My Journey on the NextGen Games, Animation & VFX Course

Green Screen & Compositing  Our VFX Teacher had instructed us to film inside the Green Screen room to have a go at compositing ourselves (filmed on a green screen) into random stock footage. Compositing is where you combine live action footage with stock footage or Computer Generated Imagery. We had a go of this last week but, we did it the second time, today, as an assessment of what we learned from last week. I'll show off the footage from last week and the feedback I've received but,  I'll explain how I did everything for the 2nd shoot in detail though; Self Assessment Peer Review The feedback I've received was positive and I wasn't expecting that but, I appreciate it. Moving on to attempt 2, it went really well for me. Our VFX teacher didn't help us much this time round, as he wanted to test our knowledge on what we've learnt so far. But, he did provide us with two stock footages. However I wanted to choose one of my own. I chose this stock footage f...

 Chase Yourself Evidence Treatment Plan Storyboards & Script Shot List Location Scouting Gantt Chart

  Chase Yourself Project For this project, I've been asked, by my VFX teacher, to film  a short film. The project is called "Chase Yourself".  See "Chase Yourself Documents" Blog for evidence of the Tasks done. In this project, the film is about you chasing yourself. And I'd like to think of this is a way of testing our knowledge in filming, composition & editing. Task 1 - Pre-Production Documents Pre-Production is a way of planning your short film, before actually filming it. These consists of;  Treatment Plan- A way of setting out, what your short film will be like, who'll be featured in it, the basic plot, who's the targeted audience etc, Gantt Chart - A sheet to schedule each section of a project. For example you fill in with blocks when you'll be filming etc., Location Scouting - Is essential when filming. You must find & research an area suitable for your film & write the pros & cons of said location & do a risk assessme...

  Shot Sizes Shot Sizes are used to help set the scene in films & TV, its used very frequently to help people guide themselves in what's happening in a scene, but the shot sizes must be perfect or else the audience will not know what's happening or find it uncomfortable watching. There are many different shot sizes which can be conveniently used for certain scenes. I'll explain the different types of shot sizes; Extreme Long (Wide) Shot Extreme Long Shots are used at the start of films to set the scene. Usually, these types of scenes would be filmed from a distance. If the shot's filmed at a city it would be the outsides of a city or suburbs. If a character's in it, they'd usually be very small.  In this example, we see an adventurer, walking in the snow and there's huge mountains around him, the vast sky above him & the adventurer is very small. This shot is used to set the scene where an adventurer is walking in the snow and there's huge mounta...

  VFX Introduction     For our first VFX lesson, our teacher give us the cameras that we'll be using for the first term already. So, we can get used to how it works and how we can adjust certain settings. The cameras we used are the Nikon D3200 Aperture Aperture is the hole in the iris of the camera, it is measured in F-Stops. Small F-Stop is a large opening, which allows more light to enter into the lens.  Large F-Stops is smaller opening, which allows less light to enter into the camera.  The Recommended setting for Aperture is F 3.5. How to set it? To adjust Aperture you hold he +/- button which is located here (see image below)   Then scroll using the command dial to suit your needs. Make sure you aren't in Liveview mode when doing this. ISO ISO is how sensitive the sensor inside the camera is to light. It's a good idea to keep the ISO as low as possible. 100-200 is a good ISO setting. How to set it? To adjust the ISO, hold the FN button and use the com...