CURRENT TRENDS OF VFX

WEEK 1

The Age of the Image and the Trend of the Lens

In the first lecture, we were introduced to the module. We have also discussed about some of the VFX trends such as :

Photorealism - in the context of real life(fantasy and non-fantasy/ realistic); e.g: The Crown/vs Avengers
Green screen- putting actors in different locations, or set-extension (old technology)
The composite
Unreal Engine - virtual filmmaking, comes from virtual environment of games
Live-action

Harold Edgerton:

Harold Edgerton produced high-speed photography, and he did not just bend time but froze it. He was convinced that Einstein's theory about relativity is correct and his work is a combination between art and science. Edgerton created impressive images while exploring how the movement works. He invented the strobe flash and the stop-action photography.

Here are some examples of his work:

https://edgerton-digital-collections.org/galleries/iconic

Bullet Time:

Bullet time(also known as frozen moment or time slice) is a visual effect or visual impression of detaching the time and space of a camera (or viewer) from those of its visible subject.

Bullet time is a technique that was used when filming 'The Matrix'. Hundreds of still cameras were used to make many photographs a second around a moving subject. Each camera went off in a sequence while the action was happening. Even though the technology used was advanced, the work and techniques of Eadweard Muybridge and Harold Edgerton played an utterly important role.

This visual effect allows the audience to watch spectacular movement which in real life would be imperceptible for human eye.

Salvador Dali has also played with time and space through his work, creating travel images and mirror images using traditional techniques to reveal the laws of nature. The artist claimed that what he was doing is science. The most recognizable image of the 20th century, "The Persistence of Memory"(1931) explains the new relativistic vision of time as endlessly stretchy. Time can be bend by heavy gravitational forces, like the sun. Dali maintained that "The last development of nuclear physics proved the new conception of space-time is completely flexible". His surrealistic approach of soft watches is "true and scientific".

One of our tasks for this week was to pair 4 images of a visual effects shot with a similar one from Edgerton.

What is meant by Dr. James Fox's phrase 'The Age of the Image'?

Historian James Fox examines how the power of image has transformed the modern world, claiming that we experience “a revolution in visual culture”. I firmly believe that we live in “the age of image” because technology is rapidly advancing and made image consumption possible for everyone. Fox outlines that “we now take more photographs every minute than were made in the entire 19th century”. A striking example is represented by millions of people who cross the world to look at the painting of Mona Lisa through their camera, instead of looking at it directly. Moreover, as Fox states, the new relativistic vision of time seen as endlessly stretchy has been transformed by this visual language. Artists have used science to compress the experience of elapsing time into single images. Regarding “The Persistence of Memory”(1931), Salvador Dali argues that his realistic approach of soft watches is “true and scientific”; time can be bent by heavy gravitational forces like the sun. Harold Edgerton was also convinced that Einstein’s theory about relativity is correct, but he did not just bend time, he froze it by adding a stroboscope at the end of his camera which flashed up to 120 times per second, capturing movement that would be imperceptible to the human eye.

Harvard Reference: 'A New Reality' (2020)Age of the Image, Series 1, episode 1, BBC 4, Television, 24 February, 21:00

WEEK 2

The Photographic Truth Claim: Can we believe what we see?

This week we learned about the truth claim which represents the photographic index. The indexicality shows the relation between the subject photographed and the final image created.

The Allegory of Cave

The ‘Allegory Of The Cave’ is a philosophical concept created by Plato, concerning human perception. Plato claimed that knowledge gained through the senses is no more than opinion and that, in order to have real knowledge, we must gain it through philosophical reasoning.

A group of prisoners has never seen outside of the cave. They are chained together and look only at the shadows created by the light of a fire, thinking they are real. As one of them escapes and leaves the cave, he discovers that his former view of reality was wrong. Once he sees the sun as the source of life and discovers beauty and meaning, he decides to return to the cave and share this life-changing information with the rest of the inmates. However, they don't believe him and they even threaten to kill him if he tries to set him free.

The allegory of the cave can also manifest in VFX, for example in compositing or through 3D models and procedural effects.

James Fox's documentary The Age of the image: EPISODE 4

In this episode, James Fox states that "Ours is also an age of shadows, we too live in a world of flickering screens and all too convincing illusions".

He talks about artists such as Charles Bell and Audrey Flack. Responding to the clarity and accuracy of photographs, attempting to replicate them in paint, they didn't just copy the reality but made the audience question it. Their works of art were so realistic that they could easily be confused as photographs and this can raise the question: "Can we believe what we see?"

Charles Bell Audrey Flack

We had a look at the semiotics and talked about icon, index and symbol. The icon is the sign where the signifier resembles the signified. The symbol doesn't imply resemblance between the signifier and the signified and the index is represented by an signifier which is caused by the signified.

Blog post: The Photographic Truth-Claim: Can we believe what we see?

“Over the last few decades, images have become more like reality than ever before”(James Fox) and this raises the question: “Can we trust them?”.

Tom Gunning assimilates in 'What's the Point of an Index? or, Faking Photographs', the truth claim of traditional photography with Charles Pierce’s term "indexicality". While the traditional photograph is obtained by the light reflecting of the subject photographed, passing through the lens and diaphragm, and finally, the transformation of light-sensitive emulsion; the digital image is based on data about light which is achieved by numbers. The indexicality of the photograph depicts the physical relation between the subject photographed and the final image created. The truth claim can be disrupted due to the manipulation of digital photography. As Tom Gunning states, it is utterly important when an image is digitally transformed, to preserve a significant part of the “original image’s visual accuracy and recognizability” because the attention accorded on the visual accuracy of a photo develops the basis of truth claim. I believe that VFX processes also make use of the truth of the image as computer algorithms can now generate unique individual portraits of people that don’t exist or add facial movements on existing footage, called deep fakes.However, although truth claim made people be more observant, it can also be considered alarming because we rely on images for information, for example, the news, where "the real world has been converted into the language of television"(James Fox)

Harvard References:

'A New Reality' (2020) Age of Image, Series 1, episode 4. BBC 4, Television, 24 February, 21:00

Gunning, T. (2004) ‘What’s the Point of an Index? or, Faking Photographs’, Plenary Session II, Digital Aesthetics, 1(25), pp. 39-48

WEEK 3

Faking Photographs: Image manipulation, computer collage and the Impression of reality

This week we investigated how since the early days of photography, photographs have been manipulated and presented as something which did not exist before the lens.

Examples of non-digital faked photographs:

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The Loch Ness monster

How They Did It: The picture stood as a testament to the existence of the marine creature until 1994, when a man named Christian Spurling confessed to his involvement in the hoax. The Daily Mail previously hired Spurling’s step-father, Marmaduke Weatherell, to find the Loch Ness monster and Weatherell felt betrayed when they debunked what he found. So he set out on a plot of revenge straight out of an episode of Scooby Doo: he and Spurling constructed a model out of a toy submarine from Woolworth’s with a sculpted head attachment and photographed it. They sent the photo to Wilson, whose pedigree made him a trustworthy Nessie spotter, and Loch Ness was never the same again

Bigfoot

How They Did It: The Big Foot in the video looks like a costume purchased straight off a Halloween store rack, and it basically was. After a TV special about the case aired in 1998, a man named Bob Heironimus came forward and admitted that he had been the man in the suit. Patterson hired him to play Big Foot in a short film that he planned to sell. A costume designer named Phillip Morris also stated that he was the one who sold Patterson the suit. His company Morris Costumes is now a massive costume manufacturer that supplies Halloween costumes across America.

William Mumler's Ghostly included Abraham Lincoln

How They Did It: Skeptical photographers both then and now ascribe Mumler’s spooky shots to one of two methods. One possibility is double printing, when the subject and the spirit appear in two different negatives that the photographer later combines. The other is double exposure, when the person designated as the ghost leaves the picture mid-exposure to produce a transparent, ghostly effect. Mumler ensured that no one would ever know for sure when he destroyed all his negatives shortly before his death

"Death in the Air" Utilised Models Built by a Hollywood Prop Designer

How They Did It: Gladys was actually Betty Archer, the wife of Wesley David Archer, a Hollywood-employed model builder. Wesley Archer built the models in the photograph and superimposed them over aerial photographs to create the hoax. The National Air and Space Museum finally exposed the hoax in the early 1980s.

Photoshopped fake images:

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Faked shots from Visual Effects

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Terminator 2: Judgement Day

Life of Pi

Game of Thrones

Blog Post: VFX compositing. What is it and how does it work?

Compositing is the process that seamlessly integrates two or more images to make the appearance of a single picture. While a photograph depicts what can be seen from a fixed viewpoint, a composite combines multiple aspects of different scenes in one image. The purpose of compositing is to create an impression of reality and in order to create it, the composite needs to be impossible or almost impossible to detect. At the beginning of the twentieth century, many theorists claimed that "film’s most relevant feature was its capacity to record reality, offering up a detailed and faithful image of it", as Francesco Casetti argues in ‘Sutured Reality: Film, from Photographic to Digital.'(2011, p.97). The emergence of compositing started with George Melies who created the matte technique. In The four troublesome heads(1898), Melies appears to take his head off his body and place it on a table. He used a black glass screen which kept light from reaching the camera. Then, he set up an opposite matte by removing the original one and blocking out everything else. However, the earliest techniques of compositing, such as physical collage of photographic fragments (by cutting and pasting, masking, airbrushing, etc.) and matte were technically difficult and detectable. Modern technology has made compositing easier and quicker. Nowadays, the green screen and blue screen are the most significant techniques, mostly used to composite actors onto a digital background. Compositing highlights the main conception of film theory which focuses on the impression of reality.

Harvard References:

Mitchell, W. J. (1998) The Reconfigured Eye. Cambridge: MIT Press

Casetti, F. (2011) 'Sutured Reality: Film, from Photographic to Digital.' October, Volume 138, pp. 95-106.

WEEK 4

Defining Trends of Photorealism

We looked into the definition of Photorealism and examined the movement of American painters (1960s-1970s) who were replicating the accuracy of photographs in their works of art. We then found examples of 2 trends: Completely constructed by CGI and Composite.

What Photorealism is?

Photorealism creates synthetical images similar to photographs. It suggests the illusion of authenticity, but it also manages to deepen the expressiveness of a film. Photorealism is complex because it can be used within VFX in a variety of ways: it can be created for CG images or for a mix of CG images and real-life footage and it may apply to whole scenes or only to individual characters.

CGI Photorealism:

War for the Planet of the Apes

The Jungle Book

The Last of Us

Lion King

Composite:

Oz The Great And Powerful

Broadwalk Empire

The Hobbit

The Walking Dead

Blog post: Photorealism

Photorealism is the art of creating synthetical images similar to photographs. Computer scientists began in the 1990s to build algorithms that produce sterile computer-generated imagery with material properties, introducing the ones that could have been derived from either the camera or the photochemical stock such as depth of field, motion blur, film grain, etc. The conjunction of these images and the traditions of photography and film defines the concept of photorealism in VFX. However, the outcome of CGI as barely distinguishable from imagery, realized by an analogue or digital camera, appeared only in the last years. Barbara Flueckiger presents some functions of analogue artefacts in visual effects. First of all, by seamlessly combining more images, it is created an aesthetic coherence in compositing. Moreover, in order to sustain viewers’ attention, they ‘’mark narrative strands in complex patterns’’(Flueckiger, 2015, p.91). For example, the narrative structure of The Matrix(1999) can be easily understood due to colour codes and differences in mise en scene that help the viewer recognize the different worlds. Analogue artefacts also support the aesthetic reasons of films by enhancing expressiveness. Additionally, they are the markers of authenticity, for example when they produce blurred images or low-resolution footage that might make the viewers think it was captured by an amateur witness. Wag the Dog(1997) supports this point, as artefacts like noise or screen-lines emulate authenticity by highlighting a war reportage. Photorealism not only increases the illusion of authenticity, but it can also play a major role in the expressiveness of a film.

Harvard References:

Flueckiger , B. (2015) 'Photorealism, Nostalgia and Style. Material Properties of Film in Digital Effects', North et al. Special effects: new histories/theories/contexts. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 78-98.

WEEK 5

This week we talked about motion capture, also known as Mocap. We have also investigated the types of capture used in VFX and talked about the process in which the data is captured.

Types of capture used in VFX:

3D scanning(Harry Potter) Motion Capture(King Kong)

Keyframe Animation LIDAR Scanning(Joker)

Motion Capture

Advantages: -immediate and real time results

-it allows to recreate complex movement and physical interactions in an accurate manner

Disadvantages: -the cost of software, equipment can be expensive

-it requires particular hardware and software programs to produce and process data

-sometimes it may be difficult to achieve a good result, and not one that can be perceived as ''lifeless'' or creepy

Motion Capture and Keyframe Animation

Motion capture(mocap) represents the process of filming actors performing scenes planned for CG characters, as compared to keyframe animation which develops entirely from an artist’s imagination and implies key points of motion that are transitioned between to establish the illusion of movement. Both are techniques that create movement and attempt to achieve a believable, realistic image, but the main difference between them is the technology used. In mocap, the movements of actors are recorded with the help of special suits, and data is sent to computers to connect the actor's performance to a CG character. This technique creates fluid actions, while for the regular animation, the artist might need to add in-between shots in order to achieve smoothness and believability. It is generally agreed that keyframe animation allows the artist to create characters with more life and to utilize traditional animation techniques such as anticipation, squash, and stretch, etc. Motion capture, however, can sometimes lead to a ‘'lifeless’' outcome. For example, The Polar Express(2004) used fully captured facial and body motion of actors, and the result was rather perceived as ‘’creepy’’. Tanine Allison refers to motion capture as an example of digital indexicality, due to the combination of footage recorded from reality and computer-generated images. She also agrees that mocap has demonstrated the endurance of indexicality in the digital age. Although both techniques, mocap and keyframe animation, have advantages and disadvantages, they aim to create the same story.

Harvard References:

Allison, T. (2011) 'More than a Man in a Monkey Suit: Andy Serkis, Motion Capture, and Digital Realism', Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Issue 28, P. 325–341.

Johnson, O. and Thomas, F. (1981) The Illusion of Life. New York: Disney Editions., pp.319-322

WEEK 6

Reality Capture (LIDAR) and VFX

This week we looked into Reality Capture and three-dimensional space.
We talked about 3D Scanning:

Photogrammetry: 3D models are built from photographs. First, a subject is photographed multiple times from different angles, then the software calculates the positions of camera in space in relation to points of the subject. The points become a set of X,Y,Z coordinates as a point cloud and 3D geometry generates.
Laser Scanning(LIDAR) : implies light detection and ranging( laser measurements are taken of an environment from 360-degree viewpoint
Depth-based scanning: projected/laser-based patterns of light which represent the shape of the subject are recorded with cameras and processed in software

Photogrammetry

When it comes to film production, photogrammetry can manipulate, displace, and/or duplicate reality.

That’s how David Stump, ASC, used it in a characteristically spectacular action sequence in the James Bond film Quantum of Solace (2008) — one of the first cases of photogrammetry being used in a major motion picture.

'Point cloud' of the Three Graces by Antonio Canova © Factum Foundation

Laser Scanning(LIDAR)

Philadelphia City Hall 3D Laser Scanning

Depth-based scanning

The LIDAR scan of Notre Dame

Notre Dame was documented from inside and outside in millimeter-precise laser scans. Architecture historian Andrew Tallon, who died in 2018, scanned the cathedral in 2010 from 50 different perspectives. Over a period of 225 working hours, during which sport climbers also transported 3D scanners onto the cathedral towers to carry out measurements there, a total of 635 scans were produced with two terabytes of data. The equipment used was a Z+F IMAGER® 5010X, which measures more than one million pixels per second and achieves measuring accuracy in the sub-millimeter range at distances of up to 187 meters. The laser scanner uses sensors to determine its exact position and sends this, together with the scanning data, to software which automatically creates a 3D image of the scanned object. During scanning, the data is also checked for completeness so that any gaps can be closed immediately.

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Case Study: Reality Capture, LIDAR Lounge

Reality capture is an umbrella term that refers to the practice and tech of 3D Scanning of environments, buildings, objects, etc., and generating a digital model from it, with the help of photogrammetry and laser scanning (LIDAR). Lidar uses laser measurements of an environment from the 360-degree viewpoint, which process a 3D point cloud. Photogrammetry entails multiple photographs of a subject from a variety of angles which are then backed up in software that calculates the positions of the camera in relation to the points of the subject. LIDAR lounge is a 3D scanning company that uses both of these techniques. LIDAR lounge has become an essential tool for film and television, but it is also popular among other domains such as virtual reality, gaming, and even architecture or cyber scanning. They scan sets, environments, props, and background casts. A typical day at LIDAR lounge when having a project implies: scanning a set or a character, backing up the data in software, aligning and modeling it. They worked on renowned films such as Hobbs and Shaw(2019) or Marry Poppins(2018). For Hobbs and Shaw, they were asked to take a panorama of London skyline. Working on Marry Poppins was more challenging because they had to scan over 300 props, where most of them were difficult to scan, for example, shiny umbrellas that are extremely thin or the kite. Ultimately, although Lidar scanning can be difficult, it allows the design process to be quicker while providing superior attention to detail.

Harvard References:

UWLVFX.(2020) The Industry Interviews: Tamara Mitchell & Ross Clark Co-Directors of Lidar Lounge Available at:https://uwlvfx.wixsite.com/uwlvfx/tamara-ross-interview (12.11.2021).

Lidar Lounge(2016)Services Available at:https://lidarlounge.com/#services(12.11.2021)

For our last written post, we had the possibility to choose which trend of VFX we want to further examine. I chose Motion Capture because I wanted to investigate more how is it done and why sometimes it is hard to achieve a good result when using motion capture.

Blog Post: Motion Capture

Allison claims that Motion Capture (mocap) is an example of digital indexicality because without being attached to a Computer Generated (CG) character, the movement produced by mocap has no visual form. Some of the most emotionally complex CG characters like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001, 2002, 2003) or the ape from King Kong (2005) were realised by using the technique of mocap to record the movement of actors. In mocap sessions, Andy Serkis, the performer of ape in King Kong, was wearing a blue and black Lycra suit with arm extensions and prosthetic belly, the suit had 60 reflective balls attached to it, and dozens of reflective silver dots on his face. His body and facial movements were captured by 72 small digital cameras. After recording the arrangements of the reflective dots in space, the images were sent to mocap software which tracked their movement, and therefore the actor in 3D space. However, when using the mocap technique, several difficulties can emerge as motion capture can be a messy process that sometimes produces illegible data inconsistencies and errors. Such difficulty can be recording the facial movements of an actor that is going to represent an anatomically different CG constructed animal. As animals’ bodies are distinct from human form, and animals can move their body and face in ways humans cannot, this can lead to a mismatch between performer and character. Andy Serkis claims that the 3D model of the animal must be adapted to read certain expressions on the performers face.

Harvard References:

Allison, T. (2011) 'More than a Man in a Monkey Suit: Andy Serkis, Motion Capture, and Digital Realism', Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Issue 28, pp. 325–341

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WEEK 7

INVESTIGATE: ASSIGNMENT 2 QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

For my essay, I am going to choose option 3.

The plan for my essay:

Digital visual effects are now one of the most substantial facets of the digital revolution in filmmaking and due to current trends such as compositing, photographic manipulation, the integration of 3D with live-action, films achieve a high standard of photorealism.

I am going to define the invisible, seamless, and spectacular effects while explaining how photorealism is achieved in films that use such effects.

Then, I will look into current trends of VFX and how are they used in order to create effects that present perceptual realism.

Finally, I will think about some renowned films/series and I will look into their case studies to resume the process of creating the visual effects.

WEEK 8

ASSIGNMENT 2: WORKSHOP

Some ideas and research that I made:

The invisible category intends to express perfect veracity and not to draw attention away from the narrative. When it comes to seamless effects, storytelling is vital in order to understand the dvfx because they are noticeable.Fantastical effects depict an improbable realm, but it is extended into perceptual realism. The audience allow the dominance of narrative context when the films include a sense of verisimilitude.

Invisible, seamless and spectacular effects achieve photorealism in films with the help of current trends of VFX. In ‘The Ontology of the Photographic Image’, Andre Bazin suggests that the objective nature of photography leads to realistic elements in cinema and that photographs model the reality of what they illustrate. However, photography’s change from a chemical medium to a digital one, challenges its relation to the audience and it can lose its claims to truth. In digital era, digital photographs can no longer serve as indexes, as images can be imperceptibly ‘’modified’’.

The curious case of Benjamin Button (2008) uses seamless effects for the digital head replacement of Brad Pitt, the model being constructed from a lidar scan of Pitt’s face.

WEEK 9

Reality Capture (Photogrammetry) and VFX

The Digital Michelangelo Project

The Digital Michelangelo Project aims to accurately digitise the external shape and surface characteristics of physical objects such as cultural artefacts or machine parts.

Sculptures and architecture of Michelangelo were scanned and one of the goals was to produce a set of 3D computer models one for each statue, architectural setting, and map fragment.

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The project began in January of 1997 with a 2 year-planning period.

The most challenging parts of the project:

-capturing chisel marks smaller than a millimetre from a safe distance

-reach the top of Michelangelo's David, which stands 23 feet tall on its pedestal

The production phase of the project started from September of 1998 to June of 1999.

During this period, a team of 30 faculty, staff and students from Stanford University and the University of Washington, scanned the artworks and sent the data back to their laboratory for post-processing. In other to achieve 3D models from data, they cleaned up the raw scans, then aligned them with each other, merged them to form a seamless mesh, filled holes in this mesh, and finally maped color photographic data onto it.

At present, they have built a full-resolution model of one statue - Michelangelo's St. Matthew and several medium-resolution models of a second - the head of David.

My choice of essay:

WEEK 10

Simulacra, Simulation and the Hyperreal

This week we examined the differences between a simulacra and a simulation, the writing and theories of the philosopher Jean Baudrillard who suggest that simulacra represents the images that have no original, while a simulation aims to imitate real worlds scene.

''The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth-it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true"(Baudrillard, 2010, p.1)

''Simulations are things rather than representations of things and they can add new things to the world, as any process of production does, rather than represent existing things. In short, one of the ways of defining 'simulation' was to contrast it with 'representation'.''(Lister et.al, 2009, p.127)

Hyperreality involves creating a symbol or set of signifiers which represent something that does not actually exist.

Baudrillard suggests that what has happened in postmodern culture is that our society has become so reliant on models and maps that we have lost all contact with the real world that preceded the map. Reality itself has begun merely to imitate the model, which now precedes and determines the real world: "The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the map that precedes the territory—precession of simulacra—that engenders the territory"(''The Precession of Simulacra''). According to Baudrillard, when it comes to postmodern simulation and simulacra, “It is no longer a question of imitation, nor duplication, nor even parody. It is a question of substituting the signs of the real for the real”.

The Matrix(1999) makes many connections to Simulacra and Simulation. Neo is seen with a copy of ''Simulacra and Simulation'' at the beginning of the Matrix. He uses the hollowed book as a hiding place for cash and his important computer files. Neo's hollowed copy of the book has the chapter "On Nihilism" in the middle, not at the end of the book, where it is in reality. Morpheus refers to the real world outside the Matrix as the "desert of the real", a reference to Baudrillard's work.

The Truman Show(1998)
Truman’s world is an example of hyperreality, as it’s a simulation of a world that is seemingly real but does not actually exist. Every element within Truman’s world is designed to copy the appearance of the real one. It’s this replication of the appearances of reality that continuously tricks Truman, preventing him from learning the truth for decades and blurring the line between reality and fiction.

Baudrillard specified four stages of simulacra—with hyperreality being the fourth stage. This stage occurs when the simulation no longer refers to any reality at all; signs refer to other signs, with no original. Truman’s life reflects this stage. While he is a real person, he is surrounded by fake imitations, from his marriage to his friendships.