Time Warping

After playing with the Time Warping effect in After Effects for a few hours, I realized that the best way to create that "punch-on-beat" in the movement is to speed up the playback by about 400% exactly on the beat and then gradually slow-down over a few a beats or a bar. I wasn't able to get the timing precise on this one as the audio playback in After Effects is not real-time. However, I think this clearly demonstrates the desired look and feel in the dance movement.

Lighting References: Butoh

After the lighting test, we were told of a Japanese dance form called Butoh. Its a combination of very stiff movement and painting the body with a type of cake make-up made from ground sea shells. Unfortunately, that kind of make-up is only found in Japan but we have found a good substitute and a way to apply it.

As soon as we get some shipped in to us, we will test it and post the results.

Lighting Test with Dancer

Dance References

The motion for the dance has to be both fluid and jerky, much like what is seen in the 300 oracle scene. I love how the actions in the 300 movie reference are speed-up and slow-down on the beat. We need to experiment with that technique.

Wall Lighting Test

Test to see how the white wall reacts to color correction. We think that we may need to add an bit of gray to the wall to reduce blow out and darken the image overall. Both of these images have a 50% gray layer added to them.


Test to see how the shadows fall as if there were a head through the hole.

The diffusion is created by taking vellum, normally used for drafting, and double folding it. The lighting is top lit using a 2k.

Slow-motion, Fog & Rear Projection Test

We use the Sony EX3 Cam for this. The T2i is not able to compensate for the 60Hz refresh rate of the projector. Since the EXcam is not able to create the shallow DOF, we put the projector slightly out of focus. A 1K light and 2 velum sheets were used to create the soft shadows. Next we'll try using a 2K light, and going wider. The image used in the rear projection is as follows:

next time we'll use a slightly more desaturated image so that we can cool up the whole scene more evenly in post.

The fog machine that we used emits water based fog, that diffuses off very quickly. We might have to rent a better fog machine to create a hazy, more thicker fog for the final shoot.

What I like most about the thick fog is how it creates interesting trails when my hand moves through them. These trails would be really effective in exaggerating the motion of the two dancers for this shot.

Wall Attempt 2

Once we put together the foam boards we realized that the seams were a bit too obvious and distracting. So we went out and bought 3 big boards, and cut holes through them.

Then I got started painting stucco and creating the texture with toilet paper. Took me about 6 hours to finish it. I was able to build the texture exactly the way I wanted it. Success!

All the ladies!

Here's a picture of the wall prototype #1 with all the ladies of the VIZA623 class :P

Forbidden Cirlce Animatic

Lotus Shader Proof of Concept

Ariel created some test renders using a quick shader he developed. It uses subsurface scattering and has a preliminary lighting rig on it.

Building the head-selection wall

A friend of mine, Shyam helped us build the wooden framework. Today, I started gluing the plastic planks on to them to actually build the wall. Right now, it looks very flimsy, we may need to stabilize it somehow. The next step would be to stabilize it and then use paper, papier-mâché, toilet paper and primer paint to create the a rough, grainy texture, as seen on the story boards.

Meanwhile, Ariel Chisholm, another vizzer is working on surfacing/lighting the lotus.

Music Done!

I spent the whole weekend on developing the music, with the Pod X3 that my friend lent me. It was so much fun experimenting with it. Here's the first draft of the music. I have mixed it, but I think I'll go in and re-record some parts of it for more clarity, and have someone else mix it for me if possible.

Lotus Model

Brandi Parish, a fellow vizzer modeled the lotus for us in literally a day, and I think she's done a fantastic job.

Seth Schwartz, another vizzer is rigging the model currently, and he said he'll get it done in about two days.

More sound tests

A generous friend of mine lent me his Pod X3, now the guitar sounds so much more cleaner! For now, there's just one ambient guitar track on it, I'll try out more sounds this weekend.



Working on developing the soundscapes.

Storyboards + Lighting keys

This is taking longer than I thought! But I guess they're coming out okay. Once I'm done with all, I'll probably go back and make finished, detailed piece of one of these. Most of these images were created using images found on DeviantArt or Google image search. No copyright violations intended. Images made strictly for non-profit, educational purposes only.



Shot 01



Shot 02







Shot 03



Shot 04



Shot 05



Shot 06


↑ Establishing shot for lead character. Few impromptu shots of her seated on the throne. Then she gets off the throne and starts walking.

Shot 07



Shot 08



Shot 09



Shot 10



Shot 09B



Shot 11



Shot 12





Shot 13


↑ Camera with very shallow DOF zooms out on her and focuses on the tree branches. Camera follows a branch very closely.




↑ Zoom in on white liquid drop. Fade out.

Head Selection Reference

A creepy reference from Return to Oz for the Head Selection scene. We're using it to study the way one gets round the whole problem of filming an actor without a head minus the step of actually decapitating them. It seems mostly to be a bit of trick editing, hiding using the frame line, fake heads, and green or blue screen compositing.

Lotus (Nulembo Nucifera) Reference

Wikipedia Article on Nulembo Nucifera

Animatic v.1

Storyboards v.1