Twenty One Inc's blog

Spotlight On: Cinematography in Animation

On the heels of the recognition in cinematography that Arthur Christmas (Aardman Animations/Sony Pictures Entertainment) garnered, the Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC) kindly asked me for an interview.  What surprised me was writer Fanen Chiahemen asked very little about my past projects as Cinematographer at Pixar, Sony, and elsewhere or about the impact and growth of cinematography in CG-animated feature films. The questions instead focused on my most recent work as Director/DP of a new motion comic series: Animism: The Gods Lake  (Zeros2Heroes Media).

This article (published in June's Canadian Cinematographer magazine) provided a refreshing opportunity to restate what I've long believed-- that the visual storytelling tools of space, lenses, motion, staging, composition, lighting, and focus are essential to bringing strong stories to life on any screen and that the role of the cinematographer is a vital one in any medium.  It's a bit of a cinematography-geek article, but for those of you who are interested, read on!

Many thanks to Fanen and to the CSC for publishing this and allowing me to repost it here.

Download CSC_June_2012_lores

Spotlight On: 5D | FLUX Worldbuilding Conference

I had the great pleasure of attending two of the three evenings in the recent 5D Flux series on Worldbuilding held at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts this week (March 13-15, 2012).

To quote the 5D philosophy, worldbuilding is a “metaphor for the design and iteration process, creating and actualizing the story space in digital narrative media. It addresses the design thinking, the process, and the experience of creating new worlds for storytelling.”

The conference opened with a fantastic talk by Tom Wujec (Fellow, Autodesk), who posed an interesting question regarding the effects of exponential technological growth on creativity.  If I’d been worried about work keeping me too busy to be in touch with major advancements, his mind-blowing examples confirmed it.  A LOT has been changing incredibly rapidly and we all need to ponder his astute question.

Tom also quoted that creativity is the set of skills and processes that carry us from a moment of epiphany (ah-ha!) to the end result of innovative expression.  So how does technology effect and enhance our creative process?  Does its exponential growth allow us to be more creative, more efficient in our creativity, or simply result in us being more overwhelmed?  Probably all three.  But being an optimist, I prefer to see the whole as a positive, growing trend.

To quote another panelist, Rick Carter (Production Designer: Avatar), being overwhelmed is not necessarily a bad thing.  He brought to mind the image from Pinocchio, of the fairy emerging out of whiteness, out of a nothing which is everything, to create the manifestation of a wish, of a dream in tangible, conscience-driven form.  As filmmakers, imagemakers, storytellers, don’t we do that every day?  And doesn’t the state of being overwhelmed sometimes lead us to a blankness that contains everything, inspiring new thought, innovation, and spectacular opportunity for creativity?

The first evening in the series dealt with inception, or how ideas are born and how we spark our creativity, with a lively and philosophical conversation between panelists Rick Carter, Michael Wilkinson (Costume Designer: Man of Steel, 300), Tom Wujec, and Rick Jaffa (Screenwriter, Rise of the Planet of the Apes). 

What resonated most for me was that starting from character and story, we have the opportunity to develop an elemental metaphor that expresses the story’s main theme or the main character’s journey.  This metaphor or core image then becomes something that can guide the cinematic design, exploring its expression through every creative voice in the film—colour, movement, composition, space, texture, light, editorial pacing, sound, silence, dialogue, music, gesture, expression, etc.  This cinematic design provides a framework for collaboration, creative play, and unified vision between the director, production designer, cinematographer, editor, writer, and other creative keys as the film evolves.

I joined fellow panelists Alex McDowell (Production Designer: Man of Steel, 300), Jim Bissell (Production Designer: E.T., Mission Impossible: Ghost-Protocol), and Tom Meyer (Production Designer: Real Steel, Fantastic Voyage) lead by skilled and well-informed moderator Henry Jenkins (Author, Professor at USC) to discuss the prototyping of ideas, generally through the use of digital, rapid-revision technologies. 

Ultimately, we all agreed on several key points—that world building provides a rich and evolving source of inspiration for story and narrative, often spanning much more than the film or creative vision that initially motivated its creation, that cinematic design allows the director to guide the overall vision in service of story and final expression through collaboration with all of the creative keys within that world, and that the future of narrative story-telling based in any given well-developed world has the potential to be expressed through a wide variety of media and products, from films, to television shows, to games, to books, social media installations, and beyond.

Practically speaking, I find this all incredibly exciting, and I feel that previsualization (or visualization or prototyping) is a perfect space in which to exercise this creativity and enable it to flourish.  It gives us a common ground to play in, concrete imagery to respond to, and context to work within while supporting change, organic evolution of ideas, and progressive refinement of the vision. The future of compelling and strongly unified storytelling is bright!

To read more about 5D, please visit: http://5dconference.com/

To learn more about World Building, please visit: http://5dconference.com/about

For another perspective on the 5D | Flux Worldbuilding conference on, please read Bill Desowitz’s articles:

1. http://www.billdesowitz.com/?p=4797
2. http://www.billdesowitz.com/?p=4830
3. http://www.billdesowitz.com/?p=4819

 

Spotlight On: SIGGRAPH 2011 Vancouver

The major annual conference for SIGGRAPH is happening in Vancouver this year, held at the Convention Centre at Canada Place.  The conference started Sunday and events run through this week; it's expected to draw thousands of computer graphics, animation, and visual effects professionals to the city.  Welcome to all the visitors and enjoy!

Article on Day 1 of the Conference

Photo by Mark Yuen from Vancouver Sun Article

A Definition of Cinematic Design

'What does "cinematic design" mean?' 

This is a common question people ask when I refer to cinematic design in speaking about my work or in lectures about visual storytelling, cinematography, or previsualization.  This term is one I first turned to when developing the filming plan for Finding Nemo to describe the overarching visual story design of a film. And I think it nicely sums up what previsualization can help filmmakers define as they shape the vision of their projects.

For me, cinematic design is the telling of visual story expressed through a unified vision of cinematography, production design, and editorial shape.  The cinematic design sets the stage for (and responds to) performance.  If you're trying to tell a visually strong and compelling story, it's vital to consider the end product as a cohesive whole, such that the individual parts work together to strengthen the message and emotion.  Cinematic design is like a visual score for a film.  In the way that the score and sound design of a film support and relate to the story through the interplay of various voices, instruments, sounds, musical themes, and silence, cinematic design defines the orchestration of visual themes and arrangement of the various visual storytelling voices.

In listening to a successful piece of music, we are usually unconscious of each individual voice or sound component, because the interplay and tuning of their contributions is what is so powerful and moving.  A composer carefully develops and structures themes, determines the arrangement of instruments to play them, and conducts a group of musicians to shape the tempo, volume, and intensity as appropriate for the performance, for the desired mood, emotion, and creative expression.  This is not so different from the phases we take a film through—development (composing), preproduction (arranging), and conducting a performance (production).  In music, we never imagine the elements of an orchestra working discretely or sequentially—of course musicians practice their craft individually and sections practice their parts, but an orchestra and its conductor remain focused on the whole from the perspective of the final execution, making it the best it can be.

I frequently hear people say they don't like "rules".  There's a big difference between "rules" and design.  A painting with no design and every colour thrown in is hardly communicative, evocative, or good on virtually any scale.  Cinematic design is similar-- it emphasizes consciously selecting and architecting an overall style and palette for the film, but not one restricted just to colour-- rather, a palette taking into consideration all the myriad of applicable visual devices: line, colour, shape, space, lens, staging, quantity of light, quality of light, movement, eye fix, editorial pacing, etc., and determining which will dominate and which will be used specifically to underscore the emotion and story.  It is the composition of story-enhancing visual themes and the basic arrangement of how the visual storytelling voices will work together during production to create a unified and compelling final performance.

This is a subtle, powerful, and often-overlooked aspect of filmmaking.  As I often heard during my years at Pixar-- if it's in the frame, it's on the screen, and it should strengthen the story.  And doing that takes planning and structure-- cinematic design. 

Spotlight On: The Previsualization Society Documentary (Part 1)

Check out this fantastic documentary on previsualization put together by Autodesk and The Previsualization Society.  It represents a variety of insightful perspectives on this beneficial, collaborative, and crucial element of modern-day filmmaking.

Very well said and right on the money...

 

Showcase: Previs for Live-Action Commercial

Here is a recent previsualization we did for a live-action commercial.  Of course, everything you see would be replaced by real elements on location during production.  Everything we've created is to real-world scale so you can analyze the previs for how to achieve the shots in live-action. 

We always shoot our footage a little long, allowing for coverage so that an editor can cut the scene creatively.  Since the edit is where things ultimately come together, it's wonderful to be able to shape the shots and staging in synergy with the cut.  This helps the filmmaker get to the core of what a piece is trying to say and to strengthen the elements that tell the story.  During production, a director can rely on this experience to make strong decisions in context, efficiently and clearly.

In addition to bringing the opportunity to cost-effectively experiment and revise choices to live-action filmmaking, previs also becomes an indispensable communication tool for everyone in production-- for camera, lighting, and set design crews, management, actors, vfx artists, and everyone else!  During preproduction, the director and producer have the chance to work through the vision between themselves and other key stakeholders in an intimate, creative setting designed to support rapid-revision, experimentation, and problem-solving. Then production can be about performance, about doing the best possible job of making a high-quality piece, with everyone on the same page.

Showcase: Previs for Animated Commercial

Here is an example of previs for an animated commercial.  What I love about working in animation is how much everything can be designed to underscore the story and emotion.  One of the best things about previs, is that it can bring this kind of thinking and control to live action filmmaking as well.

What we really enjoyed about this little piece was the emphasis on lighting as a part of telling the story.  Typically, lighting is difficult to do early in the CG process.  But the way we work at Twenty One Inc, we are able to design and implement lighting right up front at the start of set design.

Our approach also heavily emphasizes a close relationship with the production design process, and we encourage a strong back-and-forth work flow to capture the best of what the design and the cinematography have to offer in terms of telling the story and influencing one another.

Plus, it's so much fun!

Perspective: Visual Structure

When I lecture on cinematic design and visual storytelling (which I've been doing a lot recently),  people often ask me "There are so many possibilities, so many visual devices-- how do I figure out a design for MY story?"  A huge key to this is presented in a great book by Bruce Block (of USC): The Visual Story.  I clearly remember when Block came to lecture to us at Pixar many years ago-- it made a very deep impact on me and my understanding of cinematic craft. 

In his book, Block states a very simple, but exceedingly useful principle: the more contrast (within a frame, between frames, or across a film), the greater the visual (and therefore emotional) intensity; the less contrast, the less the visual intensity.  So in other words, you can plot out the story emotionally in terms of intensity and then select a few key visual devices, such as colour, shape, line, and/or value and determine where you want more contrast and where you want less.  This can become a very powerful tool for architecting your visual structure in a way that supports the story. 

Another thing I hear lots of people say is that they don't like "rules".  There's a big difference between "rules" and design.  A painting with no design and every colour known to man thrown in is hardly communicative, evocative, or good on virtually any scale.  Cinematic design is similar-- it emphasizes consciously selecting an overall style and palette for the film, if you will, but not one restricted just to colour-- rather, considering all the myriad of applicable visual devices: line, colour, shape, space, lens, staging, quantity of light, quality of light, movement, eye fix, editorial pacing, etc.  and determining which will dominate and which will be used specifically to underscore the emotion and story.

Cinematic design is a subtle, powerful, and often-overlooked aspect of filmmaking.  And it's free for the taking-- every shot has to be designed and considered anyway; it costs nothing to do so in a meaningful and story-enhancing way...

Wise Words: Scott Adams

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.  Art is knowing which one to keep."  - Scott Adams

I love this quote-- and live by this philosophy.  To be truly creative, we must risk, and to risk, we must get over fear of failure.  In teaching improvisation, I spend a lot of time addressing fear of failure and changing people's perspective on risk.  I think this is imperative to success in life and art. 

And certainly in filmmaking as well.

One of the things I love most about previsualization is that it encourages creative exploration while mitigating risk.  If you have a crazy idea-- try it!  See where it takes you and allow the process to evolve the material.  That's really hard to do during production, but should be encouraged during preproduction.  We need to strive for better content-- stronger stories, fresher visuals, more meaningful expression.  To find art (and commercial success), we need to try, to risk, to make mistakes.  But we don't need to break the bank to do it...

Previsualization “Sparks” Interest at Vancouver Animation Festival

 

At the SPARK Animation Festival in September 2009, held in Vancouver, BC, previsualization made a bit of a splash.  In the four-day conference covering varied subjects such as character design, the cinematography of Up, and animation studio pipelines, two sessions were dedicated to previs.  Chris Edwards, CEO of The Third Floor, and Jericca Cleland, CEO/CCO of Twenty One Inc, laid a foundation for conference attendees with their joint presentation on the definition, history, and trajectory of previs. 

 
The following day, Justin Denton of Halon and Jason Hopkins of Propaganda Games joined them for a previs panel moderated by EA Chief Visual Officer Henry LaBounta.  Edwards, Denton, and Cleland all spoke about the uses and advantages of previs in film, commercials, and game cinematics.  Hopkins described Propaganda’s use of it to mock up game play and work through game feature and interface design. 

The presentations made a clear and compelling case for adopting the previs process in some form and the audience was interested and highly engaged.  Led by LaBounta in a casual but probing question-and-answer format, attendees peppered the speakers with a broad range of questions from the usual ones about time frames and budgets to the increasingly more dominant one—why isn’t everybody using previs?  And that, say Cleland, Denton, Edwards, and Hopkins, is exactly why they believe that previsualization truly is the shape of things to come.

(Photos courtesy of ACM Vancouver Siggraph.  From left to right: Henry LaBounta, Chris Edwards, Jericca Cleland, Justin Denton, and Jason Hopkins)