Star Wars Featurette- Visual Effects

“The secret to film is that it’s an illusion, an illusion that’s created at 24frames a second, you have the illusion of movement and you have the illusion of space and time” George Lucas 

“A big film has maybe 250 fx shots, and a really monster film like Titanic would have 450-500, but it was really clear that George was thinking somewhere between 1700 to 2000 shots”. In pre production, while the ILM crew and technology people and artists were doing storyboarding and planning out, it clearly shows their biggest mistake of thinking about visual effects and showing off their made up universe rather than sticking to the main story that they are trying to tell. Clearly, you get the feeling this is a dream job George Lucas always had, exploring the world he imagined because he wanted to see it, not because it was relevant to the story. He is after spectacle and showing off.

“That was the fun part of writing this project is that I wasn’t limited, whatever my imagination could come up with I wrote it down on a page and said will worry about that later” He knows now that the technology has caught up to the point that you can do most of things if not everything you can imagine. Looking back at the period of original Star Wars and start of visual Effects, the limit was the technology and software. Maybe it is a good thing, or not. Presently, Budget is the only obstacle you have to surpass.  This is due to budget

The visual effect supervisors continue to talk about technology limitations and what couple of decades ago was like in terms of effects. They talk about having  “more freedom” than what George Lucas had at the period of the original Star Wars film, and that’s due to digital technology has not matured enough as it is presently. “Everything has been constrained by the compromises that you have to make because you virtually could not build something so big or could not have such an epic landscape to tell your story”

ILM - Animating Davy Jones and Crew for Pirates 3

                                    Pirates of Caribbean 3 ($300mill)

“As much as we don’t want our audience members to think about this while watching him, Davy was 100% computer generated. No part of him was actually filmed on set”

“This kind of interacted between a computer generated character an his tentacles and a live actor on set is really difficult to do” 

Difficult to make it look like they are in same world and in contact with another

Case Sudy- 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick stated after the release of the film that he had created a film that has intended to bypass the conscious rationalisation of its audience and to sink straight into the unconscious

Various interpretations of the films:  a bold statement about mankind’s evolutions to the stars.

A propaganda films to increase the public support to the US moon landings, that came shortly after the film’s release

It is like a cinematic rubix cube (complicated)

Kubrick’s films affected the audiences directly through unconscious symbols (semiotics and steganography- is the art and science of writing hidden messages in such a way that no one, apart from the sender and intended recipient)

 The art of encoding hidden messages within a seemingly unrelated context, Kubrick was a master of these skills

Steganalysis is the art of decoding such hidden messages

Same haunting music played every time a evolutionary step is being taken in the film, the apes encounter monolith in the dawn of man, when astronauts encounter second monolith in moon, the third when

the character David encounter another near Jupiter.

 Music is the singing voice of the monolith (A monolith is a geological feature consisting of a single massive stone or rock, such as some mountains, or a single piece of rock placed as, or within, a monument. Erosion usually exposes the geological formations, which are most often made of very hard and solid metamorphic or Igneous rock.)

The music Is played few places too which audiences fail to notice, at the beginning of the film over a black screen, and intermission just before the astronaut do the battle with Hall 9000 computer, again over a black screen. Why the black screen?  In the book by Arthur C. Clark book, the monolith is described as a pyramid shaped piece of polished mineral surrounded by spherical force field. Kubrick changed this to a black rectangular box, because the monolith is representation of the cinema screen itself. The dimension of the monolith turned 90 degrees almost fit the wide screen cinema frame of which the film was shot.

S during the film opening and intermission we are not looking at an empty black screen, but rather the surface of monolith “ the monolith is the film screen” and its singing directly at its audience the same way with the ape-men and astronauts.

For over 40 years’ people watching the film not realizing they are staring at the monolith.

“The film itself is a Star gate and we are its subject”

Space Odyssey now has literal meaning, refers to as special relationship between a screen, the audience and the audience surroundings.

The scene we see the camera moves several meters outside the room (we see the view into the room as if we are looking into a window/ 3D effect) if you see the dimension of the room and the monolith when turned 90degrees we see they are in same aspect ratio. This brings back the point of the monolith representing the cinema screen

Case Study- Skybet- What If?

Sports are probably one of the most watched programs on TV. So why not try get attention of people while they are waiting for the match to start or resume? That is exactly what advertisements are for; beginning or end, even in between shows is perfect for promoting your stuff.

Whilst watching a football game, during half time I have to see an advert about Sky Bet. Every year they do an advert for it. What really got my attention is how dramatised it is. Its main plot is about chances and instincts. “What if?” is the word used a lot in it.

It got quite cinematic feel it and got everything from CGI to some appealing effects and camera work.

The above screenshot says a lot visually. It has drama and thrills. First, the Lighting is set to spot light onto the main person to show a feeling of pressure (point of interest) towards main character in the scene. Feeling of being trapped. Second are the masked men behind him, that I believe it represents some sort of exaggeration. I believe the masked men represent his superior, very big smiles and big heads showing superiority, wealth, and power. The masked men are not very well lit, you can see them, but in the end, it is not about them even though they got power. In football, mainly fingers are pointed towards managers rather than the players or even the owners/ board members. That is why you got the characters in the foregrounds, which are the reporter putting pressure on the manager.

We sports viewer we see things as presented to us through some sorts of news media, whether it is newspapers or on web, even on our smartphones. I am certain this image is some first person perspective even though it does not look like it; it portrays what the manager’s feelings are now. This image makes it more interesting, gives it a thrilling look and dram

     One of the scenes of the advert, there is this interesting visual, looks almost like an old painting of Roman rivalry and hatred. Which represents old rivals in football (old foes), for example Manchester United and Manchester City are considered big rivals, reason because they are derby team. Teams that are in same city are always going to be an entertainment to watch. Usually you get a lot of drama, fighting and players would do anything to prove they are worthy and the only team in the city. The lightning in the background showing thrills and drama (lightning used a lot as some sort of warning as to heavy rain coming, in this case big drama happening or unfolding) this rivalry always has been there in different periods of the centuries. Even in nature, in the animal kingdom we see lions and other animals defending their territories and would do anything to earn it. 

Blue and red colour used to separate and show two sides. The colour Blue and Red are the most common colours, they’ve been used a lot for comparison stuff in our homes. Water taps, boilers (red for hot and blue for cold). These colours also used to represent other meaning “red symbolizes power and authority, or that blue stands for safety and modernity”

This advertisement is a metaphor for ‘Chance’ and how anything can happen in football or any sports. “Impossible is nothing” Is used a lot in sports simply because it is not about scale, if something is big or valued a lot cannot be matched against smaller. Mainly we think the stronger the more chances of winning.

Video Proposal- Specialist Studies 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn4PUW4F1wI