P2 (c) storyboard identifying visual effects

Storyboard identifying visual effects

When developing a storyboard its vital that all the cast and crew understand what the visual effect is and how it is going to work and impact on the filming. The best way to do this is to pre visualize the effect by drawing a storyboard that can be shown to cast and crew or editors.

Below are the storyboards I developed for my production to show what visual effects I wanted to include in the production and how I wanted the finished product to look.
                               
Introduction Graphics:

The two sets of images below were designed to show a graphic match to express two opposing sides, in order to express opposing sides I had to think how to make the shot work visually, this meant considering colour, lighting and also content. In terms of content I felt that using images of tanks from two historically opposing sides would let the audience know the tanks were against one another, not to mention to variation in the colour of the tanks and iconography seen on the Sherman e.g the US Army star. To light this shot I wanted to ensure that the lower frame was lighter to draw the audiences attention to the tanks but making the lighting on the tanks themselves was equal.
However the most eye-catching piece of this shot was the text, I purposely coloured the text red to draw attention and used a bulky military typeface to assist with this but also because it related to the themes of the video.

I wanted to ensure that the lower frame was lighter to draw the audiences attention to the tanks

I felt that using images of tanks from two historically opposing sides would let the audience know the tanks were against one another.

The effect seen below required a green screen as I removed the background from each actor and composited them into one frame allowing me to place an image behind them. This time I used colour and lighting as my primary method of expressing the narrative of two opposing sides whilst ensuring that I created a graphics match with the previous image. 

I created a graphic match by I placing the USA's flag on the left side of the frame, since the M4 Sherman from the previous frame was an American tank and on the left side of the frame, I also did this with the German flag, as these nations were historically opposed it made sense to contrast them in this manner but also emphasizing this opposition by using the colours green and red to express the message of good guy vs bad guy. I also used lighting to separate the characters deciding to darken the left character and lighten the right character.

3D Effects/Muzzle Flash:

Inserting 3D tanks into realtime footage was one of the main effects of this movie and with the ability to do so this production would of not been possible, due to the legal and financial aspects of bringing in two real tanks on set and the fact that some shots are not physically possible to create due to the laws of physics.

When I created my storyboard for the VFX I payed close attention to the camera angles I was using a how the camera would move as these factors can make the compositing process very difficult if the camera is shaky or moving too much. I also wanted to make sure that the tanks were the correct scale in comparison to their surroundings as it would ruin the effect for the audience, lighting was also important as when compositing the object you have to know where your light source is to coming from so to replicate it within your software.

The muzzle flash effect was commonly used in this production as I could not use real tanks or explosions etc.. so my best alternative was to use 2D stock footage and composite it over my footage so to create the 'illusion' of a tank shooting without having to do it in real life, which was not within my budget.

 

Above shows the scene in which the toy tanks engage one another, this required me to use VFX to visually express this. I decided to use stock footage of muzzle flashes and cartoon style BANG captions to illustrate this.