EP Group Project – Week 04
For the fourth week, we finished filming at both locations we discussed last week. We started with the building scenes. Fortunately, there weren’t many people around, so we could film freely without restricting passersby. Setting up the camera wasn’t easy because we weren’t used to utilizing it. Additionally, the angle was too narrow even though we were quite far from the actor. This turned out to be a screen size issue; we fixed it by changing the resolution to 4K or 6K (although 6K was also problematic because the SD card speed was insufficient, causing the camera to stop shooting after a few seconds). After resolving this, we tested angles, exposure, and camera movement (since the Blackmagic camera doesn’t have great auto-focusing, we had to focus manually).
There was an incident where our actor, Minghan, almost lost his phone to a thief. Fortunately, he had his phone strap on his wrist, so it was safe. We had to pause filming briefly due to this incident. Afterward, we continued filming and captured great scenes. We initially filmed according to the animatic, but midway through, we adjusted some scenes to make more sense and reduce time.
After completing the first location, we moved to the Waterloo tunnel. Unfortunately, there were too many people to film without interruption. We filmed several times with different setups, such as having the actor wear a chest mount, following the actor while wearing the chest mount, and mounting the camera on the back. While they were riding and filming, I reviewed the footage on my phone using the GoPro app. After a few more attempts, we finished filming. Ironically, the crowd disappeared just as we completed our shots. In hindsight, we might have started a bit too early. Nevertheless, we successfully completed our filming journey.
After collecting all the footage, I edited a rough cut to determine which clips fit each scene. I checked for shakiness, length, focus issues, etc. I managed to create the first rough cut of our project. After sharing it with my group members, Alwin suggested inserting a scene before another shot. As it made more sense, I implemented his suggestion. We wanted to include a shot where the actor’s arms come into view and hold the handle, but we didn’t capture this sufficiently. Therefore, we plan to film this additional shot on the day of our green screen session. Now, all we need is the green screen filming for the CG tunnel. I hope it goes well.
Also, I conducted an experiment for tracking. I started with simple tracking, such as the handle in a fixed shot. The first shot was to stabilize the footage due to its shakiness. I was able to extract camera data from tracking in Nuke, so I believe we can start modeling the handle for the ground model of FX (growing plants). Other shots involve more complex movements and will require further experimentation. To ensure we allocate enough time for each shot, I plan to create another animatic using screenshots from the videos. This approach should provide a clearer and more direct understanding of movement, direction, timing, etc.
My tasks for next week:
- Tracking experiment
- Green screen filming
- Animatic v03