Sword in the stone brief. Concentrating on the sword, Excalibur, instead of Arthur. Set in a forest (possibly Hampstead) early morning, different shots, possibly on the last shot an actor (who will play Arthur) walking towards the stone.
James Bond Opening Intro Sequences
All of these films intros have numerous things in common. A bold music choice, special effects and a common theme with the title of the film.
Mood board for assignment 2
For my assignment 2 I want to do something on the lines of mystery. Smoke,masks and filmed in black and white are a few things i would like to bring into my clip. Instead of having a villain that we know, I want to keep it a surprise.
Music ideas
I put a spell on you- Nina Simone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua2k52n_Bvw
Some of these days - Bobby Darin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Gf3UVMnM8
Kiss and kill - Lara Loft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GNM1yyuIck
I belong to you - Caro Emerald
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYNUg5j7tr0
Music is an important element to the James Bond intros, Shirley Bassey and brass instruments are commonly used. My first idea was Nina Simone's version of I out a spell on you to keep with the theme. Bobby Darin also sounds very familiar to a James Bond intro. The Lara Loft and Caro Emerald are pretty new songs but still stick to the theme.
Intro to After Effects
After learning the interface of AfterEffects, we were finally able to get our hands dirty. We took a look at composition and basic animation. We also played around with shapes and recreated the Dr.No intro.
We learnt how to use masks and alphas, I used the mask effect on the Sean Connerly image. And for the flaming skull, I used an image of Marc Bolan and Alphas to create this awesome effect.
This had to be by far one of my favorite lessons. We finally got to use the green screen room with help from assistants of the University! They explained everything we needed to know from which kind of green works best to what the screens meant. I also got to direct certain things that I could use for my assignment 2 .
In this lesson we were taught about the interface of Nuke and how to create different effects such as blur and color correct.
Assignment One
By using the techniques learnt over the weeks in class and combining some of the effects together, I was able to produce a short clip to show them off.
This clip also represents some ideas I have had for my next assignment (The James Bond Intro). While creating this clip, I learnt another technique: The Mirror Effect. This effect will help me to achieve a kaleidoscope, an effect that is presented in the Casino Royal intro.
In our last face to face lesson we learnt how to to animate the ball and direct it through the maze! In the video you can see how important it is to take your time and not to rush the process because your animation will end up rushed too.
In Maya we learnt how to this globe and animate it so it would spin like a real planet. However I was not able to import it into Adobe to finish the task off.
MASH was an amazing plugin to learn about. With MASH you can create so much with just a few clicks of your mouse.
Assignment Two
For my second assignment I wanted to stick with black and white visuals and silhouettes. In many ways it's mysterious and I didn't want to fully give away the villain or the face of James Bond. I worked a lot in Adobe by using masks and effects to create smoke.
I did however want the villain to be a female instead of a man and make her a muse for my James bond character. For my music choice I decided to go with Caro Emerald - I belong to you. The song is very Upbeat but the chorus has a very James Bond feel to it.
Test
The problem with my first test is that it is more of a show case of what I can do and it's not fluid and doesn't have much of a story line.
Final
For my final video, I used a lot from my test video, however I also added some Motion Caption and rigging from Maya to create a fight scene between James Bond and the Villain.