Final Cut - "Translunar" with Evaluation

Above, the final cut of our Transmedia collaboration can be seen, 'TRANSLUNAR'. On the whole, I am particularly happy with the outcome, especially given how new 3 dimensional motion graphics is to us. I feel that the project has achieved the aims that we set out when we began the planning and production process. Firstly, the film has a fairly realistic and believable aesthetic. When beginning to embark on the motion graphics journey, I felt that achieving this would be one of the most difficult tasks, however, I feel that we came fairly close, especially with the opening shot that can be seen above. I feel that this is mostly due to the use of accurate texturing and attention to detail in terms of creating realistic looking materials that resemble real versions of each object.. Next, I feel as though the different elements of the mise-en-scene capture the atmosphere well. In my opinion, the use of often harsh lighting and high contrast environments are one of the piece's strong points and contribute to this extensively. Since beginning to experiment with motion graphics, I learnt the importance of capturing the tone using lights, and how much it can affect the overall aesthetic of the shot. After much practice improving our ability to use lighting effectively, I feel that this translates into our final piece. It must be noted on the other hand that there are some slight inconsistencies in terms of the continuity of the lighting, for example, on occasions, the astronaut is lit at two different levels in consecutive shots. We would take more care over improving continuity with regards to this if we were to re-do the project.

In addition, I feel that the sound and visuals work symbiotically, complimenting one another to create mood and tone, which is another strong point of our work. In my opinion, the way in which synchronous diegetic sounds are used to compliment on screen actions provide an element of realism and immersion, which contribute to a story that the audience can become more invested in. Furthermore, the use of drone sounds, audio dynamics and varying chord changes contribute to an emotional soundscape, which brings out the atmosphere in the film's visuals.

The main negative of the piece in my opinion is the way in which it is paced. Being a two minute film, the narrative is absolutely action-packed, with a a strong narrative proceeding through the film's entirety. However, the fact that it is so short in duration, means that each event does not have enough time to build in terms of narrative and action. At times, I feel that this hinders the audiences ability to empathise with the character. If the narrative started slower, and began to progressively build, I feel that the piece would be more effective. Our piece however, seems to start slow and build in action rapidly, not leaving the audience enough time to grasp where they are in terms of the story. If we were to undertake this project again, I would increase the duration of the film in order to allow more time for the narrative to slowly build. However, this would require a great deal more content, which more production time would likely be needed for. Next,

'Translunar' - Sound Design Evaluation

https://vimeo.com/250699427


Having completed production for this Transmedia Practice module, I am pleased with the result of our short sci-fi picture 'Translunar'. The whole process was a learning experience for me, and it has definitely shaped the way I approach not only music production, but film score. It was important from the start onwards that I considered other artists and composers who compose music for film/animation, and how they utilize instruments and foley sound to create realistic environments for the listener/viewer.

Once our group had come up with a general narrative to base our first tests on, I set off and researched the way sound was crafted in films such as Interstellar and Gravity and opened up Logic Pro on my computer and got going. It was necessary that I understood the mood of the piece, and how if I was to create atmospheric sounds like the films stated above I would need to use both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. Sounds that would have melodic elements, and also sound that weren't necessarily atonal, but synchronized with the visuals on screen. Having sent various tests to my motion graphics team, the feedback was good, however, they desired that I approached a more atmospheric soundscape route rather than dominant melody. This was an effective point in the process for me, as I feel I had got caught up in my head trying to replicate composers such as Hans Zimmer and I was losing focus of the kind of sound that would work with our piece.

The Motion Graphics team had now sent me the first scenes and I started building my composition. Using a basic, Intro, Verse 1, Middle 8, Verse 2, Outro structure, I was able to create a narrative within the music. Making use of the stereo field, I decided to space out my timbres and utilized the panning tool in my track automation, this enabled a wider listening experience and through the use of reverberation, I could make my sounds more distant in our environment. Thorugh the technology at my disposal I felt it would be challenging yet effective, to manipulate any samples that I collected and made them my own. The EXS24 sample plugin on Logic Pro allowed me to customise my frequencies, this was especially significant in the outro section towards the end. Through dark synthesizers and wailing white noise, I felt I captured the eerieness of an apocalypse scene.

It was a learning curve for me, I hadn't had any experience making music for film, and I overcame a lot of difficulties, especially with the choice of appropriate timbres. However, if I was to pursue a similar project again, I would make sure the film was of a longer length and with a more slowly progressive narrative. This would mean I could add more anticipation to my music, with a slower build up.

Translunar: Motion Graphics Soundtrack

https://soundcloud.com/user-120697061/translunar-motion-picture-soundtrack-2018

Shaking Camera Effect Process

When it came to editing the last sequence of our film, we brainstormed ways in which we could use visual techniques as a means of creating impact for the climax. In the end, we decided that an interesting way to do this would be to create a shaking camera effect. We felt that by doing this, the magnitude of the rock and the scale of the situation would be exacerbated significantly, creating a great deal more suspense and tension for the audience. To achieve this effect, we experimented with a variety of techniques, unsuccessfully in the beginning. Our first port of call was to use the camera movement feature in Cinema 4D in order to keyframe a camera shake, however, we found this a complex process that we could achieve little degree of accuracy with. This is not only because we had to carry out a render every time we made a change, but also because on the whole, the camera movement tool tends to facilitate smooth camera movement better than shaky camera movement. We decided to scrap this method due to the time consumption is required.

We then decided to carry out tests in Adobe After Effects which turned out to be much more successful. After exporting each shot in Cinema 4D and editing it into the sequence in Premiere Pro, we decided to export to After Effects, as this software provides much more flexibility in terms of visual effects. The compatibility of the Adobe package assisted us greatly in doing this, as it meant that we could simply export a shot in the Premiere Pro sequence to AE, and it would edit in real time in the Premiere sequence as it was being adjusted in AE. The option shown in the image below shows how this was possible.

Once in After Effects, we came across the 'wiggle' expression tool. This feature allowed us to create a keyframed camera shake, that was already preset. However, this also gave us the flexibility to programme our own level of shake, by offering magnitude and frequency parameters that we could adjust to our own liking. We found this to be a much simpler option than doing this in Cinema 4D due to the minimal render times and therefore easier visual reference, when experimenting to get our desired effect.

When adding a Wiggle Expression in After Effects, we decided to slowly increase the amplitude and frequency as the scene progressed in order to create a progressive effect, with the camera shake rapidly increasing the tension and drama as the climax gets closer and closer. As previously mentioned, the fact that the edited effect displays in Premiere Pro in real time rapidly sped up this process and allowed us to achieve our desired level of shake efficiently and in little time.

Title Screens

Now that we have decided upon our final title idea, I have created the title screens that will be played at the end. For me, title screens in sci-fi/space related cinema are particularly important in upholding the visual standards. I took inspiration when creating the titles from films such as Gravity and Interstellar, where the stylistic choices often remain similar. From my research, I found that fixed width, capitalised fonts with high levels of kerning were particularly on trend at the moment in this field of cinema, so I decided to take a similar approach in Translunar.

When it come to creating our own titles, I decided to use the font 'Futurust Fixed Width', due to the similar aesthetic that it provided, which as aforementioned, I was very fond of. I decided to further our use of motion graphics here also, by adding an element of animation into our title sequence. Choosing to work outside of Cinema 4D this time, I decided to use Adobe After Effects this time for its relative simplicity and due to my familiarity with the software. Looking through the effects panel, I decided to add a glow animation, as I felt it was relevant to our theme, matching the lunar visuals that are intrinsic to our piece. I chose to keyframe this minimal glow into the main title screen as I felt that it's subtlety was effective, whilst it's visuals remained aesthetically pleasing. 

The Final Title Sequence can be seen below:

Chord Progression

Much like the work of Hans Zimmer and John Williams, the use of minor and major scales along with sustained notes provide cinematic and elaborate listening experiences.

I wanted to keep the chords simple and to vary from the C minor, G minor, B major and E-flat major scales. These key signatures complement each other nicely, and I was keen to use them in the narrative.

The minor chords were embedded to illustrate the negative/darker emotions of the narrative. In many occasions, there are problems that the astronaut faces on the mission and through these minor chords and percussion, I could express this.

The major chords are especially significant in the opening 40-60 seconds, where the astronaut is floating past the stratosphere, looking over Earth. I chose to incorporate both major and minor elements as I felt this gave a neutral hearing of what the visuals were showing. There is always a chance something could go wrong in space, so I chose a neutral sound that left the listener's experience on edge and intrigued as to what could come next.

Collected Audio Samples

In order to amplify where the narrative is taking place, I decided to use some of my sounds from both the NASA sound library and online discoveries. Once I had collected the appropriate sounds and their place within the visuals, I manipulated the original frequencies to match the mood of the film. Use of speech and ambient diegetic sounds build up as the narrative progresses, with varying dynamic range to portray the unpredictability of time in space.

Logic Pro X composition layout: Use of MIDI, Audio, and Video

To break up the opening melodic sections, I introduced my manipulated sample of the words ''Houston, how do you read" and tuned the pitch down to create a bassy drop. This, in turn, changed the mood of the narrative and emphasized the darker themes to come. To further this, I added distortion and removed high-end frequencies to reduce brightness and enhances the lower end of the channel equilisation. I also did towards the outro, when the astronaut is stranded on the moon.

Edit Rough cuts

Below a series of rough exports can be seen, gradually showing improvements in different areas of the production.



In the exported cut above, only two shots were rendered in an attempt to see how they flowed into one another visually and whether there were any continuity errors. Exporting this sequence however made me come to the conclusion that the second shot in its current form was unusable. This is because the background was extremely pixelated in comparison to the character, this made the visuals look unprofessional and substandard in quality. This happened because rather than using a 'background', I placed the starfield image on a plane. However, the plane was so large that the image appeared stretched. I ensured the re-render this scene, making the starfield image a higher resolution in order minimise this pixelation as much as possible.




In this rough cut, we can see that the previous issue has been improved upon. However, rendering this sequence out in its entirety also allowed us to pick up on other issues and find further room for improvement. Firstly, this render made us realise that the shot of the astronaut in front of the moon lasted too long in terms of duration. This reduced the flow of the scene and made it feel tedious. Furthermore, the cutting to black during the moon fall appeared inconsistent and irregular also impacting the flow. In my next rough cut I will ensure to re-cut this small scene in order to improve cohesion and timing.



The cut above shows the penultimate cut. Exporting this made us realise that the film would have a more cinematic aesthetic in a 2:40:1 aspect ratio. When rendering our shots in Cinema 4D however, we had used a 16:9 ratio and rendering every shot again would be particularly time consuming. To overcome this, we used the 'letterbox effect' placing two parallel black bars at the top and bottom of the footage. This cut also

Collider Body Tags/Physics Aspect

When implenting the movement of our astronaut into our scene, we found it to be imperative that, as an object, he physically reacted to everything around him in the scene. Initially when importing the character, we found that his interaction with the plane in which he was situated was unrealistic. This is because that the programme was treating either object and insolid and malleable. This meant that when moving, his body parts would often penetrate through the surface, obviously looking unfeasible, as the rock surface would be hard and impenetrable in a real life context. In order to counter this, we used collider body tags. Luckily, in my early motion graphics practice, I came across using collider bodies in order to make two objects react with and impact one another in a realistic way. This meant I was conveniently able to apply this knowledge to every scene, which was a huge help.

As can be seen in the bottom right side of the screen, adding this dynamic body tag facilitated us making the movements as realistic as possible, as it meant we could adjust variables such as the friction of the surface and the elasticity, which are factors that independently affect the way in which an object would react to it when coming into contact.

Sound in our Transmedia Piece

In our transmedia piece, the traditional conventions of sound within Sci-fi, very noticeably consist of both non-diegetic (orchestral music) and diegetic (space sound) together. As I consider the best approach to take in this composition, I felt it was important to consider using both effectively, to create the tension and mood that we aim to get across.

The opening 50-60 seconds will consist of synthesized strings, that will subtly play with fair amount of reverb. Using the Space Designer plug in on Logic Pro X I can adjust the amount of reverb I want. We felt however that it would be best to prioritise the diegetic space sounds to provide a more realistic interpretation of space, whilst still including melodic elements to portray the cinematic experience.

Through the manipulation of samples, from the NASA apollo space missions and other created textures, they will drive the narrative and deliver the impact of each stage of the film. Using satelite beeps and astronaut noises, I feel it'll give the audience a feeling that they are actually in space, and are taking part in this journey.

In the narrative, there are stages in which communication breaks down, and there is 'a problem'. On these occassions, I will bring in darker, lower frequencys and metallic textures to get across the negative emotions. I aim to use a varied dynamic range, and a wide stereo feel in order to give the audience's ears a 360 degree perspective. 

To potray the silence of space, there will be moments, especially when the astronaut falls onto the planet, where it is completely mute. I hope this displays the contrast between traditional dramatic musical sci-fi and the reality of the silence of space. As after all the only sounds you hear in space, are the electro-magnetic vibrations. Thanks to the NASA voyagers, I will aim to use these vibrations collected from planets such as Jupiter and Saturn.

Foley - Making of Sound in Film and Television

The term 'foley' was devised by Jack Donovan Foley, who made sound effects for live radio broadcasts. Foley focused on creating realistic sounds with the tools he had around him rather than using generic sounds made in other programs. 

 When the “talkies” came around in the 1920s, studios wanted to create authentic sound effects for their films. Microphones used on set, were only used to record dialogue so sound effects would have to be recorded after the film was shot.

Three types of Foley

Foley artists do not create every sound in a film. Complex sounds like car engines or computer noises fall under the direction of a Sound FX Editor, who uses a library of sounds. The foley artists focus on three key areas: footsteps, movement, and specific props.

1. Footsteps
In order to capture the natural sounds of walking. Foley artists wear certain shoes and walk on specific surfaces to attain the right sounds for a film.

These surfaces are called foley pits, which offer all sorts of different flooring types. Foley artist can then record the sounds of a character walking across a lawn, onto a pavement, and into a home, even the footsteps of animals, e.g. galloping horse hooves.

2. Movement

Sound can be recorded to what the character is wearing. If a person were wearing jeans, the sounds of crossing legs or moving on a chair could be captured based on that specific texture. The same goes for different clothing, ranging from a knights armor to a scientist's lab coat.

3. Props

Foley artists also tend to work with props the character interacts with, e.g. cigarette being pulled out of a packet, or a sword being unsheathed. 

Marko Costanzo, a foley artist, shows how he used leaves to create the swirling sound of the witch from Into the Woods and how he cracked celery to create the sound of breaking bones for The Big Lebowski. 

https://youtu.be/C8NCxT7XLW8
Reference: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/art-of-making-sound-effects/

Satellite Scene

In order to make our scene as realistic as possible and better establish the environment in which the audience is positioned, we considered it important that we include secondary objects/props. Because of the complexity of the satellite as an object, and the limited screen time that we planned for it to have we decided to base our satellite on an existing model that we found on an online 3D Model library. Whilst we used this model for the basis of our satellite, we did not think that the textures or overall shape of the satellite were entirely believable or realistic. We therefore decided that our best course of action was to customise the satellite extensively so it was as close to our aesthetic preference as possible. We therefore stripped the satellite model of all its materials, embarking on creating our own to apply to its different parts. We felt that this gave us more creative control and increased the extent to which we could achieve our aesthetic vision.

Although we had the basis of our satellite using the static 3D model, we also customised it a great deal further in terms of animation. As can be seen in the screenshot below, we keyframed the movement in terms of the position co-ordinates in order to make the satellite move towards the moon smoothly. Like much of our other Cinema 4D work however, this required an extensive level of rendering and trial and error, as for us, it was imperative that the satellite was moving at the correct slow speed in order to achieve the most realistic look possible. 

After animating the movement of the satellite however, we come across the most time consuming element of this scene, which also happened to be one of its most minor aspects. We endeavoured to create a small flashing light on the top of the satellite to add a further aspect of movement, making it closer to mirroring a real piece of astro technology. The process of doing this was as follows. Firstly, we had to use the materials tab in order to create a new material for the glowing light. Specifically, this material included Luminance, to make the material appear as if it is emitting light, Glow, to make the button radiate, and also colour, to give it it's red colour. After this, we had to keyframe each aspect of the material simultaneously in order to achieve glow and luminance at the same time as the button 'flashes'. Whilst visually this created a fairly convincing result, we found that the luminance on the button was only creating the impression of light, rather than casting real light beams. We could tell because the satellites remaining surfaces was not reflecting this light. In order to negate this issue, we had to create a red 'omni' light which we hid inside the button, keyframing it at the exact same intervals as the luminance and glow in order to create the impression that the button is radiating light sequentially as it glows. Although this was a particularly lengthy process, we feel as though it was necessary, as the minor details such as this are what contribute to making the piece feel as realistic as possible.

Flickering Animation Issue

Arguably the greatest hurdle that we come across when creating our sequence in Cinema 4D was the presence of a grainy flicker on various materials in our scene. This was an issue that presented itself a great deal amongst the production process and that was one of the most difficult to find a solution to.

The issue at it's worst can be seen in the test that we created below, which we conducted after we began to notice the presence of the flicker.



In order to get past this issue we spend a huge duration of time testing different variable settings in order to try and diagnose the issue. It also required us to search through forums such as CGTalk, in order to find a diagnosis from others who had experienced the issue before. One of the first semi-successful solutions that we found was adjusting the global illumination settings. "Cinema 4D uses the term Global Illumination to describe their Radiosity solution. Radiosity takes into account direct illumination of each surface, and adds to that secondary illumination — light bounced off other nearby surfaces". (http://planetpixelemporium.com/tutorialpages/global.html). Other C4D users had suggested that sometimes the use of Global Illumination, which adds a realistic depth to the scene, often is the root of shadow flicker. We found that by turning off this setting, a large improvement was made in terms of the levels of flicker. The results can be seen below.



Whilst this made the flicker a fair amount more tolerable, we found that we were still having issues, particularly in the shadows. This lead to us experimenting further with different variables to try and resolve the situation further. Noticing that most of this detail loss appeared in the shadows, we then attempted to experiment with the shadow settings, increasing the shadow mapping on each light, as well as the the shadow subdivisions in the render. This can be seen below.

We found that by increasing both the shadow subdivision, to values such as 4, and the Shadow Map on each light to resolutions of approximately 1000x1000, the issue was largely fixed apart from a few stray flickers. However, the only consequence of adjusting these settings was the significant increase in render time. Whlist a render with minimal shadow subdivisions and small shadow maps, as we carried out originally would take a few hours, this was increasing render times by more than double. However, with the image and final piece in mind, we felt as though this was a sacrifice worth taking. Moreover, the final variable that we found to provide us with success in counteracting the issue was the use of reflectance in the our materials. We found that by removing any trace of reflectance and specular, that the issue was almost entirely eradicated. Although we cannot be sure as to why reflectance was contributing to this issue taking place, we can assume that it is because it contains further detail than a non-reflective surface, making the rendering more of a difficult process.

Lighting issues

When making the lighting for the moon scene we came across a dilemma due to the placement of the astronaut. Due to the fact that the astronaut falls onto the moon, the transition of him lying down and also when he is crawling backwards at the end was difficult. In these stages he is close to the ground/surface so therefore in order to get the low key lighting that we wanted, the light also had to be equally as low. However, due to it being so low, it would leave bright spotlights on the ground's surface. Initially, we tried to change the light type to omni, area or spotlights but they all effected the the light on the surface. To overcome this issue we researched into how to avoid an object being affected by light. We found that this was possible and by clicking on the light's settings, you could drag in certain objects into the "exclude" tab and therefore allow them no be affected by the light. Ultimately, enabling us to position the light as close to the surface as needed without it being affected by the light at all.


The images below display a 'before and after', showing the difference made when objects are excluded from being affected by a light's radiation. As can be noticed, the second shot looks much more refined and atmospheric.

NASA - Voyager Recording (Sounds from Jupiter)

Recorded by NASA the sounds from Jupiter are amplified here. The sounds here are all within 20-20,000 seconds. The complex interactions of charged electromagnetic particles from the solar wind , planetary magnetosphere etc. create vibration "soundscapes". The overall sound here is mysterious and is dark. It might be interesting incorporating this sound into the composition, embedding into our space world. What I find fascinating about this recording from 1990 is that many people believe it is completely silent in space, however NASA have proven people wrong, and it's significant discovery has given film composers and sound artists the ability to experiment with sound in Sci-Fi films.

Sound in Space

Space is a virtual vacuum. Sound does exist in the form of electromagnetic vibrations that pulsate in similar wavelengths.

NASA have designed special instruments that can record electromagnetic vibrations, and transfer them into sounds that our ears could hear. In recent years, astronomers found a supermassive black hole humming 250 million light-years away from Earth, residing in the Perseus cluster. They observed ripples in the gas filling this cluster, producing the deepest “note” detected from any object in the universe – a B-flat, 57 octaves below middle C. This is a million billion times deeper than the lowest frequency of sound we can hear!

We often say that sound is impossible to come across in space, as The particles are so spread out, and the resulting sound waves are of such a low frequency, that they're beyond the capabilities of human hearing. 

It's been the case that sounds of very strong earthquakes are sometimes intense enough to make it out into space, and infrasound can carry on going where normal sound has to pull up. This is something that I'm definitely taking into consideration if I wish to utilise sound in different ways in the Trans-media piece.

Scientists have gathered that a short amount of time after the Big Bang (about 760,000 years), the Universe was dense enough for normal sounds to pass through it. If you hear the sound of a planet or spacecraft exploding in a Star Wars movie, its a craft by filmmakers that sound can be heard, both to generate atmosphere and to create anticipation.

There have been actual recordings from planets in the solar system for example:

Jupiter ↓ 

https://youtu.be/e3fqE01YYWs