Production - Filming

Filming was rather tedious and hard. Even before I started out, I have to check with the school if they lend cameras with 60fps. However, there is only one type of camera which has the function. The EX1R. I swore to god that I will never want to use it again previously but for the sake of this assignment, I have to use it again. :( I managed to loan an EX1R for a couple of days. For the following day, I have actually filmed some scenes. For instance, the blood dropping onto a burning candle. At the end of the day, I went to loan a macro lens from Mr Jame for close-up shooting. And for the rest of the scenes, I have actually done it at home. :) I have also modified some parts of the story.

Production - Modelling

During the production, I had some problems from the start. I wanted to achieve the slow-motion look for some parts of the video. For instance, the blood dropping from a certain height and it slows down. 

Something like this:

Blood dripping from high ground

Before I have even started filming, I already have some difficulties. I questioned myself. How am I going to use 60D with just a 50mm lens to capture the blood dropping part? It is almost impossible to do it! So I have wasted one day at school trying to figure out a solution to my problems. The next thing I did was to go on Youtube and search for a few tutorials on how to do 3D modelling for blood and animate it. To my surprise, there was almost no tutorials for "Blood Drop Maya". At that time, I didn't know a software called "REALFLOW" can do fluid animation. In the end, I tried using Maya for modelling for the blood drop. I spent almost a whole day to figure out how to model a single blood droplet. So I resorted to just using curves to create a solid droplet shape that did not move at all. I have also forgotten how to keyframe the motions. >.< And it has been so long since I last used Maya. 

Feeling in doubt, I went online to look at forums on how to model a single droplet in Maya. As usual, nothing useful came up. However, I saw a forum and someone mentioned about "RealFlow". They said it is useful and easy to use. I have heed their instructions and went to download RealFlow. In the meantime, I went to search for tutorials for "Blood Drop RealFlow". Something came up but not tutorials. There are a lot of demo videos/ tests about droplet but there is just no tutorials. >.< As usual, I went to look at the online forums again. This time round, I was not that disappointed. Someone kind enough actually shared a PDF file on "How to model a droplet" on the forum. So I went to download the PDF file and started modelling and animating in RealFlow. Initially, it was easy to follow the instructions but after a few instructions, I was totally lost. I did not know where the "Global Links" tab is. T^T I have to searched for the whole software to find the tab but it appears that there is no such thing. >.< 

The next day, I went to school feeling in doubt. I was clueless on how to model a droplet in a modelling software. I even asked Mr Sankar how to model a blood drop in Maya. He did show me how to model and animate a droplet but I was quite lost. Then Mr Jame told me to use alternative methods such as using a camera. So I asked myself: "Why not give it a try?" So I went online and searched for various methods. Finally, I found something that can be done. I can actually use a camera with 60fps and slow it down in AE. :) It was a brilliant idea. It's worth a try. :)

The Beginning - Plot

Initially, I have a few ideas in mind. At first, I wanted to do something like Fringe but I have aborted the idea because MAYA must be used. So, I went to watch a few famous TV series' title sequences to generate some more ideas. At last, I came up with an idea with a combination of DEXTER and Walking Dead. Since, my group's plot resembles a murder plot. I have also drawn a rough sketch of the storyboard.

So this is how it turns out:

Rough Storyboard Sketches

 

I want to do something like DEXTER's title sequence. The whole story plot is about a journey of a drip of blood(something that is small but important).