Rule of Thirds, Diagonals, & Vectors (with a F:LoNC teaser screenshot!)

Now this time the assignment was to take a self portrait and then explain the laws of composition that apply to it.  I again chose to do something taken from Fallout, and more specifically from our planned webseries that's abbreviated F:LoNC.

Kasey Straff being held up by someone in the upcoming webseries F:LoNC

Rule of Thirds

The Rule of Thirds is important for any photographer/cinematographer to know about so they can make their pictures look the best they can.  Here, horizontally the photo is divided up pretty well with the sky taking up about the top third & the shotgun taking up mostly the bottom third.  Then dividing it up vertically, there's the character Kasey Straff straddling the right side line & the blown out TV, along with the joint of the shotgun, squarely on the left third.  Considering CK was the subject (he had help from two others to shoot this) and only set up the camera angle, gun position, and moved the trash into one spot that was already there (orginally just scattered around), it turned out pretty well.

Diagonal

When thinking up this shot, CK had specifically two other laws he wanted to include besides the obvious Rule of Thirds.  The angle of the shotgun, being Diagonal, was the first of those two.  The Diagonal angle of it moves one's line of sight toward the subject it's pointing at, actually the purpose of any gun really.

Vectors

CK wanted to include as many Vectors as possible here without ruining the photo, but as any seasoned photographer/cinematographer may know, it's really hard to do that.  So here out of the categories of Graphic Vector, Index Vector, and Motion Vector we have the latter two.  The Index Vector is the same as was described in the Diagonal paragraph, the purpose of it being to point towards something.  The Motion Vector is here in the form of limited space.  Kasey Straff has very little room to move in the photo frame, making it seem he has no where to go and a trapped feeling.

There you go!  Just a update, the commercial preceding the webseries may not be really finalized till late December 2012 or early January 2013 due to prop creation delays.  Of course some will be finished, but the final product won't be done till then.

(Fallout) Costumes Revisited

In the September 5, 2012 post we mentioned the Gestalt Principles and in the last post we forgot to incorporate them w/ the costumes.  Same with the September 11, 2012 post with those three principles as well.  Well, here's a little correction (minus the images to save on room) for those of you that cared how that these eight principles might apply to them.

Image 1
This photo of a veteran NCR ranger draws ones attention first to the holes in his trenchcoats' shoulder, part of the Proximity principle with some Pragnanz mixed in.  It's a lot of little holes put together in one location among a simple blank brown trenchcoat.  The Continuity starts here where your eyes travel down to his belt, where one can clearly see the ammo (maybe from the body of the enemy that made the holes), and use Similarity by noticing another hole in the knee signifying a tough fight or something & the gun above (for the ammo belt).  Closure & again Pragnanz come in when your eyes "zoom out" and take the whole costume in and figure that this must belong in a post-apocalyptic era.

This image looks like it might be toned down to only have the brown, black, & white colors, making it different for the next three principles. There's definite Contrast between the brown & light greys in the costume, as well as the background and shadow.  Dispite this, there's a Balance with the light grey of the background and the dark shadow, and it helps to make parts like the arm shields noticeable.  The black scorch marks, arm shields, & small white markings on the trenchcoat create a Harmony with each other and Balance with the light & dark greys elsewhere on the costume and in the setting.

Image 2
Here the eyes (unless you're purely sexually driven) will see her head & face first, then noticing the goggles on top, all part of Similarity & Pragnanz (eyes = goggles).  This photo's trickier (for some) because of the chest distraction, but due to the closeness of the gloves to the goggles one's eyes may use Proximity and thereby Similarity to travel to the other hand in Continuity and going to the belt.  What's happening there is grouping the closeness & color of the gloves & goggles, then relating the hands to each other and relating the Pip-Boy 3000 to the items on the belt.  Closure happens just as it did with the NCR ranger, after notice the wear marks of the clothes & other strange gear one can conclude that she's of a different place & time.

Now color's important for these next three principles because the red hair has been unique in all cultures (except the Celtic lands) and stands out providing Contrast.  This keeps the black goggles from blending into dark brown or black hair.  Along with the black goggles the same color of gloves, stockings, & boots Balance out the costume like tent poles.  The green leaves in the background may not be part of the costume, but they provide Harmony with the blue of the cut-down jumpsuit.

Image 4
The first flag happens when one doesn't know where to look first, it's just too busy lacking any Pragnanz.  Continuity doesn't work here because if one tries to focus on the head, the eyes may follow the horns on top up and away from the whole costume itself.  The Similarity doesn't go well due to the tiny accessories on the front of the jacket and the huge backpack parts behind.  What in the world is a furry tail doing on the back of the head?  No Proximity there.  Where the backpack's cut off lends to the thinking there may be more dragging behind or that might be it, no Closure with that or with wondering what might be on their legs/feet. 

Everything has similiar colors so it's in a sort of Harmony, but it would get boring after awhile if the costume was only in a desertscape (where the costume actually might fit-in incidentally).  Also due to the colors being so similar, there's little Contrast and one can forget a part of the costume is the jacket, accessory, or something else.  The backpack lends to a unBalance with it looking unusally heavy and awkward to carry.

Image 5
Well, this costume certainly has a level of Pragnanz till you look at his arm where it doesn't quite match with the rest of the package, lacking Continuity.  The do-rag & vest may have Similarity but at the same time they're into Proximity due to the very similar colors of the shirt & pants (partially due to shadow).  One wants Closure, but the Pip-Boy 3000 on his arm just distracts so much that it's hard to find that Closure.

Not much Contrast here also due to the lack of variety of color, and this contributes to no Balance as well as the bright Pip-Boy 3000.  The clothes lack Harmony, at least at this angle of the photo, due to shadows & similar colors.

Okay, that's it!  Hope that helps you out there that're looking for examples in these visual principles.  Have fun!

The Good, Bad, & Ugly (Fallout) Costumes

Word of advice: Don't get behind on classwork (or anything important really, remember to put First Things First), you never know what's going to spring up in life that'll be "due" that moment be it work, classwork, housework, emergencies, etc.  Anyways, the most recent assignment in the DSC Visual Communication class is to compare a good product with a bad product.  Since we've been on the subject (& need to continue to focus on the continuing film project), why not Fallout costumes?!

Searching around, we've found that many of those that've costumes made for Fallout (or really any genre w/ lots of fans) are REALLY well done.  If one were to go to DeviantArt.com or Google and search Fallout/Fallout New Vegas/Fallout Costume they'd find people that don't just whimiscly make costumes for their favorite game series.  Once dedicated, they'll go all out and make the best costume they can so they can show it off to friends, ComicCon, or online.  So here's what I could find in not just good or bad, but a couple ugly ones too.

Notice: I think all these costumes, except those in the ugly catagory are decent and could work for certain purposes, but we're looking from a filmmaker's perspective.  My factors are compatibility, style, simplicity, & inexpensiveness.

The Good

There are just so many good ones!!  I put my three truly awesome favs here.  To your left we have what's called a NCR (New California Republic) Ranger, simply dressed with beat up Levi's & trench-coat, a belt with accessories you can find at a Halloween store, gloves, and boots.  The more difficult parts are the breastplate (probably easy enough to make by viewing a how-to video on YouTube) & helmet, but worth it for authenticity.

To the right is a cute, sexy Vault Dweller complete with the weapon called a rebar club and the Pip-Boy 3000 on her left forearm.  The "dirty" blue jumpsuit/dress is easy enough to color, the belt simple to put together, and the goggles, gloves, & boots one can just buy.  Just as with the NCR Ranger outfit, this costume is accurate, stylish, not too complicated, and probably not expensive to make.

A screen capture from the awesome webseries called Fallout: Nuka Break by Wayside Creations

 

The Bad

I had to search for awhile to find these so here's a couple okay, but could be lots better ones.  We have two from opposite sides of the spectrum here, I don't quite see where in the world (except maybe the outback) that the left would would fit into.  It's a different style I can't find anywhere else and was left wondering the application after reading the origin site.  It is also complicated and as such is too expensive to put together.

Now the right one looks more like he ran out of time for putting together a makeshift Pip-Boy 3000 then had to quickly put the rest of the costume together before some fan convention just so he could say he dressed up and wouldn't feel left out.  Sadly, it looks very simple and thereby is a cheap costume (minus the Pip-Boy 3000).

The Ugly

I couldn't believe this one.  I had to double check the origin website to see if it was even refering to a Fallout character, and sadly it was... somehow.  Um, I'm really not sure what to say about it.  :p

So there you go!  That's the best, the okay, and the worst of the bunch currently online.  Submit a photo/drawing idea if you'd like and we'll see if we can put it in a future Fallout episode!

Contrast, Balance, Harmony... & Fallout

Ok, we're on our way to making a Fallout commercial (later comes the series).  We've been stocking up on props, have the materials for costumes (plus some already finished, and are in talks to get more legit props (just waiting on financing to pay supplier).  So the Lord be willing, we'll get the commercial done in a couple months and have the whole or most of the series script done by January 2013.

Now the assignment from the DSC Visual Communication class this time is to take a picture/photo from somewhere (be it a picture you found, a photo you took, etc) and to describe the contrast, balance, and harmony in it.

The Mojave wasteland Wanderer/Courier in front of former Las Vegas from Fallout: New Vegas
(all rights reserved to Bethesda Softworks)

Pretty much any photo can have contrast, balance, & harmony.  For those that are not sure what these mean for pictures, here's some quick definitions:

• Contrast = How the items in the photo stay separate
• Balance = How the items flow together, are in a sort of evenness
• Harmony = How the items compliment each other

In the above picture, you have in front of you contrast with the open space around the Wanderer below (utilizing the Gestalt principle of closure, we can assume the area behind the Wanderer is also desert) and the crowded New Vegas city above (utilizing the Gestalt principle of proximity).

For balance there's the pretty level line of the New Vegas wall/baracaide dividing the city from the wasteland, and though there's a lot of commotion above it wouldn't feel balanced without it being "tethered" to the central lone figure (the Wanderer) below. If the Wanderer was even slightly to the side, it'd feel as though the whole picture was wanting to tilt.

The harmony of the colors first grabs me because of they all are shades of yellow, orange, red, & brown. Also, the lights of New Vegas not only shine bright around itself, but they flow down the center to illuminate the Wanderer & the clouds above.

Gestalt Principles & Fallout

We've got some new plans for a couple of YouTube series!  These plans will show up on the website soon, but the first & foremost film is going to be another background story (see Fallout: Nuka Break, Fallout: Population 1, & Fallout: Deprivation for examples) based off of the FPS RPG series Fallout.  Being based in the desert, our version will more closely follow the most recent game Fallout: New Vegas.  In anticipation of this project, this post will analyze the classic Fallout photo below (mainly because it's required for a class at Dixie State College) with the Gestalt Principles.

The Washington DC coast Wanderer/Vault Dweller & Dogmeat from Fallout 3
(all rights reserved to Bethesda Softworks)

For those that don't know, the Gestalt Principles contain the categories similarity, proximity, pragnanz, continuity, and closure.  Here's quick definitions I thought up:

• Similarity = Making objects in the image pair together (when the mind matches things together)
• Proximity = Making objects in the image group together (the mind doesn't seem to like empty space)
• Pragnanz = Making objects in the image into it's simplest form (what the mind relates image to)
• Continuity = Making objects in the image flow together (the mind dislikes sudden interruptions)
• Closure = Making objects in the image complete, when parts aren't featured/apparent (when the mind pieces "the puzzle" together)

In this particular picture, the first that caught my eye was closure.  I thought that though we can't quite tell what is in the distance, and can't see far behind the figures, one can guess what's there.  I thought of more road (maybe curved, maybe straight), more dying/dead plants, a few more ruined homes/telephone lines/etc.

I like how it flows with continuity (in my mind), it's all heading one way, pretty much straight ahead.  One will easily determine that the man & his dog are heading for the classic sunset scene told of in old cowboy movies.

The only thing I can think of for the pragnanz category is how the picture could remind you of a screen capture (if you've seen it) from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.  Looking back, that is probably where the Fallout series got it's inspiration.

Now for proximity, there's the houses grouped on either side and the telephone poles are all on one side.

Similarity is easy for this picture.  You have about half the picture a mirror-like image of the other half. There's broken-down houses on either side, there's a branched tree on either side in the distance, and though the telephone poles are different from stripped trees, they are placed similarly.

One simple, interesting notice: These categories were first listed in reversal alphabetic.

Script Update

Well, it looks like we won't be doing the 1940's film this year. What we've decided is to go ahead with one of Richard's other ideas. I don't want to give too much away, but it's a documentary including Hollywood Boulevard. It'll be a fun short trip for all those involved. I didn't realize it before, but Hollywood Boulevard is one long stretch of road and the big sign is a little over 2 miles away as the crow flys.

One reason the 1940's Project is being delayed is due to the fact my cousin Ben Stratford is going back up to the Salt Lake City area to continue his musical education. On that note, all I can say to the kiddies is "Stay In School!" This screenwriting class I've been taking at the local college has helped me sort out ideas I had and given me new ones. It's been great seeing the ideas of others and helping one another out. Well, till next time!

Deadline = Goal

After meeting with Richard again at the beginning of this month, we decided to set some deadlines for the 1940’s Project. We’re planning on releasing the film in October, around the time that there is a Marathon and the Huntsman Senior Games here in STG. I should have the script done by the end of the month, then we’ll get casting done by the end of March/beginning of April, and begin filming sometime in May. One reason for such a tight schedule is that Richard is getting married in September sometime along with having his honeymoon, so he’ll be out of the picture for about half a month or more.

A person of interest that will be hopefully helping us with the music for the 1940's Project is my cousin Ben Stratford. He's an excellent music composer who's composed & directed some great pieces already, and should be graduating with a degree at DSC in music. Though to get him to work with us I’ll need to crank out the words and learn fast how to write a script the correct way, but that’s one reason I’m taking a screenwriting class at DSC this month. My professor is Brian Strasmann, who worked on the script for Free Willy. He's a great guy that seems to know his way around the film field.

Now I may have to think more about it all, but we're packing all the plans for this film in a short amount of time. I just hope we can get it all done in the time allotted.

Working With DSC Commercials

This semester I've taken some more film classes. The class has been able to work on some of the Dixie State College commercials they will be showing pretty much everywhere they are able (still in the process of finding a link to the said promos). As far as classes at the college go, I've been able to help as an Assistant Director, Best Boy, & Gaffer. For those of you that don't know what each of those do, here are some definitions:

• Assistant Director: Pre-production (the period before filming starts) where they prepare the 'schedule', (a filming timetable that shows which scene is to be shot on which day and what needs to pre-booked/hired to achieve that) and Production (during the shoot) where their main task is to ensure that the production sticks to the schedule. [http://www.startintv.com/jobs/1st-ad-assistant-director-film-tv.php]


• Gaffer: The chief electrician responsible for the lights and provision of power, often in difficult conditions and carrying considerable responsibility.[http://www.startintv.com/jobs/gaffer.php]


• Best Boy: A term used in the film world, for the main assistant to the lighting electrician or Gaffer.[http://www.startintv.com/jobs/best-boy.php]
  
  

Besides doing those things and observing, I have only begun a script for my own commercial that due to time, I don't think we'll get to do. Well, that's the update. Talk to you later!

Reviewing The Ideas...

With college started up it's hard to keep up with all the plans we've had for movies this fall, but I just reviewed over the ideas I've had written down and I'm currently updating them on the computer. The most recent project seems to be a better idea than I originally thought it was going to be, so we've moved forward with the script a little & made it the focus point for the Dixie State College "Senior Capstone." Not wanting to give away our idea too much, we'll give details as we're developing the movie.

In other news, I will be meeting with Richard Squire in about a week to discuss ideas for a local musical movie. I'll definitely be looking for singers, actors/resses, and general people that want to help out (like building sets, operating lights, sound, & cameras, and all that easier stuff).

Spreadin' The Good Word

This past Monday I began in earnest my campaign to be the next STA World Traveler. What steps did I take you say? Well, let's start from the beginning:

• First off, right after I submitted my video I messaged all my Facebook friends (interesting note - In all my friend lists [except 1] I know the people pretty well in real life). When I sent the messages I gave a little paragraph for others to send so they can invite their friends.



• On Sunday night I made some flyers depicting part of the YouTube page w/ stats my video is on. I printed those and gave them out at a game night at a friends house, Danny Thomas. Thankfully I didn't know really anyone there so it was a whole new batch of people to tell it all about.
  
  I hate to give this secret away, but it might help others... See I discovered this thing on YouTube that you can promote your video by signing up to pay a little per click, so that's what I did. It may help me out only a little, but we'll see what happens in a few days!



• Then Monday I stepped out of my deteriorating comfort zone and spoke to random people and promoted my video with the little flyers again. On the way to take a test I walked up to this guy studying, probably for a test, and told him about the video and asked for his support, he said yes. Then walking through the doors to the outside and spoke with another a girl and asked if she'd view it, she said yes. Then up I went over to the testing area and asked the people at the counters if THEY would participate, they said yes & thank you!



• Now on Tuesday, when I went to math class I handed the teacher and some students the flyers I made (with a little improvement). The teacher took it, and the students did, though I noticed after class a few left theirs on their tables. Win some, lose some.
  
  
• Wednesday was great, I was able to give out more flyers and get a few more commitments from more students in a couple classes (and a friend of mine after social dance). To report on math class, the teacher said he wanted to see it, but couldn't get to it so I emailed him the link sometime later.
  
  
• Continuing to Thursday, I revamped the flyer to look better. At this point I have printed out 130 individual flyers! I believe with this look I may get more hits.
  
  
• With Friday, Saturday, & Sunday I had work, needed to catch up on homework, and had church. Though within all that I made sure my peers knew about the video and followed up with other people.

Thank you for your support! I've passed 600 views, have had 12 comments, and views in the United States, Canada, and Pakistan of all places! Remember to pass the link along, we still have 8 days left!

Update on STA video post [& more!]

Ok folks, as of about 24 hours (give or take only an hour) from posting it, my STA application video was up to 290 hits! Wow! And now that we're past the 48 hour mark, I checked last night and the video had 348 views, even better! I wonder who are the ones visting.... ;) Hopefully it's not just all my friends but also that I'm attracting views from the friends of friends & etc as well. So spread the word! Tell your family, friends, that weird kid down the street! The more that can view and comment, the better.

Speaking of commenting....

Now the weird thing is almost NO ONE has left any comments! I urge you, PLEAD with you to give me some feedback! Come on folks, you know you want to! Just a little thing like my bro did would be fine enough to start out with.

In other film news, I am cooking up (and taking any if you got 'em) ideas as to what to film next. I would LOVE to share those ideas with you, but that's part of the production world... You might end up like Stephanie Meyer did with her trying to start a spinoff Twilight series and being stabbed in the back by a 'good' friend. ( http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/midnightsun.html ) So if you really want to know any ideas I may have, you gotta submit your own and I might work with you on YOUR idea! (hint hint) ;]

Well, enough of that for today. I'll talk to you LATE-rr!