Thursday 22/10/20 - The Write Up

This project was one I enjoyed a lot, I experimented heavily with the themes of the original painting and brought it to not only a new context but also to multiple new mediums. I also stepped outside of my comfort zone and took creative risks.

The painting that stood out to me was Rene Magritte's 'The Great War', a representation of the misleading portrayal of war. What made it stand out was the title compared to the actual subject of the piece, it made me feel like this painting was a really creative approach to an artisitic portrayal of war, especially the propaganda.

I wanted to take the theme of the original painting and instead twist it into a new context, to instead have it focus on the idea of very amibitious and utopian visions of the future versus the dystopian ideas. This is because it is a topic that strays far away from the more down to earth and realistic meaning behind the painting but also because it looks at themes that are still relevant today with the question of what lies in store for us. Throughout human history we have always been looking towards the future, many times it has been very ambitious and idealistic however some instead look at things in either a more realisitic or cynical approach. Some like to look at the advances technology will bring us or how better the world will be whilst others look at the damage we could cause with it or other issues such as climate change or conflict.

This brought on the idea of cyberpunk, a subgenre of science fiction that plays around with the idea of an extremely advanced technological society however in a very dystopian setting. Often in cyberpunk it makes use of the ideas of advance technology we often dream about. All of this is used in juxtaposition with more bleak themes often revolving around the breakdown of society or the strong disparity between the social classes or megacorporations with high power. They often express the idea of rebellion and revolution against the power in control. This is where the term punk comes from.

Initially my plan was to simply recreate the painting through photography but only replace the flowers hiding the woman's identity with cybernetics. Instead I later planned on making the entire photo cyberpunk inspired through fashion, atmosphere, photography techniques and cybernetics. After this I planned on moving on towards creating a short video using the photography as a base. I wanted to take a risk and go out of my comfort zone by attempting to use VFX, something I was looking forwards to experimenting with.

First off was photography. I took a series of photographs based around my research. These were done both to experiment with portraits and also using practical methods to add effects to my photography, being a glass prism and projector. I used the projector to add to the theme by projecting three different images onto my model, one being a futuristic coca-cola logo, a splash of multiple colours and a futuristic version of the mastercard logo. I chose the two logos as I was inspired by the film Blade Runner and its city filled with advertisements on massive neon billboards. The colour splash was inspired by the colourful nature of cyberpunk themed photos. I used a glass prism in some shots as a chance to experiment with the different effects it could create. It reflected features of the surrounding room both in and out of shot and gave a natural distortion effect to the images.

To link with the original painting I used digital editing to add in the cybernetic faces to represent the flowers. Initially I simply photoshopped an image I found online however due to lighting differences it looked very unnatural. I decided to change my initial approach to this, instead of going full cyberpunk with robotics I decided to use censorship. I was now going to censor the face instead of trying to replace it. I specifically chose photos that shared similar poses and angles to the original photo to help blend it in better. I also made small adjustments to the contrast, exposure, vibrance, saturation and white balance to help make the photos look their best.

One very ambitious goal for this project was to give myself the chance to experiment with VFX editing, something I've become very interested in alongside filmmaking and cinematography in general.

I started my research by watching a collection of Youtube videos by a channel called Corridor, they specialise in VFX, stunts and filmmaking and have created a range of content. I watched videos detailing behind the scenes of their work and a series where they react to CGI. In this series not only do they give their opinions on work, but they also give insights to how it was made, how to improve and tricks to filmmaking using both practical effects and VFX. All in all I found this to be very useful as it gave me a lot of advice which not only helps me understand the processes involved in many films but also an idea of what I'd need to focus on when it comes to filmmaking.

One thing I decided after this was that I was now going to change the original idea to show the small cybernetic device in the character's forehead, this would only complicate things and I wanted to keep things as simple as possible to give the ambitious idea more focus. I also decided that I'd purposely leave the hand I'd be replacing out of frame for most shots and when it is in frame I'd limit it to very simple movements.

A few days before I started the actual VFX process with my footage I needed to create the animation that I would actually be using in my film. For this I used the program Blender because it's a relatively well known software and I had been recommended to use it as it was fairly user friendly. Until now I had zero experiences using this so I was going in blind. Beforehand I did some research using video tutorials on youtube (shown in my research post) however, they didn't cover using Blender. I used the site CGTrader to find a model I could use for the robotic arm, I didn't feel ready to make my own due to both time limitations and the lack of any experience.

Initially I opened up the file simply to play around and try and figure out some controls on my own, I found this useful for basic tasks such as moving the joints and looking around the object. To actually get to work on animating I needed the help from multiple Youtube videos. These covered setting up cameras, aligning footage, lighting, rendering and how to use it in premiere pro. However through the playing around I figured out how to animate myself using keyframes.

Now came adding the rendered animation into my footage, this would prove difficult as the footage I had recorded was very shakey due to the strong winds and lack of a gimbal to stablize it. I had to experiment with the different settings to get the best looking chroma key with the footage I had, it wasn't perfect but it made for a good first attempt. Next I had to use my footage of the water without the subject as a background, after stabilizing this footage I had to keyframe it so it stayed alligned with the other shot.

To add the render I simply keyframed it in the right position and angle for each frame of the video, this wasn't too difficult due to the low framerate and footage being pretty short. The next part was actually removing most of the arm aside from the hand, for this I simply added a mask over the section I wanted cut out. For each frame I adjusted the shape so it would appear as if the cybernetic arm actually was underneath the jacket and not overlayed ontop of the footage. This was very iffy especially at angles where you would normally be able to see inside the sleeve. This was an issue I had to ignore due to the lack of time, budget and experience to chroma key that well.

Editing the film itself was within my comfort zone as I've done this countless times for fun and even for a previous project. I decided on using the song III. Urn by rapper Childish Gambino due to the instrumentation and the meaning behind the song itself. It seems like a relatively chilled out and beautiful song due to the instruments and the way the vocals are sung. However, it's a song that explores themes of space, loneliness and death adding a stark contrast.

I started the film with a quote that I felt really fit the themes followed by my footage with cuts that were timed with the beats and lyrics of the music. I wanted to give the impression that it was a music video. I intertwined this with footage to show the good and bad of technology. My footage had two different people standing alone in the same spot as if they were alone in their thoughts. Each representing the two sides of the future. All of this used distortion effects I added in post to add a dream-like and nostalgic feel. I also purposely never lets you see the full face of the two people to represent the ambiguity as to what will happen. I closed my film on the shot of the cybernetic hand closing. The arm belongs to the person representing the darker future, how it ended up costing a physical part of themselves, and their realisation of all this.

For the marketing I felt like doing a film poster wouldn't work for this, instead I used the magazine template provided and used on of the photos I took earlier on in the project as the cover. I chose fonts with very sharpe edges as well as using only shades of red to give a very aggresive look to the design. I chose the phrase 'Identity now the past' as that's a major theme when it comes to talking about the future. This goes alongside the photo having a complete lack of identity in the face and losing even more of that due to the lack of diversity in colour.

Overall I am happy with how this project turned out. Although the final film was rough and not the highest quality it taught me a lot. I know that next time I will be using a gimbal and an actual camera instead. As for my VFX I know that this was only my first attempt so it looks very amateur but the benefit now is I can do it again and I'll have more time to focus on making the quality higher since I already know how to do it to a lower standard. I will also be able to experiment with more features in blender and get myself more used to how it works. I had the chance to try something new with photography and finally revisit portraits. I experimented heavily and turned a painting about the glorification of war and turned it into a short film talking about the aspects of the future and the good / bad it could bring. I used my research as inspiration for my work and focused on trying to step out of my comfort zone with creative risks. The project really shows this and how my ideas developed over time and thanks to it I know where to improve from should I use film or VFX again.