rob blake: October 2009

Alibi TV Ident project

This project was the first in a while in which I’ve had writers block. It took me a long time to get started on the idea I finally chose. The plus of this procrastination meant I did a lot of research, of which I should (and will) do more of in the future.

The focus here was about filmmaking, I wanted to create what appeared to be a crucial moment from a film, I wanted to create a back-story and strong characters in one shot, as great filmmakers seem to do so effortlessly. In this it went through many incarnations, I even wrote a couple of short scripts, and some character studies. One of the original characters I had was a woman, 30’s ish, attractive but not looking attractive, in an office skirt, make up smudged, running and falling with a briefcase round a corner. Where had she been? Where to? What had just happened? What was in the briefcase? Etc etc. I even tried to find a stuntwoman to play the part. I was never happy with the character and casting proved difficult.

From the outset I’d been very impressed with a promo advert that had been done for the bill, it used a mixture of green screening, people stood still and track camerawork. I really liked the effect and thought it a great way of showing a great deal of character and back-story without dialogue and in a short space of time (20 seconds).
So after lots of messing around getting nowhere I talked to Anna and she pointed out that what I wanted to do was look at paintings. The medium has been showing entire stories in a single frame evocatively for 1000’s of years. From that I started looking at painters and how they solved the problems I was having, and wanted early on to use one of the Italian painters that heavily employed Chiaroscuro. I found one Caravaggio’s paintings perfect (see previous blogs). I needed to make it more contemporary to keep with the alibi brand, it’s sad but I took the obvious choice of gangsters, particularly the scene in Goodfellas where he shoots the waiters feet. This picture is actually very similar to the Caravaggio in composition; if not theme, so the two gelled well.

To achieve this effect, I used the XDcam with dolly on a semicircle of track, and 4 redhead lights. The footage was shot at 60 frames a second. Post was done on After Effects using Twixtor for time remapping and Magic Bullet Looks for colour and fake depth of field. The bullet was created in Maya, with help from (though to be honest - by) Matt, it’s a program I appreciate the possibilities of but have not the patience or inclination to learn. There were various attempts at using the third party plug-in “Matchmover” to track the scene to create a 3d camera to create the bullet in space effect. I kind of always knew this would be a nightmare, and your eyes are often the best way of doing these things. It was relatively easy to put the bullet in space, and all things considered a lot quicker than using Matchmover, which was only good at crashing really.
The trail on the bullet uses a mask with turbulent displacement. The banner strip was created using shatter with time remapping to reverse and slow the effect.
The audio foley was created using chatter from soundtrack pro slowed and sped up, and the music was something I wrote to give the piece more of a film feel using Logic pro.

Props included a gun (BB gun painted black), playing cards some empty bottles of rum, glasses apple juice, 4 chairs and a table. Thanks to Szymon for driving us with the furniture and Tom for coming gun shopping with me.
The actors are all friends, Szymon (who has a career ahead of him in this), Wendy, Luke, Louie and Reese. They had to do a lot of sitting around and I’m very grateful for their patience and generosity.

In summary, it looks amateur; which is a shame as I set out to do something that you would see on TV. There are problems with the keyframing of time (it’s a bit jerky). The footage is badly lit on Reese’s head (the victim) and is really blown out. The music is badly played as I can’t really play the keyboard and I wince when I hear it, though it does fit. The bullet doesn’t quite turn enough so it looks like it will miss and at points it is aimed a bit down. The footage probably needed stabilising before I started but I was far too into it before I really noticed, though it’s something learnt for the future.

All in all I’m disappointed that the quality is it’s late for the hand in which is a shame, but I’ve created something I’d use on a Showreel and show prospective clients so in the end I think it was worth spending the time getting the idea right rather than rushing into something.