WEEK 1
Key Themes and Module Overview 

 

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Through The Looking Glass.

Philosophical Toys/Instruments.

Digital Visual effects has come about from the unification of both Art and Science methodologies over time, increasing ways of expression, ideas or even stories, whether they be real or unreal.  

The blending of Art and Science together has created a domain, you can call it a world of some sort, where imaginary concepts or ideas can be visually represented accurately using techniques that seem to abide by the same laws of physics that we operate by in the real world.   

Whole environments can be built to simulate a real environment. The simulations can depict the properties of air, water, light, and even the sounds and echoes they make when interacting with them to further improve the realism, and sell the make-believe.

Perceptual Realism.

Perceptual like the word perception, refers to a point of view, how one may perceive or understand what is happening in a scene for instance. 

In terms of cinema, it is the creation of three-dimensional worlds using noticeable cues so that the viewers watching can understand, and translate the information they are viewing. The cues include but are not limited to the size of objects, their positions in allocated spaces, the texture of said object(s), the principles of its motion, the impact of lights and how they interact with the objects in the observed environment. And the physics involved in the realistic approach to fire, water, wind and clouds. Digital tools give a filmmaker the ability to stretch reality by being able to manipulate these cues to their will.

Orthodox Assumptions about Visual Effects.

There has been two primary ways of productions in the cinematic industry, the first being the narrative focus trail, and the second being the anti-narrative.   

In the early years of the cinema, it was termed the “cinema of attractions”, simply because the visuals were captivating. People would watch these shows mainly for the spectacle of the striking visuals than following the story behind the show. 

In other words, people were interested in the visuals of the large dinosaurs like Godzilla, rather than the storyline. According to Tom Gunning, it wasn’t until about 1907, that the opposing side started to make a breakthrough, where the narrative aspect was taking over the visual aspect.

Realism & Digital Visual Effects.

Realism in Digital visual effects is the application of multiple types of effects, ranging from special effects to 3d effects to achieve a conceived or conceivable idea for viewers to see. 

An example is a scene shot by David Fincher for the movie Zodiac. Many scenes had to be altered visually so that it would appear that the scene of the shot was from a certain period in time. The reality is, although the physical location still exists today, it will look totally different structurally as it has long since changed as areas get developed over the years, especially with the times we live in. 

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WEEK 2
Visual Effects Invisible and Spectacular

 

Differences Between Invisible & Spectacular Visual Effects

There are primarily two kinds of Visual Effects, these would be the;
A) The Invisible VFX
B) The Spectacular VFX
The Invisible (yet Visible) VFX    These are the unseen visual effects, or better said, the more subtle effects which are present, but highly unnoticeable. These could be buildings added or taken away, rocks on the floor in a scene added for a more believable scenery which looks real to the viewer.

Invisible VFX add realism to a shot without looking out of place, they blend nicely with the background and mostly offer no distractions.

The Spectacular VFX   These are the visual effects which in most cases catch your attention, they are the explosions, the giant animals, interplanetary bodies colliding or scenes with extra ordinary events happening.

The spectacular VFX is usually not subtle, it would include unrealistic scenes like a man turning gigantic and green like in the movie hulk, or a man flying and shooting lasers from his eyes.  They will look realistic to the viewer, even though its all visual effects implemented.

Week 2 Home Assignment 

Beyond Spectacle: Introduction Research Summary

This book talks about the dichotomy in the film industry between what is real
and what is a generated illusion. The forefathers of the cinematic world included
two known people, or rather three if you want to be precise. We have the Lumiere
brothers Auguste Lumiere and Louis Lumiere, who filmed real-life shots, with real
events. And we have Méliès , George Méliès , who was termed a magician as he
made movies about fantastical worlds that were imaginary. 

 

As with the norm, it goes to further shed light on the fact that viewers didn’t
take-to Méliès’ fictitious approach to movie-making seriously. They were termed fantasy and they were drawn more towards Lumiere’s approach to filmmaking which showcased real-life scenarios and events. The truth is however, the world keeps changing and improving. Older methods of doing things get assimilated and reborn. This battle between The Lumiere brothers and Méliès in the film industry is essentially “Special Effects” vs “Visual Effects”. It explains how in the past people lost interest in the realization of how a film was made. In the contemporary world, however, it has become more acceptable though the acceptance isn’t all the way through the crowd, it’s significance hasn’t gone unnoticed.

The era of “Special Effects” is really gone, even though it is still used to refer to specific roles in the kind of Effects done, like explosions, stunts, car wrecks and scenes of those kinds. Any other kind of effects used is termed “Visual Effects”.

  

  

In this era, Visual Effects blend seamlessly, and as the technological world advances, so also does the equipment and techniques used for taking real-looking shots, even though parts or all of the shot may be generated digitally.
Visual Effects has evolved to the point where it is coextensive with narrative
filming where not just the action tells the tale, but the expressions, gestures,
environmental conditions and more, make the experience immersive, expressive
and persuasive. In the previous era, producers would need to make scenes short to
keep the illusion going, because too much screen time will give the viewer time to
scrutinize the shot and break the illusion. Visual effects have however made it
possible to show beautiful and fantastical scenes at length, due to the amount of
detail used in visual effects in the contemporary world.
Visual Effects has also brought flexibility due to its versatility. Actors may not
be physically on set, but can be digitally included.
Actors could perform an act and have it later converted to digital animation.
And also an animator who creates a digital character can perform as an actor.
All these would not be possible with only “Special Effects”.

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WEEK 3
Special Effects – History and Context

 

Principles of Illusions.

These are:
Assumption.
Presumption.
Context in Reality.

Key To Visual Effects: Never betray the illusion.

The Lumiere brothers undoubtedly astonished the crowd when they made a film for some viewers to watch. As it played, they saw a train moving which was a strange thing at the time. The train headed towards them as if to come of the screen, and the viewers ran away for fear of their safety. Or so the myth goes, but there may be some element of truth to it.

Melies one of the forefathers of Cinema

Frame Rates 

The more frames per second , the smoother a film/movie looks. A movie shot using 60 fps (Frames Per Second) will look obviously smoother than a movie shot with 25 fps.

The Zoetrope is a device you can use to help understand how moving images work on a miniscule level.

The Persistence of Vision.
The phenomena that makes the motion pictures possible. The process by which an afterimage is thought to persist for approximately one twenty fifth of a second on the retina.

Eadweard Muybridge. The Human and Animal Locomotion Expert.
He was a photographer who took great photos with high resolution. He studied the movements of various animals

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Class Assignment.

What can you find out about George Méliès?

Georges Méliès was a French illusionist and film director famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. He was born December 8, 1861 in Paris, France. He died of cancer on 21 January 1938 at the age of 76.
Méliès during the time of his life was an especially prolific innovator in the use of special effects, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour.

His films include A Trip to the Moon (1902) and An Impossible Voyage (1904), both involving strange, surreal journeys somewhat in the style of Jules Verne and are considered among the most important early science fiction films.
In 2016, a Méliès film long thought to be lost, A Wager Between Two Magicians, or, Jealous of Myself (1904), was discovered in a Czechoslovak film archive.

 

Home Assignment – 

The Cinema of Attractions

Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Gard.

The Cinema of Attractions as in the Early Films, dealt with the ability to exhibit or show that which had not been seen before. A spectacle to behold, to keep the spectator engrossed, captivated or even moved emotionally and psychologically, to wanting more. An example is when the crowd supposedly ran away for their safety in fear of being hit by the train, whilst watching the film created by the Lumiere Brothers.

However, according to Fernand Leger, as he wrote in the year 1922, he believed the ability to showcase art and have it visibly seen was the Attraction. In summary, he said the power lay in making artistic images seen by the spectator(s).  

Generally, the cinema has been guided by the use of narration, where a storyline is conceived and the artistic images produced follow suit telling the story spectated. However, a few observations indicate that not all films were guided by a narrative storyline. 

The Trick Film, for instance, is a film genre that did not adhere to a strict storyline, it was a sequence of appealing scenes that did not have a plot and looked like the culmination of random art put together beautifully to keep its viewers mesmerized and intrigued, even with the absence of character development. Many methods were implemented to keep its audience intrigued, like the use of slow motion, fast motion, reverse motion, close-ups, substitution and many more. These methods used were not for narrative purposes but to solely attract the attention of its viewers and keep them wanting to see more.  

Hale’s Tours which was a form of early motion picture in the United States, consisted not only of a series of non-narrative visual compositions captured from a moving train, but the theatre itself was designed like a train complete with conductors who collected tickets, sounds of wheels and air hissing to give the illusion of some sort of realism.  This gave the audience a unique and thrilling way to experience travel and adventure without having to leave their city, it was the equivalent of our modern-day virtual reality. 

To summarise, the Cinema of Attraction focused mainly on the visual experience, where early filmmakers aimed to amaze and captivate their audiences by exhibiting exciting, unusual or even everyday activities and events in a way that was visually enticing.  

Who is Tom Gunning? 

Tom Gunning is a prominent film scholar known for his work on early cinema and the cinema of attractions. While much of his research focuses on early film history and the visual aspects of early cinema, he has not limited his work exclusively to special or visual effects. His works, however, do touch upon various elements related to special and visual effects in the context of early film history. Some of his writings include: 

— Loie Fuller and the Art of Motion –
Here Tom Gunning examines the groundbreaking work of dancer Loie Fuller and the ways in which her performances utilized motion and visual effects, both in live stage performances and their depiction in early cinema. Loie Fuller was known for her innovative and mesmerizing dance routines that included flowing fabrics, coloured lighting, and motion to create stunning visual effects. These performances were significant in the context of early cinema because they pushed the boundaries of what could be achieved in terms of visual and motion effects. Tom Gunning’s analysis of Loie Fuller’s work highlights the intersection of dance, visual effects, and early film technology. 

 

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WEEK 4
Ray Harryhausen the Special Effects Titan

 

Home Assignment

What Is Digital Cinema? 

Lev Manovich

Digital cinema, also known as digital projection or digital filmmaking, is an advanced technological approach to making films that has largely replaced the traditional celluloid film in the production and exhibition of movies from the 12th century.  

The Digital Cinema is like a digital canvas which comes with tools used to manipulate images to suit the desired scene being depicted. Images could be altered, combined with other elements to emphasise realism, or even transformed as the case may be for the film in production.  These tools are important to a Digital Artist creating films, just like a Painter needs their Brush and Pigments to create their Artwork.  

Digital cinema was born from the archaic ways of filmmaking which started from moving pictures (animation) which is the manual construction and arrangement of images one by one in a set order telling a story,  and now to the current Audio-Visual Narratives. The difference is that moving pictures which was a breakthrough at its time in the 12th century, focused more on the visual aspect, which is the real-life scenes shot in front of the camera, but paying no particular mind to sound. The assumption of its viewers is that every shot captured is real, and the idea of an abstract scene is impossible. Audio-visual narratives on the other hand comprise both moving pictures and sounds to depict a realistic scene, even though it could have all been generated digitally using computers. 

In other words, Moving pictures felt more real as raw footage was captured in front of the camera even though it had its drawbacks, and then manually edited, whilst Audio-visual narratives used multiple elements to create an illusion of realism to capture its audience with the use of a mix of real and generated elements. With the exception of the obviously abstract films, Audio-visual Narratives in Digital Cinema did a good job of blending sound with moving pictures (or paintings) which drew in its audience. 

 

So finally; who is Lev Manovich? 

He is a writer, artist, and an influential theorist of digital culture worldwide. He was born in 1960 in Moscow, Russia, even though he’s American by nationality. When he was done studying painting, architecture, and filmmaking, he embarked on a mission to begin creating digital art in 1984 using computers.

Lev Manovich is the author and editor of 15 books and many articles. To mention a few, he wrote; Black Box – White Cube, Software Takes Command, AI Aesthetics, Soft Cinema, Theories of Software Culture, and many more. 

He received grants and fellowships from the US National Science Foundation, Twitter, and many other agencies. Between the years of 1996 and 2012, Lev Manovich taught. class in the Visual Arts Department at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). There he taught classes in new media theory, digital art, and digital humanities. 

 

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WEEK 5
The Advent of the Computer-Generated Image

 

Remake Class Task 

Here I will be listing a few movies and their  pictures showing how the difference in their production has changed the visuals of the movie, whether for better or for worse;

 

The Mummy 

There has been quite a few remakes of this movie, but i will focus on the 1932 and the 1999 version .

The first was made in the year 1932, another was made in 1999.

Photos below:

  

IMHOTEP 1932

 

 

IMHOTEP 1999

 

 

Home Assignment 

George Lucas Discovers Computer Graphics
By Alvy Ray Smith 

In this article, Alvy Ray Smith spoke about the “accidental visionaries” who revolutionised the way film was created in a digital environment. It was new concept yet to be explored at the time. 

The revolutionaries were George Lucas the creator of Star Wars, Steve Jobs who cofounded Apple, and Alexander Schure who was a patron of the New York Institute of Technology computer graphics lab. Alvy Ray mentions how these three game-changers came together based on intuition rather than actuality because they really did not know the potential of what they were creating. Hence the title he used to identify them as “accidental visionaries”. 

Edmull Catmull who was a director at Lucasfilm and Aly Ray Smith who was a director in the computers’ graphic branch, had a goal to create a fully computer-generated animated film which was a farfetched idea at the time, but making it a reality would be a dream come true for them. Fast forward 20 years in the future and they would create a film called “Toy Story” which was fully computer-generated and a first of its kind. 

Lucas had already used computers for his films, although no one really knew how he used them in his Star Wars movie, they were believed to be used to control mechanical devices (like the repeatable camera dollies), as it was clear to Alvy Ray that Lucas had no idea how raster graphics worked, also adding that Lucas George didn’t know what he had. George Lucas enabled Alvy Ray to assemble a reliable team, however, their breakthrough only came after their interaction with Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) which luckily happened to be next door to their company. Alvy Ray wanted to create a film that would impress Lucas since he knew Lucus to be a person who was not easily distracted by portrayals in the film. Lucas would focus on the angles of the camera, how it was panned across etc, so knowing his eye for detail, Alvy Ray wanted to create a shot that would impress the near unimpressible man called Lucas, which he eventually did in the end. 

 

 

 

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WEEK 6
The Uncanny Valley 

 

Class Assignment

 

 

Write about Uncanny Valley and how it relates to Digital Animation.
Assignment Here 

The Uncanny Valley
By Masahiro Mori

Over 40 years ago, Professor Mori Masahiro wrote an essay about how he thought people would react to a humanoid object created to look and feel human-like. He thought that a person(s) would experience a creepy feeling upon closer inspection of an item created to look humanlike but isn’t quite human. He claimed that the more we get closer to observing the said created humanoid, we experience a sudden shift from empathy to revulsion as the distance between us closes. 

In the industry sector, industrial robots are recognised as the driving force behind production, they contract, extend and rotate their limbs like humans, however, they have no faces or legs. They do not look human even though they have a functional limb like a human. Masahiro speculates that even though people understand its use for production efficiency, they have little affinity for them as they are designed to be more functional than physically aesthetically pleasing, like a humanoid. 

Masahiro spoke about the movement the robots make, and how it is a giveaway for the illusion of realism. He mentions how subtle movements like when we smile, or the touch of the skin through a handshake could distort the reality being perceived. An initial reaction will be to pull away from a cold lifeless hand after realising on contact that it is not a real person’s hand. 

But on the contrary, you can have an audience having a high affinity for a puppet show. In this situation, Masahiro explains that as an audience, we get to experience the creations from a distance, and due to the immersion from watching, our affinity for them increases due to the psychological attachment created from observing at a distance. 

He went ahead to advise designers to aim for a moderate degree of human likeness because the more real it looks but lacking in realistic human gestures has a more negative impact, than a design that has the functionality like a human but does not look like a perfect human by design on purpose. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WEEK 7
 The (Disney) Principles of Animation

The Twelve Principles of Animation. 

The Twelve Principles of Animation were formulated by Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston in their seminal book, “The Illusion of Life.” These principles are fundamental guidelines that have become the cornerstone of animation, influencing both traditional hand-drawn and modern computer-generated animation techniques. Each principle addresses specific aspects of movement, timing, and presentation, collectively enhancing the overall quality and believability of animated sequences.

1. Squash and Stretch: This principle imparts a sense of weight and volume to characters or objects, allowing them to deform realistically during movement. It is crucial for conveying the impact of an action.
2. Anticipation: By incorporating a preparatory movement before a main action, anticipation adds realism and ensures that the audience is ready for what follows. It introduces a sense of timing to animations.
3. Staging: Staging involves presenting ideas or actions in a clear and visually appealing manner. It requires thoughtful arrangement of elements to guide the audience’s attention and maintain focus on essential aspects of a scene.
4. Straight Ahead Action and Pose to Pose: Animators can use either of these drawing approaches. “Straight ahead action” involves creating frames sequentially from start to end, while “pose to pose” starts with key frames and then fills in the intermediate frames.
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action: Follow through refers to the continuation of an action even after its completion, contributing to the fluidity of movement. Overlapping action involves body parts moving at different rates, enhancing realism.
6. Slow In and Slow Out: Movement in the natural world follows a pattern of acceleration and deceleration. This principle acknowledges that animation should mimic this, adding a sense of realism to the motion.
7. Arcs: Many actions in life follow a slightly curved or arced path. Incorporating arcs into animation helps make movements look more natural and less mechanical, particularly in character animation.
8. Secondary Action: This principle introduces additional actions that support and enhance the main action, adding depth and complexity to characters and scenes.
9. Timing: Proper timing is crucial for creating realistic and believable movement. It involves determining the appropriate number of frames between two poses to convey the desired speed and weight of an action.
10. Exaggeration: Animation allows for a degree of exaggeration to make actions more entertaining and expressive. It is not about distorting reality but amplifying elements for emphasis.
11. Solid Drawing: By understanding the principles of three-dimensional shapes, weight, balance, and lighting, animators can give characters a tangible and lifelike presence, even in two-dimensional animation.
12. Appeal: Creating characters with appeal involves making them interesting and engaging to the audience. This doesn’t necessarily mean making characters sympathetic; even villains or monsters can possess appeal.

Collectively, these Twelve Principles of Animation provide a comprehensive framework for animators to create visually compelling, believable, and engaging animated sequences across various mediums and styles. They remain essential tools for artists seeking to bring characters and stories to life through the art of animation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WEEK 8
 An introduction to Concept of The Composite

Define the following:
Physical Compositing Vs Digital Compositing.
What is Matting painting and examples?

Find a VFX breakdown
In pairs, locate at least one compositing breakdown. 

Siren VFX Breakdown by Folks VFX – YouTube
Video Link Above.

Consider the following:
1) What different elements of the composite can you spot?
2) Why has the shot been built this way? What did they want to achieve in the movie.
3) Why was it not done another way?

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE UNCANNY VALLEY
PRESENTATION SLIDE ASSESSMENT 

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