Shooting protocol (0:28 - 0:31)

Here's my shooting protocol for the 0:28-0:31 sequence.


I'll post other "behind the scene" pics here this week.

0:28 - 0:31 Sequence completed !

After hours of animation, wire removal, pictures cleaning (dust) and movie editing, the pan sequence (0:28 to 0:31) is completed.

Here it is.

I may change the framing a little, but it should remain the same. Not quite sure too, if i let the color correction like that.

I can count around 20 hours for the shooting and the post-production of these 3 seconds. I've learned a lot doing this sequence and i've improved my speed and confidence on almost every aspects of this art. If i had to do that scene again, i should do it in 12-15 hours.   I'm very excited about doing the next scene.

Beginner's mistake

Failure here, big one !  A rock on the set blocked the character's rail support from his course at the end of the sequence.  When i realized that, i though to myself that i didn't spent these last hours for nothing and have to "try" to let the rock slide a little bit, each frame til the rail could overpassed it.  Total disaster.

I'm gonna scrap these 20 frames and restart at the 45th frame of that 70 frames sequence.  8 hours invested on the "shooting" of this sequence yet and lost almost 3 hours this week on it. I'll try to finish it this week but, maybe not tomorrow.  Too pissed.

Run cycle #4

Finally, i did it.  The run cycle is complete.  This time, i added the arms movements.  I'm pretty happy with the results for a first try.  It's a little jerky because the character is moving a little bit too much back and forth.  It should be fine when i'll move it forward on my rail on each frame instead of trying to make it run on a steady position.  (My rail isn't appropriate for that). 

Here's the video test.

I should (i hope) improved smoothness while doing the sequence 0:28-0:31. I shall begin it this week-end.  Until then, i'll work on my camera movements fluidity.

Run cycle test #3

Tonight, i did a third run cycle decent enough to show it here. I'm satisfied with the results. The objective was to find the way i'll take each pictures of my character doing a running motion. I founded that at a speed of 10 frames per steps, the pace would be nice. The hard parts was to find how to split these 10 frames (the character members are moving and his body too on the vertical axis).

Here's what it looks like so far.

As you can see, the arms aren't moving yet. That's my next objective. The character is moving a little bit back and forth, but that don't bothers me. This happens cause the character's support is installed on a rail. Each time his body is moving up or down, i used popsicle sticks to ajusted the height and i probably didn't replace the support on the exact same spot each time. Anyway, in the final shooting of this scene he's not gonna be standing in the same position as this video shows. I plan to finished the running cycle by the end of this week and if all goes well, i'll be ready to work on shooting the sequence on next week. I also need to ajust the pace on the horizontal axis and to pofine my camera movements.

Camera movements test

At last, my set is done and i can begin the animation part. I did 6 tests this week-end with the camera movements only to get comfortable with it. I was thinking about working only on 1 axis (left-right) with the camera but i thought that it would be nice to work with the other axis (up-down) as well. There were many ajustements and concessions when putting that in place, but i'm pretty satisfy with the results.

Here's my sixth camera movements test.

It's composed of 36 frames (12 frames per seconds) and that's why it's a little jerky. It's will be a lot smoother at 24 fps.  I need to find a way to be more consistent with the rotation of the camera on each frame.

I tried to frame it as close as possible as it is in the trailer, but i didn't spent too many time on that.

For the moment, i'm not sure i'll let the lightning like that.

In order to keep the camera focus ajusted on my character, i recalibrated it every 5 frames. Settings: Macro, exposition: 3.2 sec, aperture: F5, ISO: 50.

I should do a running cycle without the camera movement to get use to it before doing them together as a final shooting. There's gonna be all lot of things to do at once.