Tarni's Tales

Just a 3rd Year Uni Student blogging her way through her final year. 

[tarnisneddon]

The Home Stretch?

Week 11:

This week has been a busy one as everything is returning to a somewhat normal state. Work has returned as well as my exhaustion.

Throughout the week I have continued to rotoscope however I have found due to not having as much free time the amount of progress of rotoscoping has lessened.

We divided up our report and wrote up our dedicated parts for the group. We have also had a meeting to discuss when we would prerecord our presentation as some group members will be unable to attend the live presentation.

Later this week we had our meeting to ensure we knew who would be speaking during which parts of the presentation. Once this was discussed we began to prerecord our presentation. I along with Isaiah wrote up about the learnt outcomes and discussed how our skills and techniques had evolved during the rotoscoping process. Then I spoke about our outcomes during the presentation on myself and Isaiah's behalf.

I plan on finishing off more of the rotoscoping in the coming weeks. However, I do know that the current scene that I am working on will take a while due to the amount of detail that is being put into the scene. This is due to the fact that I have the main characters arms being tied down as well as many bystanders surrounding him. So evidently is not a small task as well as the fact that there are many cuts between each portion of the scene that I am not rotoscoping.

Next week, I am hoping to have a lot of the restraint scene done before I commence my placement for my degree which will consume a lot of my time. Thankfully the rest of my courses should be finished by then. I plan on continually helping my group to see the outcome of our project through to the end, especially as it is more than just an assignment for my degree but also a music video for a local artist.

[tarnisneddon]

Draw, Fill, Never-mind, Repeat.

Week 9:

During this week I finally finished my rotoscoping of Dr. No eyes. Happy with the results, I exported and sent it through to the group. However, after everyone saying nice things about it the one suggestion was to re-go over the outline of the entire scene to ensure that it was crisp.

After, finally completing thatI went to begin the next scene I was suppose to rotoscope. After checking it out, I realised you could not differentiate the foreground (or main character) from the background. So, I reached out to call a meeting with the group to discuss whether I should be rotoscoping the entire scene.

During this meeting I found out that there had been a discussion between a couple of group members but not everyone involved in the project. These members had decided that we were not rotoscoping this portion of the video, which meant that I did not have to do this part. However, I was not feeling great that I was not included or informed about this. This also meant that I did not know what other scenes I was supposed to rotoscope as that was the only other scene I had been assigned.

Also in this meeting we discussed what other scenes I should be rotoscoping to which we decided that I would do all the secondary characters starting with at the beginning of the video and working my way down. Whereas, previously when I asked what I should start with they had said it does not matter.

[tarnisneddon]

Communication is key.

Week 8:

Throughout this week I have found that some of the communication has not been so great.

I have found this due to the fact that we had no way of tracking who was doing what and where everyone was up to. Communication also became an issue when meetings were being had that should have included everyone, however they were not.

One instance of this occurred early in the beginning. I had been told to start rotoscoping the main character in a scene, to which I did. However, after completing the outline of half of the scene and then having a meeting with the director to check what brush size I should use for a Wide Shot I was told not to worry about it and that he was already rotoscoping that part.

This made me slightly annoyed due to the fact that rotoscoping is very time consuming and I now had felt like I had wasted time that I could have been using on other things. I then moved on and began to rotoscope Dr. No Eyes.

Once I had outlined and filled in the frames I realised we had not discussed how we were going to export the scene which called for me reaching out again to ask how to export it to ensure everything was consistent.

This week proved to show me how important constant communication is in a project as well as how being left out of a communicative meeting can make one feel as though they do not belong.

However, I know that this was not their intention and was probably just them chatting as friends that then evolved into a discussion about the assignment.

[tarnisneddon]

A lot has changed.

Week 10:

Over the past four weeks a lot has happened. Lockdown has been playing a major role in how I have been feeling recently.

I have completed the Dr. No Eyes part of the rotoscope. I then began working on another portion that I was told to do, however I was then told not to worry about it after doing half of it.

I was then told I should work on the TV portion to which I wanted to clarify before I started. Which was a good thing I did due to a couple of the group members having meeting and not informing the rest of us where they decided that we were not going to rotoscope the tv part.

This caused me to be stuck as I now had no idea what parts I was suppose to rotoscope. I was feeling like I had let the team down, which sucked. I was then informed I had to send through what we had done so it could be compiled. After sending it I was hit with the "Is that all you've done? I thought you had done more?" which made me feel worse. I had to inform of the fact that I had done more but was told not to worry.

I then realised none of us really had anyway to know what had been done or anyway to keep track of the progress. I then added a column to allow us to track progress with all members.

Later that day I asked to have a meeting to discuss what parts I was now actually rotoscoping as I had no idea. I have since been informed of what parts they would like me to rotoscope and that we are applying for an I grade. Which makes me feel better.

Overall, this week has made me full of emotions for so many reasons. I have felt overwhelmed with the world, unmotivated with uni, stressed due to assignments and anxious, well due to everything.

[tarnisneddon]

Lets Get Down To Business!

Week 7:

This week I am feeling a lot better!

Our group got together for a zoom meeting this week to discuss the exact details of which member was going to which parts of rotoscoping. We also discussed a timeline in which we are going to follow to help keep everyone on track.

Later in the week the director and I had another meeting to discuss further our scenes to rotoscope. As we are both doing scenes with the main character it is important that we organise a way to keep the character consistent and looking the same throughout.

We had to come up with a guide document to make sure we use the same size brushes for the different framed shots. ie. Use a size 6 bush for a midshot. After our discussion we found the most difficult part to keep consistent was the face. We have decided that I will continue to rotoscope the main character and keep the face that I have currently done which is the character looking down but to keep all others consistent I am going to continue rotoscoping the character without a face and allow the director to add on the faces to keep them more consistent.

Currently, all I am working on the scene of the main character but I will also be rotoscoping the extras in the film. However, I am unable to do a lot of the extras rotoscoping at the moment due to not having the footage found as of yet to rotoscope.

Our group is also planning to have weekly meetings to check in on the progress of the project. As well as I will be having other meetings with the director to work alongside him to ensure everything remains consistent throughout rotoscoping.

(...To defeat the Huns. I needed a few more words and I cannot get this out of my head haha)

[tarnisneddon]

Feeling Down but Resting Up.

Week 6:

This last week I was pretty emotional and not feeling my best. Because of this I decided to take a lot of last week to focus on myself and make sure I was ok and rested up.

During, this lockdown it is important to remember to take time to make sure you are ok and that it is ok to feel sad as long as that is not where you stay.

That is enough personal information now let's get back to our project, I still did do some work on our rotoscoping but only a couple of frames and a rough outline. I also spoke to our director and collaborated on which scenes I would rotoscope for the final project. We also discussed and shared any other programs we found as well as tutorials to try and make the process of rotoscoping easier.

I also discovered that the iPad version of Adobe Photoshop does not allow you to import any video files, but the desktop version does. However, rotoscoping and tracing on a desktop with a mouse is more difficult and time consuming than that of an iPad and stylus.

I did some research and found a way to turn my iPad into a sketching pad that mirrored my desktop. This application was called 'duet' and whilst it is free on desktop it is not on the iPad and both is needed to work. This meant that I had to make a trip to Coles to buy iTunes credits. Thankfully, this application worked and allowed the rotoscoping process to be easier. After discussing with the director about the application and how it worked he too decided to buy a stylus and the program too.

Thankfully, I am now feeling better and back to my normal self. It is normal to feel sad as feelings make us human.

(Credit: Eydie Stumpf, I do not own this image)

[tarnisneddon]

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome, Art?

TW: Flash

Week 5:

This week a lot has happened but also practically everything has stayed the same. NSW is still currently in lockdown and it seems to be the new normal for at least the next week (most likely more at this rate).

Due to this, my group has had to come up with alternative options for our project, for how we are going to create the music video. We have had a zoom meeting and discussed different options and methods we could do to still be able to complete the project in time. One method we have decided to go with is rotoscoping. I had never done any type of rotoscoping before, nor had I really looked into. So I had to do some research about rotoscoping and what it is. Rotoscoping is a form of animation, which we should be able to do from home.

Obviously, this style of production still holds some challenges, one of which is learning how to do it and another is having the footage that we can use to be able to rotoscope it.

One thing that I am thankful to have especially during this time is my iPad. I have used this device to understand rotoscoping and have attempted some basics.

Below is my second attempt at rotoscoping.I have created this on procreate on my iPad, by tracing around different frames different colours creating an outline.

After sending the 2 attempts to my group they are pretty happy with it. However, we have decided to go slightly more detailed.

My next task is to dive deeper into the art of rotoscoping and learn more on how to do it.

This is going to be a time consuming process as even the product below took a couple of hours to complete. I am hoping that I can grasp more knowledge on how to rotoscope to make it easier and faster.

[tarnisneddon]

Go directly to lockdown. Do NOT pass go or start your practical project!

Week 4:

As of currently, all of NSW has been entered into lockdown due to the panini (pandemic). This has caused a halt in production.

Firstly, I should probably explain what my project is, how I got there and what I have done.

Myself and a couple of friends in the course have decided to team up as a group. We have decided to create a music video for a new song from a local upcoming artist. We were sent the song to think of ideas and what direction we would like to go in with notes from the singer/songwriter. We had also discussed what role each person would play in the production of this video.

Thankfully, before the current lockdown we had organised an in person group meeting to brainstorm ideas together. As a group we came up with many ideas and scenarios not all of which have made it into the shot list, but a lot of which I received astonishing reactions both good and bad from fellow crew members when I came up with some of my ideas. including a statement from one of them asking how my brain works.

some of the ides and suggestions I had were:

- creepy acrobatics to which I had performers that could do it.

- creepy contemporary styled dance.

- a mirror but then the reflection reaches through.

- a POV of a surgical scalpel heading towards your eye.

- a Drs Headlamp which gets zoomed in on, then we zoom out to a car headlight.

After getting these ideas we left and had our own tasks to work on. Since I am 1st Assistant Director, and we did not have a completely clear vision of time in which we wanted to film and since we are a small crew I took on an extra role of costume & set design.

I have created a small mood board for items we would like to use or similar things.

Back to currently, we had a meeting when lockdown first happened with the suggestion of deferral brought up. However, we have decided to use this time in lockdown to have zoom meetings and have everything prepared and ready to go when we do come out of lockdown. Due to this it does mean that we can’t have everything organised such as dates and we cant hire equipment due to it being unknown when we would need it. However, we can try our best to have clear ideas and timelines with unknown dates to have everything be as smooth and fast as possible.