Making the digital video “Figure/Ground” Part 14: The Funeral (opening credits for the film).
Thursday, February 18, 2010
In this post, having finished a first draft of all the scenes in the film, I return to the funeral scenes that are a part of the opening credits. These funeral scenes are actually the first scenes I started working on (gasp) nearly two years ago. I spent a couple months hand painting each figure, using my 6 frames per second approach.
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.
This particular scene is a massive multi-layered sequence where each funeral attendee is animated and zooms past the viewer as if the camera were rapidly moving among them. I did an initial motion test of my work at that time and it didn’t work. This rapid and artificial movement needed more frames-per-second to work effectively. Before I got to address the issue, I completed another video collaboration, got my book deal, wrote “Digital Art Revolution”, accepted my job teaching at the Cleveland Institute of Art and relocated to Ohio. Now I’ve finally come full circle and I’m addressing that same sequence. I realize I’ll need to take a simpler approach and make this sequence a full 24 frames per second. This is a trade off because it means I’ll have to be more simple on any painting and alteration to the images, in order to keep the animation fluid. It works better, but not quite as pretty. Sigh.
In the opening funeral shot, actress Molly Sheldon wasn’t able to show up until after this scene was filmed. She played a family member in other scenes, and it was logical for her to be in the funeral scene. I place her in the background on the far right. She’s looking aloof and isolated because I had to keep her separate than the other figures.
If you look to the right of Molly, on the ground, you can see the Director of Photography’s upside down hat and bag of camera equipment, which we accidentally left in scene. I could paint it out, but it’s pretty nondescript and amuses me to leave it in.
I want the title words on a Tombstone. I decide it would be cool to make my own typeface from letters on real tombstones and use this. I go to a cemetery and spend a couple hours on a scavenger hunt (now I’m looking for a “G”), taking pictures of tombstone letters.
I try it. Nah. Doesn’t work. At least I got out of the house on a nice day.
I go back to the idea of creating a tombstone in Photoshop, which I had originally tried and been unsatisfied with. My second try is acceptable.
At this point, I’ve completed the basic work on the movie. All sequences have been assembled and created...but there’s more to be done! Fine tuning the editing and pacing. Retouching images where they need them. Color Correction. Sound Effects. Music. Ending Credits. I would consider myself about 80% done. These details can make the difference between whether a movie works or not. I’ll keep you posted!
Links to other entries about the making of Figure/Ground:
Digital Art Revolution Blog