Forbidden Circle

Inspiration: Mark Romanek's Music Video

2011-06-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

Some really incredible concepts and strong imagery here. Apparently Tarsem Singh's "The Cell" was largely inspired by these.

Madonna - Bedtime Story

NIN - Closer

NIN - And All That Could Have Been

This one is actually a video re-mash of the NIN's The Perfect Drug video. I like this better than the original.

Concept: Garden

2011-06-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

This concept came to me in a dream sometime a few years back, and as soon as I woke up I picked up my acoustic guitar and figured it out and recorded it. Here's the original recording from 2009, recorded on my MacBook via the built-in microphone so the quality is really terrible, but you can hear the birth of the melodic idea.

Original Recording on Acoustic Guitar (2/12/2009)

In my dream I saw myself walking around in a garden that was hovering over a lake. It had giant plants and flowers, and in the middle of the garden was a tree made up entirely of my own hands. I had also drawn a picture of this and blogged about it back then.

Playing Tree (2/2009)

Recently, I re-recorded the same melody on my electric tuned in standard A, and here it can be heard much clearly. This will be the basis for the whole track. I intend to make this a slow, ambient piece for most part of it and recreate feel of the dream. And then towards the end have a surprising, heavy distorted guitar riff. The visuals will also follow the same pattern. Most part of it will be set in a garden like space with the protagonist hovering/walking around and exploring the garden and its life forms. And towards the end, there will be a drastic change, I'm not sure what this change will be, but I'm working on it.

Recorded on electric guitar (5/2011)

Inspiration: The Lovely Bones

2011-06-02T07:32:00.000-07:00

The imagery of heaven and after life in this movie are surreal and beautiful. Very painterly and dream-like. Some scenes are embellished with symbolic and metaphorical elements supporting the story where the events from the real world affects the world of the dead. Simply breathtaking!

Visual Reference: Aurora Borealis Time-lapse by Tromsø

2011-06-01T12:34:00.000-07:00

The interaction between the clouds and the auroras are simply amazing!

Sandy Skoglund

2011-06-01T11:58:00.000-07:00

Sandy Skoglund creates surreal and painterly images with beautifully lit minimal sets and characters. Often playing with juxtaposition go brightly colored objects and pale, earthy environments.

Lighting Reference Video: White Winter Hymnal

2011-06-01T11:56:00.000-07:00

Video directed by Sean Pecknold

After beginning to look at the use of dioramas for sets, we've been discussing the idea of the light on the set sort of constantly changing like from night to day, which reminded me of this video. The shifting of the light and shadow as well as the combination of the use of camera is rather beautifully done.

Baraka - Ron Fricke

2011-06-01T11:51:00.000-07:00

"Without words, cameras show us the world, with an emphasis not on "where," but on "what's there." It begins with morning, natural landscapes and people at prayer: volcanoes, water falls, veldts, and forests; several hundred monks do a monkey chant. Indigenous peoples apply body paint; whole villages dance. The film moves to destruction of nature via logging, blasting, and strip mining. Images of poverty, rapid urban life, and factories give way to war, concentration camps, and mass graves. Ancient ruins come into view, and then a sacred river where pilgrims bathe and funeral pyres burn. Prayer and nature return. A monk rings a huge bell; stars wheel across the sky."

Set Design Reference: Jonah Samson's Dioramas

2011-06-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

Jonah Samson makes miniature dioramas. The sets and the lighting are very interesting. I really like how he makes these small objects look real and large.

More cool dioramas (by other artists) at FuckYeahDioramas

What's coming up next?

2011-05-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

Now that Empyrean is complete, we're working on full music video album. There will be about 4-5 tracks on it. Total length of about 30-40 minutes. 'Empyrean' will be one of piece on it. Our hope is that this album - "Forbidden Circle" will be surreal, eerie and beautiful and will be ready sometime in Spring 2012. Quite a few awesome musicians have agreed to do some guest work on the album. More coming soon.

Empyrean Video

2011-05-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

It's done!

We'll soon release a limited copy DVD with the video and some goodies, and a poster.

Flower Bloom Composition/Camera Reference

2011-04-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

The subtle camera move and the chromatic aberration creates such a surreal space

Here the slow backgrounds that are completely out of focus create an interesting image, while in the foreground the flower blooms. Makes it look very real, and plausible yet has some surreal qualities.

Music Ambient layers

2011-04-01T09:51:00.001-07:00

I've added in the ambient layers of the track. Most of the ambient string sounds were designed with NI Kore Player. There's also a few tracks of my voice here and there creating the choir like.

This also features the bass played by Brandon. I've edited his performance here and there just a little to make them sit more tightly over the kick.

Next, I'm going to rent out a 7 string guitar from a the local guitar shop and re-track all the guitars.

Dance cues

2011-04-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

The motion in the dance sequence is going to reflect the motion in the guitar's melody. The melody is basically playing over a 4/4 time signature but going in and out of phase with the up and down beats. The dance will reflect this.

I've created a motion cue for both the dancers. These motion cues (ting and ding sounds panned left and right) will act as a "force" which causes them to change their pose.

This way their motions will be somewhat independent and organized in time, and my hope is that it reduces the visual chaos of that scene a little, and will reinforce the rhythmic structure of the music via visual, motion coherence.

Improved design

2011-04-01T09:39:00.000-07:00

The makeup really fell apart in the shoot we did last week for the dance scene. So we're redesigned the characters. Instead of bald caps, we'll just comb the hair up with gel and hairnets to create tendril like structures attaching them to the white tube from above.

Lotus Shader

2011-04-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

Here are some progress pictures of the Lotus shader that Ariel is working on.

He's also going to re-model the petals so that he can UV-unwrap them.

Heads Makeup Concepts

2011-04-01T09:29:00.000-07:00

Makeup

2011-04-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick makeup test we did on Jessica. Shelia did the hair.

Here are some quick hair-style references

Lighting Key Breakdown

2011-03-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

Storyboard Breakdown

2011-03-20T16:06:00.001-07:00

Head Substituition Test

2011-03-19T22:43:00.000-07:00

After much planning and experimentation, we realized that we don't really need to use a green-screen for the head removal. As the motion is only along one axis, and the camera is fixed for this shot, we can remove the head in post-production using a simple mask.

For this test, we used ping-pong balls as motion trackers for the head and the broom. We shot the head without any green screen or mask. I had my head turned up so that my head wasn't casting any shadows on the neck and chest. We also shot a footage of just the background wall so that we can use it to mask out the head.

For the broom we hand-held a green poster paper behind it and walked it across the wall, so that we would get the exact lighting conditions.

Later using After Effects we tracked the ball in both the shots and composited the broom over the head. We used a simple garbage mask to clear up the noise on the green screen for the broom. After Effects does not support attaching masks to trackers, so we found this script from AExtensions that does that and used it to move the garbage masks.

For the final shoot we plan to use 3-4 trackers so that we can get head motion, rotation and swivel data. We plan to build a tree branch prop that would be used in place of the head.

Gelatin Head Appliance - First one done!

2011-03-14T16:34:00.000-07:00

This was perhaps the biggest challenge yet on this project. Since none of us really have any experience building prosthetics, it was an incredible learning experience. It involved building the cast with plaster, connecting a 5' PVC tube to it and then mixing/cooking the gelatin, pouring it to create the cast.

This is what the gelatin appliance looks like.

And here is an interesting arrangement we used to pour the gelatin and erect the cast. With nothing more than random found objects in my apartment. Epic indeed t'was!

What you see there is a Styrofoam head with a tube drilled into. Dunked into a plaster cast in the blue bucket. Fitted into another PVC tube. Standing upright using a crutch!

Gelatin Head Appliance

2011-03-10T16:43:00.000-08:00

We experimented with casting appliance in Gelatin using plaster and it turned out to be a very successful. The gelatin works very well on skin and has organic sub-surface scattering properties. Will post pictures of the gelatin soon.

So the next is to build the actual cast for the head and make the gelatin parts. Here you can see the Styrofoam head with the clay added to create the positive for the mold.

The idea is to use a 5' PVC pipe to cast a solid gelatin tube with the bald cap at the base of it. Then apply this appliance over a latex bald cap and then blend the edges with more liquid latex.

Color Script

2011-03-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

I've created a color script by taking the lighting keys from the storyboards and adjusting their colors to match a little bit better. From here you can begin to see a bit of the way the color adjusts, beginning with warmer, pinks and greens then dropping to colder blues, then slowly changing back to pinks and greens again.

Dance Lighting Reference

2011-03-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

The Wraiths series by Nick Rudnicki

DIY Bald Cap

2011-03-04T08:58:00.000-08:00

Logan Kelly, our make-up artist found this video, and plans to build the bald caps for us.

Body Paint Test

2011-03-02T22:43:00.000-08:00

After much testing, we found that the Palmer body paint works best under our lighting setup. An even mix of about 1:1 paint and water applied with an air-brush, creates a nice, clear, uniform wash on the skin. It hides the skin enough to cover up all the specular highlights, but it is transparent enough to let the muscle, veins and skin texture show up through it.

In the images you cans see the red-tempura paint applied on the left side and the white body-paint on the right side. Clearly the white color responds better to the light and creates a soft diffuse surface.

We've ordered the same paint product from another brand -- Kryolan's which is a bit cheaper. The paints should be here early next week.

Final Wall

2011-03-02T18:07:00.000-08:00

Finally, after much trial and error, we nailed the wall. Although we're yet to literally nail it together, it's in its final stage. Here's what the texture looks like under white light.

And here's what it looks like with the ladies' heads in it.

Color Inspiration: Hitotzuki Kami & Sasu 'Omni'

2011-03-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

HITOTZUKI KAMI & SASU 'OMNI' from Louis Mitchell on Vimeo.

A video that was linked from the Vizagogo 18 email. The colors they use are reminiscent of the palette we plan to use for our video. Its also interesting in how they are using this certain palette. How they are treating it like a friend that is accompanying them on a long journey, a beautiful way to look at color.

A Color Palette

2011-03-02T13:22:00.000-08:00

After completing the latest test and adding a very light, sort of arbitrary color correction to it, I've realized that we've created the now somewhat infamous Teal and Orange look from the summer blockbusters. Given that this is not a blockbuster and for that matter a totally different dimension, we began thinking about how to create a sort of pleasing color palette. With this, my plan is then to create a sort of color script that we can use during the course of the shooting and color correction process. The idea came from Michelle Robinson's visit, a Look Development artist who works at Disney Studios, who's worked on films like Tangled and Bolt.

Starting with the animatic, I've identified some colors to begin the process.

Lotus

These are the colors pulled from the storyboards containing the Lotus flower. It will be mostly greens sticking around purplish pinks to create a nice complementary color set.

These are the analogous colors to the pink in the lotus, what's exciting to me is that there are lavender colors there as well as the fleshy pinkish tones of human skin. Something that we've been talking about keeping in these more lifelike scenes by allowing the human skin tone to show through under the make-up.

Mother

The Mother scene in the middle where the creation of life starts is very monochromatic and cool, heavily depending upon the somewhat teal and dark blue spectrum.

This is a triad taken from the darker teal color in the spectrum. It yields some nice colors, including the mauve-like colors as well as the more olive colors. These can perhaps be brought in as accents to the rest of the piece, I was thinking of actually pushing the mauve to a more royal purple especially in the scene where she is sitting on the throne. The olives can perhaps go in the scenes as the branches begin sprouting from her.

Here is a compliment of the dark blue color, what I like is that while it does skirt the edge of teal and orange, these compliments are really more brown like the bark from a tree perhaps. We may be able to introduce these more brown colors as the branches grow from her. Not incredibly brown; however, I think these will need to pushed back a bit in saturation.

Bald Cap

2011-03-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

One thing we realized in the tests was that even if we got naked models with body paint, the bald caps would never look realistic. After much debate, I decided carefully to alter the design of the character so that it would be more practical. Here's what i came up with. It's a sort of a lotus bud like formation from the top. We could do this with a bald cap, a swim capo and a funnel-tube and some plasticine or some kind of polymer based molding/modeling material.

Time Warping

2011-02-27T22:46:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-27T18:16:00.001-08:00

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

2011-02-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

Dance References

2011-02-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-25T00:05:00.001-08:00

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

2011-02-25T00:05:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-24T09:43:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-02-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

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

Forbidden Cirlce Animatic

2011-02-23T03:47:00.001-08:00

Lotus Shader Proof of Concept

2011-02-23T03:17:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-22T19:50:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-02-21T16:43:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-21T16:37:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-15T18:19:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-14T11:22:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-14T08:51:00.000-08:00

Wikipedia Article on Nulembo Nucifera

Animatic v.1

2011-02-09T07:09:00.000-08:00

Storyboards v.1

2011-02-09T06:34:00.000-08:00

Opening Scene Lighting Key

2011-02-09T06:15:00.000-08:00

Music - First attempts

2011-02-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

Forbidden #1 by Ganesh Rao

Forbidden #2 by Ganesh Rao

Texture Test

2011-02-02T07:12:00.001-08:00

Soft Light

Hard Light

Music Concept & References

2011-01-28T21:29:00.000-08:00

To establish the other worldly mood, I plan to use atmospheric guitar sound scapes through out the piece. Plus, I plan to experiment with varied time signatures and poly rhythms, which I believe help create minimal music with a strong groove. It involves overlapping different time signatures, and the different grooves go in and out of phase which I think has a mind-bending quality.

TesseracT - Concealing Fate

The intro clean guitar motif has such a strong ambient feel. It is contrasted with the heavy over-driven guitars in the background. The clean guitar pretty much stays the same through out the piece and maintains the atmosphere, while the other instruments take the liberty to travel around. The chorus here has that groovy feel that I was talking about earlier.

Massive Attack - Dissolved Girl

This again has that quality, where the electronic drums and the repetitive samples establish the main groove and stays constant through out the piece while everything else wanders around it. The bass is very heavy and almost loud in the mix, which I believe is done purposely because it makes a kind of meditative mood. You could almost just focus on the bass line and reach a trance state of mind.

Visual Concept 1

2011-01-28T21:02:00.000-08:00

Floating Guitar God on Lotus

This visual came to me in a dream about a few months back. I think subconsciously, I was trying to create a guitar God in an image similar to the God-images that I had seen as a child in India.

The image I saw was a fat man hovering over a pink lotus. His body was completely bleached white with out any hair. And he had a tube coming out of his head that suspended him from some extremely tall red colored tree behind him, like as if he was a fruit hanging on that tree. He had two long black lines on his face, and he played a red guitar, while seated in the yoga lotus pose.

I believe this is very similar and drawn from the Hindu God Laxmi, who signifies wealth and success. Her iconic image is her sitting on a lotus with a sitar and two elephants behind here forming a heraldic pose.

I want to use this image to create a supreme character in the piece around whom part of the visuals revolve. In the background we'll have two more characters to create the complete composition, very similar to the one with two white elephants.

Lighting Reference: Cassandra

2011-01-26T12:04:00.000-08:00

Lighting reference for the Head Selection scene from "Ajax and Cassandra."

"Ajax and Cassandra" by Solomon Joseph Solomon, 1886

Lighting Reference Video: The Fountain

2011-01-26T11:58:00.000-08:00

A collection of scenes from the movie The Fountain.

Lighting Reference Video: Unoder

2011-01-26T10:57:00.001-08:00

This video shows how there can be still be a wide variety of interest in the frame even if the set itself is very minimal. Here the focus is much more on the costuming, often allowing the background to be nothing more than fog and rolling gradients. The lighting its self is soft but not so much so that its impact becomes less dramatic. While many of the actresses are often more flatly lit than in the Tool videos, the inclusion of the highly bright rim light to separate the characters from the dark background adds to the drama of the event and the overall softness giving it more of a feeling of high fashion or art akin to the films of Paramount in the 30's.

Marlene Dietrich

This gives it a sort of glossy exterior and with the addition of the slow motion, makes one feel as if they're watching porcelain dolls act out this highly ritualized sort of drama on a theater's stage. While obviously not very realistic, that isn't the point. This continues the sort of themes that we are looking into with the ideal of symbolic meaning and ritualism.

Under Byen - Unoder from Daniel de Vue on Vimeo.

Lighting Reference Video: Parabola

2011-01-26T10:56:00.001-08:00

Parabola is an intriguing video. It too has its own feeling of self containment, creating an environment natural and wholly unique to itself. What is most interesting to me in this video is its emphasis on symbolism. These symbols can be linked to a sort of secret knowledge, the use of the apple for instance or the star contained within the circle (not necessarily a pentagram but invokes such imagery, perhaps pointing to its more ancient meaning of fertility or birth). The camera its seems to hold on the images often allowing for a cut in closer than originally further emphasizing its meaning.

The use of depth of field creates a kind of murky or hazing feeling through much of it giving it the viewer the feeling of always wanting to look deeper into it. This also has a sort of revealing effect, allowing these symbolic items to ascend out of the mist.

* Produced by David Bottrill
* Art direction by Adam Jones (guitar, backing vocals for Tool)

Lighting Reference Video: Schism

2011-01-26T10:51:00.000-08:00

Lighting reference from Tool. This video is interesting in perspective to our project with the use of dark, minimalistic sets and full body makeup. The lighting which appear like reflections of lighting lilting across the area help add to this overall tone and atmosphere of the surreal and mystical. The music itself while changing in measure all the time creates a sort of meditative state in conjunction with the video's sort of slower pace.

The characters exist within this world, though strange and at times even unrecognizable when trying to find a human element to them, they seem completely natural to their environment and setting.

* Produced by David Bottrill
* Art direction by Adam Jones (guitar, backing vocals for Tool)

Characters

2010-11-18T06:53:00.001-08:00

Lighting keys: Mood

2010-11-17T23:49:00.000-08:00

These keys showcase the sort of dark, murky atmosphere that we'd like to create within the piece.

- Jonny

by Suruchi Sharma

Head Selection Lighting Key

2010-11-16T01:01:00.000-08:00

Here are the current lighting keys. These begin to set the mood with the monochromatic tone and soft lighting, especially on the body and wall though there isn't a lot of fill to continue to keep shadows dark and accentuate textures.

- Jonny

by Ganesh Rao

Music Draft #1

2010-11-16T00:09:00.000-08:00

Concept Sketches

2010-11-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

References

2010-11-15T01:31:00.000-08:00

An example of soft lighting and interesting costuming. Notice that the lighting isn't necessarily high key but that its quality gives everything a much softer appearance. If anything this is soft lighting with very little fill, allowing the costume's interesting textures to be enhanced.

While not seemingly similar to the others, the wet streets remind me of this sort of glossy exterior that many of the other shots seems to have with the light reflecting and playing off the pools of water creating this shiny, highly textured feel.