animation or tracing? the art of rotoscoping...

I have recently become familiar with, what I call, the 'Marmite' of animation; rotoscoping. You either love it or hate it. Many people I speak to are of a mixed opinion but there are a few that feel it is a 'no brain activity needed' method and find it 'boring'.

I have never experimented with this technique before although I am very aware of it and mostly love the effects it can produce. There is a strong argument though from the purists of animation to say that it does not fall under the category of animation as it is just merely 'tracing' an image. Although it is created frame by frame. I am not sure if it is a sign or a coincidence but even when i type the work rotoscope...the built-in dictionary for Mac does not recognise it.....instead it is lit up with the silly red line underneath that shouts TYPO!  (Mind you it also didn't recognise the word Marmite, so there is hope yet).

I actually really enjoyed using this technique, and apart form most things I found it relaxing and almost therapeutic. It gave me time to think while 'tediously' drawing each frame, and I felt it allowed my mind to be more creative and free.

The first test I did was literally for about 2 seconds, I had less than 40 odd frames and at 24fps it seemed to take so long for so little in return, time wise of course. The effect i actually really liked. As I was testing out the technique I drew each frame very loose and stayed away from being OCD on detail, and to my delight the results were actually quite nice.

These three images are taken from the rotoscoping test. When I came towards the end of the rotoscoping, it is clear that my drawing technique had loosened up more, and gave the image an even more hand-drawn sketchy feel.

The Rotoscoped footage in Photoshop CS6

The rendered clip as .mov

I have moved on from this and as I enjoyed the technique, even though is takes a painfully long time and causes my little finger to seize up from overuse, I decided to use rotoscoping for my Final Major Project. I will post images as soon as I have some animation (yes I called it animation) to show.

gravity - "How to light a Space Movie"

Against a black screen, these words appear first.

“At 600 km above planet Earth, the temperature fluctuates between +258 and -148 degrees Fahrenheit. There is nothing to carry sound. No air pressure. No oxygen. Life in space is impossible.” 

The screen disappears.

The planet—this planet, in three dimensions—appears.

Gravity...I have yet to see this film but am looking forward to it for many reasons; I like Space movies, I think Sandra Bullock is an underated actress and I am intrigued at the visual effects and new techniques used by director Alfonso Cuarón to create such stunning visuals.

Ever since I first saw the trailer for this movie, I was hooked on the visuals, the sense of reality and how powerful it felt to watch; on one hand the serene and silence of space, to the suddenness of the astronaut catapulted into emptiness and....'Space'.

It is no surprise or shock that everything is CGI and obviously to watch it we know it is not really taking place in Space, but it is the type of CGI that would have me question whether it is real or not.Even the actors looked like they were actually in Space, outside of the force field of the Earth, and just based on the trailer at this point, Sandra Bullock's performance seems as powerful as the visuals surrounding her. In an article on space.com, writer Dave Brody comments:

"Watching the film, it's quite clear that astronauts — who have been there and done that — advised the filmmakers. The behavior of masses handled by intelligent gloved hands on an EVA is hard to fake. When that mass is a space-suited astronaut, "torqued" around by the movement of a much more massive spacecraft, only someone who has experienced it can describe the feeling.

What happens when a tethered astronaut is accelerated — or two spacewalkers, tethered together, jerk one another around — has emotional consequences that can only be felt by an audience if the filmmakers get the physics absolutely right."

During the film's previs process, art director Emmanuel Lubezki knew there would be technical issues as "In space, light comes from the sun and bounces off everything else, most prominently the dayside of Earth".
They began preparing for a shoot  “And then very soon we find out that the film was not going to be achievable with the existing technology,” Cuarón said.


In a further article by Dan P. Lee for Vulture.com, discussing the technical dilemmas for recreating the weightlessness, convincingly, he explains that they used a specially fitted airplane, infamously known as 'vomit comet', that flies in 'steep parabolic arcs to include brief spans of weightlessness inside the open fuselage', and this worked well and had great effects in Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995). Lee explains that Cuarón found this method impractical and said “You’ve got a window of twenty seconds if you’re lucky, and you’re limited by the space of a 727.”

The filmakers considered using motion capture and creating a "CG Sandra", but  Cuarón was concerned with creating the 'uncanny valley' effect and after consulting with directors James Cameron (Avatar) and David Fincher, they both gave the same advice: "Wait for the technology".

Lubezki's answer was to invent something new under the sun: A "Light Box," made of 196 panels, each containing 4096 LEDs. Actors and set pieces could be placed inside. Panels could move to accommodate cameras and props. Visual effects technicians piloting software could instantaneous change any individual LED.
The whole rig was more than 20 feet (6 meters) tall and over 10 feet (3 m) wide.

The rig that would rarely tip past 45 degrees – here seen during line up with a stand-in.

 

The light box LED panels, here showing the interior of the space station providing the correct lighting around the actor.

The visual effects and techniques used for this movie are incredibly complex and cannot imagine where an Editor and post production team would start to render and edit these scenes. I have only just started in the field of editing really and on low budget movies, and when I read these articles it is really awe inspiring and seems on a complete different plane. I would obviously love to be able to work on movies like this but at the moment it is just a dream. Reading another article by Mike Seymour for fxguide.com, it becomes apparent how complex the post production process actually was:

"Bullock was also shot on occasion in a bicycle seat rig, named because she was essentially sitting on a bicycle seat. Here, though, one of her legs was heavily strapped in for safety so Framestore would be required to replace her leg in CG (with full body replacements and some full body and full-CG face shots forming part of the movie).
One issue with the light box approach is that there is no way to use green screen and so the actors had to be roto’d out of each light box shot. Speaking of Bullock, Webber says “she’s basically rotoscoped out of the environment and we had to do certain things with whatever was behind her to make it work cleanly, but essentially she was rotoscoped out. There was no way we could use greenscreen because you would get the green backing. Because of the camera moves and everything moving around her and everywhere, you would get green spill all over her, and you just wouldn’t get the lighting you need at all.”

Reading the articles has made me realise how big a journey I am on and how far technology can actually go to create these stunning movies.

Although I still have my concerns for overuse of CGI in certain movies and where it is unnecessary, this film just goes to show where it is used well and where it IS necessary.  I am glad the filmakers didn't go along with creating CG models of the actors as this would have completely taken the emotion from the film and left us with an empty shell of a character displaying no human emotion at all.

It is great to see and inspiring to know that even with all of the new technologies out there already, and just when we think they cannot create anything new, someone comes up with an idea that sparks the creation of a pioneering technique.

Now I need to see this film!

I will review again and add a post once I have experienced 'Gravity'.



space.com - Dave Brody, Space, Science and Culture Writer
http://www.space.com/23073-gravity-movie-weightlessness-alfonso-cuaron.html
vulture.com - Stan P. Lee
http://www.vulture.com/2013/09/director-alfonso-cuaron-on-making-gravity.html
fxguide.com - Mike Seymour
https://www.fxguide.com/featured/gravity/

Beowulf - Uncanny coincidence?

So, linking back a little to a previous post of mine back in December about the Uncanny Valley theory, I found it really interesting when coming across some articles concerning Beowlulf and how well the film was received, or not, at the Oscar nominations.

There was a lot of conterversy surrounding the Oscar nominations in 2007 and it was debatable by the Academy, if Beowulf  actually qualified as an animation for the Best Animated feature category. As most of the movie was animation, and the realism being captured by the live action of the actors with motion capture sensors and then rendered, it was touch and go whether it could be entered at all and especially in the animation category.

In an article in the Los Angeles Times written by Tom O'Neil he states:

"According to Rule Seven, "movement and characters' performances (must be) created using a frame-by-frame technique." In the past, some films that used digital animation to enhance live-action footage didn't qualify. However, now that the technique is a routine part of the production of mainstream animated pix, the Oscars risked being accused of not keeping step with modern times if "Beowulf" had been snubbed."

Although Beowulf  was eventually accepted into the Oscars, it does seem a little strange and almost as though the Academy wanted to make a point, because the film was not nominated in any category at all 80th Academy Awards, especially for Best Animated feature. It seems as though from my point of view that the Academy must have had to succumb to public pressure and allow this film to be entered as an animation, but in doing so, gave it no credit whatsoever in nominations.

Bit uncanny, but just a thought.