When a scene involves VFX the director has to be flexible and understand how the effect is going to work using planning material and also listening to the VFX supervisor, on my shoot I was both the director and VFX supervisor so I was able to quickly adapt to my location especially as I had performed a recce, this meant when it came to the shoot I knew where and when I should take the shots.
When shooting my indoor scenes I had the issue of quite low lighting which came from tungsten lights, this meant I had to adjust my ISO, Shutter speed and Aperture to allow enough light into the camera without deteriorating the quality of the footage. I also had to adjust my production process for the shooting of the VFX shots, when shooting these shots I had to ensure I was using the tripod to keep the camera as still as possible otherwise I would have to track the camera position which would consume a lot of time in the editing process. I also decided to shoot the production in a non linear order this meant I could shoot all the scenes with my actors in one go and then focus on getting the VFX shots once my actors were gone.
Camera Settings:
The Canon750D is a DSLR camera, this allowed me to use manual mode to adjust the camera's ISO, Shutter speed and aperture, also known as the exposure triangle.
ISO:
ISO is the level of sensitivity of your camera to available light. It is typically measured in numbers, a lower number representing lower sensitivity to available light, while higher numbers mean more sensitivity. More sensitivity comes at the cost though, as the ISO increases, so does the grain/noise in the footage.
Shutter Speed:
Shutter Speed is the length of time a camera shutter is open to expose light into the camera sensor. Shutter speeds are typically measured in fractions of a second, when they are under a second. Slow speeds allow more light into the camera sensor and are used for low-light and night photography, while fast shutter speeds help to freeze motion.
Aperture:
Aperture is the hole within a lens, through which light travels into the camera. The larger the hole, the more light passes to the camera sensor. Aperture also controls the depth of field, which is the portion of a scene that appears to be sharp. If the aperture is very small, the depth of field is large, while if the aperture is large, the depth of field is small.
In order to suit the low lighting of the indoor set I had to adjust these settings to allow more light into the camera, this meant lowering the shutter speed while using a higher ISO and aperture to increase the cameras sensitivity to light. However I did find these settings lead to a grainier image that had a very shallow depth of field, this caused issues with quality. To correct this I increased the level of lighting in the scene and took test shots, until I found the correct settings.
White Balance:
The indoor shoot also meant I was shooting under tungsten lighting, this results in the footage looking yellow. To reduce this I used the 750Ds white balance preset 'tungsten' to correct the lighting, this meant avoiding having to make the corrections in post production and improved the overall quality of the footage.
Setting up Equipment:
Tripod:
The DV6000 tripod is a simple tripod to setup. I extended the legs to their maximum length and the removed the baseplate to screw it onto the bottom of the camera before slotting it back into place.
Visualization/Realisation of Effects:
Bringing my effects to life was an important aspect of my production. Below is an example of how I bought one scene to life, from storyboard to live action. Although the camera angle, character and prop positioning had to change due to the shooting conditions, I retained the concept of a character shooting electricity from their eyes to make a tank bigger and have realised the vision. I did this most in the editing phase in which I used after effects to create the electricity beams and 3DS max to insert the 3D tanks.
These two images below also demonstrate how I have realised my visualisation of this effect, by inserting the appropriate graphics and text. When shooting this shot I was forced to reposition the prop due to the nature of the set, this meant there was a small discrepancy between the the visualisation and realisation of the scene.
Setting up the green screen was necessary for some of my shots as I required a shot of an actor in which I would have to remove the background and replace it.
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