One*6

Lonski & Classen - the punisher from Lonski and Classen on Vimeo.

Stumbled upon this via a contact on Vimeo. A very interesting style, most definately check out the blog as well; http://www.brittdunse.de/Neuigkeiten.3.0.html. Although it's not in English there's alot to be taken from it. Some more stuff from them;

One*5

Reulf from Charlesque on Vimeo.

It's projects like this one that is why I am struggling to decide upon what direction to take my film. I have the option of following the 'Connected' line (refer to a previous post) or something like this. It's difficult. At this point I'm going to go ahead and say that I most likely follow something closer to 'Connected' rather than 'Reulf' BUT I do want the art direction to be a bit brighter and 'lighter' than 'Connected's'.

One*4

 SKY recently announced that they would not be accepting any 2D to 3D conversions for any content submitted to the broadcasting channel. In the first released press statement they have specified that no more than 10% of the content may be 2D;

"To enable the 3D programme to retain the highest quality throughout, a minimum of 90% must be native 3D footage," Sky states. "Where non-HD footage is utilised, it should sit within the editorial context of the programme. The 2D originated footage must be HD, be of segments not exceeding one minute, converted in a suitable manner to fit the 3D content and be of shots where there is minimal benefit from a true dual camera 3D acquisition." 

 Does this mean that the recent Alice in Wonderland adaptation by Tim Burton will never screen on SKY due to the fact that they film was filmed in 2D and post-processed for 3D? Who knows. I made the choice not to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D due to this fact - yes I am interested to see the difference between Alice 3D and Avatar 3D; one film being filmed specifically for 3D and the other processed after the thought. But for me I want to experience a film in the cinema the way that I feel it was meant to be viewed, with Avatar it was 3D at IMAX, Alice is 2D. Not being shot with stereoscopic camera's I feel that there may have been too much relying on the fact that they could figure out how it would look in 3D later on. Admittedly this is difficult to judge without having seen it in 3D, but the only parts of the film that I felt would benefit from 3D would have been those in the forest's of Wonderland.

I am hoping that 3D does not become a gimmick, which at the moment it is feeling like it is rapidly falling into this category. I can respect those filmmaker's who after seeing the success of Avatar decide that they do indeed want their film presented in 3D and make the effort to reshoot some of the film so that it will be as authentic 3D as is possible in the timeline (Clash of the Titans).

But to film in 2D with the intention of presenting in 3D from the beginning, but not wanting to handle the large camera's feels like a pretty weak excuse.

For the full article from SKY follow this link. Or for more details on their 3DTV look here.

One*3

Cloverfield notes.

I decided to watch Cloverfield for some in depth research on handheld camera techniques and their application(s) as a story-telling device.

I found the constant hand-held style was sometimes jarring because of its continuous use, but otherwise was really effective in the context of this particular film. The opening sequence was awesome! It established the timeline, setting and some character background in an effective and rapid way which allowed the audience to quickly grasp where they were and what was going on. That is something that the film achieved numerous times - the freehand style easily establishes the terrors of the moment and easily evokes an emotional response from the audience.

The editing of the film was appropriate to the filming style which allowed sudden cuts and clips from other dates and events is incredibly effective in providing background to the characters without extensive scenes that would have chewed up alot of screen time. This editing style also cut down on the visual effects in a sense; some of it was partially hidden due to the flickering etc, but it would have been compositing hell! They did hide some of the effects (such as pulling Beth of the pole) which was a smart approach to reducing their workload which would have been considerably increased because every shot would have required motion tracking. I thought they effectively created a mystery about the 'enemy' destroying the city, although I felt the monster's identity was revealed too early and was a tad stereotypical which was a bit of a let down.

There were those quieter (albeit terror filled) moments with calmer camera movements and allowed the audience some breathing room and helped keep the film rooted.

I am looking into some other films which implemented different filming techniques for more reference points.

One*2

 Planet of the Apes notes

The film-watching/research continues. After my big post on Alice in Wonderland/Tim Burton I figured I should invest some time into watching Planet of the Apes seeing as I've never seen anything but the beginning and a scene somewhere around the middle. The thing that struck me about the film was that very similar to Alice, Burton's take on Planet of Apes had its own visual style which did not necessarily reflect Burton's unique style. Surprisingly enough I quite enjoyed the film - their use of visual effects was interesting; only appearing to be used when absolutely necessary and otherwise relying upon prosthetics and animatronics which in this case I felt were more effective than CGI would have been in their place.

This opens the point of when CGI is necessary and unnecessary to tell a story in a film. I think I will save this particular argument for an entire post on it's own but I will state this - I do believe that more often than not CGI is incorporated unnecessarily when attempting to do something that an older technique could easily achieve for a lesser cost.

I enjoyed the story; relatively simple and straight-forward with a more complex twist later in the story. The ending felt at odds with the rest of the film, not so much setting up an alternate reality which was a result of Leo's (Mark Wahlberg) alteration (presence in) of the 'past' - but creating a reason for a sequel which was obviously never going to occur. Oh well.

One*1

DKirkland Showreel March 2010 from Dane Kirkland on Vimeo.

One*0

 I discovered this short film 'Connected' a couple of days ago. It's very cool, quite niche - they have done alot with not very much at all. 3 actors, essentially 1 location in Denmark (w. some very nice matte painting & colour grading) and created something that I find really appealing. It also helps me on the road to creating my short film (currently writing the script). I am reassessing the base story - trying to think of EVERYTHING, so that I am not making too much work for myself for the next couple of years.

 The film is set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland and is a story of survival in a wasteland and the greed that comes with desperate need to survive. It's eerie, full of the flaws of human kind and quite compelling. What is most interesting to me is what they achieved with their visual effects - they achieved the entire sense of the wasteland with some spectacular matte paintings, some colour grading and some particles around the place. This provides some food-for-thought for me in regards to the visual effects side of my own film, and very possibly the story. Seeing as my film is in it's beginning; existing as a rough outline of the story - very susceptible to inevitable change. I just need to narrow down the key elements of my story and what I want to achieve with the film and go from there!

As for Connected, unfortunately it is not available for embedding, but here is a link to their site - which includes the production blog;

Connected

Nine*

Alice in Wonderland notes.

I watched Alice today - with the exception of Johnny Depps' dance sequence towards the end - I loved it!. One thing that struck me about the film was that it had a unique visual style to it - something that I was careful to notice after watching Tron and noticing how the look of the film was something which was instantly recognisable. The most notable aspect to the style of the film is that there was little that reflected Tim Burton's regular style which has been evident in the last umpteen of Burton's films of late. Some example of what I am talking about;

Gone were the monotone colours of typical Burton and it was replaced with such vibrant hues which were the direct opposite of what we had been lead to expect from the famed director. There have been other works of his which have achieved a similar change of pace such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and to a lesser extent Big Fish - and yet when alot of people think Tim Burton they think 'depressing colours'. And even those 2 films still include shapes and forms which are common traits to Burton's art.

Viewing some of Burton's art for the film it is obvious that his vision was delivered to screen - but it felt as though there were more input from other artists than there may be in other examples of his work. There were aspects that stood out to me as 'typical' Burton such as the odd tree branch.

It is nice to see something a bit different come from Burton, who I had expected to continue with much the same visual style until I saw the trailer for Alice. Hopefully trialing alternate approaches is something that he continues to do, but I have my doubts. That said as with all Burton films the visual style was evident. The computer-generated and live action characters existed in a caricatured world which allowed them to belong together - with the exception of Alice who was obviously an outsider. Fun fact - the visual effects department developed a Nuke plug-in to create the look of the Red Queen.