Week 2
Post Pitch (Sept. 18)
Today we just got done with our pitches to the mentor, it was really cool hearing their perspective on our ideas. I took some notes on some of the other groups and found some things that might really help our commercial. The first one being, to really consider the ingredients in the gelato, I think we stay too far away from the ingredients to really let them shine, so I’d like to bring the simulations closer to the camera. Not sure in which shot to prioritize that yet, still thinking about it. Another thing I want us to work on is the story. What is our character doing before she starts thinking about gelato, and more importantly, why does she start thinking about gelato?
Also today I spent some time exploring other options for how to create the worm of ice cream that I’m in charge of. I found a tutorial for a “better curve force“, and its definitely an improvement from my previous method. Another thing thats been on my mind is what the workflow between me and Min is going to look like, since we are both working on different simulations in the same shot. I think the best method is going to be having one of us creating a “base scene“, and then sending each other iterations to work on so we can see where the other person’s curves line up in relation to the actor. It also might be a case of needing to meet up in person and discuss what methods we are using to create our simulations.
Film shoot (Sept. 21)
Today we filmed our plates, I acted as the camera operator, and spent most of my time checking lights and working the camera. Overall I think that the shoot was a success, we had a few hiccups here and there, but overall I think that we got everything we needed. We plan on doing a re shoot Thursday if needed.
The general “order of operation” for the shoot, was, setup the camera where we wanted it. Move the lights into place. Check the camera for any glaring issues and fix them. Then we had Gracie brief our actor, while the rest of us took care of mapping out the scene, including the lights, camera height, and other camera information. Then Alice would write down all of that information and then put together a board that had the shot number and take. As well as a color chart for lighting.
Then we shot the scene, usually doing somewhere between 6-8 takes, making sure that at least 2-3 were good usable shots. After this, I gave the camera card to Min to offload the footage onto her computer, while Drew shot an HDRI for the scene/lighting setup.
I had a couple very interesting contributions to the set, the first one didnt actually get used, but I made prop ice cream from mashed potatoes, and flour. We didn’t end up needing it, but I brought it as a backup, just in case.
Another thing was I suggested putting one of our lights inside the fridge, so that It would shine on our actor when she opened up the fridge.
FX Reflection
This week, FX has taken kind of a backseat, due to the planning of the filmshoot taking up most of my time, however, this has not stopped me from continuing to explore more tests, and learning more about the mediums withing houdini, which I will be making use of. For the hero shot of our commercial, we plan of doing a number of material stacks into an empty container, and for a while now, Ive been thinking about the best way to go about this. One idea that I found very interesting, was using houdini’s new MPM solver, since it would allow me to have the layers interact with one another very easily. The big problem though is that the solver is only availiable in Houdini 20, which does not support Redshift. What I will probably end up doing is simulating in 20 and the sending the final point data back to 19. Ill be testing this in the upcoming week.
Another option is to do a Flip simulation, then freeze the layer, then do the next layer, freeze it, and so on, this is my backup plan. Ive done a few tests with flip fluids, trying to get them to simulate gelato. I need to do some more in depth research about how flip simulations work, so that I can replicate the aspects of gelato. (viscosity, clumping, etc).
Ive also been having difficulties thinking about how the gelato will fly through the air… My current version has it as a stream, but I wonder if it’ll just look melted. Maybe ill have balls of ice cream as a backup.
Week 2 Reflection
Overall, week 2 was a success, I think we got everything that was vitally essential to get done early, done, and now that we have our plates shot, we can really kick the effects into high gear, and I think that we’ll start to see the final product start to peak its head through very soon. I wish that I had done a little bit more with the FX this week, but I’m still shaking off some of the rust from the summer. In terms of FX, I dont think that I’m in a bad place, but I do think that I have a lot of stuff I need to reteach myself, and a lot of work ahead of me. Despite this, I am trying to remind myself to go and enjoy life every so often. After the shoot on Saturday, I went to the Savannah Jazz Festival, which was a blast.
I’m still not super confident about blogging, but I’m trying to just start writing in the times that I feel I’m not super inspired, and give myself a chance to deconstruct my thought process on some things.