Week 1 -The James Bond Title Sequence

An opening of any media is crucial in setting the mood and expectations for many forms of foreshadowing or the atmosphere. Se7en lit up my love for psychological thriller and its riveting opening of damaged fingers writing up a journal played a big part in that as it’s accompanied by a deeply psychotic and subtle tune by Nine Inch Nails – Closer (Precursor).

Exploring the Bond sequences & using AE

As we are introduced to the Adobe After Effects software, we now have access to animations and tools that lets us recreate an icon opening sequence, Dr. No was noticebly a good start with simple circles but vibrant colours that reflect that many locations, gadgets and companions James Bond encounters.

Week 2 – Alpha & layer transparency

Tropes from 007 sequences

– The vibrant red motif
– Gun Barrel
– Flame and blood
– Playing cards for context and characterisation for Bond
– Femme Fatele for Bond girls and sidekicks etc.

Week 3 – Green screen & keying

By using the green screen recording studio in our university, we’re introduced to the lighting intensity and camera setup with the option of slow-motion.

Week 4 & 5- Tracking

I put the anchor point from the center of the image to the circle. I used the tracker tool that will analyse the track motion and applied the motion to this circle’s anchor point. It was easy to use and smoothly operated.

Week 5 Part 2 – AE 3D Space

Week 6 – Render passes and AOVs

Original render

: Ambient Occulsion

: Specular

: Wireframe

: Transmission

Week 7 – Introduction to Photogrammetry

Using the ORANGEMONKIE Foldio studio light box & their app to control the smart turntable via Bluetooth

Using Agisoft Metashape software for Mesh, Texture & Dense Cloud

Attempt processing in Adobe Substance 3D Sampler

A1 Showreel

*This showreel will be refined and extended down the line.

Week 10 – Prepping for A2 Bond Sequence & Introduction to Dynamic Animation

Week 11 – Introduction to smoke & fire simulation

Tesseract inspired by The Avengers (2012)

A fluid simulation was used during the process. I rendered 4 animations of the tesseract in a camera-based approach with a circular rotation and a static and artistic approach.

I set up two different fluid sims, turbulence and velocity were increased beyond its default parameters, which was 10. A simple aiStandardSurface and changing its preset to glass to match the cube, dial up the turbulence and velocity parameters with zero gravity.

Prep for green screen session for A2

Notes for key components for the sequence

My sequence will echo many of the originals, therefore it will seem simplitistic but it is the stylistic choices with the colour grading and extended action chereography that will differ itself with the originals.

Toy prop gun – Desert Eagle

Since the entire sequence will be silhouette-based, the colour of the toy gun won’t matter when captured. I can easily edit the green screen footage with AE.

3 sequences that influences my sequence

These sequences provide action and exotic colours in which I can combine them in ways that the originals would traditionally seperate them, associating the black and white with Bond and enemies but the exotic colours with the femme fatale style.

A2 Bond title sequence

Music – ‘Snake Eater‘ (From Metal gear Solid 3: Snake Eater) Performed by Cynthia Harrell
Edited with Adobe After Effects
Green screen footage
Props – Toy pistol & Nerf gun
Simplistic imagery overlapping to convey hidden messages e.g. Victor Snazz with three layers of mode.
Menacing, sinister, exotic mood and using the green screen as main lighting source by increasing green screen gain.
All footage to be in silhouette alpha mode as main composition.

Story

Agent 007 is now summoned for the last time, in pursue of the ‘Snake Eater’. The operation is interupted by The Boss, who hires Victor Snazz to take 007 down. The agent has fight through to find out what this operation means and what secret it may unfold. Is it an item? A person? A place?

Version 1