Investigative Study

WEEK 1

Introduction to the module and the Investigative study into VFX

After the module was introduced we looked at breakdowns of films and series to see how they were done. We then choose a trailer and discuss it among our groups. After that parts of a book was read, discussed and later summarized.

Deadpool Breakdown

In the begging of the trailer they used great compositing to add 3D objects and smoke particles. When dead pool was looking down at the road they showed how they used green screen to added 3D elements to the scene.

By passing the trailer I could see that most cars were duplicated and added in different directions. You can really see this while watching it. Parts of the trailer were fast and other were slowed down for the purpose of hiding what they did not want you to see and directing you to what they wanted you to see.

Everything was so well done that I did not realize that most of it were CGI. I could even see pieces of cars and motorcycles flying around next to smoke and fire. This trailer was very detailed.

Summery/Bibliography annotation

Prince, S. (2010) Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Toys and Digital Visual Effects. Projections, 4(2), pp.19-22

Stephen Prince tells us how visual effects come about. He affirmed that “nothing ever happens for the first time in film history” (Prince,2010, p19). He suggested for us to look at the past, where science and cinema come together. By coming together, they influenced how digital imaging tools work today. It is true that many software’s and tolls used throughout history were created through science and art’s collaboration. He explains that this collaboration allowed for artist to created things like what we can find in the real world, by making use of the law of physics. He gives an example of times where the effects were not convincing and how a collaboration changed that for the better. Often film makers do ignore physics to get their desired overall look. Because science and art negotiated a common ground, where creators get to added fantasy to reality if things such “principles of motion and anatomy, and the physics involved in dynamic systems such as water” are somehow accurate (Prince,2010, p21).

Perceptual realism is “a major goal of special effects artists” (Prince,2010, p21). It allowed viewers to go with the fiction because of how well represented the scenes were. The authors tell us how harder it was to achieve this with traditional special effects because their tools were quite limited. Many people have different opinions on the use of digital effects in film. Most feel like it takes away from the narrative and others think it adds to it, as shown by the author.

Week 2

The relationship between Visual Effects and the Lens

Lev Manovich - What-is-Digital-Cinema?

Manovich, L. (2001) 'Digital Cinema’, The Language of New Media. Cambridge MA: MIT press.

Lev Manovich introduces us to the topic by talking about possibilities of the interaction between narrative and digital media. As many critics and viewers consider cinema as narrative driven, Manovich as many perceive digital media as a new way to tell stories. Manovich states that cinemas identity relayed in its ability to record reality and he also informed us that before there were cameras everything was hand drawn and after cameras appeared cinema relied on them to film reality and left the earlier techniques for animation. The author tells us that animation saw their images as a representation and cinema was defined as truth frames. He explains how animation and manual work created cinema and even after cinema forgot where it came from the foundation left behind reappear with digital cinema. He stated that now cinema captures and store visible reality to later modify them. The techniques and tools function of today’s digital films used similar principles of the past and the new technologies allow for infinity possibilities.

Article Comparison

Stephen Prince and Lev Manovich wrote about how digital effects came about, they show that what we see today is just a different way of doing the same thing and the way collaboration lead to innovation. Visual Effects and science gave birth to accurate effects, tools plus software and the foundation of Animation with manual creation plus cinema created digital media. Both articles had an opinion on how digital media would affect the narrative. Prince wrote about how collaboration created something more believable and Manovich wrote that there are possibilities of interaction between digital media and narrative. They both express the fact that many people feel like the effects takes away the identity of films. Both authors conclude that to create the digital effects there is always sampling of reality to create a perceptual realism that will allow people to enjoy the flow of any narrative because of accurate representation.

Initial Plan

This are screenshots of my powerpoint presentation.

I talked about about my title and question, what I will research and how.

I explained a bit about my potential pratical work and listed the softwares that I was thinking of using.

I also talked about my mind map and the resources that I would be using.

After some feedback and suggestions, I decided to adjust my tile, question and changed my partical work.

The importance of Real and Virtual cameras in Visual Effects

Is Visual Effects a Slave to the camera?

Cameras play an important role in visual effects (VFX), they allow artists to sample from reality, combine that footage with computer generated imagery to render a complete representation. I will investigate the compositing side of VFX, to see how compositors make use of the relationship between physical and virtual cameras to create photorealistic images. Inside of software’s such as Maya and Nuke there are virtual cameras that are designed to represent a real camera. This is a characteristic of the mechanisms of VFX, in the book The Reconfigured Eye (1994) William Mitchell talks about how we can create images with the substances of our world in a virtual world by introducing virtual lights and cameras (1994, p. 124).

After watching a TV program (Age of the Image) and reading some articles I learned that to create a believable visual narrative, cameras are used to sample elements of the real world to be used as plates and reference and that is why I have decided to look more into the importance of cameras in VFX.

I will be looking at ways the compositors make use of photography to build a photorealistic world and how virtual cameras are used in that process. Before the production pipeline gets to compositing, the plate (recorded footage) is also used as reference by artists to replicate real attributes such as size and characteristic of real object, things and aspects of an environment. The authors of the book Special effects: new histories, theories, contexts (2015) talk about how CGI needs to match the look of videos taken by the cameras to show something that viewers could familiarize with (2015, p. 91). That is why it is important to create fake analogue artefacts (such as optical lens effects or fim grain) in CGI to adapt CGI to what we expect when watching film (2015, p. 89).

I will briefly research the VFX pipeline to show some of the roles the physical and virtual camera plays in other VFX departments and how Pre-vis, which is a technology that allows artists or director to preview a shot projected by a virtual camera through a physical one, was influenced by a camera.

For that I will be researching literary sources; books, articles and watching documentaries to further my knowledge. I will provide evidence by showing times when digital images were produced with no reference at all and what result it had and compared it to when references were used. To also support my research, I undertake practical primary research work: Two images will be rendered, one will have all the components that affects a real photo, such a light and depth of field and another will just be I raw render without analogue attributes added. I will review and analyse these finds and include them in my overall conclusion.

A New Reality' (2020) Age of the Image, Series 1, episode 4. BBC 4, Television, 24 February,

Martin, L. (2009) New media: a critical introduction. Abingdon, New York: Routledge.

Mitchel, W. (1994) The reconfigured eye: visual truth in the post-photographic era . Edition. Place of publication: Publisher.

North, D. et al. (2015) Special effects: new histories, theories, contexts. Great Britain: Palgrave

Pratical process

I will Render a 3D camera that I modeled in MAYA, with default light and default camera settings.

I would render the same camera with adjusted lighting or a HDR and change the settings of the camera to add some depth of field and other elements tha we can find in a real photograph.

Pratical Experiment