Beginning my process of putting together my cinema graphs and shots I decided to make a quick storyboard going of the idea of a flashback- like scenario, with the changes between night and day being shown as the shots progress:
My plan with the story was that I would be taking photos, some scenes showing that I’m aiming my camera whereas others are the shot taken after aiming. The idea being the exploration of the filming aesthetic being able to suggest that what we are seeing is from the past. To go of the brief and the story being based on something on myself, I decided the place I would take my photos would be my neighborhood as I’ve lived here most of my life.
Taking the shots:
For my shots I focused on lighting and the type of imagery which is associated with my chosen aesthetic on 1960’s and 80’s with a filming aesthetic seen in VHS tapes.
For my day shots the camera settings I used 200 ISO and changed the saturation and contrast settings to not only have a washed out appearance but to also help create a blurry feel to the photos.
For my mid-day and evening shots I used the same ISO however I changed the aperture to 1/20 so that the level of brightness of the surroundings is picked up such as the car headlights or lights.
For my night shots I used the previous settings for my evening shots, because of this cars moving by had a quick blur to them suggesting movement in a still image.
In three of my shots I filmed a shot sequence which shows movement: like a bus moving or a light flickering. I then moved to editing so I can put together my cinema graphs in Nuke (NC).
For my cinema graphs I felt it would make sense to have three being based on the three times of day shown. Above using my chosen scene and short film sequence I edited together my shot, specifically this shot has a bus moving so I used the roto and alpha nodes to have everything but the bus still. Overall I felt whilst I was able to make three cinema graphs I had alot of difficulty using nuke as not only was it a new software but I only got it working a few days ago so the time I had to make something was short.
Once I had finished my cinema graphs I moved to premier pro to place and composite my film. On the side I created a transparent png of the words: ‘play’ and ‘ PM 00:00:00, Feb. 07.2021’ to be included as overlays in my film, this was to go of the look of VHS tapes including when a film was recorded. I put my shots together and manually placed my ‘play’ png to pop in and out to further sell the idea of it being on tape.
VHS tutorial link
I felt whilst what I had made up to that point was good, it could be way better so I went on youtube and looked for tutorials on how to capture the VHS look using premier pro.
Using the tutorial I was able to capture my chosen aesthetic by changing around various video effects. Some of the effects I used was: adding a purple hued shadow to the overall image, I lowered the contrast and white level as well as later on changing the sharpness among other things. Overall by following the tutorial (linked above) I was able to capture the look in more depth creating a very convincing style which replicates the VHS look.
Final Video and reflection:
Overall I have, beside my rocky start with Nuke, enjoyed my time creating these cinema graphs and shots.
What I’ve liked about this project was exploring a style I personally like visually, this is because I was able to look at my chosen style in depth and explored how it would be best to capture it for my chosen idea around flashbacks. What I would have done differently would have been to explore my story in depth. In my storyboard I had planned to include myself taking ‘shots’ to play off the imagery of the making of the film in the moment however as I got to my chosen place I found it was difficult to not only get the right shot but also have myself be in shot as many people would pass by in front of the camera unintentionally.
I also found that including myself in the shots would confuse the simple narrative and felt that the imagery of the shots looking like that being of a VHS recording would work better in showing the past so opted to not shoot them in my final work.
To summarize I have enjoyed this project in the end, it was difficult to understand Nuke in a short time however for how long I had I was able to explore my theme to a level I was happy with. Whilst I may not choose VFX going forward I would still refer back to what I have learned as I feel it would still be helpful going forward.