Stages of work
Well the project we've been working on for the last few weeks has had the opportunity for some real concept work for me. There will be visual effects shots which will be using miniatures, live footage and lots of composition work in post, but before all this goes down an idea of what we are aiming at is required. A good example of what I am talking about is a shot where our characters walk out of a mine tunnel into a huge underground cavern with a walkway on one, chains hanging down into the darkness, and a waterfall. In order to get all the elements required into one angle I picked a top down shot looking at where the people will be walking.
Ok, so the way that I constructed my images for this project were all the same with only minor changes from pic to pic. I would start with a line drawing of the scene. . .well actually, it starts with a conversation with James or other crewmembers to see what they had in mind for the shot, to figure out important things like scale, lighting considerations, what elements were related to plot points, and the mood and the emotions the scene are trying to convey. Stuff like that, then the drawing. My example will be the room with the treasure, cuz hey, who doesn't like treasure?
After each stage I would go and get feedback from the crew before moving forward. With a thumbs up on the drawing I would scan the pic and go over the whole thing in black and white, getting the value and lighting figured out. This is where a lot of the mood would be injected into the piece. Alot of the lighting in this project is going to be produced by flashlights, which makes directing the attention and focus of the viewer alot easier. Literally just point at it.
Also getting the black and white value drawing done makes the rest of the job alot easier. In a layer set to colorize, just painting over in any color adds tone and saturation without messing up the light and dark value that has already been established. Some adjustments to the levels and contrast are going to be necessary as the image will be different than expected with color.
