Final cut will not upload if someone wants to see it please post a comment and contact me.
Self evaluation: I am very proud of the video and compositions I have produced. I find I have come a long way since the beginning of the semester. Coming from someone who still cannot correctly draw a good stick figure, I find I have a solid understanding of the tools and methods behind digital art and compositions. I have a new respect for many of those who work in the field of digital media composition and I hope to one day find a place for myself in that field.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Final Project
Proposal/Abstract: My partner, Joe Gorab, and I plan to make an action movie trailer with an urban setting, generic samurai revenge story, and a Grind house movie feel.
It took Joe and I quite some time to get the necessary equipment we needed for filming and once we did time was short but we headed right out to begin our movie. In our original story board we had a very disgruntled samurai climbing a foreboding mountain facing demons and henchmen along the way until he meets up with his arch nemesis at the top and they show down. Being that neither Joe or myself could come up with a mountain on such short notice and with the fact that neither one of us new how to work with the blue screen I decided that it could be a cool idea to go urban with the story and so instead of having our protagonist climb a mountain, he climbed a parking structure. An immediate issue here was the incredibly dark lighting inside the parking structure and the incredibly bright lighting outside at the top. This coupled with the terrible quality of the school's camera made things very difficult for Joe and I during editing. However, I found a way to make all of this work. I decided that the poor quality of the camera would serve to make the movie look like it was a grind house movie. I thought the dark lighting would add to the intensity as the characters look silhouetted against the background, and I decided to use the bright light as sort of an altered reality kind of setting for when the antagonist steps into to scene. This was all done by messing with the brightness, RGB, and proc amp filters on Final Cut. Splicing the scenes together proved rather simple as I had an exact idea of what I wanted. There was one scene where I had the antagonist jumping from the roof of the parking structure to face the hero. I made it look this way by cutting and splicing scene with perfect timing and no one was the wiser. My most difficult challenge was clipping the audio file to fit to the video, I most certainly could have done better with this but because of time restraints and uncooperative audio files, I figured that the way I had it was fairly well done for a beginner.
Basic edits and raw footage:
Here is the raw shot I had of the antagonist and his fake landing from the roof of the parking structure. You can see how it is way too bright and way to blurry, something I took upon myself to fix.
This is a re-take and edit of the final action in that shot. You can see all of the shots edited and spliced together to make one fluid movie in the final cut of my film.
It took Joe and I quite some time to get the necessary equipment we needed for filming and once we did time was short but we headed right out to begin our movie. In our original story board we had a very disgruntled samurai climbing a foreboding mountain facing demons and henchmen along the way until he meets up with his arch nemesis at the top and they show down. Being that neither Joe or myself could come up with a mountain on such short notice and with the fact that neither one of us new how to work with the blue screen I decided that it could be a cool idea to go urban with the story and so instead of having our protagonist climb a mountain, he climbed a parking structure. An immediate issue here was the incredibly dark lighting inside the parking structure and the incredibly bright lighting outside at the top. This coupled with the terrible quality of the school's camera made things very difficult for Joe and I during editing. However, I found a way to make all of this work. I decided that the poor quality of the camera would serve to make the movie look like it was a grind house movie. I thought the dark lighting would add to the intensity as the characters look silhouetted against the background, and I decided to use the bright light as sort of an altered reality kind of setting for when the antagonist steps into to scene. This was all done by messing with the brightness, RGB, and proc amp filters on Final Cut. Splicing the scenes together proved rather simple as I had an exact idea of what I wanted. There was one scene where I had the antagonist jumping from the roof of the parking structure to face the hero. I made it look this way by cutting and splicing scene with perfect timing and no one was the wiser. My most difficult challenge was clipping the audio file to fit to the video, I most certainly could have done better with this but because of time restraints and uncooperative audio files, I figured that the way I had it was fairly well done for a beginner.
Basic edits and raw footage:
Here is the raw shot I had of the antagonist and his fake landing from the roof of the parking structure. You can see how it is way too bright and way to blurry, something I took upon myself to fix.
This is a re-take and edit of the final action in that shot. You can see all of the shots edited and spliced together to make one fluid movie in the final cut of my film.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Intro to Digital Media Mid-Term
Abstract: I created a six picture portfolio with an emphasis on composition and color correction.
Production Log:
On Brutal Geoff, the first picture, I made a composition of myself and on of my favorite video game characters, Eddie Riggs from "Brutal Legend." I used the quick select on my face in the original picture of myself and then made and inverse selection and a layer mask in order to remove everything but my face. I then did the same exact thing with Eddie's face in the original picture of him. I moved and transformed my own face with the warp and scale transformation until I thought it fit the picture best. I then worked on color correction. I adjusted the curves on both pictures until I had darker and more defined colors. However, my face still seemed too pale and so I burned it until I felt it fit the color scheme better. Finally, I made circles with the clone stamp to give the illusion of feedback from the guitar in my hands.
On the second picture, I composed a picture of myself and my room mate with some pictures of "Sesame Street" characters. The original picture of myself and my room mate had us in a dorm room wearing shirts with Oscar and Elmo's faces on them and standing next to each other looking odd. I decided to take this and make the most messed up looking image of "Sesame Street" I could possibly come up with. I used the quick select and move tools to move our heads putting my face on my room mate's body and vice versa. I then warped and changed the scale of both heads until they blended in with the shirts. I removed the dorm room in the background with the magic wand and quick select tools. I brought in pictures of Oscar and Elmo on the internet, transformed their scale, and then placed them on their respective bodies. I added a dash of color that resembles each head to make a more believable neck for each head. I moved the bodies of myself and my room mate to opposite sides of the screen; and finally I placed a warped picture of "Sesame Street" behind myself and my room mate as the background.
The third picture is a composition of two video games made by the same company but each game is set in a different time period. Clearly I placed the old west character on top of the modern day background. I had a lot of trouble warping and re-scaling the old west character, John, so that he would block out the modern day character. I did not know how to properly use layer masks at this time and had to make the best of what I knew how to do. So any part of the modern day character I could not cover, I clone stamped a different piece of the picture on top of to retain a natural look. I then burned John and color corrected the background, in which I think the change in the sky came out quite nicely.
The fourth picture is simply my hour long drawing from the beginning of class. I added to it a picture of the tri-force in the background that I found on the internet. I then made some color correction changes to the tri-force picture and that about sums it up.
The fifth picture was a tad tricky as I took it from Facebook. Being that I took it from Facebook it came into photoshop a bit small and blurry. I dodged it, burned it, and adjusted the curves to make darker and more vibrant shades of each color. The original picture is very gray and bleak I think I did a good job of changing that. Finally I added an opaque picture of a chimp for comedic effect. I made a layer mask on the picture of the chimp to take out the background on that picture and then pasted what was left on top of the picture of me and my friends. I then sponged the chimp the change its opacity.
The sixth and final picture, is a color correction. I adjusted the curves on the picture and then burned the lower part of the background to make shadows and dodged the top piece to make it seem as the sun is hitting it harder.
Self Evaluation:
It is my opinion that I have come a rather far way since I began working with photoshop. If I had a chance to do something differently I think it would be increase my precision with the selection tools and to practice with examples more often in order to learn the best ways in which to use the tools available to me. For example, once I got the handle of quick masks, making composition using non-destructive work flow became much easier than my old ritual of tedious cut and paste work.
Abstract: I created a six picture portfolio with an emphasis on composition and color correction.
On Brutal Geoff, the first picture, I made a composition of myself and on of my favorite video game characters, Eddie Riggs from "Brutal Legend." I used the quick select on my face in the original picture of myself and then made and inverse selection and a layer mask in order to remove everything but my face. I then did the same exact thing with Eddie's face in the original picture of him. I moved and transformed my own face with the warp and scale transformation until I thought it fit the picture best. I then worked on color correction. I adjusted the curves on both pictures until I had darker and more defined colors. However, my face still seemed too pale and so I burned it until I felt it fit the color scheme better. Finally, I made circles with the clone stamp to give the illusion of feedback from the guitar in my hands.
On the second picture, I composed a picture of myself and my room mate with some pictures of "Sesame Street" characters. The original picture of myself and my room mate had us in a dorm room wearing shirts with Oscar and Elmo's faces on them and standing next to each other looking odd. I decided to take this and make the most messed up looking image of "Sesame Street" I could possibly come up with. I used the quick select and move tools to move our heads putting my face on my room mate's body and vice versa. I then warped and changed the scale of both heads until they blended in with the shirts. I removed the dorm room in the background with the magic wand and quick select tools. I brought in pictures of Oscar and Elmo on the internet, transformed their scale, and then placed them on their respective bodies. I added a dash of color that resembles each head to make a more believable neck for each head. I moved the bodies of myself and my room mate to opposite sides of the screen; and finally I placed a warped picture of "Sesame Street" behind myself and my room mate as the background.
The third picture is a composition of two video games made by the same company but each game is set in a different time period. Clearly I placed the old west character on top of the modern day background. I had a lot of trouble warping and re-scaling the old west character, John, so that he would block out the modern day character. I did not know how to properly use layer masks at this time and had to make the best of what I knew how to do. So any part of the modern day character I could not cover, I clone stamped a different piece of the picture on top of to retain a natural look. I then burned John and color corrected the background, in which I think the change in the sky came out quite nicely.
The fourth picture is simply my hour long drawing from the beginning of class. I added to it a picture of the tri-force in the background that I found on the internet. I then made some color correction changes to the tri-force picture and that about sums it up.
The fifth picture was a tad tricky as I took it from Facebook. Being that I took it from Facebook it came into photoshop a bit small and blurry. I dodged it, burned it, and adjusted the curves to make darker and more vibrant shades of each color. The original picture is very gray and bleak I think I did a good job of changing that. Finally I added an opaque picture of a chimp for comedic effect. I made a layer mask on the picture of the chimp to take out the background on that picture and then pasted what was left on top of the picture of me and my friends. I then sponged the chimp the change its opacity.
The sixth and final picture, is a color correction. I adjusted the curves on the picture and then burned the lower part of the background to make shadows and dodged the top piece to make it seem as the sun is hitting it harder.
Self Evaluation:
It is my opinion that I have come a rather far way since I began working with photoshop. If I had a chance to do something differently I think it would be increase my precision with the selection tools and to practice with examples more often in order to learn the best ways in which to use the tools available to me. For example, once I got the handle of quick masks, making composition using non-destructive work flow became much easier than my old ritual of tedious cut and paste work.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
ABOUT GEOFF
I'm Geoff, I am a freshman at TCNJ and I like games. I really like games. I really, really, really like games. I look forward to learning more about how to make games and other forms of interactive multimedia.
Now in my sophomore year at TCNJ I am attempting to broaden my horizons by both learning various forms of more applicable multimedia but also by broadcasting my various skills and self image, the style for which my work will be known. I am still looking to work in the games industry, I idolize the styles of Tim Schafer of Double Fine studios. I have always loved his products. The way he writes incorporates comedy almost constantly into his many original and fascinating tales of fantasy and somehow he always finds a similar art style to match the twisted worlds that he imagines. I do hope that one day I will have a chance to work with Mr. Schafer and bring the various colorful creatures, heroes, and organ clad walrus warriors wielding battle axes that haunt every region of my mind to life....also I still REALLY like video games if that point had not come across clearly enough.
Now in my sophomore year at TCNJ I am attempting to broaden my horizons by both learning various forms of more applicable multimedia but also by broadcasting my various skills and self image, the style for which my work will be known. I am still looking to work in the games industry, I idolize the styles of Tim Schafer of Double Fine studios. I have always loved his products. The way he writes incorporates comedy almost constantly into his many original and fascinating tales of fantasy and somehow he always finds a similar art style to match the twisted worlds that he imagines. I do hope that one day I will have a chance to work with Mr. Schafer and bring the various colorful creatures, heroes, and organ clad walrus warriors wielding battle axes that haunt every region of my mind to life....also I still REALLY like video games if that point had not come across clearly enough.
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