– Can experiment with ideas
– Team can collaborate in real-time
– Save time & cost
– Short development time
– Some real-time engines are free
–
– Find samples of real productions using real-time rendering
– How it helps with creativity
– How it used during production
– How it opens a new type / style of entertainments
–

Conclusion (100 words)
– Real-time rendering is the future as it getting powerful
–

Other related links:

How Real-time Rendering Is Changing VFX And Animation Production

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/animated-children-s-series-zafari-springs-to-life-with-unreal-engine

Upcoming Animated Series ‘Zafari’ Is Being Rendered Completely With The Unreal Game Engine

https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/1/14777806/gdc-epic-rogue-one-star-wars-k2so

https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/5/15191298/rogue-one-a-star-wars-story-gareth-edwards-john-knoll-interview-visual-effects

Gene Splicer From 3lateral & ILM Rogue One on UE4

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/unreal-engine-powers-ilm-s-vr-virtual-production-toolset-on-solo-a-star-wars-story

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/unreal-engine-powers-ilm-s-vr-virtual-production-toolset-on-solo-a-star-wars-story

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/spotlights/virtual-production-the-future-group-pushes-xr-limit

(Term 1: Week 7)

Movie 1 :
Spongebob The Movie (2004)

Breakdown of the story development

• SpongeBob work as burger fryer at the famous eatery station in Bikini Bottom, The Krusty Krab.
• The Krusty Krab own by Mr. Krab who always kept the secret recipe of his famous burger to himself. Mr. Krab is a bit selfish when it comes to money.
• When Mr. Krab decide to open second branches of his restaurant, he decided to appoint Squidward as a new manager leaving SpongeBob felt very frustrated. 
• Meanwhile, Plankton which Mr. Krab enemy has planted a “Plan Z,” an elaborate plot to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula and get rid of Mr. Krabs. 
• Plankton stole King Neptune precious crown and sending it to Shell City.
• As King Neptune thought Mr .Krab has steal his crown, he rush to The Krusty Krab and ready to fry Mr. Krab.
• SpongeBob came to the rescue and ask King Neptune to give him some time for him and his bestfriend Patrick Star to go to the Shell City to retrieve the crown. 
• Along the journey to Shell City, SpongeBob and Patrick has come across a hazardous trench, and Neptune’s daughter Mindy appears to give them encouragement and they successfully pass the trench.
• By the time SpongeBob and Patrick almost arrive to the land, they gets stomped on by the “cyclops” (a diver). 
• The cyclops grabs SpongeBob and Patrick and heads off to his store by the beach, which is in fact “Shell City” itself. 
• SpongeBob and Patrick see the crown, and after so much struggle and nearly die, they manage to escape with the crown and leave the Shell City.
• The rushed to the Bikini Bottom and in the nick of time, SpongeBob and Patrick return with the crown, save Krabs, and then face Plankton.

Breakdown of character development

• SpongeBob is hardworking and cheerful worker in Krusty Krab. He is being seen as an annoying little creature by his co-worker.
• SpongeBob dreams is to become a manager at The Krusty Krab and when Mr. Krab decide not to appoint him as manager, he felt frustrated and drowns in sorrows.
• Even though SpongeBob feel upset with Mr. Krab, he did not bear upon seeing that his boss’s life is at risk.
• SpongeBob brings all his courage and successfully restore the crown with so much struggles.

How character drives the story

• SpongeBob has clearly drive the story and make more interesting with his comic attitude along with his bestfriend Patrick. 
• The story also get interesting with the main antagonist, Plankton. He planted a lot of evil plan and drive SpongeBob and his friend into dangerous situation. 

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Movie 2 :
War of The Worlds (2005)

Breakdown of the story development

• Ray Ferrier, struggle to build a positive relationship with his children.When his ex-wife, Mary Ann drops the children off at Ferrier’s house, he is ready to spend a weekend together with the.
• However, an alien tripod descends on Earth threatening to wipe out humanity.
• In attempt to save his children, Ferrier rush to transport them from New York to Boston in to find safety at Mary Ann’s parents’ house.
• The existence of the aliens made a massive destruction in the earth causing an EMP that disrupts all technology and electricity. 
• They eventually get to a Hudson River ferry only to be surrounded by tripods but Ray’s family manages to escape.
• Ray got separated from his son, Robbie when U.S. Marines engaging in a futile battle with some tripods. 
• While taking shelter in a farmhouse basement by a deranged man named Harlan Ogilvy, Ray’s daughter, Rachel is abducted by a nearby tripod. 
• Ray manage to joins her daughter after picking up a belt of grenades and help from other abductees, Ray uses the grenades to destroy the tripod from within, freeing them all.
• When they arrive in Boston, they find the alien vegetation withering and the tripods inexplicably collapsing.  
• Ray successfully alerts the soldiers escorting the fleeing crowd, who shoot it down using anti-tank missiles and when the hatch opens, a sickly alien struggles halfway out before dying.
• Ray and Rachel finally reach Mary Ann’s parents’ house, where they are reunited with Mary Ann and Robbie (who somehow managed to survive).

Breakdown of character development

• Ray Ferrier the hard-working and disillusioned New Jersey dockworker has failed as a husband, and as a father. 
• Estranged from his troubled teenage son, Robbie, and his little daughter, Rachel, Ray struggles to build positive bridges with his kids.
• As he doesn’t see his family much, he tries to make the best possible effort whenever he does get a chance to spend time with them. 
• When Earth is under attack by extraterrestrial invaders, Ray’s paternal instincts take over as he desperately tries to rush his children to safety.
• He became more protective and caring while undergoing the ultimate test under these extreme conditions. 
• At the end Ray able to reunite with his ex-wife and get his children to a safe place and embrace the positive relationship build with his children, especially hi son. 

How character drives the story

• Ray drives the story with highlighting on protecting his children and making sure that he can build a good relationships with both of them.  

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Movie 3 :
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of Were Rabbit (2005)

Breakdown of the story development

• Wallace and his dog, Gromit’s has venture into latest business, a human pest-control called ‘Anti-Pesto’. 
• The business is booming as the enterprising duo are finding it hard to manage all the captive rabbits taking over West Wallaby Street before the Giant Vegetable Competition. 
• Wallace then invents a brainwashing machine and experiments on the bunnies to program them to dislike the veggies, however, the experiment goes wrong, the machine misfires and melds his mind to another bunny.
• Wallace turn into a humongous Were-Rabbit at night and starts terrorising the village, eating the giant crops.
• While the event organiser Lady Tottington, doesn’t know on what happen to Wallace, she decided to hired Wallace and Gromit to investigate the mystery and to capture the creature.
• Consequently, Victor Quartermaine, Tottington’s macho suitor wants to catch the animal himself, using violent means if necessary to win Tottington’s heart as well as earn the village’s respect.
• Gromit had discover that the Were-Rabbit is his actually Wallace, he uses his prized squash to lure the rabbit and capture it without hurting it. 
• Meanwhile, Victor are able to track the Were-Rabbit and ready to shoot the rabbit with golden bullet. 
• Gromit successfully save the Were-Rabbit and dresses the defeated Victor in a makeshift rabbit costume, and soon the villagers chase after him.
• With the help from Tottington and Gromit, the Were-Rabbit, now turn into Wallace’s human form. 
• Gromit is pronounced the winner of the event and all is well again in the duo’s little farm village.

Breakdown of character development

• Wallace is an inventor with a house full of gadgets, running a new business together with his faithful dog, Gromit. 
• Wallace always get into unexpected situation, still, he can always relax with his best friend Gromit who spends most of his time saving Wallace from various scrapes and a number of mischievous characters.

How character drives the story

• The story get interesting when Wallace with his invention and always end up with unexpected circumstances.
• Gromit as a secondary character drives the story with his genius and mischievous solutions. 

(Term 1: Week 5)

This week we learned about the important of story arcs and character types in film. Below are some notes that I have taken during the lecture.

Story Circle

1. You: A character is in a zone of comfort
2. Need: They want something
3. Go: They enter an unfamiliar situation
4. Search: Adapt to it
5. Find: Get what they wanted
6. Take: Pay a heavy price for it
7. Return: Then return to their familiar situation
8. Change: Having changed

Story Arc

Character Types

Protagonist: The main character.
Antagonist: The opposite of main character, usually an enemy and threat.
Dynamic: Character that grows and change throughout the story.
Static: The opposite of dynamic character, doesn’t change and fixed.
Round: Well developed characters, realistic with emotions, thoughts and feelings.
Flat: The opposite of round character, lack of depth and development.

Archetypes

Hero

• Protagonist or central character.
• Separate from the ‘ordinary world’.
• Sacrifice himself for the service of the journey at hand.
• Answers the challenge.
• Completes the quest and restores the ‘ordinary world’s’ balance.
• We experience the journey through the eyes of hero.

Mentor

• Provides motivation.
• Provides insights.
• Provide training to help the hero.

Threshold Guardian

• Protects the ‘special world’ and it’s secrets from the hero.
• Provides essential test to prove a hero’s commitment and worth.

Herald

• Issues challenges.
• Announces the coming of significant change.
• Can make their appearance anytime during a journey, but often appear at the beginning of the journey to announce a call to adventure.
• A character may wear the herald’s mask to make an announcement or judgement.
• The herald need not be a person. It can be an event or force: the start of a war, a drought or famine, or even an ad in a newspaper.

Shapeshifter

• The shapeshifter’s mask misleads the hero by hiding a character’s intentions and loyalties.
• The shapeshifter’s alliances and loyalty are uncertain, and the sincerity of his claims is often questionable. This keeps the hero off guard.

Shadow

• Can represent our darkest desires, our untapped resources, or even rejected qualities.
• Frequently sees himself as a hero, and the story’s hero as his villain.
• The hero’s enemies and villains often wear the shadow mask.
• This physical force is determined to destroy the hero and his cause.

Trickster

• Relish the distruption of the status quo, turning the ‘ordinary world’ intro chaos with their quick turns of phrase and physical antics.
• Although they may not change during the course of their journeys, their world and its inhabitants are transformed by their antics.
• The trickster uses laughter and ridicule to make characters see the absurdity of the situation, and perhaps force a change.

Allies (sidekicks)

• Represent the virtues of the hero.
• Can be individual or can be a team.

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Film Analysis: The Lord of The Ring Trilogy

Movie Summary

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, starting an epic set in the fictional world of Middle-earth. The story begins with an introduction of the first character, Bilbo Baggins, a Hobbit which is a small, kindly race about half the size of Men living in the Shire, the part of Middle-earth that is the Hobbits’ home. He wandering deep inside the cave when he stumbles upon a ring and takes it back with him to his home. While he is unaware that the ring is the One Ring that has been long searched by Sauron, all he know is the ring causes him to become invisible when he’s wearing it. 

Bilbo knew that the ring give him the sense of strangely greedy feeling and thats when he decided to give up and gives the ring to his heir, his cousin Frodo Baggins. Bilbo long lost friend, Gandalf the Grey, a great Wizard suspects that the ring is indeed the One Ring of legend. After confirming his suspicions, he tells Frodo that the ring must be taken away from the Shire, as Sauron’s power is growing once again. The journey begins with Frodo accompanied by three of his Hobbit friends – Sam, Merry, and Pippin to sets out from the Shire and throw the Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, Mordor. 

Story Arc

You: Frodo Baggins, a small Hobbits living peacefully in the Shire. Frodo does not consider himself particularly heroic, but the job must be done and he is the only person available. Frodo can be seen lacks all the usual features of heroism. However, he is gifted with such quality as common sense, a good heart, and the determination to do his best.

Need: He inherit the one Ring from his cousin and being told to bring the ring to the Mount of Doom, Mordor in order to destroy it. 

Go: Frodo and his Hobbit friends pursued by the nine Ringwraiths, servants of Sauron known as Black Riders along the way. In effort to save the hobbits, Gandalf brings them to the unfamiliar realms of Elves. The hobbits spend a night in the company of wandering Elves who promise to protect the hobbits.

Search: Frodo and the hobbits meet Aragorn, a Ranger who roams the wilderness and who is the heir of the King of Gondor. Frodo puts on the Ring, revealing himself to the Black Riders and get stab with a blade of evil enchantment, and he nearly dies as they race for Rivendell, another realms of Elves.

Find: In Rivendell, Frodo has been saved by the wise Elrond which has worked his healing magic. Frodo and his friends continue the task of carrying the Ring to Mordor, and a company called the Fellowship of the Ring has been selected to help and protect him with the journey.

Take: As the journey to Mordor become dangerous, Frodo and his friend Sam has been separated with their fellowships. Travelling towards the Mordor, they got lost and met Gollum which following them to get the ring. Gollum has led them to the lair of Shelob of a giant evil spider. Frodo got attack by the spider but he manage to save himself with the aid of Galadriel’s gift, a phial containing the pure light of elven stars. Meanwhile, the battle between man, the Elves and Orc the Sauron’s army is happened at the Two Towers.

Return: Frodo and Sam begin the final stage of the journey across the desert wasteland of Mordor. Aragorn distracted Sauron from any attempt to reach Mount Doom and after a long struggle, Frodo and Sam reach the slopes of Mount Doom. While Gollum reappears and attacks Frodo, he struggles and wrest with Frodo on the edge of the pit. Gollum managed to get  the Ring from Frodo’s hand, but as he joyfully dance, Gollum accidentally falls into the volcano with the ring. Sauron’s enormous army, got defeated and Aragorn takes the throne and become the King of Gondor.

Change: Frodo and his Hobbit friends return home to the Shire. The world hails them as heroes for destroying the Ring and Sauron. As Merry, Pippin, and Sam moving on from the experiences, Frodo remains detached and saddened, permanently damaged by his experiences with the Ring. Frodo decided to sails with the elves to the Undying Lands to start a new life. 

Timeline of The Main Character (Frodo Baggins)

Character Archetypes

(Term 1: Week 4)

This week we discussed about visual culture in film and animation. The following is my further finding regarding the topic.

– Mise-en-scene
– Visual Metaphor
– Aesthetics
– Color Composition
– Rhythm

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene is a broad term translated from French, means “setting the stage” where it refers to everything in front of the camera, including arrangement, props set design, lighting, and actors. Mise en scene in film is the overall effect of how it all comes together for the audience. Here are some of the elements:

Production design – covers every element to a film’s “look.” This includes the sets and locations, the props, the characters’ costume and make-up, etcetera. Set design is used to create the world of the scene in the film.

Cinematography – include everything related to capturing the shot and how to compose the frame including camera angles, movement and lighting techniques.

Blocking – refers to the actors’ performances and how they arranged in the frame and interact with the environment. Creative blocking can give live and energy to a scene. Audience are mostly always paying attention to actors, so good performance, presentation, body language and behavior are the key.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

This war film sets the bar with its famous bloody opening scene on Omaha Beach. The cinematography and camerawork successfully demonstrate the horror of war during this first scene. The setup of the scene is simply faceless masses of men who have been ordered to shoot at one another until one side is destroyed. As the American soldiers landing at the beach, German machine gunners and artillery that was defending at the top of the hills kill hundreds right in front of the main character, Captain Miller. The camera makes quick cuts between Miller and the dying soldiers, giving the viewers deja vu as they watch death after death. 

During these combat scenes, the film utilizes tight angles to focus on the emotions coursing through these soldiers and uses sweeping camera pans to put these soldiers into perspective. One impactful scene takes place under the water, as soldiers struggling under the waves and corpses are picked off by stray bullets traveling through the water. This scene also delivered in desaturated lighting and color, which added to the dulled effect, which brought out the great tragedy and emotions in the film. By adding desaturation to the shot made the deaths seem more explicit, dark and deeply disturbing. 

Gravity (2013)

This space film opens with an extreme long take. The distance of the shot changes multiple time from long shot to medium close-up, from wide shot to close then back to wide shot, capturing the astronauts carrying their mission outside of space shuttle. The camera moves slowly and steadily, matching both the gravity of the space and the peaceful atmosphere during the first few minutes. The shot also slowly drags the audience into the story, as the movement making the audience feels like they are actually in space together with the astronauts.

As the story progress, the peaceful scene suddenly turns into chaos when high-speed debris hit the space shuttle and the astronauts. The scene continues with a mix of intense close-up shots and dramatic wide-angle shots. During this scene, the main character, Dr. Stone is unable to detach from a long probe connected to her space shuttle. As debris hits the shuttle, it begins rotating in a circle, with no gravity or friction to slow it down. Dr. Stone continues to spin as the camera remains stationary, with her closing in on and then receding from the camera, creating a sense of detachment, accentuating a sense of loss of control. This long, fluid shot along with others in the film truly encapsulate the isolation of the characters.

Visual Metaphor

Visual metaphor is a concept represented by a visual image to symbolizing something, abstract or analogy for other meaning. It is an incredible way to ‘show’ rather than ‘tell’ and can pull a significant amount of impact even great dialogue can struggle to deliver.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001)

This film is filled with many visual metaphors. Some of the examples are Harry’s wand and scar. The wand function as a magic tool but it is also a symbolic of personal power, status, a reminder of individuality, and an embrace of the impossible.

When Harry received his individual wand and discover the power, it represents a few things much more personal for him and his story. Separated from his parents for years, what is essentially a magical stick becomes something compelling. It’s a renewed connection to his mom and dad, a reminder of their love, and a symbol of Harry’s untapped potential. Harry’s iconic scar has a similar metaphorical meaning to symbolizing his parent’s love and their sacrifice. The scar also represents a deep tie to Voldemort and is a reminder of Harry’s inner strength.

American Graffiti (1973)

The main character, Curt is preparing to move to college after graduated from high school. He visits his school the day before he moves and roaming around the school halls nostalgically. He tries to open his old locker, but it never opens because the combination has been changed.

This scene is a symbolic that represents Curt is no longer a student and he is going through changes in his life. He cannot go back to the way he was in the past, even if he tries. All he can do now is moving forward with his new life. Following this scene, Curt is walking away from this locker and smiling. This is to shows that he has accepted the past is the past and he’s instead taking steps towards his future.

Aesthetics

Aesthetic can be described as a theory about beauty, stunning, delightful and pleasant aspects of the film. It is a pleasure derived from artistic sense and attains only when the quality of the art is reached. It is not necessarily realistic but emphasis on the way the visual is portrayed and achieved, giving a visual delight to the viewers.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Stanley Kubrick’s introduces an art form is capable of communicating a message through composition. One of the distinctive features of the film is minimalism in its design and visual with and white color palette, cold tones, and symmetry of geometrical shapes. Visually stunning for its time, but also still amazing to look at today. It was made in great timeless stylistics and has long since become classic in design and fashion.

The Cell (2000)

An artistic film with a visual feast overflowing with strange, horrifying and hallucinatory visual, yet extremely beautiful. The film takes the viewers to a shocking mind trip into the dangerous and dark corridors of a serial killer’s psych. The main character, Catherine Deane, a psychologist who has been experimenting with a radical new therapy making the journey into the killer’s nightmarish fantasy world and experience what is happening in another person’s unconscious mind. The film settings and visual are very well blend together to deliver what the director wanted to achieve.

Color Composition

Proper use of color can enhance and facilitates visual storytelling. A well-designed movie color palette evokes mood and sets the tone for the film.

When choosing a particular color, these are three main components: 
– Hue – the color itself
– Saturation – intensity of the color
– Brightness – The darkness or lightness of a color

Color has a direct and powerful impact on the viewer. Many viewers will have certain reactions to certain colors. For example, a strong red color has been shown to raise blood pressure, while a blue color elicits a calming effect. Choosing the right colors for the right spots can create emotions that audience may not even be aware of.

As we can see, colors can affect specific feelings. But the color only cannot do everything but must be supported with proper action within the screenplay.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

Apart from the comical, beautifully crafted plot and characters, there was one aspect of this movie that stood out the most which is its color composition. The film masterful use of color become really compelling part of its storytelling experience. Each time period in the story has a unique color palette to guide the viewer through the story.

The opening scenes of the film begin in heavy, warm tones of beige, muted orange, and brown to reflect the fallen condition of the hotel.

The overall color changes when the film takes the viewers back to earlier timeline during the glory days of The Grand Budapest Hotel. The scenes are cast in bright, bold colors such as red, pink, purple, and orange. 

But the bright color quickly changes when the character, M. Gustav is arrested for murder and put in prison. To reflect the seemingly hopeless situation, the film shifts to shades of grey and dull blue, dark, heavy, and muted.

La La Land (2016)

The film utilises color contrasts and colored lighting to create a dreamlike visual. The bright colors in this film are not only influences the look, but how it is used to tell the story.

At the start, yellow color is used throughout to represent the optimism that Mia begins to experience, she goes from white shirts to a blossoming yellow the night she meets Sebastian. The contrast of color comes into play with the collision of yellow and purple to subtlety conveys the bond they begin to grow. The very next day, Mia carries a bit of yellow with her on her purse, almost as if is carrying along the memory of last night with her.

As the story progress, the bright colors begin to fade away when their relationship begins to kindle down. The tone shifts to a new reality where all the representation of colors no longer exists.

Rhythm

In film, rhythm is tempo and pace that relates not only to the flow of a story but to other aspect of the film as well such as performance, camera movement, sound and also editing.

Rhythmic pattern can affect how the mood change throughout the film. It can be manipulated deliberately to fasten or to slow down the progress to properly deliver an action scene, sad or peaceful moment.

Memento (2000)

Memento is one of my favorite films that puts the viewer in the mind of the main character, Leonard which has a short-term memory loss. The film is presented in reverse chronological order so the viewer must remember what happened at the beginning of the previous scene as it is actually the continuity of the ending of the next scene. So that by the time the scene concludes we progress closer to the beginning of the story. It can be quite confusing, but the phenomenal editing and pace successfully works to make the viewer feels like the main character.

Memento is a construction of two stories which rhythm back and forth using two styles of visual to deliver different mood in the film. One is shot in color to show the “present” world in which Leonard is surrounded by the people in his life, and the other is a timeless black and white documentary-like story of an isolated Leonard anguished by lack of memory and haunted by fear and anxiety. This film is a combination of ironic, comedic and violent. Every act is vital to completing a cinematic jigsaw puzzle of who you can and cannot trust.

(Term 1: Week 3)

This week we watched several videos and discussed topics related to how politics shape what being made in media. Below are some notes I have taken and my further research regarding this topic especially effects to film, cinema, television, advertising, game and online streaming.

Video: Media Institution: Crash Course Government & Politics #44 by Crash Course

Since a long time ago, politics and the media have been closely linked. In term of politics, media provides information so people can get involved and make decisions in politics. When economically inclined, media only tell stuffs that they think people will find useful rather than everything to save cost, time and effort researching.

The three major media types are print, broadcast and internet. Print, such as newspapers and magazines are the oldest form of media. They tend to offer more detail and comprehensive news stories which are the reason it is still the main source for educated elites whose opinions tend to matter a lot in making policy. Broadcast media like radio and television have a significant drawback in shaping public opinion because the stories are usually short and therefore less informative, despite their massive reach.

The third major media is the internet, which is considered the most powerful since it has many forms; text, video, audio and live streaming. Its primary advantage is the information can be updated and spread very quickly. The internet also witnesses the grows of social medias. Almost every political candidates and important figures now have their own social media profile to quickly convey their opinions to public without any restrictions and delays.

The media, as the name suggests, mediates information and shapes it in powerful way.

How Politics Shape Media

While continuing the study on this topic, I found that, as far as how media plays an important role in politics, politics also have a very significant impacts to media. This influence the evolution of creative contents such as film and advertising and interactive contents like games. Politics are usually related to the social and cultural situations in a country which affects the level of censorship, how the media contents will be expressed, and public acceptance towards the contents. Nowadays people pay more attention to the rights of certain groups, racism issues and equality, so this will greatly influence politics and media as well.

Different countries have several different level of rating systems for media contents. Whether they have five, seven or more, the ratings are designed to classify the contents with regard to suitability of the audiences. Most of the censorships are revolve around sexual contents, violence, abuse, offensive language, religious and racist contents. Some contents can also get banned or censored because of negative portrayal of certain countries, government or important persons.

Film, Cinema and Television

Film censorship has been a part of the industry almost as long as it has been around to the control the presentation and content of a film. Films that are considered inappropriate or not in line with the rules can cause some of their scenes to be cut, mute, blurred or completely banned from entering cinema and television.

To give some examples, In Brazil, ‘A Serbian Film’ (2011) was forbidden due to the pedophilia scenes and child abuse that infringe the part of the Brazilian Constitution that protects children. In German, film censorship was abolished as early as 1918 to screen films that perpetrate a negative image of German to the rest of the world, while in New Zealand ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ (1980) was banned due to its extremely violent content and actual on-screen killings of animals. The highly praised film ‘District 9’ was banned in Nigeria in 2009 due to accusations of being xenophobic and racist towards Nigerians.

In my country, Malaysia, the government has tight control to what appears in cinema and television. Being a multi-racial, cultural and religious country, the Malaysian government needs to proactively address any sensitive issues regarding the matters. In 1994, ‘Pulp Fiction’ was banned due to intense violence, drug abuse, explicit nudity, and scenes of sexual violence. The same thing happened to ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ in 2013, even though one of the producers was a Malaysian. Some films were banned due to religious content and depictions of prophets like the ‘Noah’ in 2014. One of the latest was Disney’s ‘Beauty and The Beast’ film in 2017 that received a lot of scenes cut by Film Censorship Board due to homosexual references in the movie. Some other international films including local movies and tv series also received quite the same treatments but not to the extent of banning, but mostly resulted in some scenes being cut and censored.

When talking about television, most of the censorship and ratings are still applies since television is very accessible to the larger audiences regardless of age. But in terms of everyday contents, especially the news, are mostly controlled and in favor to the ruling government. The golden era of television is its curated contents which makes it easy for viewers to just sit back and watch what television serves without spending too much time searching for what to watch. It is also makes it easy for political influences to sneak into the creatively combined contents and segments.

Regarding the censorship, I think it is very important to preserve the cultural manners and harmony of the society. Yes, sometimes the film censorship may when overboard but most of the time it is necessary for a better developed future.

Games

When discussing about games censorship, it’s often associated with violent or sexual contents. While they are true, some games do not have to be outrageously offensive towards that matters to get censored or banned. I would like to discuss about one of the games from a popular franchise, Command & Conquer (C&C) by Electronic Arts (EA) and how some versions of the game was banned and modified.

The seventh installment of the series titled C&C: Generals (2003) let players take command of either the United States, China, or a decentralized terrorist called Global Liberation Army or GLA. The game was banned in mainland China, with even pirated copy of the game in shops being confiscated by authorities.

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Throughout the Chinese campaign, the player is occasionally made to utilize heavy-handed tactics such as leveling the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre after it becomes a GLA base and destroying the Three Gorges Dam to release a flood on GLA forces. Chinese forces also liberally use nuclear weaponry in-game, albeit restricted to the lower tactical nuclear weapon yield range. Furthermore, in the introduction of the game, Tienanmen Square and its surrounding areas in Beijing is devastated by the GLA nuclear weapons.

I personally played the game when it was released, and I think 90% of the time I will play as China in the multiplayer games because I think they are very powerful and versatile. Regardless of that, I can understand why the game was banned because it has offense the country, government and the people of China.

In Germany, the story is a bit different where C&C: Generals has a different localised version of the game. Due to the then imminent war in Iraq, the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons removed the game off the market two months after the initial release, stating that the game would give underage people the ability to play the war in Iraq before the real war had even begun.

Later, in the same year, EA released a new version called ‘Command & Conquer: Generäle’, which did not incorporate real world factions or any relation to terrorism. The most notable changes are all the infantries were changed into ‘cyborgs’ in order of appearance and the terrorist unit was transformed into an automatic rolling bomb vehicle.

Advertising and Product Placement

Two interesting things discussed during this week class were advertising of cigarettes and product placement in film which are closely related to business, society and political issues.

In the past, cigarette advertisements were very common to see in newspaper, magazine and television. Tobacco Companies were quite excessive to spend their budgets on marketing such as a full-page advertisement in newspapers and sponsoring television shows to promote their products. I can still remember when I was a kid, watching any blockbuster movie in television will usually have a cigarette advertisement at the beginning and at every break because the show segment was sponsored by a tobacco company. But thankfully even after constantly being bribed with the ads to watch movies, I ended up not being a smoker to this day.

Nowadays however, we cannot see that kind of direct advertisements anymore as governments and health bodies around the world are fighting back with counter-advertising of facts generally information about health effects and the danger of addiction. Most forms of tobacco advertising and promotion were banned in any type of media. Despite the government constant attempts to raise public awareness about the dangers of smoking, there is no denying that the government is also making profits through the sales tax of cigarette.

Tobacco companies now use several other marketing techniques to promote their products such as indirectly place their products in films to increase exposure. Smoking in film continues to be a major source of tobacco imagery.

Which brings us to product placement in films.

Product placement or embedded marketing has been existed since a long time which usually conveyed indirectly in film to build brand awareness and boost sales. One of the films with excessive product placement is ‘Back to the Future’ (1985) with many references to brands like Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Nike and 7-Eleven.

‘Transformers’ (2007) on the other hand has obvious commercials for the Hasbro toy line. But the most striking thing in Transformers that may related to a political view was the change of Bumble Bee car model, from Germany’s Volkswagen Beetle to American made Chevy Camaro, sacrificing loyalty to the original source material in the process that displeased many fans.

Online Streaming

Streaming has become more popular nowadays as the internet is getting faster and cheaper. There are several types of streaming and two of them are the ‘on-demand’ content; like Spotify and Netflix where people pay and choose what they want to listen or watch from a huge cloud library, and the other type is a real-time content called ‘live streaming’ or ‘online broadcast’.

Regarding the ‘on-demand’ content, most of the rules that were previously discussed for film, tv and cinema are still applies here. The content providers are always bound to the local regulations and from this, the government is able to control the contents.

‘Live streaming’ on the other hand, in my opinion is one of the greatest evolution of media. Everyone can create their own content, broadcast it instantly to the world and interact with their audiences at the same time. Most of the streams are usually free but the content creator or called ‘streamer’ can make money from ads revenue, affiliate sales, donations from fans and sponsorships.

This is where politics and government would interfere since they do not have full control to the contents. Some countries will completely block the websites or services leaving the people not having the opportunity to make money from their own contents.

As another example, in July 2020 Malaysia has decreed that all producers and content creators must acquire a license to produce film or video in the country, including material intended for broadcast on traditional channels and social media platforms. Producers should inform the authority at least seven days prior to filming by submitting a form. The ruling will affect social media users and creators on platforms such as Youtube, Instagram and TikTok. The decision has been slammed and received a lot of criticism from the public. Fortunately, the law was not enforced in the end.

(Term 1: Week 2)

This week, Luke showed us several videos from YouTube and the first one is ‘How to Speak Movies’ that comes with 3 parts. Below are some points and notes that I have taken directly from the videos and from other online sources for future references.

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Film and Visual Language

Film, like speech and writing, has a unique language. Filmmaker has a choice of a great variety of techniques to tell the story or communicate the ‘bits and pieces’.

Camera

Shot Length and Angles

• Wide Shot – Also known as Long Shot. It frames the entire subject and their relation to what surrounds them.
• Extreme Wide Shot – Also known as Extreme Long Shot. It focusses on its surroundings and frames the subject from distance, but not necessary to see the subject. This shot also functions best as Establishing Shot.

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• Medium Shot – The most common camera shot. This shot is also known as Waist Shot because it frames subject from roughly the waist up.
• Two Shot – It frames two characters at the same time and useful for allowing performance to play out on in a single take.
• Close Up – It frames a subject at close range intended to show significant emotion, details and something important that has significant influence on the story.
• Extreme Close Up – It frames a subject very closely and commonly used to focus on specific portions of the subject, like an eye, fingers or a tea-pot base to show greater details.

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• Eye level – When the shot is placed at the same height as the eyes of the character. It’s not necessary the eyes of the actor visible in the shot nor to look directly into the camera.
• High Angle – A versatile shot that can be used in many situations. One of the common usages is to make a character seem powerless and vulnerable.
• Low Angle – It frames the subject from below the eye line or pointing upward. It is most often used to make the character look strong and powerful.

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• Dutch Angle – Also known Dutch Tilt, Oblique Angle or Canted Angle. The shot has a noticeable tilt on the camera’s ‘X-axis’ and often used to show something is wrong, disorienting, or unsettling.

Focus and Lenses

• Depth of Field – The area of acceptable sharpness within a shot that will appear in focus.
• Deep Focus – Everything in the shot is in focus.
• Shallow Focus – Only part of the shot is in focus. It’s often used to show an important part of the frame.
• Rack Focus – Changing the focus mid shot and can draw the eye to important details.
• Tilt Shift – Fake shallow focus or artificial depth of field that selectively blur part of the shot to create interesting results like a miniature effect.

• Telephoto Lens – A long lens that compresses space, allowing cameraman to photograph a subject that is far away or magnifying the subject in the frame.
• Wide Angle Lens – Has wider angle than normal lens, allowing cameraman to fit more into the frame, making them perfect for capturing scenes such as expansive landscapes or cramped interiors.
• Fisheye Lens – An ultra wide-angle lens that produces strong visual distortion intended to create a wide panoramic or hemispherical image. It’s rarely use but can make some disturbing image.

Camera Movement

• Handheld – Shot taken with the camera being supported by the operator’s hands or shoulder, often used to create shaky image or to show character movement in point of view.
• Steadycam – Technically a handheld shot but with a rig to help stabilize the movement and allows for smooth tracking shots.
• Pan – Swiveling a camera horizontally (left or right) from a fixed position.
• Tilt – Swiveling a camera vertically (up or down) from a fixed position.
• Zoom – When the focal length of a camera lens is adjusted to give the illusion of moving closer or further away from the subject.
• Dolly / Tracking shot – The camera put on a moving dolly or on tracks and it moves with the subject or without from left to right, or back to front or on a curve.
• Jib / Crane Shot – Camera pun on a platform and raised above the subject or brought down to the subject.
• Dolly Zoom – Also called a trombone shot where the camera is dolly while zooming, changing the depth of the shot.

Mise En Scene

It’s a broad term which describes the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play. Translated from French, it means “setting the stage” but, in film analysis, the term mise en scene refers to everything in front of the camera, including the set design, lighting, and actors. Mise en scene in film is the overall effect of how it all comes together for the audience.

Decor

• Setting – The time, place and social environment in which a story takes place.
• Set Dressing – Object that does not use by the actors and usually a background items to show place, different times and can add texture to the scene.
• Props – Objects that are meant to be used by the actor. Prop can also be used to show characteristic.
• Costume – Clothing, appearance or makeup of a character that can reflect their characteristic and background.

Lighting

• Three-point Lighting – The most common lighting setup consists of Key Light (the main source of light), Fill Light (fills in the shadows created by the key light) and Back Light (lights the back of the subject to separate them from the background).
• High Key Lighting – Brightly lit subjects with softer shadows. Fill lights are used to increase the amount of ambient light and reduce the contrast to produce images that encourage an optimistic and upbeat reaction.
• Low Key Lighting & Chiaroscuro – Darker light setup to give more somber mood. A lighting effect that uses a hard light source to enhance shadows and sometimes a very strong backlight to emphasize the outline of the character.

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• Hard Lighting – Bright harsh key lights that create hard shadows making the scene tough angular and unflattering.
• Soft Lighting – Light diffuse through a filter causing it to wrap around the subject scalping the subject without harming. It’s a romantic kind of lighting.
• Ambient Lighting – Also known as General Lighting is a light that comes from all directions which usually available in an environment.
• Unmotivated Lighting – Any lighting that is off camera, that is necessary to illuminate the scene properly but has no apparent source in the film.
• Motivated Lighting – Lighting that look natural and imitates existing sources like windows or lamps.

Color

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• Black and white – Camera takes in light and records everything just by luminosity whether it’s light or dark.
• Tinting – The entire scene is bathed in a certain color.
• Sepia Tone – Most common colors to tint film in the monochrome era which gave it a dusty look.
• Color grading – The film’s color is selectively adjusted for a distinctive look for each scene.
• Saturation – The intensity of a color in a scene. A highly saturated scene can feel bright and exciting while a lowly saturated scene can feel washed out and desolate.
• Color Palette – Dominant color in a shot. Palette can be broad taking in the entire spectrum or selectively drawing attention to a single color that dominates the others.

Space

• Balance – Gives weight and emphasizes the symmetry between the subjects in the shot.
• Deep Space – Where the scene places elements both far and near to the camera drawing attention to the distance between subjects.
• Shallow Space – Emphasizing the closeness of the subject and background objects or even implying no depth at all.
• Offscreen Space – Where scene draws attention to something out of the frame.
• Blocking – The actors movements that are heavily choreographed.

Editing

• Sequence shot – Also known as long take. It’s a long running shot usually over a minute that takes in a lot of action in a scene. Sometimes it cover simple dialogue or complicated sequence of events
• The Cut – Transition between the end of one shot and the beginning of another. The simple cut is the most basic transition between shots.
• Dissolve – One shot slowly fades into another, sharing the same space for a few seconds
• Wipe – Where the second shot rolls over the first shot.
• Fade-in and Fade-out – A common way to start and end a film. Going to and from a black screen.

• Continuity Editing – Combining related shots, or different components of a single shot, into a sequence which directs the audience’s attention to the consistency of story across time and location.
• Continuity error – When combined or related shots do not have consistency such as different lighting or the position of prop and actor.
• Match on Action – Respected cuts linked together by continuing the action from one shot to another.
• Eyeline – A character looking at something off-screen, followed by a cut of another object or person.

• Screen Direction – Consistent direction of movement between shots giving the audience a sense of relative location.
• 180 Degree Rule – A guideline for spatial relations between characters or objects in the shot to prevent confusion to viewers. It sets an imaginary axis by keeping the subjects and camera on the consistent side throughout the scene.
• Crossing the Axis – The opposite of 180 Degree Rule. But sometimes because the character placement is made clear, the shots will not feel too jarring when the axis is broken.

• Establishing shot – To shows where the scene takes place.
• Master Shot – A wide shot to establish all the characters location in the scene.
• Reverse Angle – The opposite side of the previous angle in the scene.
• Insert Shot – Breaking away from the main action to show an important detail

• Discontinuity Editing – Intentionally breaking continuity that stops reflecting reality but to reflect emotion
• Freeze Frame – Single frame of film is stopped
• Slow Motion – A clip is slowed down to let viewers see the tiny movements or details that could be missed at normal speed.
• Fast Motion – Speeds the actions, often used for comical feel.
• Reverse Motion – Plays the action backward, giving a dreamy feel or impossible things to happen.
• Jump Cut – A piece of time is cut out of a shot to change subject, background etc.
• Match Cut – A technique using two shots with similar graphics to transition between scenes.

• Cross Cutting – Jumps between two different scenes to show that they are happening simultaneously
• Split Screen – Two or more shots are spliced into the same frame showing simultaneous action.
• Overlay – One shot is placed or composited over another shot.
• Montage – A quick series of shots linked together through a theme or through time.

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History of Animation, Film & VFX

Animation History

Animation is a method or sequence of images created to appear as moving images. History has shown that humans have attempted to draw and produce motion images since time immemorial. There are several examples of early sequential images on bowl, caves and chamber that may seem similar to series of animation drawings.

From there, people keep discovering and inventing new ways to create motion images from ‘shadow play’ possibly in the 1st millennium BCE and ‘magic lantern’ circa 1959 to the creation of numerous devices like ‘thaumatrope’ in 1825, ‘stroboscopic’ disc or ‘phenakistiscope’ in 1833 and ‘zoetrope’ also in 1833.

During the rise of the cinematic industry, several different animation techniques were developed, including stop-motion with objects, puppets, clay or cutouts, and drawn or painted animation. Hand-drawn animation, mostly animation painted on cels, was the dominant technique throughout most of the 20th century and became known as traditional animation.

Among the earliest traditional animated short on film pre-1910 are the transparent hand-painted colorful pictures; ‘Pauvre Pierrot’ (1892) by Charles-Émile Reynaud, the oldest known drawn animation on standard film; ‘Humorous Phases of Funny Faces’ (1906) by J. Stuart Blackton, and the first animated film using what came to be known as traditional animation methods; ‘Fantasmagorie’ (1908) by Émile Cohl.  

Beginning of 1910s, animation creation evolved from original artists to “assembly-line” production studios such as Barré Studio, Bray Productions and Fleischer Studios. 1914’s Gertie the Dinosaur being a notable to mention because it was the first film to combine live-action footage with animation.

After a number of pioneers began creating animated shorts in the early 20th century, the very first feature-length animation using traditional methods was created titles El Apóstol in 1917. The 70-minute long movie running at an impressive 14 frames per second. The movie also holds the distinction of being the first commercially profitable animated movie ever made. However, the only copy of the film was destroyed in a house fire.

In 1920s, Walt Disney founded his own studio in California. Although it was the third instalment of the Mickey Mouse series, it was the 1928 classic, Steamboat Willie, where Mickey Mouse finally captured the hearts of the public.

Throughout the early 1930s, the ‘rubber hose’ style of animation dominated the industry, typically set to jazz music which was popular for the era.

Then 1937, Disney’s Snow White and Seven Dwarfs was released. It was the first feature-length film created entirely with hand-drawn animation. Disney had to fight hard to get the film released, even mortgaging his own house to help pay the massive production costs. The film was a tremendous success and it paved the way for many more iconic Disney movies to come.

Prior to 1940s, you could only watch animation in movie theatres. As home TVs became more popular, the very first animated TV series debuted in the form of Crusader Rabbit, a series of 4-minute long satirical cliffhangers which would continue to air as late as the 1970s.

1980s sparking the beginning of “anime boom” that would spread throughout Japan, the USA, and the world. Inspired by the commercial success of the Star Wars franchise, Japanese space operas Mobile Suit Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato were revived as theatrical films.

Fast forward to 1990s, rapid advancements in computer technology revolutionised animation production. Walt Disney’s ‘Rescuers Down Under’ was the first feature film created using a Computer Animation Production System that removed the need for a traditional animation camera. Released in 1995, ‘Toy Story’ was the first fully 3D computer-animated film, utilising artistic techniques such as transparent shading and blended colours that weren’t possible using older forms of animation. Starting from there, more and more 3D animated films and series were produced.

Nowadays, computer animation became the dominant animation technique. Computer animation is mostly associated with a three-dimensional appearance with detailed shading, although many different animation styles have been generated or simulated with computers.

Film & VFX History

1895 – The first moving images are recorded by Lumiere Brothers. Almost immediately there is a split between them who produce documentary sequences, and Georges Méliès who produces fantasy films filled with optical effects and camera tricks.

1897-1927 – Films develop from shorts to around 90 minutes feature length. The films are silent, and any dialogue is shown as written captions. The basics of film structure; lighting, editing and mise en scene are established during this period. Newer lightweight cameras allow shooting on location.

1920s Hollywood becomes the heart of the American film industry and vertically integrated which mean these studios make films, distribute and own the theatres in which the films are shown.

It evolves into the big 5 Studios; Paramount, Warner Bros., Leow’s/MGM, Fox (which becomes 20th Century Fox in 1935), Radio Keith Orpheum (RKO) And the Little 3 Studios; Columbia, Universal and United Artists

1927 – The Jazz Singer by Alan Crosland is released. It is the first feature film with a soundtrack.

1935 – Becky Sharp by Rouben Mamoulian is released. It is the first film to use the Technicolor Corporation’s ‘three strip’ colour process which allows films to be shown in colour.

1941 – Citizen Kane, produced by Orson Welles, was noted for its creative experiments with sound like overlapping dialogue and layered sound, for its numerous complex flashbacks and non-linear storytelling. It also included innovative camera angles like low-angle shots revealing ceilings, montage, mise-en-scene, deep-focus compositions, tracking shots, whip pans, lengthy takes, and dramatic or expressionistic low-key noirish lighting.

1953 – With the invention of television, film needed to up its game. New widescreen processes to produce bigger and more exciting films were the answer.

1953 – The first 3-D film, relying upon stereoscopic technology, achieved wide release in 1953. Earlier attempts had been made, but the 1950s saw the popularity of 3-d.

Late 1950s – Lightweight cameras suitable for hand-held use become cheap enough for widespread use. They become popular with documentary makers and young directors in France.

1970s – Garret Brown develops the Steadicam, a rig worn by the cameraman who can move around while keeping the image steady. First used in 1975 and made famous by The Shining (Dir Stanley Kubrick, 1980)

1975 – The enormous success of Jaws by Steven Spielberg creates the idea of the Summer Blockbuster. This becomes the main way that studios make money in the future.

1977 – George Lucas’ Star Wars trilogy began making $11 million due to the exhilarating, action-paced computer-generated effects.  George Lucas helped bring in an era of fantasy films with expensive and impressive special-effects. George Lucas established Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) to provide the special effects for his film Star Wars. The success of this film cements the idea of the Summer Blockbuster and creates the idea of tie-in merchandising (toys, actions figures etc)

1990s – ILM starts to use computer generated imagery (CGI).

1993 – Jurassic Park by Steven Spielberg, replaced the initial plans to use stop-motion with a combination of CGI and practical effects. From here, producers started using CGI for visual effects because the quality is higher and most effects are more controllable than other manual processes.

2001 – In The Fellowship of the Ring (dir Peter Jackson) and the two sequels, Andy Serkis plays Gollum. The character is entirely created by CGI, mapped on to the movements of the actor. The technology is called motion capture allows non-human characters to be created convincingly without complex make up.

2000s – High quality cheap cameras allow people to shoot their own films more easily and digital editing makes even quite complex special effects doable. Youtube and other streaming sites allow people to distribute their films for free and find an audience.

2001 – Gollum was easily the most memorable creature of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The creature was digitally created by the VFX team and the performance was driven by an actor with a specially created motion-capture suit. 13 cameras pointed at different sensors attached to the suit to track the actor movements, allowing animators to create a more realistically moving character.

2003 – With improving technology, 3D films became more popular. In addition, a number of new IMAX facilities, offering larger format screens were constructed. Today, many large-budget films can be watched in 2D or 3D.

2009 – Director James Cameron created the highly successful film, Avatar. He teamed up with Sony to pioneer a specially designed camera built into a six-inch boom that allowed the facial expressions of the actors to be captured with sensors and digitally recorded for animators to use later. The actors were filmed with infrared light bounced off the reflectors, which was then captured in 3-D by up to 140 digital cameras positioned around the set. Nicknamed the “holy grail,” Cameron’s camera system used lightweight, dual-lens and hi-definition digital imaging to create an insanely advanced 3-D picture.