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Tip #1487: 8 Filmmaking Lessons from “Mission: Impossile”

… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1487: 8 Filmmaking Lessons from “Mission: Impossile”

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

8 Ways to Improve Your Story-telling

Tom Cruise, Mission: Impossible. Credit: Paramount Pictures

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This article, written by Jason Hellerman, first appeared in NoFilmSchool.com. This is a summary.

Perhaps my favorite film franchise of all time is Mission: Impossible. There are lots of amazing lessons to learn from [this first film], but today we will focus on eight of them.

  1. Embrace canted angles. When it comes time to do your movie, think about shaking up the camera angles from the boring norm.
  2. Set pieces must be memorable. One of the best things about the first Mission: Impossible is that it set the standard for set pieces. When you set out to make your movie, think about how the set pieces stand out.
  3. Write yourself into a corner. When you write your story, get the character to a place where you have no idea how to get them out of it… and then get them out of it.
  4. Stars still have power. In this era, we think about the faces that can sell movies. If you are trying to sell [your film] to studios, consider packaging with a star. Or at least someone with a face that has star power.
  5. Practical effects hold up. When in doubt, do your effects practically. They will stand the test of time.
  6. You don’t owe the original anything. When you are adapting an idea, you do not owe anything to the original. You owe the audience the best story you can muster. Focus on that, always.
  7. Collaboration is key. [This] first movie really was a collaboration between the star, director, writers, and the studio. Everyone had their own agendas going into this movie. [Still,] everyone acted like professionals and made appropriate concessions for the vision [of the film].
  8. Know when you’ve had enough. Mission: Impossible became a very successful series of films, but Brian De Palma only directed one of the installments. In an interview with AP News, De Palma said sequels were about money, and he wasn’t in it for that. Is there a lesson here for you? Choose your projects with your heart, not your wallet.

EXTRA CREDIT

The original article includes more details and multiple videos illustrating these points.

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Tip #1489: 3 Stories About Optics, Sight & Lenses

… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1489: 3 Stories About Optics, Sight & Lenses

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Lenses do far more than simply “capture” light.

Detail from “Impression”: sunrise (1872) by Claude Monet, Museé Marmottan Monet, Paris, France.

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Zeiss recently launched a new website called: Zeiss Stories. These profile all the different ways that lenses are changing modern life – and helping us reconstruct the past — LINK

Here are three stories you might like:

The First Lady of Optics — LINK

Women have faced a glass ceiling in many fields, but the glass ceiling in glasses may have been the toughest to break through. During the first half of the twentieth century, only one woman managed to overcome the obstacles and rise to the top in the field of eyewear lens design, Dr. Estelle Glancy (1883-1975). Glancy’s brilliance in mathematics and lab skills helped create some of the significant advance in vision correction of the 1920s. This includes the design of progressive lenses as early as in the 1920s.

Imagine an African American John Wayne — LINK

American photographer Rory Doyle has been documenting the life of African American cowboys and cowgirls in the Mississippi delta since 2017. With his series “Delta Hill Riders” he won this year’s ZEISS Photography Award themed “Seeing Beyond – The Unexpected”. Doyle’s photos astound with an unexpected reassessment of the American cowboy myth – and break with stereotypes that still distort the public image of Afro-American culture. An interview.

More Than a Pair of Glasses — LINK

Claude Monet was the poster child for impressionism. But the French artist initially lacked both fame and a steady income. In the winter of his artistic career, he even had to contend with cataracts. But he never gave up on painting the world as he saw it – until he almost went blind, in fact. Finally, it was a pair of glasses with ZEISS lenses that helped him see the world in color once more.

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Tip #1483: Quick Lighting Trick

… for Apple Motion

Tip #1483: Quick Lighting Trick

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

A 3D Object (Lounge Chair) lit with a single Point light in the top left corner.

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Here’s a quick lighting trick to add visual interest to 3D text or 3D objects: Add a light.

The default light is “Ambient.” This means equal light from all directions. It makes everything visible, but there’s very limited modeling.

Instead, add a 3D element (object or text):

  • Select the object and turn off Environmental Lighting in the Inspector. (Don’t panic if everything goes black.!)
  • Choose Object > New Light (an alternative is to use Object > New Light Group).
  • Select the light element in the Layers panel.
  • In Inspector > Light, change the Light Type to either Point (used in the screen shot) or Directional. Then change either the position (Point) or rotation (Directional) for the light.
  • Keep moving the light until you get a more interesting visual look.

EXTRA CREDIT

Adding lights does not also require adding a camera. Point lights can only be moved, while Directional lights can only be rotated.

You can also use lights for 2D elements, like video, but it won’t be as effective.

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Tip #1484: No One Said Visual Effects Are Easy

… for Visual Effects

Tip #1484: No One Said Visual Effects Are Easy

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Over 1,300 VFX shots – because the on-set practical effects didn’t work.

DNEG visited the HMS Belfast in London to get a sense of how the Fletcher-class destroyers were actually built and applied that knowledge to the CG versions. The sky was mapped out for the entire duration of the film’s journey across the Atlantic and determined the light source for each shot. (Images courtesy of DNEG. Final image courtesy of Apple)

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“Greyhound,” written by and starring Tom Hanks, is a World War II seafaring adventure of a destroyer escorting a convoy of 37 ships across the North Atlantic.

While there were a lot of practical effects used during the shoot, most of them didn’t work well. This meant they needed to be replaced digitally during post over the course of six months.

“The interiors and a lot of the exterior immediate deck [of the Greyhound] were shot on an actual Fletcher-class destroyer [USS Kidd in Baton Rouge] but it was landlocked,” states VFX Producer Mike Chambers. “There was no motion or background to speak of. The bridge was built on a gimbal to try to help with the motion, but a lot of the practical stuff didn’t work as well as it needed to. That’s why we had to work over all of those shots.”

There were over 1,300 visual effects shots, with the water and exteriors being entirely CG. “One of the hardest parts is the motion of the ocean as well as the camera placement,” Visual Effect Supervisor Nathan McGuinness says.

Balancing readability and believability of what the lighting conditions would be like in the North Atlantic was hard. [Visual Effects house] DNEG had 10 Canon 5D cameras each placed upon an individual tripod which took time-lapse HDRs every 30 seconds to produce a 60K sky. “We put that on the top of the office in London and a team was sent to Brighton Beach to do the same thing because we needed a clean horizon,” explains Visual Effects Supervisor Pete Bebb. “It gave us the exact time, clouds, and light which were then offered to Nathan. He picked specific ones and that gave us an HDR map per scene and time of day.”

VFXVoice has a lengthy article about the entire post process. Here’s the link.

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Tip #1485: 5 Resources for Color Palettes

… for Visual Effects

Tip #1485: 5 Resources for Color Palettes

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Picking the right colors from 16 million just got easier.

A sample set of palettes from Adobe Color CC.

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This article first appeared in MotionArray.com. This is a summary.

When you open the color picker on your favorite piece of software, you are hit with what seems like an unlimited number of options. To be exact, there are 16,777,216 hex code color options to choose from. Which you gonna pick?

Fortunately, there are lots of great online resources for finding and creating your own color palettes. When it comes time for your next color palette, check out these sites first.

  • Adobe Color CC. A great place to start is with Adobe’s color tool. Some of you may have used it when it was called Kuler. Adobe has since updated the name to match the rest of the CC branding. The Adobe Color CC “Create” tool uses fundamental color theory principles to help you build palettes with up to 5 colors. You simply pick a base color from the color wheel, and you’ll be given a harmonious “analogous” palette.
  • Coolors. Coolors is another palette generator similar to Adobe Color but with a different look and feel. When you visit the site, you simply hit “Start The Generator” to load a random color palette. Palette colors are presented in large strips across the screen that can be dragged into different orders, and each has its own set of controls for shifting the individual color. You can even see the values for HSB, RGB, CMYK, PMS, and COPIC.
  • Paletton. One more generator to take a look at is Paletton. Their layout is a little more similar to Adobe Color CC than Coolor’s. The Paletton color wheel gives you the choice of working with 1, 2, 3, or 4 colors evenly spaced on the color wheel. You can then rotate around the wheel adjusting all of the colors at once. You can adjust the angle between the color choices within the wheel, or adjust the hue variances along the wheel axis.
  • Colourlovers. Colourlovers is an entire community built around appreciating colors and recognizing trends in color usage. There are loads and loads of pre-made palettes to choose from, created by Colourlovers users. And palettes can be browsed in a number of ways including shapes, patterns, and individual color swatches.
  • Color Hunt. Color Hunt is the simplest of the resources on the list, but a great way to get inspired or just stumble across the perfect palette for your next project. You can browse through the newest selected palettes or sort by the most popular, and upon clicking a palette, you’ll see it used in a variety of ways like in a ring and on a map. There is no export function, so you’ll just want to copy the hex codes for a palette you like or take a screenshot.

EXTRA CREDIT

The MotionArray article contains video demos of each service, along with links and more details.

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Tip #1486: 53 After Effects Tutorials – FREE

… for Visual Effects

Tip #1486: 53 After Effects Tutorials – FREE

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

53 tutorials, organized by experience level, and all free.

Image courtesy of Sergiy Maidukov and Creative Bloq.

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Creative Bloq has collected 53 free After Effects video tutorials covering motion graphics – from beginner to expert – and organized them on their website.

Author Tom May writes: “Adobe After Effects is the industry-standard software, used by most VFX, 3D and motion graphics artists, as well as animators. Its vast feature-set includes capability for creating everything from simple titles to full 3D stereo compositing. Since there are so many tutorials out there, we’ve put the best ones in one place (here), which will save you time and effort searching out the ones you need. Plus, we’ve grouped them together in sections so you have no trouble finding what you’re looking for.

“You might want to get started by familiarising yourself with the interface or basic features, or perhaps you’re yearning to understand techniques like text write-on, custom transitions and warp stabilisation. Or if you’re more advanced user, you might need projects like rotoscoping nature footage or mocking up AR effects. We’ve found tutorials for all these goals, and more.”

Tutorials are organized by experience level:

  • Beginner: Get started with AE
  • Beginner: Build your skills
  • Intermediate: Use AE tools
  • Intermediate: Connect other apps
  • Intermediate: Create effects
  • Advanced: After Effects projects

Here’s the link. This includes descriptions, links and demos.

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Tip #1481: Adobe Stock Has Improved Templates

… for Adobe Premiere Pro CC

Tip #1481: Adobe Stock Has Improved Templates

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Replaceable media, along with changeable text, improves motion graphic templates.

Templates that allow media replacement in Premiere have special indicators in Adobe Stock.

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Dozens of new Motion Graphics templates allowing media replacement are now available on Adobe Stock. Motion graphics templates with media replacement make it easy for Premiere Pro editors to incorporate their own video or graphics, such as logos.

Media Replacement is a new feature in the latest After Effects release when creating Motion Graphics templates. Now, After Effects artists can flag media in a template such that Premiere editors can use the template, but replace the media.

Template text has always been replaceable, now media can be replaced as well, which makes templates much easier to use between projects. The nice thing is that editors don’t need to know After Effects to change either text or media.

EXTRA CREDIT

Here’s the link to Adobe Stock. Templates that allow media replacement are specially indicated (see screen shot).

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Tip #1477: Is “[REC]” the Best Found Footage Film?

… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1477: Is “[REC]” the Best Found Footage Film?

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

“[REC]” is an outstanding “found footage” film.

‘[REC]’CREDIT: Filmax, Magnet Releasing

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This article, written by Alyssa Miller, first appeared in NofilmSchool.com. This is a summary.

Admit it, found footage films are a bit predictable. But why are the scares so damn horrific in [REC]?

These films have become predictable and often waste the audience’s time trying to force us to care about obscure situations that are out of touch with reality. But [REC] isn’t like the rest. It stands proudly over the others because it finds horror in the thing we despise the most—isolation.

The article looks at:

  • Tension
  • Realism
  • Consistency

When it comes to making a found footage film, remember that the world of the film needs to be grounded believably. Try to make the characters feel like “real” people and surprise them and the audiences with scares that no one is expecting.

EXTRA CREDIT

The article includes a link to a video, created by Ryan Hollinger, that breaks the film down in more detail.

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Tip #1478: Sony: Insights and Filmmaking

… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1478: Sony: Insights and Filmmaking

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Creative tips and techniques to both gear and process.

Detail from “Kenzen’s FX9 film-making journey.” (Image credit: sony)

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I was exploring Sony’s professional camera website, when I discovered their Insight & Filmmaking section.

This page includes stories, tips and videos to using Sony gear. These creative ideas span from indie filmmaking to commercials to features. Even if you are not a Sony user, there are many ideas you can use, regardless of your choice of camera.

Scroll toward to bottom to discover some nice creative video work from a variety of filmmakers.

Here’s the link.

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Tip #1464: Maxon Acquires forger

… for Visual Effects

Tip #1464: Maxon Acquires forger

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

forger offers professional-level sculpting workflows on mobile devices.

The Maxon logo.

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Last week, Maxon announced it has acquired forger, a digital 3D sculpting and texture painting application for iOS. Conceived over a decade ago by Javier Edo Meseguer, forger offers desktop-class, professional-level sculpting workflows on mobile devices.

Quoting from the Maxon press release:

forger features an intuitive multitouch interface and a comprehensive collection of sculpting brushes and tools. Powerful remeshing algorithms as well as masking and layering capabilities make concept- and production-level sculpting on a mobile device a reality. The ability to import/export OBJ and Alembic file formats further facilitates mobile to desktop workflows.

forger supports all iOS devices (iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch), although it benefits from the extra workspace found in the larger devices and makes great use of the performance benefits that iPad Pro(s) bring to the table. It also supports Apple Pencil.

EXTRA CREDIT

Read the press release here.

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