Unit 10: James Bond title sequence
Music selection .
The Real Folk Blues
Sarah Coloso - Porcelain
Snake Eater
I needed to choose a song matching James bond theme, referring to the James bond title sequences. I have noticed that there selection of music; especially in the more recent movies have these dark quite dramatic songs with female vocalist, songs such as Another Way To Die' (featuring Alicia keys) and Skyfall (by adele).
I have chosen these 3 songs as the all have a strong female vocalist and match the same dramatic, serious theme that the James bond song have. Although they do have slight difference in pace of the songs, I could consider this when choosing the song I go with depending what kind of feeling I’m going for (for example and more darker slower emotion, or more upbeat)
I have considered the song ‘real folks blue’ and 'snake eater' because of the instruments being used such as the electric guitar and trumpet that gives that action, and dramatic James bond feeling the title sequences have. The only problem is that the song itself sound too upbeat and possitive, which may not match up to the feeling of the sequence.
I have chosen the song ‘porcelain’ because sound sad and dark that is quite similar to the James bond skyfall opening theme, I feel that the song suits my idea, as it is quite dark and emotional. Ill most likely use this song for my title sequence .
In order to capture the likeness of a James bond title sequence I needed to gain an understanding of the influences and styles that inspired them. I researched on the different bond title sequence and other famous graphic design artist, I have found that graphic designer Saul bass was one of the first who started creating graphically visual title sequence.
Title sequence's for movies used to be simple text that would appear in front of the screen before hard cutting to movie. That all changed after bass's title sequence for 'man with the golden arm' adding a visual dynamic moving title sequence, enhancing and setting the mood for the movie.
Saul used various techniques such as animating paper cut outs to created his visual graphics for the the sequences, His work has this minimalist style consisting of simple shapes and silhouette of the human form that was visually pleasing. In modern time it seams quite simple and low budget, but when this was created, it was never done before and innovative.
Many of the bond title sequences have been inspired by Saul basses work, Examples like Dr no (by Maurice Binder) that resembles sual bass's work , casino royals (by Daniel Kleinman) where it consist of silhouette cut out human figures and animated card suit shapes, giving homage to the bass's original minimal style.
Title graphic design research
Saul Bass - Man with the golden arm
Daniel Kleinman - Casino Royal
I also researched on newer art styles and techniques used in later bond sequences that are in contrast to Saul basses minimalist style. and example of this the bond film 'Skyfall' title sequence. Another sequence by Danuiel Klienman in collaboration with studio framestore to create the visual effects in the sequence.
As you can see they still have aspects that the original basses sequenced posses such as the cutouts and symmetry, instead of the simple shapes as moving graphics, they take a more realistic approach, adding elements such as liquids and fire. It is also not as surreal as basses work because a lot of the human figures are no longer silhouettes, they have detail and realism to them, contrasting from Saul minimalist style to a more realistic style.
Another aspect that is different are the new camera movements in the newer bond titles. in older title like Dr no and Saul basses work they create these sequence on a flat surface (2d space) using paper cutouts. Now with software (such as Maya) that is used by Framestore there are able to manipulate the camera in a 3d space, giving the ability to have 3d parallax camera movement, giving this sense of immersion to the sequence.
In this unit the goal is to create a title sequence for a new James bond film, well have to consider, are aspects such as soundtrack and color pallet that all contribute to set the mood. Well researched on different inspirations such as previous bond film title sequences and motion graphic artist, while also learning new skills for the particle aspect such as using after effects.
Practice Experimentation
For this project, well will be using video compositing software such as Abobe after effect and nuke to composite and add effects to our James bond title sequence, more specifically well be using these software to create motion graphics for our title, composite any green screen footage taken, we be tying it all together with techniques such as color correcting to make it seem like one seamless video
First we have to familiarize ourselves with the software. Due to fact it was made by adobe, the software interface was similar to Photoshop's.
This was a class activity in order for us to familiarize ourselves with the programs. as you can see we created text motion graphics with a dynamic effect, this was all procedurally created in after effects using the simulation nodes provided by the program. This technique quickly gives results with an interesting outcome, I'm able to create dynamic graphics in very fast amount of time comparing to if I had to animate by hand, the only problem is because its all procedural based I looks flat and plain.
The reasons why shows and films have title sequence is because its not only an intro of the show but its also a way to set the tone of the movie and give brand recognition. from this video called 'title Sequences - The Theory Behind Them & How To Make Your Own' the creator gives an example of this by showing a 1 second sound bite, as I heard it, I instantly recognized it was from the title sequence of the Simpsons.
He explains that title sequence is way to immerse your audience into the movie, by setting tone of the movie and giving sought of a sneak preview on what its going to be about, essentially its like a very short movie to get you ready for the movie.
Title sequence usually a montage of different shots that don’t have any direct relations to the actual show or movie, he elaborates by giving an example from TV shows 'The walking dead' and 'true blood', one example is that there's is none of the main characters or actual setting used in the main scenes of the shows, instead we have a bunch of symbols and themes that will present in the show.
An example of this that the sequence of true blood was shot on 8mm film, giving us indications of the time, the setting such as the place, people, vehicles and houses give and indications of location which is southern America. finally we see shots with sexual association, showing that this is an adult themes show.
Title sequence have to be rather quick due to the fact it’s only the way to set the scene of the movie, anything over 2 - 3 minuets will start loosing people attention. in recent years especially in TV, they have started using title cards. these do not last longer then ten seconds, it has a title and a sound clip and then the show starts, a common devise for the title card is to design the logo around the current narrative theme. example of this are the title card for the harry potter movies, they are all designed slightly to better suit the current narrative theme of the movie.
I then experiment with manipulating textures and images with the simulations. this gave me much more intricate results. that closer to more professional motion graphics seen in title sequence.
I will be using this combination of manipulating textures and procedural effects in my bond title sequence to add a more dynamic effect to the text.
This was an exercises where I followed a tutorial in order to create this clip of a girl coming out of the TV the purpose of this was to learn techniques such as key lighting the green screen video of the girl and 3d tracking.
I started of by 3d tracking the video of the TV by itself. I did this so that I can put video of the girl crawling out onto the tracked scene and so I don’t have to animated to match the movement. I added the forest background using by created an empty solid that was tracked so it followed the screen in the video, I then added the video of the girl crawling out, key lighted it so that’s video green screen background was gone. I then color corrected the girl to make her seem like she was in the TV and then did the same when she was coming out, I then added a bulge effect and blur to get transition from the TV to coming out.
this exercise help me understand how to use different techniques I will be using in my James bond title sequence and helped me experiment, give me insight and figure out problems I may have during the project, one example of this is that the key light has was not perfect, there was some aspect of the green screen around the outline of the girl, I was able to correct my changing the alpha matte of the key light.
My initial idea for my James bond title sequenced is based on bank robbers and revolved of this concept of money and how corruptive it is, I have created a mood board to show what initial my initial ideas are. I have taken inspiration from a mixture of games, TV shows and movies. I have taken concepts for a villain from games like 'payday' (2009) where the robbers wear clown mask. Another famous villain that relates to this is the joker from the batman series. I chosen this kind of villain because the creepy and cynical emotion that these clown robbers give you will help enhance that feeling of unease I want to capture.
I have also taken inspirations from games like devil Maya cry and there aspect of angels. many James bond sequences contain these sexualized female aspect that is well known for in anchise, I have taken this ideas and combined with the angle's and money concept, so for my final shots, my idea is to have angles made of money, that’s show how people think money is this great heaven sent thing.
this idea is will be hard to achieve with the time frame given and the lack of experience with both compositing and CGI skills, I may be tone it down and keep some of the aspect I initially fought of.
Many James bond title sequence have flashy effect composited with the scenes, example being smoke and explosions, I wish to take this concept and use it give that message of ho money is corruptive, I will composite different elements in my scene like fire burning over money to give that subliminal message of how many is bad a destructive .
another I idea about how I going to achieve these scenes is by using Maya to create simulations like cloth simulation for money or particle simulations for falling coins. The only problem is as this my first time using I am not completely confident I can create simulation effect that are believable within the time given.
I have also created a story board comprising of simple sketches of what is going to happen in my scene my comprise a most of the thing I had in my initial mood but there have been some changes, I have changed the villains from being clown robbers to robbers wearing gas masks, the reason I have done this because people may not see the clown robbers as intimidation or threatening or take them seriously. I have chosen gas mask after getting inspiration a from a prop we used when filming footage. I feel like that his the mask can be seen much more serous and threating.
other scenes I wish to create are scenes where there are subliminal objects and symbols that give off themes of my James bond sequence. symbols such as money bags, printing plates and bank safes, things that give set the tone of the sequence an concept learnt from previous title sequence research.
Three initial videos
These are the first three scenes I have created for my James bond title sequence. for the first scene I create the bag and coins in Maya, using Ncloth and particle simulations in order to get the effect of a tearing bag and falling coins, for the bullets I used n fluids and animated it going through the bag
I then rendered the different object separately and composited them in after effect to color correct them and adding a background.
The second scene similar to the first, I create a 3d environment, with some simulations, I then exported that render into after effect and composited with my key lighted footage of bond.
For the third scene, I used a lot of aspects and techniques from my particle experiment, the difference is I had bond shot the screen, firstly I created the background by comping a chair and a background together. I then key lighted the footage of bond sitting down and composited that with the background image mad in Photoshop, after I took the TV footage used in the practical experiment, 3d tracked it and used that tracking to fit footage of bond within the TV, using color correcting to make it seem like he in the TV. finally I rendering out a glass smash simulation from Maya and composted into my scene.
The main mistake I made with these scenes was that I relied to much on creating content in Maya where I could used other processes like editing stock footage for the elements aspects, the main reason for the unit was to learn compositing software after all. another reason I should used compositing software more is because using simulation and become very time consuming especially when rendering heavy scenes, meaning you have to sacrifice quality of the scene so it will render in time for deadlines
what it will focus on for the scenes , is to use a work flow where I used composting software more to create the effects.
Concept and Story Board
After Effects research
I have done some research on different techniques for my bond sequence I needed to learn some techniques in order to achieve different wanted effects.
I looked for different video tutorials and what I have found are tutorials like this one where they tech you have use different stock footage to blend in with your making the seam as one.
one main tool in order to blend is the mask tool this helps cut out any unneeded footage and makes it seam the stock footage is seamless within the scene.
other techniques is the using color to blend, this tutorial teaches you how to use different color effects to blend the scene
The only problem is that somtimes the footage I have taken may have been too low quality to pull of the effect an i may need to reshoot.
These are my two other senses that make up my sequence, with these scenes, I create these completely using after effects, no maya, unlike the first 3, I used different stock footage of smoke, blood splatters, and muzzle flashes, combined with techniques learnt you tube tutorial videos and the footage taken of the actor in front of the green screen. I liked how I created these too scenes only footage and techniques within after effects, I was able to create the effects much faster and more efficiently than if I were to do it in maya. One problem I have is with the scenes themselves, they weren't part of my original storyboard, they were alternative to the overly ambitious scenes I initial thought. The main problem I have now is how am I going to tie all my scenes together
This is my final outcome for the my James bond title sequence.
My initial idea was to have a blend of cg and recorded footage for my title sequence, using maya in order to create the different effects and using after effect to composite together. I wanted these aspect to create my bank robbery themed James bond title sequence.
I did research on different tv show and movie title sequence such as breaking bad and true blood, I have found a video tutorial explaining different aspect and techniques shows and movies use in there title sequence such as subliminal messaging and how it should not be other 3 Minutes.
I have also researched the previous James bond title sequence just to get an understanding of the overall theme and feeling of the bond series and the title sequence, I have also researched on the people who create the motion graphics, an example being Saul bass, who's believed to revolutionize motion graphics, I have taken different idea from the previous bond title sequences like the elements of fire, water and smoke. I have taken into account techniques like using symbolic images to get the feeling across.
during the planning we created story boards that showed all the different shots within the sequence, with my story board I wanted to have scenes that included symbolic items such as money bags and bank robbers, but I could not figure how I exactly wanted the shot to look like , this made the creating process difficult as I was going along with what looked good at the time, because of this I did not create many scenes I originally thought of because It was either too difficult or I wasn’t able to make look convincing enough. what I would changed is that I should of planned my shots more carefully, I should planned shots that were realistic and not too ambitious
I starting by filming different shots I planned to have in my sequence, I filmed the actor in front of a green so it would easier to comp him within the final shot, one problem had during this process was that camera I was using filmed at a low resolution meaning the film becomes blurred and does not hold up to close scrutiny, this means any shot with a zooming transition lost quality.
Another problem I had was in some shots the green screen would reflected on the object or persons clothing, this means that the keylight would take away the reflected area as well, one way we can fix this is by reshooting, changing the lighting on set and making sure there are no reflections
initially I wanted to create all my effects within Maya, such as smoke , fire and other elements, I soon realized that it was very time consuming to create multiple different simulation effect and trying to make them look believable, because of this had to change my workflow and instead creating element within Maya, I would find footage of that element from real life, and comp it within the shot,
although I prefer to use Maya to create the different, I feel that using after effects is far more time sufficient and straightforward.
In the final outcome I had bring all my scenes together, by adding transition that looked believable, I feel that I did not successfully create good transitions, I feel that they sesames rushed and looked like it was
a last minute addition to the to the sequence, If I had properly planed my shots with planned transitions, I feel that quality of the overall projects outcome would have been better.
overall I think I could improved many aspect of this project, examples being the planning of my scenes to the finishing touches like transitions and color correcting. one thing I feel I have done well was that I was able to learn and demonstrate basic techniques within after effects, which ultimately what this unit was about