PLANNING AND MAKING
One of the tasks I had was to build the lift shaft. I understand a little of how lifts are built and what sort of structure, such as I knew lifts use a triangular frame on the sides for strength, but I needed more information.
These CG models were very useful as you can see the inner structure clearly. Also, looking at these it seems it would be fairly simple to build.
From these I could make plans on the construction of the laboratory.
This is the underground lab. There are two rooms separated by a removable wall. The lift shaft will be built separately too so that it can be removed if needed for filming. As the scene is underground I decided to use plaster strips to model a cave like, rocky surface. I will also be doing this for the surroundings of the lift shaft.
For the lifts frame I will use wooden modelling strips and glue.The wood strips are very light so it easy to cut and stick together whilst staying rigid.
We took a trip to millennium point and were able to take some great photos of old industrial machinery!
This is the completed shaft! The wooden bars have been painted silver and the 'rock face' of its surroundings painted grey for a rocky effect. I also stuck a few old bits of pipe and nails as small details in the rock face.
FILMING AND MOTION CONTROL
This scene is described to follow a cut through of the lift shaft underground, down to the lab. This would be a continuous scene so my first thoughts were to build the lift shaft and using an adjustable table or camera we could move the scene up so it appears to follow it down.
Then we were shown the MILO motion control camera. Matt (technician) showed us what we could achieve with it. Also to have this would look impressive to show in any show reels and other work. We were shown how it could be used for stop motion and I thought this was the best way to achieve the lift scene.
This is a good example of the type of things that can be produced using a motion control camera!
This links to more information on the MILO:
This links to a motion control company in London, with show reel examples and demonstrations on the camera!
As soon as the shaft and lab was built and the first of the scientists finished I booked the MILO for the next day! We described the shot to the technician and he agreed it was a simple shot but would look effective for what we were trying to achieve!
The scene was set up on a table in front of the camera.
To create a soft, natural light we were advised to use flourescent tubes and a 300watt light, for a daylight effect.
We decided to use the green background, incase we needed to chrome in the dark areas. However we found the set reflected too much of the green on camera. Without it, just using the 2 sets of lights, the effect was great straight away, with no tweaking needed. Thankfully this made things simpler for us later in production.
Once the start, middle and end points of the cameras route were set, we could start capturing the movement frame by frame. The stop motion software we used for this was dragon.
We set to film at 25 frames per second. It is difficult to tell at times if the camera has moved at all (seeing as the movements are so small). However the frame count made it easier to keep track. If a problem occurred, we could set the camera back to the frame we want and continue.
Towards the end the task required two people. One to capture and one to animate the scientist armature upon first sighting him!
This is the end result.
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