Deciding the genre

Before starting the film. I started by the genre. It is more important for me because we make film for certain market and its always handy to research the market to see which genre is more popular in that market.  I am planning to make the film for Indian market .

"the Indian film industry is expected to grow to 138 billion Rupees by 2014 – that’s $2.28 billion"

Indian films are mainly based on romance. Like romantic drama and romantic comedy.  "The one genre in Bollywood that is unique and is what Bollywood is famous for is 'masala'. Masala movies mix elements of many genres but are largely action and romance."

hence I decided to make a romantic drama as the genre for my end of the year film.

Reference :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2014/09/03/bollywood-indias-film-industry-by-the-numbers-infographic/

http://www.ign.com/blogs/zaid26194/2013/12/29/10-movies-that-show-bollywood-is-more-than-romance-and-ott-action-flick

lighting green screen

We had two locations for green screen. The first one was for inside the space craft.

for which I lighted the actors for f8 key light. For back light i used magenta to cancel the green on both the actors and the set peace.  I lighted the green screen as f11. Three stops over. 

The second location was for cave scene and crash scene. 

For crash scene i used three point lighting as the sun as key light. 

For the cage scene I used only one source. One blonde coming from the top. 

I used dido to lit the child actor as she was not getting enough light from outside lights. 

on set lighting

The first day was dark ...and I was shooting in 50 p so its was hard to expose it properly and max we were able to get was 2k and couple of didos to light the scene..  We knew that Monday to Wednesday the weather was not good but we still decided to shoot ...then out of all day we have one good day to shoot. we I learn my lesson of changing the settings so we could get some more extra light in future. 

I used the blond as the main light source... and used the other two dido as back light and fill light. 

We didn't have big extra long flags or something thing to block the light but we still manage to blog the main parts as it was extremely difficult balance the blown out white from the sun and dark shadows under the tress.  

discussion with the director and the story board team

After seeing the story board. I suggested the director and the story board team to change the camera angles as there were lots of shots which was not showing the actors face and it was from behind so we were jumping from the main protagonist prospective to an outside prospective.

location scouting

I had gone for location scouting with the director, producer and vfx supervisor. We discuss the possibilities of traveling,  safety and rest room while looking for the locations which can support the story.


I was looking at the depth, shapes and textures along with what location bring what kind of the feeling.

Fig.1 Shows the darkness in the depth as it is hiding some thing in it. The texture, the shape and the tress with out leaves shows the sign of no life.

Fig 2. have lots of natural layers.  The layers are similar to the layers shown in the last blog of mine.  

 Fig.3 Have some natural holes which will be go to establish that there might b caves in this plant.

Choice of colour for Films

Colours effect the overall mood of the films and being a director or cinematography choosing the colour of costume, set and the grading of the film is very important.

Choosing the colour for grading film is the decision which should be made in advance so it can be help full in lighting/ dressing the set and the colour decision for the costume.

For our project. I am planning the blue colour as more domination colour as blue is associated with all Sci-fi movies.  i.e all the famous Sci-fi films which included the alien life where dominated by the intense colour of blue.

For our project blue is also useful as blue is associated to cold also. Our protagonist will be alone in an open environment, which should give the vibe of cold and loneliness as the use of colour pallet as blue will enhance that feeling.

How to create layers in the film which need alien environmets

Creating layers in Si-fi films is all about bringing different shapes. Our current project is based on an unknown planet and its hard to create a planet environment from scratch. On the other hand it is easy as no one can say how it should look and we can create the location as we want.

After searching some art work, I find the use of circles and some straight lines the artist create three layers in the scene. The fore ground, mid and back ground. By doing that artist try to bring the 3d elements and feeling in there 2d work. I am also planning to bring that same feeling and elements in my work for this project.

The first picture is the perfect example, as there is a fore ground  which is dark so the eye will not focus on it but still it will create the distance and keeping the object closer it will create the feeling of vastness on the other layers.

The main focus is the middle as it is in the focus and it is the most brightest part of the scene.

By making the background big and out of focus it will create more depth and will give the feeling of lost in a big area.

The artist had also used the shape of circle to its max.  and bring the feeling of balance in the picture.

 

The second picture is a good example of creating a perfect landscape by not keeping the land equal. The land is never in the same level and lots of people do the mistake of drawing a plain land which kill the illusion of reality.