Monday, 16 April 2012

Ciaran the lifesaver....

So today is the day that Ciaran is coming... i got up early to setup the kitchen get the fans ready the hairdryers ready and obviously all my tools ready to go to work ive got scissor and a lighter to cut and fray his clothes... that hes allowed me to cut up and fray...

Ive got a new technique ive been perfecting as it seems the toilet paper no matter how thin the ply is still shows up on film... now with out a professional i had no idea how i would correct this... earlier this week i started applying layers and layers of liquid latex over the top of each other and drying inbetween i read that this would work the same as if it had toilet paper underneath it but its untracable to the camera...

so i did this trick and it worked really well... up until the part where i accidently forgot to pad down the liquic latex with talcan powder... and i had to tear a whole in the liquid latex luckily this smudging effects worked and created really deep craters... almost displaying that withered and decayed skin look.

So i will practice this more before he comes and do a quick colour build up on my hand so i can see what kind of colours would look good on Ciaran's skin... because Ciaran is IRISH he has quite a light skin tone with ginger hair... so i wont have to go to heavy on the light colours as his skin pigment in itself is quite a layered look... so this will work to my benefit hopefully :P

Hes coming in 2 hours and then its time to get going...


WISH ME LUCK!

Tuesday, 10 April 2012

Test with JJ and Jamie

Okay so i just got in contact with my good friend Ciaran... who's luckily finished his masters early and was on board with this idea since the beginning of the year when i told him about it and he wanted me to go full out set a side a day for me to use ... meaning id have ALOT of time with ONE PERSON to go full out...

SO for this i was shooting in the day just like the end of my post said so i wanted to see if it was a good idea to test the camera in the day and fine tune the settings for the sunny days we was having in mid may...


I ASKED MY FLATMATES... i actually bribed them with a ben and jerrys each so i could use them and not waste ciarans time so naturally from going from having a MASSIVE idea at the start of the year using multiple bodies and clubs... etc to shoot in to going to a 1 man shoot with a zombie... i new i had to really sell the idea and work out my shots in advanvce...

my flatmates caved... and said okay you have 2 hours... use and abuse me... but i want that ben and jerrys...

so i DID I USED AND ABUSED and had them in all angles in a park trying to get the contrast of the green grass and the pale skin working with colours in post and adding blood in pre production... and basically having more time to perfect my artistic nature... with the makeup...


With jamie i put him in a park and played with the shutter speed creating this dramatic depth of field focusing on his eyes... as well as giving the whole shot an ND filter that felt quite soft.... with a frontal shot i wanted to focus really on the eyes.... as i thought that would show the best ability to capture emotion.

i wanted to colour grade the blood a little better but as it was a tester for camera quality i didnt.


Now with JJ i really went to town on the editing side of it... ND filter was pretty much all the wya up... depth of field wasnt played with i focused on his teeth and altered a little so i kept that just out of focus then his eye began to come really in focus... which i liked... so i took a still took it into after effects masked out some areas darkend them off  and croped some areas and added highlights just so i had something to work off...


I HAD ABOUT 16gb of footage of this... and thought if Ciaran doesnt come... i could salvage a mediocre version of my work to show off... but that didnt sit with me... so i pestered CIaran and he just told me to relax he will be there all day and will let me do what ever i want to him...

Sounded wrong... but so right... i was going to take my skills at creating visual pieces and take it to a whole new level... considering hand in DATE is 4th of May... i had less than a month to get on board with this project and DO the written stuff...

ERGHHHH head is on EXPLODE MODE!