Building a Scene in Maya

Outline for the Third Term Paper

Topic Special Effects: Conventional Explosions

• Explosions were used as early as 1936
• Alfred Hitchcock: Sabotage
• Used cuts to showcase an explosive packaged
• Then cut to a close up of the package to safely capture the package exploding
• Then cutting a smoke on top of the original film.  Albeit crudely
• Brief Ideas behind making Explosions in Film
• Main concern when creating explosions is safety
• Before CG a popular method was the use of miniatures
• I.e mini buildings and trucks
• Joe Viskocil best known for his work in producing the explosion of the Death Star in Star Wars
• To get the spherical shape of the explosions (since there is no air/gravity in space) Shot the effect with the camera looking up
• Some of the materials used in creating explosions
• “Black Powder”
• Mixture of sulfur, potassium nitrate, and charcoal
• Small shavings for debri
• Plaster was used for models to make nice building debri
• CGI explosions
• Many explosions in film are now made with CG explosions
• Often created with stock footage and then composited into the film
• Stock footage is general purpose footage for effects, though some movies may call for shooting their own explosions.
• Animators/compositors take these explosions and then blend them into the film, so that explosion looks seamless
• Using color correction
• Animating lighting, debri, smoke, and impacts
• Animating cartoon explosions
• Often depends on the style of film
• Is not often confined to the rules of realism
• Though consequently can emphasize the cartoon nature of the film (which may or may not be intended)
• Known for animating explosions
• You Yoshinari
• Known for his extravagant explosions
• Characteristics
• large cloud-like ball of fire
• Dust clouds
• and various colours bordering on the inside of the explosion

FILM EXAMPLE #1

• Independence Day
• White house explosion
• In the science fiction film an alien ships shoots a laser downward onto the white house
• Causing the white house to explode and taking a helicopter within the explosion
• Success?
• Lighting? Yes
• Since this was on a miniature set, with real explosives there was not much room to fake the lighting
• When the explosion happened that’s the lighting they got
• Scale? Yes
• With the use of low shots the film was able to depict the scale of ship and white house in a way that looked realistic
• Movement? Yes
• The explosion accelerates outward as it engulfs the white house from the center out
• The helicopter is seen being pushed by the force of the explosion momentarily before being engulfed in the fire
• Trees in the foreground seemed odd, they hardly move and when the explosion occurs seem pretty sturdy
• Successful explosion

FILM EXAMPLE #2

• Gurren Lagann http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6qTsuBX_6I&feature=youtu.be&t=1m07s
• Any explosion in the film
• The Dai Gurren uses its signature attack to destroy an enemy Warship to obtain victory
• The Warship then begins to slow out into a explosion and the erupts into a crazy explosion light show
• Success? No not really
• Lighting? 50/50
• Shadows darken as the explosion becomes the dominant light source
• but when the explosion changes color the environment stays the same
• Scale? Again 50/50
• The first shot when the explosion starts looks fine
• Due the low shot looking upward
• When cutting to the second shot, scale is lost as it cuts to a wide shot of the environment, and it becomes unclear where exactly the previous shot was held in that environment
• Movement? No
• The explosions begins slow without the rest of environment slowing down, therefore it’s not in slow motion
• The debri from the explosion then causes more explosions, without any indication of explosive material
• As the dust from the initial explosions begin to settle
• Shimmering lights indicated a second explosion in which there are combinations of pinks, yellow, and blue greens.
• Without certain chemicals, these colors are very unlikely
• Especially of this magnitude
• The explosion somehow settles into a mushroom cloud
• Again with ambiguous scale
• Overall not a very realistic explosion
• But can be argued that with the extremely cartoon nature of the film, that the explosion fits with the film's tone
• Also it looks awesome

Conclusion

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Stop-Motion Character Animation

Using the set up seen above, Neal Salud [http://nealphys123.blogspot.com] and I created the short film "Dennis and Pig".  We initially took time in modeling objects/characters from clay, to get an overall feel of the medium.  While I finalized our story, Neal finished the characters.  When filming, Neal and I took turns when animating and shooting our shots.  "Dennis" was made to be able to articulate sufficient motion, but simple enough that animating him would become cumbersome.  Using the a tripod with an iPhone, sketchbook, and paper,  Neal and I were able to create a heart warming story of a clay boy overcoming a barrier to unite with his friend.