Making “Figure/Ground” Part 2:
Finding an Approach.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
This blog entry is part of an ongoing series documenting the creation of my short film, “Figure/Ground”, about the death of my father, starring veteran actor Allan Kulakow. The finished film is a hybrid of photographic and painted imagery, created using Photoshop, After Effects and Final Cut Pro. The film uses many of the techniques discussed in my book “Digital Art Revolution”.
I’ll document my techniques, approaches, decision process and frustrations in hopes that they’ll be of interest to digital artists and filmmakers.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the images in the film were always intended to be a combination of digital painting and photographic images beautifully filmed by Director of Photography Ian Hinkle. I had previously created two entire sequences in a more “painty” style. I liked many of the individual images, but the resulting animation is too disjointed and distracting. This approach won’t work and I abandon several weeks of work. Nonetheless, I’ve learned a lot in my experimentation that I’ll be able to use.
I’ve gone back and forth asking myself if the film should be mostly photographic or painted in style. I eventually realize that I’m asking the wrong question. Many sequences are abstracted or expressive in style. Many are composed of multiple elements that need to be combined into a single image. Many scenes are completely blank right now and need to be made from scratch. I think a stylized approach will really be appropriate and make the subject matter more poignant and (hopefully) interesting. Whether the images APPEAR to be painted or photographic is irrelevant. No matter what, I’ll be painting into each frame and otherwise altering it. No matter what, I’ll be working with the video footage created by Ian and our talented cast and crew.
The question then, is not whether it will be painted or photographic. One of the exciting things about digital art, after all, is that is blurs the boundaries between mediums to the point of irrelevance. The question should be “What would be good?” or “What will work?”. I decide on these basic parameters. All backgrounds will be rendered in a monochromatic yellow green color. The foreground images will be very colorful so they will really pop against this monochrome background. Some backgrounds will be created from scratch, but most backgrounds are from actual video footage. This means I’ll have to create selection masks around every person in every frame and place these figures on a separate layer in Photoshop to alter them separately.
Above: A sequence in the Filmstrip Format.
Links to other entries about the making of Figure/Ground:
Next: Go to “Making of Figure/Ground” Part 3
GO TO “FIGURE/GROUND” EXTRAS PAGE FOR COMPLETE INDEX.
In After Effects, you can save footage in the Filmstrip (.flm) format. I think of this as a sort of secret Photoshop format because it’s not listed in Photoshop but it can be read, opened, and re-saved in Photoshop. This creates a giant single flat image containing all the frames in a given video segment.
When I open this in Photoshop, I can adjust the value, color and contrast of every frame at once, and then go frame-by-frame and paint, mask or erase parts of each image. The finished film is 24 frames per second. I decide to create the filmstrips at 6 frames per second. This helps to create the jittery stylized movement that I was looking for, in a way that’s more subtle than my earlier “painty” approach. It also cuts my workload by 75%, which makes this a feasible approach.
Original Footage
Masked, Painted Figure
Background
Completed Image
I open each filmstrip in Photoshop. I duplicate the video footage on a new layer, so I can start over if I don’t like the results. I begin by adjusting the tone (value) of the image. I sharpen it with FILTER>SHARPEN>UNSHARP MASK.
Then I use IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>REPLACE COLOR over and over again.
I’ll select a color, adjust the “fuzziness” slider to select a greater range of color or to limit it to a smaller range of color.
Then I can create a new color within this panel and use it to replace my selected color range. I do this over and over, trying to create areas of warm color juxtaposed against areas of cool colors and create sparks of vivid reds against greens and blues in shadow areas. If it doesn’t work I’ll undo and try again. I also use FILTER>BLUR>SURFACE BLUR and FILTER>NOISE>DUST AND SCRATCHES to flatten surfaces and remove film grain.
I paint into them as needed, being careful and subtle. If I alter shapes too much, an area can jump and wiggle while the rest of the image remains smooth. I mask and remove the background from every frame. I create a new background layer and treat it separately, flattened, green and often blurred to exaggerate atmospheric perspective and make the figures “pop”.
I often use these techniques combined with new techniques invented for specific sequences. I find that different parts of the film require different approaches depending on the subject and the way it was filmed, in order to make consistent results.
In these periodic blogs, I’ll talk about some of these choices and approaches.
Filmstrips cannot have multiple layers. I re-save my multilayered document in Photoshop format and then paste the merged layers back into the filmstrip at the end, re-import it into After Effects and create a little movie segment to imported into Final Cut, where I edit my movie. Whew!
Since I’ve just completed my first sequence and then abandoned my work, I’ll start with the second sequence in my new approach and tell you about it in my next blog entry.
Digital Art Revolution Blog