Skating with the Wind

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The introduction of visual effects to film and television has since become the dominating alternative in modern media. Ranging from movies, television, and advertisements, company now tends to move towards using visual effects (VFX) instead of special or practical effects. These VFX created and used refers to but are not limited to; 3D generated worlds, photogrammetry, digital doubles, CGI, green/blue screen, and dynamic effects (FX). With these tools, anyone is able to generate a whole new world with photoreal characters, environments, and actions, provided that you have a powerful computer and an artistic mind. My project “Skating with the Wind” is a critique of just that. I believe I was able to successfully create a live-action anime opening by compositing many fake elements on raw camera footage.

Throughout the process of creating my project, I looked at similar projects and image references to create a general ideology on the aesthetics of anime. To first understand this, I started watching Haikyuu!! and Kuroko no Basket. As my concept is based on a sport, these anime demonstrated how heavy action sequences in sports are stylised and directed. I was able to determine that the tempo is always quick to slow motion to show the lengths of each movement and the strength beginning the action. Whenever a special power was activated, the effects are flashy and heavy layers of effects are composited to exaggerate how powerful it is. These shots are enhanced with elongated high angles or low-angled shots, depending on which receiving end the character is on. However, if there is no or little action shown, the camera is still. For the colour grading aesthetic of my anime opening, I looked at image references from Google Images. From this, I concluded that although each scene doesn’t have many colours, the colours are vibrant and sharp. In addition, every object in both foreground and background is visible and detailed. For the overall composition of the shot, I noticed that gradients are used in wide environments such as fields of grass or the sky. I then watched videos like Corridor’s Anime Fidget Spinners and RivenX3i’s My Hero Academia Conceptual Spin to gain an understanding of how these techniques and aesthetics are portrayed in live-action cinematography.

While making my project, I also further researched other sources to determine what a certain action sequence would look like. I watched the anime Sk8 the Infinity as it is a skateboarding anime so it would be the most identical to how I would want my anime opening to look like. I also specifically focused on all the action sequences where speed lines were involved. I was able to note that the character being focused on was a close-up shot, isolated on a single coloured or heavily blurred out terrain background. The character was also not moving as much while multiple lines raced back in front and behind them. I did note, however, for the speed lines in the front, kept the face clear so only above the head and half the body are covered by it. For live-action references Corridor’s ANIME Baseball, Anime Self Driving Cars and YUMCHA’s SUPER ULTIMATE FRISBEE – THE FRISBEE ANIME. These references gave me an idea of how I could frame and composite a fake background with raw footage seamlessly.

I also additionally researched many anime openings such as Demon Slayer, Sword Art Online and Jujitsu Kaisen to experience and study how anime openings are edited. I created this simple formula:

Show one piece of the context of what the protagonist does in the anime → title card behind little movement background or a fade to white background → introduce characters → falling sequence/sad sequence → fast-moving action → panning shot of characters → random clips → end.

I chose this concept because I believe it would communicate my critique on how VFX dominates the alternative in modern video media. This decision is also due to my previous tutor’s feedback where she stated that this concept’s story would be easier to show while also allowing me to show various video techniques. As I am pursuing a career in compositing, she also mentioned that to become a better artist, you first have to become a good storyteller.

Originally, my concept was to have an ultimate frisbee battle with myself acting as all the players. However, I realised with the time constraint of a term, I would not be able to create an effective production at the end of the term. I knew I would have to roto and colour match a lot, both of which I do not have enough experience in to do effectively. The concept/story then transformed into a skateboard chase sequence where it would start with two characters (both still played by me) and quickly transition the focus onto just the skater. This would make the story, compositing, and filming more manageable. But again, my lack of experience with both visual effects and skateboarding tricks hindered this concept from being viable to make in a term.

After going through multiple ideation possibilities I settled on a skateboard anime opening (OP) instead of creating a storyline. Having one character as my main focus, I would be able to internally concentrate on VFX, video production and editing. This also meant that I wouldn’t have to worry about sound as the only audio I need is the OP song which I have arranged to size.

From the beginning, I knew that my anime opening would not have much movement and could possibly be somewhat of a still image the whole way. Due to being a one-man team, I would be operating the camera first and then quickly getting into the frame to act. I thought of creating a digital double by using photogrammetry so I could create more camera movement. In addition, I would spend most of my time throughout the term reshooting multiple scenes as when looking back at the footage, I may be out of focus, out of frame or my acting was incorrect. I also had to wait for an overcast but still bright day to shoot because if it was too sunny, it would overexpose my camera. As this term was very wet, I would waste multiple days due to waiting for perfect days to reshoot. Choosing a coding course for this term also hindered my ability to work on this project as because I never coded before, I spent most days of the week completing lab work and understanding how to write code. This all could’ve been avoided if I planned my story/time better or if I had a second person to operate the camera/act.

Feedback from Week 7’s WIP was extremely helpful as it allowed my classmates and tutor to give me advice on how I can improve my anime opening. In this session, we discussed how I could change the chorus from using a digital double to just filming myself as I have not yet learnt how to do photogrammetry yet. As per my tutor’s feedback, she stated that it is better to do something that I can do at this point due to the time constraints. This is where I came up with the idea of my character being in a speed-line sequence instead of the original digital double sequence. In this class, I also discussed how my storyboard is and where should I change it for the OP to make more sense.

Overall, I believe I achieved my goal of critiquing how VFX dominates the alternative in modern video media through the use of heavy visual effects and compositing. Although I spent little time on colour grading which could be improved, it still conveyed the aesthetic of an anime with the vibrancy and gradients of colours. The use of Houdini was effective even though I only learnt how to use the software this term. I would’ve liked the ground breaks to look more photo real and the cracks to have edge decals, however, that comes down to the limited experience and knowledge in VFX and Nuke and software paywall.

My thesis and concept are based on the recent films I have watched over the past few years. At the beginning of film and television, practical effects, and special effects such as real-life explosions, miniatures, matte paintings, or animatronics. However, modern movies such as Avengers or Avatar, are nearly completely computer generated. Even the actors themselves are digital doubles or the costumes they wear are completely CGI. Although there are some filmmakers like Christopher Nolan who try to opt out of visual effects and still use practical effects such as his latest film Tennent (an action-packed film has less than 300 VFX shots), there are not nearly enough filmmakers that create movies and television that doesn’t turn to the VFX route. This may be due to the cost of VFX versus creating practical and special effects. Perhaps it is also because of how fantastical stories are nowadays and creating miniatures wouldn’t look as photoreal as creating an environment on the computer.

From this realisation, I created my major project revolving around the heavy use of visual effects to show the audience how much VFX influences the medium. With the use of multiple keying and editing, I was able to fake multiple movements that would be impossible to film and do in real life without having expensive equipment. I was also able to create dynamic effects to enhance action sequences and fake fantastical moments.