Making the digital video “Figure/Ground” Part 13: Beginning Again.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
In the previous post, I completed the final sequence of the movie. In this post, I’m back to the beginning of the movie, the first sequence. I’d tried it before, using a different approach that didn’t work. Now I’m giving it another try.
I’m working from a tiny image, blown up for the very first image in my movie. It’s too small to create clear movement from this image, so I create a single non-moving image that I pan and animate in Final Cut. My face is basically completely painted. I create exaggerated “Maxfield Parrish” lighting conditions in Photoshop. I think it looks nice and it also lets me place my face in deep shadow so it’s not as obvious that it’s less photographic than the rest of the image.
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.
I went through many attempts on this face before doing an acceptable one.
Lots of work. Mask! Mask! Mask! Paint! Paint! Paint!
I created a quick flashback sequence. I retouched Allan and placed him in front of a photo of my real life childhood home. Added artificial film grain and blew out the contrast.
My mother is played by Naomi Kulakow, Allan’s real life spouse and an accomplished actress in her own right. They recently filmed a pilot together for CBS!
In the scene below she’s using my mother’s actual camera from my childhood.
The next post will cover creating the opening credits for Figure/Ground.
Links to other entries about the making of Figure/Ground:
Digital Art Revolution Blog