Final: Land of the Lost

I have done some awesome projects in animation, but this one has been my favorite!

The assignment was to take all we have learned throughout the year and combined it to make into one video. This includes: 3D animation, special effects, 3 point lighting, and green screen technology. 

My group brainstormed ideas. One of the members in our group thought about making a Back to the Future film. We all agreed on it and started story boarding. Our conversation changed to the old Land of the Lost TV show. We looked up the theme song to it and ended up  loving it! That's when we realized that we should base our project off of Land of the Lost.

It didn't take long to storyboard because our film was going to be mimicking the Land of the Lost intro theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwvguf_0kUw

Our group then assigned roles to everyone.

I was the director of the film and was in charge of putting the whole film together on Adobe After Effects. Corey Eaton was the director of photography and filmed the shots of us in the green screen room and the closeups of the steam from his backyard. Hanna Brady was in charge of the 3D animation of the Land of the Lost title. Brianna helped by making graphic designs for the credit scenes and Kate made the storyboard.


In this film we didn't actually record ourselves floating down a river in a raft, it was what we call movie magic! This magic came from what is called a green screen. The green screen gives us the power to transport ourselves to another place while still being in the same room. What we did was place ourselves in front of the green screen and record as if we were in the river. In the animation software, After Effects, you can change the background into whatever you want (in this case a river).

After filming all the shots needed, we imported them into After Effects. I laid each shot in order and began the green screen transformation. The first step is creating a magenta matte to go behind all of my camera shots. This is because magenta is the opposite of green. I then created a Color Key Effect that turns the green color into that magenta. It is important to not have shadows of your subject while filming in the green screen room. The shadows are harder to get rid of (a tip is using the three point lighting technic).


After color correcting your subject so it goes along with your background, you are ready to drop the background in.
Once the background is placed under the shot you want it to be you can begin scaling, moving, or rotation your subject. The Color Key effect allows your background to become invisible so you don't have to worry about the green color. 

The green screen transforms this…

...into this(:

I the original video, Land of the Lost, it had an earthquake appear. Through the use of movie magic we were able to make that earthquake possible in our film. Our director of photography, Corey, found special effects to use to make it look like rocks were falling onto us and splashing into the river. This is one of my favorite shots of the entire film because it is funny to watch and really adds to our video.

After doing all of this work we then added the Land of the Lost theme music.

Hope you enjoyed our film!

Misdirection

We called this film Misdirection. It is about a street magician named Will, who's mother is ill. She lives in a nursing home and is facing serious debt problems. Will is overwhelmed by the situate and decides to steal the wallet of a volunteer during his magic trick. Relief rushed over him until later that night. The volunteer (Matt) confronted him, accusing him of stealing the wallet. Will was frightened and quickly started running. Matt chases Will into an alley and all you hear is the sound of two gun shots. The final shot is a mysterious hand putting a stack of cash on the nightstand of the mother's bed.



This film came together very well in the end. When coming up with a story, we had to make sure it included a water bottle, a hat, a light source, and the phrase "Light's Out". The scope of the project was to combined all that we've learned this year and make it into a video.

 My group wanted to make a more serious film to challenge ourselves. We spent the first few days coming up with the plot and writing the script. Then, we assigned jobs for everyone to do. I was in charge of storyboarding out all the scenes. In class we would write down locations to shoot our film. It was difficult because our story couldn't be shot during school hours. While other groups were filming their stories, we were gathering around a table figuring out the locations, the storyboard, the script, and the cast.

Once we figured out everything, my group was ready to start filming. After school on Friday, May 8th, We met up at Corey Eaton's house to shoot the first scene. We decided that Lucas Scott and Kaleb Axe will be our two leads. We asked Graham Petter's mom to play the mother in this production. Everything went well for scene 1.
The director of Photography (Corey), got a lot of close up shots that helped with the intro to our story. He also recorded scene 1 in various angles so later in the editing process we would have multiple shots to work with. After scene one was completely recorded, we headed to downtown Lenexa where we shot the rest of the footage.
One of the problems with shooting at sundown is that you have to film quickly, otherwise, your lighting for the scene goes away. However, we did manage to get all the shots needed for this scene and it ended up looking really cool!

Editing this film was a trouble for me because I was sick and had to miss school for two days. I stayed after school for a couple days trying to catch up on work. Luckily, I managed to finish it in the nick of time.
After reviewing each of my groups videos, I noticed how differently everyone edited theirs. For example I used flashbacks and sound effects in my video while others in my group used music to go with the serious tone. However, all of them turned out great. I am very proud of my group for pulling together.

I have learned a lot about video for the past year. It has impacted me and made me closer to my goal in life. Overall it has been a fun year and I wouldn't change a thing(: