Drawing lessons or how the film “The Second of Free Fall” was made
At the filming is very popular phrase: "And, figs with him, we will paint on the post-production!". This wonderful thing, as the refinement of the post-production of the shooting "figs with him", and this article is devoted. Here I will talk about personal experience and the benefits of using this spell while working on the short film “Free Fall Second”, the director of which I am.
')
Before shooting, I didn’t plan to use digital processing in general (with the exception of color correction), wishing to achieve the most realistic image. Well, well! .. The magical "fig with him" has incredible power, all magicians know it!
I'll start with filming in the forest. If everything is simple and clear with daytime shots, we had to spend the night time. A van with a generator, a bunch of lights, illuminating cameramanship with the brilliance of the night, then color correction in the hope of achieving the right shade ... Everything went according to plan. At least, nothing was postponed for postproduction. Almost ... In the confusion of filming, to shoot the details of the night without actors, however, it turned out not to be fate. And the details are needed. But the day parts of the forest - at least sell it on the Air Force! The exit turned out to be logical: we take day shots and ... make them nightly. Brilliant, isn't it? The main thing is aggressive color correction. And the more aggressive the better!
But in the episode with the rain the fun began. In the story, the actors get wet in the rain and ... um, kiss. The original filming plan was as follows: place yourself near the river, throw the end of the hose with a pump into the water, and hand the other end to the assistant director, and with a cry: “Oh God of Rain, give us moisture!”, Enjoy the sight of weeping actors while hiding under the umbrella. But if everything was like that, this article would not have appeared, you understand? .. God of Rain, in the face of gibbering, of course, gave us moisture and the actors - as they should be - were soaked. Only the God of Rain - only the God of Rain, not the God of Gravity - and the drops flew somehow crookedly, then fell on the actors, then the devil knows where to fly. And we, having consulted, decided: “Ah, figs with him, we will finish drawing on the post-production!”. Edited something in After Effects was no problem - the filter CC Rainfall fit the bill - but ...
As you can see, the settings are animated - it is possible to change the wind direction, strength and depth of rain inside each frame, which adds realism.
But according to the plan, we still had to shoot rapid shots. Quote from the director's script: "Rain drops are slowly flowing down Katina's face." I wrote, it seems, not bad, but how to embody an essay of the inflamed brain - you will break your head ... The shooting was conducted on Arri Alexa, the maximum frequency of which is 60 fps. At Red Epic, we did not have enough money, and 60 fps is not able to give the proper slowdown. Well, hello Twixtor! There are a lot of slow motion shots in the film - and all of them were presented to us by the favorite Twixtor plugin. There are special specifics with the twixstor, the quality of slowing down strongly depends on the quality of the footage: clarity is important, the lack of blurry “intermediate” motion phases, the absence of camera jerks, the monotony of the background, the maximum contrast of the background and the slowed down object - yes, I crucify if you are familiar the word "tvikstore", all this is already known! In some shots of “Seconds of Free Fall” you can see Twixstor artifacts: for example, during thefall of the stunt jump actor from the roof, the rope twitches unnaturally. The reason for this is the blurred movement of the rope on the footage.
On the freeze frame, a “double” rope is clearly visible.
But back to the forest rain. The God of Rain on our site, of course, was steep, but not so steep as to conjure up drops and drops. He is only the God of the Rain, not the God of Gravity. I had to draw in the after. This is a standard CC effect. Mercury, which gives a feeling of moisture adhering to the lens (and if you add a burgundy hue, even blood flow down the screen), but when you pick in the settings no worse than in the nose, you achieve the illusion of slowly falling drops outside the lens.
Three to five layers with this effect are created on each frame with drops. The Radius and Producer settings on each layer are different - this allows you to create the illusion of frame depth without working in 3D space.
Having filmed common plans with the rain and rolled the operator onto the dolly, it is time for large and medium plans. Suddenly, the battery sat down at the camera. Here the God of Electricity would have saved us, but, alas, it was not on the site - a mechanic with a spare battery was stuck in an "unforeseen" Moscow traffic jam at that time. The film crew finally waited for him, but the sun did not wait for him. Rain decided dosnyat later. When this “later” came, the temperature on the street dropped to zero degrees and I, at the thought of film rain,felt somehow uncomfortable for the actors who did not want to stand under an umbrella in such cold weather. And close-ups were completed in the pavilion. God of Rain this time was with a watering can. Nearby there was a bucket with “spare” water, and one of the administrators constantly updated this “spare” water. Behind the weeping - as they should be - the actors were hromakey.
We now turn to the most sosnenkimu. “The Second of Free Fall” - a picture of roojampers. And what's the point of watching a movie about extremes, if the shooting was not extreme? No, well, the truth is like silicone tits! There are many ways to lift the camera into the air without using computer graphics: a crane, cables, a quadrocopter, a helicopter, etc. - at least an orbital satellite or a kamikaze with a lens on the forehead! Each of these techniques has its own nuances, subtleties of the image, binding to the terrain, dependence on wind speed and direction, presence / absence of precipitation, there is a specific camera movement such as: smoothness, speed, elevation and so on.
During the pre-production, the idea was to stretch the ropes for tens of meters and send the operator to hang out at a height of 10-12 floors. But only one operator was available, which caused some complications ... A variant of a camera racing on cables, flying out of the edge of a crane’s roof and, alternatively, a non-member of a film crew falling from thirty meters, was thought about. But, thanks to the efforts of the executive producer, the best option was found that meets almost all the requests for the necessary picture and fits into the budget without human sacrifice (which is probably important). Radio-controlled helicopter.
Do not be confused by the word “radio-controlled” - this toy requires as much care as a transformer. Two people control it: a pilot with a remote control and a cameraman in virtual glasses. The signal from the virtual glasses is also duplicated on the director's monitor. What is missing is that the controlling AI of some Deus Ex. However, who knows .......... The duration of the flight in our case is 15 minutes, after which the helicopter should be put on a “refueling” station. Load capacity is small, Arri Alexa will not be able to hang, so aerial filming was done on the Sony FS. Cons of this technical unit: a huge dependence on weather conditions. One of the shooting shifts came off because of the sudden rain (God of Rain with us on this day was not, and the weather forecast in the fall for every day is typical and very promising: partly cloudy), which caused one tenth of the film’s budget to disappear safely into a pool. Due to the air turbulence, our blade-driven robot was unable to vertically rise 30 meters or more along the building, because there was a danger of a crash, but away from the building or diagonally towards the walls of the building - please. Need five seconds? - easy! Neither a crane, nor (as far as I know) a quadrocopter is capable of such. A panoramic span of fifty meters or more - all the beauty! But here immediately the second significant disadvantage makes itself felt. Stabilization. There is always a small amount of shaking in such shootings (didn't you forget about the spell “figs with him”?), But this is easily stabilized by tracking. Personally, I used the plugin for After Effects - the simplest to learn Mercalli. Even domestic cockroaches are able to use it.
After tracking there is a second difficulty. If helicopter shots are left in real playback speed, then everything is OK: after digital stabilization, no one will notice the shaking that was once present. But I accelerated many shots ten times that way ... As a result, after tracking, there were artifacts that I could not get rid of - a perspective distortion. I will explain briefly for those who are in a tank and not in a helicopter: because of the wind gusts, the radio-controlled bird tilts it one way or the other. If the playback speed is the same as during shooting, then after tracking no one will pay attention to it. But it is necessary to speed up playback, as the eye begins to notice that the camera is “shaking”. Just like at the exit of the bar. And the higher the playback speed, the more noticeable “staggering”. Tracking stabilizes shaking, but with a promising distortion, he can not fight.
In the episode, where the hero climbs over the railing and jumps from the railway bridge, the viewer might think that the actor really jumps from a 25 meter bridge. I, in general, insisted on this, but for some reason the actor wanted to live. Therefore I had to take on a simple cinematic reception. As all brain owners know, bridge rails do not start at maximum height. So in our case - there was no more than two meters from the actor jumping from the bridge to the ground, and the angle was chosen so that the viewer did not see the ground. It remains only to put on the installation next frame with the legs of the hero on the edge of the abyss - and the illusion of height is provided.
All interior shooting (not counting the climbing wall) is a pavilion. Even the tent in the pavilion was rented. When we see a city outside the window, in fact we see the whole green screen (I’m talking about the film, not about your window). Of course, I didn’t mind hitting the hologram, but someone whispered in my ear that it was expensive. Frames with a night view were taken separately on a time-lapse at a frame rate of one frame per five seconds. That is why in the film the lights outside the window blink pleasantly.
The moments when we see the hero from the street, 50% of the computer graphics: the window frame, glare (Knoll Light plugin) and reflections on the glass are added to After Effects. At a time when the camera “seeps” through the glass and enters the room, the operator drove away on the rails from the chromakey past the glass-free window. Subsequently, the glass was finished in After Effects (glass texture + translucent gradient + glare), the distortion from the lens passing through the glass was added with a simple animation of the Turbulent Distortion EZ effect. But the passage of the camera through the wall is real - the camera simply passes from one room of the pavilion to another. The time shown by the clock is also drawn in the after; reason: "Well, and figs with him!".
But the episodes with chromakey turned out to be much more than planned. As soon as it was time to shoot the jumps from the roof, the leading man safely hid in the hospital. The general and long-range plans were eventually performed by the understudy, and close-ups, after the actor was removed from the hospital, were shot at the chromakey in the pavilion. But then we made a number of mistakes. Firstly, during the filming we ended the paid number of shifts for Arri Alexa and had to be shot by Canon Mark II, and the material that was shot at the mark was correctly cut, unlike the frames shot at alexa, times more complicated. Secondly, the actors we put too close to the green screen, they are "background". Thirdly, we conducted studio color correction before keying ... The result was shocking: the skeletal actors glowed with a green halo like Chernobyl mutants. Keith actors in After Effects had pieces, like the monsters of Frankenstein, to each of the layers of the mask using special settings keying. Intermediate material, at times, looked funny.
In general, the work took about a year - this is from the time of writing the script to the final render. The shooting took about two months (15 shifts, without taking into account the development of locations), post-production - about three months (despite the fact that the New Year booze lasted for two weeks!). I foresee a question about the budget: 300,000 rubles. Everything went to the equipment and services of the studio (really, really!).
In conclusion, I want to say that the magic: "Well, and figs with him!", Still magic. If we were not familiar with this spell, the beauty of working on post-production would not be so pretty. However, if we consider ...
And, figs with him!
')
Before shooting, I didn’t plan to use digital processing in general (with the exception of color correction), wishing to achieve the most realistic image. Well, well! .. The magical "fig with him" has incredible power, all magicians know it!
I'll start with filming in the forest. If everything is simple and clear with daytime shots, we had to spend the night time. A van with a generator, a bunch of lights, illuminating cameramanship with the brilliance of the night, then color correction in the hope of achieving the right shade ... Everything went according to plan. At least, nothing was postponed for postproduction. Almost ... In the confusion of filming, to shoot the details of the night without actors, however, it turned out not to be fate. And the details are needed. But the day parts of the forest - at least sell it on the Air Force! The exit turned out to be logical: we take day shots and ... make them nightly. Brilliant, isn't it? The main thing is aggressive color correction. And the more aggressive the better!
But in the episode with the rain the fun began. In the story, the actors get wet in the rain and ... um, kiss. The original filming plan was as follows: place yourself near the river, throw the end of the hose with a pump into the water, and hand the other end to the assistant director, and with a cry: “Oh God of Rain, give us moisture!”, Enjoy the sight of weeping actors while hiding under the umbrella. But if everything was like that, this article would not have appeared, you understand? .. God of Rain, in the face of gibbering, of course, gave us moisture and the actors - as they should be - were soaked. Only the God of Rain - only the God of Rain, not the God of Gravity - and the drops flew somehow crookedly, then fell on the actors, then the devil knows where to fly. And we, having consulted, decided: “Ah, figs with him, we will finish drawing on the post-production!”. Edited something in After Effects was no problem - the filter CC Rainfall fit the bill - but ...
As you can see, the settings are animated - it is possible to change the wind direction, strength and depth of rain inside each frame, which adds realism.
But according to the plan, we still had to shoot rapid shots. Quote from the director's script: "Rain drops are slowly flowing down Katina's face." I wrote, it seems, not bad, but how to embody an essay of the inflamed brain - you will break your head ... The shooting was conducted on Arri Alexa, the maximum frequency of which is 60 fps. At Red Epic, we did not have enough money, and 60 fps is not able to give the proper slowdown. Well, hello Twixtor! There are a lot of slow motion shots in the film - and all of them were presented to us by the favorite Twixtor plugin. There are special specifics with the twixstor, the quality of slowing down strongly depends on the quality of the footage: clarity is important, the lack of blurry “intermediate” motion phases, the absence of camera jerks, the monotony of the background, the maximum contrast of the background and the slowed down object - yes, I crucify if you are familiar the word "tvikstore", all this is already known! In some shots of “Seconds of Free Fall” you can see Twixstor artifacts: for example, during the
On the freeze frame, a “double” rope is clearly visible.
But back to the forest rain. The God of Rain on our site, of course, was steep, but not so steep as to conjure up drops and drops. He is only the God of the Rain, not the God of Gravity. I had to draw in the after. This is a standard CC effect. Mercury, which gives a feeling of moisture adhering to the lens (and if you add a burgundy hue, even blood flow down the screen), but when you pick in the settings no worse than in the nose, you achieve the illusion of slowly falling drops outside the lens.
Three to five layers with this effect are created on each frame with drops. The Radius and Producer settings on each layer are different - this allows you to create the illusion of frame depth without working in 3D space.
Having filmed common plans with the rain and rolled the operator onto the dolly, it is time for large and medium plans. Suddenly, the battery sat down at the camera. Here the God of Electricity would have saved us, but, alas, it was not on the site - a mechanic with a spare battery was stuck in an "unforeseen" Moscow traffic jam at that time. The film crew finally waited for him, but the sun did not wait for him. Rain decided dosnyat later. When this “later” came, the temperature on the street dropped to zero degrees and I, at the thought of film rain,
We now turn to the most sosnenkimu. “The Second of Free Fall” - a picture of roojampers. And what's the point of watching a movie about extremes, if the shooting was not extreme? No, well, the truth is like silicone tits! There are many ways to lift the camera into the air without using computer graphics: a crane, cables, a quadrocopter, a helicopter, etc. - at least an orbital satellite or a kamikaze with a lens on the forehead! Each of these techniques has its own nuances, subtleties of the image, binding to the terrain, dependence on wind speed and direction, presence / absence of precipitation, there is a specific camera movement such as: smoothness, speed, elevation and so on.
During the pre-production, the idea was to stretch the ropes for tens of meters and send the operator to hang out at a height of 10-12 floors. But only one operator was available, which caused some complications ... A variant of a camera racing on cables, flying out of the edge of a crane’s roof and, alternatively, a non-member of a film crew falling from thirty meters, was thought about. But, thanks to the efforts of the executive producer, the best option was found that meets almost all the requests for the necessary picture and fits into the budget without human sacrifice (which is probably important). Radio-controlled helicopter.
Do not be confused by the word “radio-controlled” - this toy requires as much care as a transformer. Two people control it: a pilot with a remote control and a cameraman in virtual glasses. The signal from the virtual glasses is also duplicated on the director's monitor. What is missing is that the controlling AI of some Deus Ex. However, who knows .......... The duration of the flight in our case is 15 minutes, after which the helicopter should be put on a “refueling” station. Load capacity is small, Arri Alexa will not be able to hang, so aerial filming was done on the Sony FS. Cons of this technical unit: a huge dependence on weather conditions. One of the shooting shifts came off because of the sudden rain (God of Rain with us on this day was not, and the weather forecast in the fall for every day is typical and very promising: partly cloudy), which caused one tenth of the film’s budget to disappear safely into a pool. Due to the air turbulence, our blade-driven robot was unable to vertically rise 30 meters or more along the building, because there was a danger of a crash, but away from the building or diagonally towards the walls of the building - please. Need five seconds? - easy! Neither a crane, nor (as far as I know) a quadrocopter is capable of such. A panoramic span of fifty meters or more - all the beauty! But here immediately the second significant disadvantage makes itself felt. Stabilization. There is always a small amount of shaking in such shootings (didn't you forget about the spell “figs with him”?), But this is easily stabilized by tracking. Personally, I used the plugin for After Effects - the simplest to learn Mercalli. Even domestic cockroaches are able to use it.
After tracking there is a second difficulty. If helicopter shots are left in real playback speed, then everything is OK: after digital stabilization, no one will notice the shaking that was once present. But I accelerated many shots ten times that way ... As a result, after tracking, there were artifacts that I could not get rid of - a perspective distortion. I will explain briefly for those who are in a tank and not in a helicopter: because of the wind gusts, the radio-controlled bird tilts it one way or the other. If the playback speed is the same as during shooting, then after tracking no one will pay attention to it. But it is necessary to speed up playback, as the eye begins to notice that the camera is “shaking”. Just like at the exit of the bar. And the higher the playback speed, the more noticeable “staggering”. Tracking stabilizes shaking, but with a promising distortion, he can not fight.
In the episode, where the hero climbs over the railing and jumps from the railway bridge, the viewer might think that the actor really jumps from a 25 meter bridge. I, in general, insisted on this, but for some reason the actor wanted to live. Therefore I had to take on a simple cinematic reception. As all brain owners know, bridge rails do not start at maximum height. So in our case - there was no more than two meters from the actor jumping from the bridge to the ground, and the angle was chosen so that the viewer did not see the ground. It remains only to put on the installation next frame with the legs of the hero on the edge of the abyss - and the illusion of height is provided.
All interior shooting (not counting the climbing wall) is a pavilion. Even the tent in the pavilion was rented. When we see a city outside the window, in fact we see the whole green screen (I’m talking about the film, not about your window). Of course, I didn’t mind hitting the hologram, but someone whispered in my ear that it was expensive. Frames with a night view were taken separately on a time-lapse at a frame rate of one frame per five seconds. That is why in the film the lights outside the window blink pleasantly.
The moments when we see the hero from the street, 50% of the computer graphics: the window frame, glare (Knoll Light plugin) and reflections on the glass are added to After Effects. At a time when the camera “seeps” through the glass and enters the room, the operator drove away on the rails from the chromakey past the glass-free window. Subsequently, the glass was finished in After Effects (glass texture + translucent gradient + glare), the distortion from the lens passing through the glass was added with a simple animation of the Turbulent Distortion EZ effect. But the passage of the camera through the wall is real - the camera simply passes from one room of the pavilion to another. The time shown by the clock is also drawn in the after; reason: "Well, and figs with him!".
But the episodes with chromakey turned out to be much more than planned. As soon as it was time to shoot the jumps from the roof, the leading man safely hid in the hospital. The general and long-range plans were eventually performed by the understudy, and close-ups, after the actor was removed from the hospital, were shot at the chromakey in the pavilion. But then we made a number of mistakes. Firstly, during the filming we ended the paid number of shifts for Arri Alexa and had to be shot by Canon Mark II, and the material that was shot at the mark was correctly cut, unlike the frames shot at alexa, times more complicated. Secondly, the actors we put too close to the green screen, they are "background". Thirdly, we conducted studio color correction before keying ... The result was shocking: the skeletal actors glowed with a green halo like Chernobyl mutants. Keith actors in After Effects had pieces, like the monsters of Frankenstein, to each of the layers of the mask using special settings keying. Intermediate material, at times, looked funny.
In general, the work took about a year - this is from the time of writing the script to the final render. The shooting took about two months (15 shifts, without taking into account the development of locations), post-production - about three months (despite the fact that the New Year booze lasted for two weeks!). I foresee a question about the budget: 300,000 rubles. Everything went to the equipment and services of the studio (really, really!).
In conclusion, I want to say that the magic: "Well, and figs with him!", Still magic. If we were not familiar with this spell, the beauty of working on post-production would not be so pretty. However, if we consider ...
And, figs with him!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/174075/
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