archived-videos New Teleporting Effects

Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC

Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC

Which one of these two versions put together back to back looks better and why?

https://vimeo.com/101051210

PW is mdmpllc

I am reworking special effects. Feedback will help me determine if I am on the right track.

The second version is a newer version. I was inspired to change it to the newer version after watching the pilot for the TV series Weird Science and Star Trek Voyager.

I am planning to re-shoot the model spaceship next year with my crew in a makeshift greenscreen room. We will not be using silver fishing wire ever again. I am planning we use a greenscreen colored stand or wiring to make it look better than before.

So, right now, I am primarily interested in the teleporting effects with the cyborgs. Any suggestions to make it better?

Thanks in advance for help.
 
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Perhaps it's because I'm not sure of the overall story, but are the other shots of the ship beyond the establishing one absolutely necessary?

It would be far simpler to have the ship in the sky, then a wide shot of the terrain, then the beaming effect. The ship going across the screen and then appearing on the ground once more and then flying up before the teleportation is somewhat distracting.

Just my opinion.
 
The ending shot is better than the previous ones, but the people still float over the background because it doesn't start moving with them until halfway into the shot.

The new backgrounds you've chosen don't really match - the rocky, snowy mountain shot with heavy, dark cloud cover doesn't make any sense with what looks like spring or summertime in the meadow. The colors don't match either - compare the green between the two and there's a much stronger red component in the grass in the mountain shot vs. the meadow. They also both look like low-res photos blown up to fill the screen, especially the first mountain shot and the final shot behind the people.

The perspective looks wrong again on the wide mountain shot - it now looks more like a fairly small ship very close to the camera. It should probably be smaller, and in the distance, and have a light shadow on the ground to help sell the scale and perspective. A shadow below the ship as it rises from the meadow would also tie the ship into the background better, although I still feel like it doesn't really even need to be in the shot.

After watching it a few times I'm also starting to wonder what's supposed to be going on in the first shot? Why does the ship just hover there for so long, and why does it blur in and out? I'd be inclined to just go from the ship hovering in the first shot, show a small flash/beam shoot down out of the shot, cut to the meadow with the beam hitting the ground, and have the people appear, getting rid of the middle shot entirely.

[EDIT] TheMurph beat me to it - I think we're basically describing the same sequence. Might be worth considering that two different people, unfamiliar with the material, came to the same conclusion about how it would work better.
 
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ItDonnedOnMe said:
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[EDIT] TheMurph beat me to it - I think we're basically describing the same sequence. Might be worth considering that two different people, unfamiliar with the material, came to the same conclusion about how it would work better.
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Make that 3, because it's just what I suggsted earlier:

WalterB said:
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I'd cut the shots with the trees and the grass.
Use a wider forest shot.
Then let some beam move down from the ship in the first shot in the sky.
Make it taper a bit.
In the forest shot the wider beam reaches the floor: the people appear.

Would make a lot more sense (at least to me).
Click to expand...

This solution saves you looking for 1 extra background.
It take the size challenge of the vessel away.
It makes the scene tighter.

Now just stop moving those people around. Why do they move like that?
The probleem isn't making the movement of the background match the foreground. The probleem is the strange movement of the people itself.
Just like the basic problem of this scene aren't the special beam effects, the basic problem is the edit.
Make the edit make sense and then focus on effects.
 
You're right, I'd missed that you suggested the exact same thing earlier - definitely reinforces the idea that it's the better way to go.

As for the people moving at the end, I don't think he's doing that - it's camera movement in the shot itself. I'm assuming re-shooting the scene isn't a possibility at this point, so the best he can do is try to match the background's movement to the camera movement.

If I'm wrong in that assumption then I agree absolutely - get rid of the motion entirely.
 
Why, because the DP handheld the camera rather than put it on a tripod. I have to compensate. The actors cannot be re-shot. One of then in the shot got fired. So, it is what it is with the actors.
 
The last scene has the desired effects now. They start out floating because they are floating until their atoms fully come together.

As the beam drops down from the ship and the energy grows out of the screen, I move into a close-up with the background to make the background look more their size.

These are better than showing a road, like you proposed before.

ME21 is a rural planet used by the Silver Demon Hunters to hunt humans. It has 2 yeollow suns and a moon in the sky.

Also, a spaceship like this can cover thousands of kilometers a second, so the terrain can change fast. I am showing more of the planet with the extra shots as the cyborgs are searching for the humans that the silver demon hunters kidnapped.
 
Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
The last scene has the desired effects now. They start out floating because they are floating until their atoms fully come together.

As the beam drops down from the ship and the energy grows out of the screen, I move into a close-up with the background to make the background look more their size.
Click to expand...

Well, I suppose you can justify how it looks if you like, but it doesn't look right, and the audience has no idea what your justifications are. It certainly doesn't look like they're floating - it looks like the camera is moving. If they were floating they wouldn't all be moving in sync. When the background scales it doesn't look like it has anything to do with their size, it just looks like the background is zooming for no apparent reason.

Also, a spaceship like this can cover thousands of kilometers a second, so the terrain can change fast. I am showing more of the planet with the extra shots as the cyborgs are searching for the humans that the silver demon hunters kidnapped.
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There's no indication that it can travel that fast though. We see it float stationary in the sky, then float slowly by the mountains, then apparently it's landed and taking off slowly before beaming the people down. Which doesn't make any sense - why didn't they just get out of the ship when it landed? Or, alternately, why didn't they beam down while the ship was still in the air? I'm actually not asking you to provide some backstory explanation for why it is the way it is - because the audience doesn't necessarily know that backstory - I'm trying to explain what's going through your audience's mind when they see it.
 
Okay, the first scene is the spaceship entering the planet's atmosphere.

The second scene, it is flying over land masses en route to where the cyborgs are detecting the human soldiers from their home world who are wearing lojacks to be tracked by the cyborgs.

Scene three, the AI spaceship teleports the cyborgs to the land below where they can track the humans the rest of the way.

This is just a sequence of shots from the film. It's not the film. I picked this sequence because it is one of the weakest I'm trying to fix up as best as possible.

We can re-shoot the ship because the prop master still has it and we stay in contact. I have a new DP who shot pickup footage for the film in 2012. He's still with us too. He also has his own greenscreen room in his apartment. He also has the same camera as the previous DP.

However, I already explain one of the actresses who was in the shot was let go. So, we cannot re-shoot the actors in that scene because one of them had extreme tardiness issues.
 
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i agree video copilot has some great effects that you can use as a base and manipulate and make your own from there. They also have some great sfx plug ins for a very reasonable price.
 
ItDonnedOnMe said:
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I'm actually not asking you to provide some backstory explanation for why it is the way it is - because the audience doesn't necessarily know that backstory - I'm trying to explain what's going through your audience's mind when they see it.
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+1

An edit creates thoughts in the mind of the viewer.
The viewer connects the shots you show to make it a story.
You can try to tell us what it all should mean, but all the viewers have is what's on the screen.

It's not like a big screening test, but you've got 3 viewers who don't see the sequence of shots as a touristic tour of the planet. Nor do they we that the ship is incredibely fast.
It's sad to hear you have to come up with the floating particle backstory, because you had a stubborn DOP.
That's a thing you can't fix anymore.
But you can still improve the scene around it :)
 
WalterB, that is the goal; to fix what is around it.

I have the camera shake issue with spaceship interior shots too back the same hot dog wanted to shoot the actors with the camera off the tripod.

I made that footage look like turbulence in space.
 
Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
Okay, the first scene is the spaceship entering the planet's atmosphere.
Click to expand...

This is not what I see.
I see a ship hovering and 'looking around'.

Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
The second scene, it is flying over land masses en route to where the cyborgs are detecting the human soldiers from their home world who are wearing lojacks to be tracked by the cyborgs.
Click to expand...
We don't see that either.
No land masses. No sense of travelling a distance. No sense of the speed you discribed.




Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
This is just a sequence of shots from the film. It's not the film. I picked this sequence because it is one of the weakest I'm trying to fix up as best as possible.

We can re-shoot the ship because the prop master still has it and we stay in contact. I have a new DP who shot pickup footage for the film in 2012. He's still with us too. He also has his own greenscreen room in his apartment. He also has the same camera as the previous DP.

However, I already explain one of the actresses who was in the shot was let go. So, we cannot re-shoot the actors in that scene because one of them had extreme tardiness issues.
Click to expand...

Can you shoot the different actors one by one with a tripod?
Add a double for the 'tard'.
Get a good steady really wide shot and have them teleported there as small figures so you can get away with the double.

Leave shot 2 and 3 out of it and you'll have a better scene.
 
Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC said:
I think the best way to fix the ship racing past land masses is to make the land mass move and and some motion blur effects.
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But you can't do that with a picture in a way that looks convincing. It will just look crappy.
You'll need footage shot from a helicopter or a 3D animation flying over landmasses.
To give you an idea of what I mean (although the speed (and maybe altitude) are a bit low for your scene):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyWRTFCrSGE&feature=player_detailpage#t=390

If you get to make a shot like this, it should be the first shot.
The hovering shot can come as second shot.
3rd shot would be the crew being bamed down (like I discribed in my previous post).
 
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