Nira's VFX Blog
A journey through my master

Month: October 2022

Categories
Nuke VFX Fundamentals

Week 4: Rotoscoping in Nuke

In this class we discovered the basics of rotoscoping in Nuke.

Rotoscoping is used to create alpha channels ‘matte’ to match the footage motion. With this, we can change the subjects background or create different effects with layering.

In Nuke, we learnt the basic rotoscoping using ‘Beziers’ to create the alpha channel and feathering to soften the edges of it.

This is the matte I created of the running man video the professor sent to us. It is made by parts, starting from the head of the running man down till the legs.

Head roto
Right arm roto
Left arm roto
Body roto
Right leg roto
Left leg roto
Quality Check
Final roto

Rotoscoping can be a tedious job in my opinion but with practice and experience it could result in a more quick and pleasant job, as well as in a rewarding experience with the final result achieved.

Categories
Maya VFX Fundamentals

Week 4: UV Set Up & Texturing in Maya

This week we finished up our air balloon adding UV textures.

We learnt how to set up a UV map with the ‘UV Editor’ from an object so the texture looks realistic when added. Later on, we downloaded some textures and added them the the UV map created on each part of the balloon. We also changed their appearance playing around with ‘colour’, ‘specular’, ‘transmission’, ‘geometry’, etc. As these images look too flat and no too realistic, we created a ‘bump map’ using the ‘hypershade’ editor to add more detail to the texture. In the ‘hypershade’ editor we also saw how to join different nods to create different texture effects. Lastly, we created a short animation of the model, spinning the air balloon 360 degrees and showing only the object and not the background, and then rendered it in EXR. This would be used in our Nuke class as alpha matte to make a composite with it.

Final texture close up of ropes and top balloon
Burners texture close up
Basket texture
Final 360 spin render

Since I am interested in focusing on modelling and texturing in Maya, this was a good practice to improve my knowledge on this. I look forward to explore more organic modelling and all its possibilities.

Categories
Design For Animation

Week 3: Narrative Structure

In this lesson we learnt the basics of a good editing, the narrative structure and the key aspects of storytelling.

In the editing of a film, we put together a chain of shots and scenes to complete a film (shot transition). There are three golden rules for a good editing:

  • It should be invisible to the eye.
  • The storyteller should never let the audience to get ahead of them (less is more).
  • The audience needs to be a participant

We also need to take care of continuity to create smooth cuts so the viewer attention goes to the story. Some ways of keeping continuity are:

  • Graphic relations – relating last frames of a shot with the first frames of the next shot
  • Rhythmic relations
  • Spatial relations
  • Temporal relation
  • Duration of story events
  • Continuity editing – orientation and direction of movements and subjects in a scene
  • Temporal continuity

In addition, the strategy for the development of the narrative must be engaging and has a satisfactory conclusion. In a character-based narrative, the actors must perform convincingly in the role while the directors create the appeal and extract the potential performance of them to communicate the story. Some of the literary structures that exist are the novels, poems or plays, drama or plays, short stories, novellas, myths, legends, folktales, fairy tales, and epics. However, most of the narrative structures of these stories follow the same three-part structure: beginning or protasis (exposition, conflict), middle or epitasis (rising action, climax), and end or catastrophe (falling action, resolution). 

However, there are other more complex narrative structures like the five-part structure (story arc):

  • Act 1 – exposition (setting time and place, problems, conflict)
  • Act 2 – rising action (complications arise)
  • Act 3 – climax (highest amount of suspense)
  • Act 4 – falling action (concluding, twist revelation, etc)
  • Act 5 – denouement (outcome, lessons learnt, protagonist overcomes)

Another example of narrative structure is the monomyth or the hero’s journey (concept created by Joseph Campbell). This narrative structure organises the heroic journey in a circular story.

The narrative development must be engaging to make sure the viewer is immersed in the story and is not distracted by elements that are not part of the story. Therefore, we need to take care of elements such as end of scene or transition, shot choice, scene timing, performance timing, audio, change obstacle, change character’s objective/quest, etc. The steps to underpin a narrative development are research, establish a challenge, develop characters, structure of actions (chain of events leading to target), and consider subplots and secondary actions.

Also, in a film there are characters or hero archetypes that need to be followed to keep the story dynamic and interesting:

  • Hero – protagonist
  • Mentor – provide motivation, insights, training
  • Threshold guardian – guardian of world and secrets of protagonist (not villain)
  • Herald – issues challenge, announces change
  • Shapeshifter – alliance is not clear
  • Shadow – opposite of what hero is (not necessarily the villain)
  • Trickster – funny character or one that shows absurdity of situation (to relieve tension)
  • Allies (sidekicks) – filling gaps of hero (virtues) and are their support system

Considering all the information learnt today, this week’s task consist in picking a film of our choice and break it down into the following:

  • Story arc – describe 8 stages
  • Character’s archetypes
  • Describe main character’s timeline (starting before film starts)

The film I chose is actually a trilogy, The Lord of the Rings directed by Peter Jackson, as it is my favourite movie-trilogy since it came out on 2001. The story arc (8 stages) are:

  1. You – Frodo Baggins is living in the Shire with his uncle Bilbo Baggins.
  2. Need – Bilbo leaves the Shire in his birthday and Frodo inherits his uncle’s magical ring. This ring cannot fall back into Sauron’s hands whose searching for it and is ready to go to the Shire (Gollum passed on this information after being tortured). As Gandalf notices that only pure hearts can bear the dark power of the ring, he tells Frodo that he has to take the ring out of the Shire.
  3. Go – Frodo leaves with Samwise Gamgee, Pippin and Merry as companions, and they keep running away from the Black Riders who are looking for the ring to take it to Sauron.
  4. Search – In Rivendell, they form the Fellowship of the ring composed by those guardians of the carrier of the ring (Frodo). Together they start the journey to Mount Doom in Mordor were the ring must be destroyed. In the way they fight many challenges that make a difficult journey. The Fellowship splits and Frodo ends up with Sam until they find Gollum, who wants the ring for him but pretends to be their guide to Mordor and constantly tricks them.
  5. Find – Frodo finally reaches Mount Doom with Sam and Gollum while Sauron’s eye is being distracted with the battle that’s taking place at the doors of Mordor.
  6. Take – Gollum tries to take the ring biting off Frodo’s finger but then Gollum falls into the volcano’s lava and the ring is destroyed along with him.
  7. Return – The Great Eagles arrive and carry them back. Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin made their journey back to the Shire.
  8. Change – Everything was changed back home. Amongst the changes, Sam gets married and stays in the Shire and Frodo sails to Undying Lands with his uncle from where he will never come back.

The main character archetypes are:

  • Hero – Frodo Baggins
  • Mentor – Gandalf
  • Threshold guardian – Samwise Gamgee, Aragorn
  • Herald – Bilbo Baggins
  • Shapeshifter – Gollum
  • Shadow – Sauron
  • Trickster – Merry and Pippin
  • Allies (sidekicks) – Legolas, Gimli

Frodo Baggins’ character timeline starts in the Shire, were he has been raised and lived most of his live with his uncle, Bilbo Baggins, who adopted him after his parents died. After his uncle’s birthday, he inherits his uncles magical ring and Gandalf asked him to take it out of the Shire as Sauron is looking for it. While leaving the Shire with his companions, Frodo is being chased by the Black Riders who are looking for the ring. In the way he meets Aragorn who is going to defend them from the dangers of the way. Frodo ends up in Rivendell after being badly injured by the sword of one of the Black Riders. In Rivendell, Frodo is cured and the Fellowship of the Ring is formed after Frodo volunteers to be the carrier of the ring until Mount Doom in Mordor. Frodo leaves Rivendell with the Fellowship of the Ring and they head to Moria. There, they battle the Balrog who defeats Gandalf and falls into shadow. They leave Moria and Frodo meets Galadriel who gives him the Phial to give him light in darkness. Then Boromir, manipulated by the ring’s power, tries to take the ring, so Frodo decides to travel alone. Sam ends up going with Frodo until they find Gollum who will guide them to Mordor through a secret passage. Gollum ends up tricking Frodo and Sam, and he takes them to Shelob’s Lair (big spider). Frodo is wounded by Shelob and is taken by the orcs. Sam rescues Frodo from the orcs and they continue their way to Mount Doom. When they reach the Crack of Doom, Frodo claims the ring to himself. Gollum steals it biting off Frodo’s finger but falls into the lava and the ring is destroyed. Frodo assist to the coronation of Aragorn and then goes back to the Shire. Later on, he travels with his uncle to the Undying Lands from where he will never come back.

Categories
Nuke VFX Fundamentals

Week 3: Intro to Digital Compositing and Nuke Software Interface

In this session, we discovered the different roles of a digital compositor within a production or VFX company, along with the production stages to follow to create a film, video game, commercial, etc. We also saw the different compositing programmes available nowadays and we also had our first Nuke overview.

A Digital Compositor’s role is to create the final composition of a frame, shot or sequence (including animation, background, graphics, and SFX). The several rolls or stages that a digital compositor can opt to are the following:

  • Roto Artist – focused in rotoscoping (beginner position)
  • Prep Artist – rotoscoping and patching
  • Junior/Junior-mid/senior Digital Compositor – they usually put the parts together in a scene and support and help Roto and Prep Artists
  • Sequence Lead or Lead Compositor – in charge of a sequence
  • 2D Supervisor – organises sequences, meets with final clients, etc
  • VFX Supervisor – organises artists, clients and production

On another note, we also learnt that there are three stages to produce a film:

  • Pre-production – starting from the initial idea that is shaped into a story which is organised in a storyboard, with animatic, and design.
  • Production – after the film is organised, in this stage it is prepared the layout, R&D, modelling, texturing, rigging/setup, animation, VFX, lighting, and rendering.
  • Post-production – in this third stage is when it is taking place the compositing, 2D VFX and/or motion graphics, colour correction, which will result in the final output.

Lastly, we saw the different compositing programmes available such as After Effects, Davinci Resolve ‘Fusion’, and Nuke 13. In this class, we will be focusing in Nuke so we had an overview of the very basic tools of the programme and created our first composition. As this programme is based in nods and layers, which I have seen before in programmes such as Photoshop, After Effects, and Blender, it was easy for me to learn how nods were connected to work together. I played around a bit with the programme at home later on and created a little animation based on the instructions the professor gave to us. I could not export it as I’m still not sure how to do this but I took some screenshots of how it looked at the end.

My first comp in Nuke
Comp animation outcome – center spin
Comp animation outcome – centrer spin

My first impression of Nuke is that this is complex programme and I will need to dedicate a good amount of practice time to get use to the node’s work space, as I am more use to layered programmes like Photoshop and After Effects.

Categories
Maya VFX Fundamentals

Week 3: Maya Modelling Tools Overview Part 2 – Air Balloon

In this lesson, we learnt further modelling tools more focused on starting our model with a drawn line that will evolve into a 3D shape with revolve tool, some extrusion, and some UV and texturing. We also modelled an air balloon that we will use next week in our Nuke’s session.

We started modelling a simple line using the EP Curve tool. This shape had to be kind of a slice of the final object we were going to model, in this first case a wine glass and a wine bottle. After our curve shape was drawn, we used ‘Revolve’ to transform it into a 3D shape. In addition, we reshaped our 3D object repositioning the control points of the curve shape until we were happy with out design. We also learnt how to create a glass effect adding a glass material and finished the scene adding lighting and choosing a background.

Bottled and wine glasses wireframe
Final scene with texture

Using the same EP Curve tool, we continued to build up our air balloon. Then we played with extrude, duplicate special, deform (bend tool to warp the object), and used the UV editor to add texture to the model (used cloth, brushed metal, and rubber textures).

Top balloon model and texture
Building up burner
Building up burner
Burners wireframes
Gas bottle
Basket Texture
Final model medium shot
Final model closeup with girl model from Maya
Final model long shot
Final model shots sequence with HDR background dowloaded from polyhaven.com

I really enjoyed this assignment as I realised I love 3D modelling in Maya so I would love to further my knowledge in this aspect.

Categories
Design For Animation

Week 2: Film Language and Research Approaches

In this class, we spoke about the elements of the mise-en-scène needed in a scene or frame, we watched a short western movie as an example of this, we analysed the differences between descriptive writing and critical writing, and lastly, we discussed the first topic ideas we have for our critical report.

The mise-en-scène describes the elements that compose a scene or frame. This can be composed by:

  • Settings and props (made or real)
  • Costume, hair, and make-up to show character’s personality
  • Facial expressions and body language to show feelings, mood, and emotions
  • Lighting and colour to show scene’s mood and style
  • Positioning of characters/objects in the frame to give importance or to draw attention.

The lighting of a scene is key to transmit the correct mood or style of the video. We can use low key lighting (use of only key light and back light) to create a high contrast in the scene (dark scenes); or in the contrary, we could use high key lighting (more use of filler lights) to create a more realistic/natural look (bright sets/sunny day). The colours used in the scene are important to depict the importance of the subjects: warm colours push forward, and cold colours push backwards.

The type of lens used is also an important aspect to take in consideration as we will define the depth of field of the scene (distance from the nearest to the farthest point where the subjects are in focus): in a deep focus, both close and distant planes are in sharp focus (longer lenses); in a shallow focus, close objects are on focus and farthest are slightly unfocused (shorter lenses).

The framing of the scene will show the importance or hierarchy of the subjects. We can have a single subject in scene, a two-shots frame, group-shots… depending on the number of subjects and complexity of the scene. To determine the importance of the subject, we can use high angle shots (shows weakness, less importance, tension) or low angle shots (shows dominance, importance, drama). We could even use a POV (Point of View) shot, which shows the view of the scene from the subject’s eyes perspective. There are also moving shots to give more dynamic to the scene: pan shot, tilt shot, traveling shot (dolly shot), and crane shot.

An aspect to take in consideration too is the screen direction, which is the direction that subjects move on screen from the point of view of the camera/audience (continuity). The movement from one shot to the other must be consistent to don’t confuse the audience (for example, the 180 degrees rule, where the axis line drawn by the subjects shouldn’t be crossed by the camera as this would swap the direction and position of the subjects and could confuse audience). In animation, this line can sometime be crossed, for example, when zooming in the face of a subject that is falling down and then zooming out from their back.

And lastly, in the film or animation staging, the character’s placement and composition can be accentuated with the perspective of the camera (angle and position), contrast (light and shadow), performance or pace (character dynamics), entry to the scene, audio (compliment or emphasis). The background and setting also needs to have an aesthetic to project the mood and style of the scene. This aesthetic can clash with the character, can be more complex of simpler, can distract or not from the subject, and need to be in scale with subject.

Western sequence

In order to put all that we just learnt together in an example, the professor played a short scene from the western film ‘High Noon’, and asked us to analyse what elements are in the sequence that leads us to guess the time is passing and the characters are waiting for the noon when the train arrives.

  • The music is following the pace of the clock.
  • Pass from medium shots of the characters and the clock to close ups and even extreme close ups to give more drama to the time passing and to show that the noon is closer from scene to scene.
  • Low angle and pan up shot of the clock to give more importance to this element.
  • Characters waiting in silence with tension in their faces is improving as the train approaches.
  • The long shots of the village shows empty roads to show fear.

Descriptive writing vs critical writing

Descriptive writing is an informative text the uses quotes, summarises a piece of literature, uses listing, facts, tells the history of an event, etc. However, critical writing (or critical thinking) analyses a topic, searching for the pros and cons, avoiding assertions, using paragraphs, giving clear arguments that have evidence to prove them, and giving conclusions (avoiding simplistic conclusions and recognising limitations).

Following on this analysis of descriptive and critical writing, the homework for this week is to research our topic ideas, pick one, and made a brief description of the question to be answered, adding 5 key words and at least 2 resources that relate to my topic (uploaded to padlet.com).

Since I didn’t have any topic in mind yet, I researched on Google Scholars information about VFX, stop motion and animation, since I’m interested in these areas in general. Some of the ideas I came up with are the following:

  • Stop motion vs CGI: is stop motion being replaced by CGI or both disciplines have been mixed to reach better results?
  • Is it stop motion animation a useful tool to explain science in a simplified way for better understanding?
  • How the knowledge of basic physics or the interaction of objects with the environment improves the reproduction of good VFX or animation?
  • How to use stop motion as a way to teach experimental animation?
  • Visual illusions as an important part of VFX

Stop motion vs. CGI: is stop motion being replaced by CGI or both disciplines have been mixed to reach better results?

The world evolves with the pass of time and the technology with it. Some original practices get perfectioned and others are replaced by more suitable ones. My critical report is going to be an analysis of how stop motion is still being used to create great animation movies such as ‘The nightmare before Christmas’ by Henry Selick and Tim Burton, which has a unique and more refined aesthetic, but it could also be a more expensive process. I will also talk about how CGI has taken more presence in the animation and VFX industry because of its lower cost of production and its faster creative process. Lastly, I will also mention how stop motion and CGI are being fused to achieve even greater and more effective results shown in movies like ‘The Boxtrolls’ by LAIKA Films.

Key words:

stop motion, CGI, technology development, aesthetic, cost-effective

Resources: 

Chung, B., 2014. Unpacking the stop-motion magic of ‘The Boxtrolls’. VICE. Available at: https://www.vice.com/en/article/nz4zjd/unpacking-the-stop-motion-magic-of-the-boxtrolls (Accessed: October 17, 2022). 

Franklin-Wallis, O., 2014. How stop-motion and 3D printing brought Boxtrolls to Life. WIRED UK. Available at: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/handmade-movie (Accessed: October 18, 2022). 

YsabelGo, 2015. Understanding the art of stop motion. The Artifice. Available at: https://the-artifice.com/art-of-stop-motion/#return-note-78500-17 (Accessed: October 17, 2022). 

Categories
Maya VFX Fundamentals

Week 2: Maya Modelling Tools Overview – Lego Man

In this session, we went through the basic modelling tools of Maya in order to shape a Lego Man.

We started shaping the head out of a cylinder primitive, and using subdivisions and the bevel tool to model the top and bottom features of the Lego Man. Then we continued with cube primitives. Using subdivisions, extrude, edge loops, and transform and position tools, we managed to shape them into the main body and legs.The hip of the Lego Man was a challenge since we started with a cylinder which was flattened and then picking the top vertex of this, we extruded them both sides and shaped them into a rectangle. The arms were made out of a cylinder and then shaped the shoulder part with the sculpting tools to pull and soften the mesh. The hands were sculpted using a cylinder with a centre circle and cut in half, then shaped it adding edge loops and transform and position tools.

Model wireframe view showing different shapes and polygons used

Afterward, I wanted to colour it so I added a new material (‘Standard Surface’) to each part of the Lego Man and picked the colours.

In the face of the Lego Man, I wanted to add their smily face. I thought of adding a picture of the smily face to the mesh but since I wasn’t totally sure how to do this, I researched a tutorial on YouTube. It was actually simpler than I thought, I just had to add a new material – ‘Lambert’, and then in ‘colour’ select to add a ‘file’ to it. So I downloaded a Lego smiley face from internet and adjusted it to the Lego Man’s face.

Face added using a royalty free picture of a lego face downloaded from internet
Front view
Side view
Back view

And lastly, using a ‘Sky Dome Light’, I added a nice background, lighting and a cast shadow with a plane as I learnt last week and this is my final result:

Final model

A few weeks later, I also made a short animation of this model to make a nice presentation to be added in my term 1 showreel.

Lego man short animation
Categories
Nuke VFX Fundamentals

Week 2: Cinematography Foundation II

This week we continued with cinematography basics but this time more focused on video (moving picture).

A movie is a story told in pictures (moving images) which consists in capturing the light reflected or produced by a subject (exposure). In order to capture the amount of light desired, we will need to take care of the type of lens/optics of the camera (focus), the lens aperture (amount of light let through), the camera shutter (speed of aperture and closing of the lens’ blades), and the digital sensor of the camera that captures and process the light to store it in a digital file.

Depending of the exposure set, the image can be brighter or darker. Generally, the image should be balanced by the mid-tones. If there are too many highlights or whites the image will be over exposed and if there are too many shadows or blacks, the image will be under exposed.

In order to reach the desired exposure value (EV), we will need to take care of the ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. With the ISO, we can change the sensitivity to light and can be measured from 25-6400 or more. The more sensitivity added, the more noise in the picture, so this only should be increased if really necessary. With the aperture of the lens (f), we can add more or less light as well as depth of field (DOF – focal point of an image). If the aperture of the lens is wide, the DOF will decrease (shallow) and more light will come through, whereas if the lens opening is small, the DOF will increase (deep) but the light that comes through will be low. With the shutter speed (how long takes to the blades of the lens to open and close, measured in fractions and seconds), we can expose the sensor to more time of light or less. With a fast shutter speed we can freeze motion in the scene, but with a slow shutter speed we will capture blurred motion instead (more light comes through). In cinema, this is measured in frames per second (fps – frame rate) and depending of how smooth we want the movement to be or more realistic we can make it higher or lower. Shutter angle is used to describe the relation between shutter speed and frame rate in cinema (cinematic motion blur), which has a golden rule that says that shutter speed should be set to double the frame rate.

Another important aspect to take in consideration is the type of focal lens used (distance between top of the lens and image sensor and measured in mm). The shorter focal length, the wider the angle of view and vice versa. Also, the digital file in which we export our video (MP4, MOV, AVI, ProRes, etc), will also determine the quality desired depending on where do we want to reproduce the final video (social media, TV, cinema, etc).

The assignment of this week is to shot 2 to 3 seconds videos from the city (using our personal phone cameras) and put them together in a short video (can add music too). As I live in Cambridge, I decided to show the life in this city which has a slower pace and it is not as big and noisy as it is London.

City life in Cambridge – Week 2 video assignment

Most of the scenery has been filmed with a long shot, since my phone’s zoom has a really low quality and it doesn’t look as neat. However, I tried to add a zoom in and I also used some pans following subjects in movement to give more dynamic to the video. I tried to use diagonals and leading lines in the composition of the frame to add some depth to the frame. Finally, I put it together in Adobe Premier Pro and colour-corrected it to have a consistent style.

Categories
Design For Animation

Week 1: Design for Animation, Narrative Structures & Film Language – Unit Introduction

This first session consisted in an introduction to the main assignment that we will be developing throughout term 1: a 1500-words critical report along with its progress documentation in this blog and a research presentation.

We will need to find a topic that motives and inspires us. It needs to teach something to the reader and to be engaging. In order to find a suitable topic we should research and gather related information in order to study and select the parts that interest us.

Once the topic is established we will decide the targeted audience and start organising the main related questions and subquestions that need to be answered. Following on, we will craft our critical report and will mention our references used (following Harvard referencing system).

After clarifying the main assignment of the term, we were asked to form groups and to discuss possible topics that could interest us and could be useful for our critical report. Some of the topics that came up in my group were the following:

  • How VFX development can affect the beauty standards (unrealistic beauty standards)
  • How technology development can lead to changes in the remake of older films.
  • Stylised vs realistic graphics and its effects in VR player immersion
  • AI development and its threat to creatives and copyright
  • Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness: are the VFX used in this movie a useful tool to transmit the confusing and bended reality or is it an impediment that confuses the audience and takes them out from the full experience?
Categories
Nuke VFX Fundamentals

Week 1: Cinematography Foundation

In the first session with Gonzalo, we learnt the basics of cinematography such as what is visual story telling and the components needed to simulate an emotional experience.

The professor made clear since the beginning that every shot or take in a movie counts. Also, the director’s requirements need to be met regardless of what style or preference we have and each frame needs to be cohesive with the thematic and style of the movie.

The composition of a scene has to be carefully crafted taking in consideration:

  • Aspect ratio – proportions of the frames depending on what type of screen the film is going to be on.
  • Positioning – where the subjects are placed in the scene, taking in consideration rule of thirds, diagonals, focal points, hierarchy, etc.
  • Lighting – this is possibly one of the most important points to take care in a scene, since if there is no light, there is no scene. It needs to be considered the intensity (brightness), quality (soft or hard light), size of source (for example, small sources have softer light), distance from the subject (the further away from the subject, the harder light obtained), filtering (through diffuser or bouncing), and angle and positioning of the light (key light, fill light and back light are the three basic lights). We could use natural light (from the sun for example) or artificial light (with spotlights for example).
  • Colour – it needs to follow the style of the movie with warmer colours or colder colours (colour temperature measured in Kelvin units). Cameras in general are usually set for tungsten (3200K) or daylight (5600K).
  • Angle of the camera – this can defined the mood of the scene and can give the subject more or less importance. When a high angle is used (camera placed above the eye line), we can transmit weakness, less importance of the subject; and when a low angle is used (camera placed below the eye line), the subject becomes more important and powerful.
  • Camera shots – there are several type of framing that can be used to show the subject on camera: extreme close up, close up, loose close up, tight medium shot, medium shot, medium full shot, and full shot. A closer shot is used to show more detail or intimacy. A wider shot is usually used to situate the audience in the time and place.

In order to put in practice all these concepts, the task for this week is to take a maximum of 9 pictures that show or transmit the concept of ‘time’.

The speed of time

In these pictures I thought in how the time passes throughout the day depending on what are we doing and were we are. For example, when we go to work and we are in a rush or when we are doing an activity that we enjoy, usually time seems to go faster. Therefore, with my DSLR camera, I took several photographies using a closed aperture (f11 in most of the photos), a low ISO (to catch the night contrast and to don’t have much noise in the dark spots) and long exposure (slow shutter speed) in order to catch the light trails of the cars and bicycles passing down the road. I consider that the light trails show the rush of time and they also give movement to a still picture directing the viewer’s eye from one point to another.

In contrast with the rush of time, I also took photos of the stillness of time. For example when we are at home chilling at night time after a long day, time goes slower. I also used long exposure for the building and the lamp’s pictures with a low ISO and closed aperture to keep the contrast between light and shadows. However, for the picture of the moon between the plant leaves, I used a much higher shutter speed since the moon is quite bright and long exposure would result in a more than over exposed picture.

Thirdly, I took several photographies of the moon rising in the sky and put these pictures together in Photoshop to show the pass of time during night time.

Lastly, I also took several pictures of the view in front of my house throughout the day (from sunrise to sunset). In Photoshop, I put them together, showing only a triangular portion of each picture, and creating like this the effect of time passing during the day in the same scene.