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.