Author: Xinran Li

Mise-en-Scène

The name of this film is ‘Three Billboards Outside Ebbing’. It is directed by Martin McDonagh in 2016.

The background of this film is that a mother who tried to find the murderer of her daughter through the whole film. This scene shows a morning that the mother was sleeping and it was happened during the time period that she has became hopeless about finding the murderer.

1. Setting & Props

It is in the character’s bedroom and the room looks a bit messy. The dressing table was crammed with pots and boxes. Also, there are clothes on the ground.

2. Costume, Hair & Make Up

The character is wearing ordinary pajamas with messy hair.

3. Facial Expressions & Body Language

The woman is sleeping deeply, no much facial expressions and she is completely sank down on the bed

4. Lighting and Colour

The room is dim and there are only few lights coming through the window. The degree of cold tones are more than warm tones, there are not much color in this scene, no bright color.

5. Positioning of characters/objects within the frame

The woman lies in the right third of the shot, which made her in focus in this shot. There are also many other small objects with no regular placement on the desk and floor.

6. What role does the shot choice (Cinematography) play in the scene

Overall, the mise en scene of this scene gives the audience a feelings that the woman has been through many things and she looks really tired. The room looks cold and gives us a sense of depressed feeling. You can feel the hopeless and tiredness of the character.

Short film review of Interstellar

Interstellar is a 2014 epic science fiction film co-written, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan. Set in a dystopian future where humanity is struggling to survive, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for humanity.

I think this film not only shows the rigorous scientific spirit, but also expressed profound humanistic feelings, and I want to talk about the love between between the father Cooper and his daughter Murphy.

The film begins with the family’s daily life. Cooper pick Murphy up from school as usual, taught her things and watched a baseball game. However, the abnormal gravitational phenomena brought them to a place which belonged to NASA. Cooper decided to go to the universe to save people on the earth, while Murphy never thought that her father would leave her. The contradiction arose. Murphy did not say a word to Cooper after that, even when Cooper left. For years, Murphy rejected to send videos to her father. Even after years, she still blamed her father why he left her. Back to Cooper’s point of view, after he went to the universe, ever step and action of him always indicates his love of Murphy, he always counts the time that they need to get to another planet and counts the fuel they need to go back to the earth, even his daughter did not contact him for years.

There was a really impressive scene in the film that when Cooper chose to input data to the watch, the robot asked Cooper what if Murphy never come back for it, and he said, “She will. Because I gave it to her.” All these evidence strongly shows the love between Cooper and Murphy.

At the end of the film, I was not only touched by the love between father and daughter, but also could feel the strong idea that Nolan wants to bring to us, which is love is the thing that can travel through time and space.

This week we learned 2D tracking. Before practicing the tracking, we firstly we learned how to use transform. We could rotate, change the scale or make other changes by using this function.

Then we began to track a short video. We could use ctrl + alt to add points quickly.

We put 4 points at 4 corners of the TV, then press the play button on the top to start tracking.

On top of that, we learned another way to do the tracking. Tracker–transform–match-move. We could move points manually to the 4 corners of the TV and do the tracking.

Two ways are the same.

Set to input. Then the replacement screen could follow the TV screen when moving.

Homework:

We practiced to match the picture with the green screen and created rotos to make sure the fingers were not covered.

This week we learned how to use the roto tool and the different functions included in the tool.

For the first step, we add new points to the video, around the man’s face, set keys and adjust the points through frames to make sure that the points always tracks the man’s face. We could also adjust the shape every 2 or 3 frames manually, which could make the work quicker.

We could use tools at the left-hand side of the video to adjust the shape of those points.

If we select the roto box and then press 1, we can attach the roto to the viewer1, and than we can see the alpha channel of the roto by pressing “A”, which is black and white. We can also delete the alpha channel by adding the remove box if we want to remove it.

We can press ctrl and shift key to replace one box with another. So we just replaced the original one with the new roto box that we have been worked with. There are also boxes called Blur and FilterErode connected to the roto box, we can change the data of them to makes the scene looks different.

Then, I created the rotos of the man’s whole body separately, which could help the roto to track the body easier.

This is a short practice:

FX TD (Effects technical director)

FX TD mainly create physics-based effects such as fire, smoke, water and various kinds of destruction, make it easier for VFX artists to use these effects. Sometimes an FX TD will be called upon to create non-physically realistic effects such as magical spells or physically impossible objects.

FX TD may work closely with VFX Supervisors to creatively solve effects challenges and develop final shot look. In addition, they have to work with other TD’s and artists to create photo-real effects and physically accurate simulations. They have to anticipate, communicate and troubleshoot any creative or technical problems.

To become a FX TD, proven experience in producing effects such as smoke, fire, clouds, water, steam and explosions is a must, and also experience with particle and voxel based rendering. The most important thing is to have extensive knowledge of Houdini. Maya, Python, Hscript VEX skills are also nice to have.

These are two showreels of FX TD, which show the steps of visual effects made.

Houdini FX TD Reel 2021 #2 – YouTube

Houdini FX TD Showreel 2019 – YouTube

TD (Assistant technical director)

As an Assistant Technical Director, you will perform a variety of tasks to assist the Pipeline Technical Directors (Pipeline TDs) to ensure the smooth running of the tools, software and workflows used by VFX. You are responsible for supporting and troubleshooting the pipeline and workflow tools, providing technical assistance to people in creative departments and managing data and resources.

Assistant Technical Directors utilize a variety of industry standard graphical applications, scripting languages and operating systems. They may support projects by gathering artist requirements, designing solutions and coding small-scale tools using established employer workflow requirements. They are expected to work well within a team and to be good communicators and problem solvers.

Here is an example of a company finding the Assistant Technical Director:

The following videos show what do TDs do in their works.

Working in Theatre: Assistant Technical Director – YouTube

What are you working on? Andrew Riter, Assistant Technical Director/Head Lighting Technician – YouTube

Software Developer 

As a Software Developer you’ll manage the whole lifecycle of the company’s pipelines and tools. The Production Technology department supports multiple film projects in parallel, from initial design and on-set supervision to production and post-production. You will have influence in all aspects of the software development life-cycle; architecting, developing and maintaining software. You’ll partner closely with department leaders and the production team; assist in the design, implementation and scheduling of software tasks and provide day-to-day pipeline support for clients. You’ll ensure your work is well documented and help mentor more junior team members in a collaborative Agile environment where code quality is paramount.

As a Software Developer, you will regularly be required to:

Other skills and qualities a Software Developer need to have:

“As a software engineer, for your most of your life, you’re going to be inside, sitting at a computer,” a comment under the following video.

What Professional Software Engineers ACTUALLY Do – YouTube

There are also many other comments which people can take as references before becoming a Software Engineer.

Pipeline TD (Pipeline technical director)

Pipeline Technical Directors make sure a VFX project runs smoothly by identifying and fixing problems as they arise. This is done by making sure each department has the software tools that they need to complete their part of the project to the best standard possible. As such, pipeline TDs work closely with staff from all departments to understand what their technical needs are today and what they might be in the future. They also work closely with the research and development teams designing and testing new software to ensure such technology fits neatly into the production pipeline.

A Pipeline TD will work with a range of people, including 3D Animators, Riggers, Modelers, Lighters, and Compositors. They communicate with VFX Artists across the team to understand their needs. If the project that they are working on isn’t running smoothly, then it is the Pipeline TD’s responsibility to identify what kind of tools need to be developed to fix the issues.

Here is an article talking about what does a Pipeline TD do and how can people become pipeline TD.

What is a Pipeline TD and how can I become one? – ftrack

Key skills needed for becoming a Pipeline TD

VFX Supervisor

A VFX supervisor is responsible for achieving the creative aims of the director or producers through the use of visual effects in the context of film and television production. It is up to them to make sure the technical and artistic quality of the finished shots is of the standard agreed on with the Director and other production staff.

A VFX Supervisor is brought into a film or TV project at its earliest stages. They will work directly with the director and producer. They will usually be present on location whilst the scenes are filmed to ensure that sufficient and suitable material is captured in a way that can be used by a VFX Artist and that it meets quality standards

In post-production, the VFX Supervisor will oversee the addition of effects to every shot of the film, based on any last minute changes that the Director wishes to make. Once the Director is happy with the final product, the VFX team will begin the final renders. Following this, the VFX Supervisor will maintain communications between the Director and the production team.

For most of VFX Supervisors, they may begin their career with being a runner or other jobs in VFX industry. After years of experience, they may become a VFX Supervisor.

Here is a video and interview introducing the role of a VFX Supervisor and how the job is.

What’s the role of a VFX Supervisor? – YouTube

7 Questions With VFX Supervisor Daniel Kramer – YouTube

Data Capture Technician

A Data capture techinician is responsible for capturing and organising all data from a movie shoot. This data will be used significantly by teams in the VFX studio to add the visual effects afterwards. They take photographs of the set and the way the cameras are positioned. On top of that, the information of cameras they need to collect may include the type of lens type being used, its focal length, filters, focus and color temperature. Here is a reference which introduces the responsibilities a data capture technician may take.

Specifically, a data capture technician needs to know how to use a total station. Here are videos introducing the total stations.

Intro to Total Stations – YouTube

Total station full tutorial 2020 | Basics | Applications | Advantages and disadvantages | #civilogy – YouTube

Compositor

Compositors integrate real-life footage with CGI to make the final film look as realistic as possible. They put all the characters, objects, footages and any other 3D elements in a scene to appear as one cohesive image and shot. Their responsibilities may include achieving simple to complex compositing tasks at all stages of the production process including pre-comps, temp composites, 2D tracking, 2D effects, extractions, selection and integration of elements, and color grading.

Here is an example photo of how a compositor works. After all the elements are created, they are sent to the compositor, then the compositors use their sticks and skills to make the scene looks real. So, it is good for compositors to watch and study the reality, for instance, how the light interacts and how the camera films.

The purpose of compositing is to visually depict things outside the reality of an image. Compositing is often best suited for building worlds that would otherwise be impossible to create in a practical fashion.

In the following video, it explains how the team used compositing to build an otherworldly feel in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

Compositing Live Action with CG Rendered Footage | Charmaine, Senior Compositor, ILM – YouTube

“We want to put people in a world that doesn’t exist and make it relatable for them.” – Charmaine, Senior Compositor at ILM.

An example of showreels by a compositor:

CGI & VFX Showreels: “Digital Compositing Breakdown Reel” – by Balázs Sántha – YouTube

Compositing supervisor

Compositing supervisors oversee the VFX team’s compositing work and provide technical and artistic leadership for the team. They supervise each step of the department to ensure that it meets the concepts, the style, the quality of the production required for VFX projects and to constraints of other departments.

Compositing supervisors work with the compositors in their teams. They may also work with VFX Supervisors, CG supervisors and other producers to establish the production priorities and methods of work.

To become a compositing supervisor, previous experience in a leadership role is really important. You need to have excellent communication skills and deep understanding of film VFX processes and pipeline. Moreover, you need to work well under pressure and have proven artist management and leadership skills. Some companies may also require people to have extensive experience with VFX compositing, tracking, grading , roto work, prep, cleanup, standards, technical and software expertise, image formats, film and photographic principles. Therefore, it is really hard to be a compositing supervisor and to done the job well.

Examples of works in film and artist reel:

2012 | Compositing Supervisor – YouTube

Flame Artist reel, Compositing Vfx Supervisor | Reel 2016 – YouTube

Layout artist

Layout artist start with working on animatic and storyboard in 2D, then they start to create rough 3D animation. The animation may contain all the characters shown in the set and give them a simple 3D composition. Layout artists may always communicate and work with directors and supervisors, because they have to determine where the camera will be set, how the light should be like and what kind of camera language they want to use.

Layout artist have to make sure that the story shown in the film or animation not only make sense, but also they have to try to make the story alive. There are so many things layout artist have to pay attention to, like shot continuity, beautiful composition, etc. But the most important thing is that, “Everything in the movie has one final goal. It needs to serve the story”, said by Arem Kim.

Compared with other jobs in VFX industry, this job may require broader knowledge of VFX and know about different kind of skills. Here is an example.

The following video shows how a layout artist work to transfer 2D storyboard into 3D.

Layout Artist Reel 2016 – Evelyn Hernandez – YouTube

Matchmove artist

Matchmove artists are responsible for creating CG cameras and other motion files that adopt the same movements as the original background plate. They also have to match the computer generated objects and characters to those captured in real life.

Basically, to create CG cameras means to transfer the real life’s camera’s movement onto a camera that exists in a CG software.

This article clearly demonstrated what is matchmoving and the responsibilities a matchmove artist may take. What is Matchmoving and What Does a Matchmove Artist Do? (mountcg.com)

In the article, is also introduced some different software for tracking. It explained how does matchmoving work, why it is important and two tracking methods in VFX, which is automatic tracking and interactive tracking.

Here is a typical workflow in matchmoving.

To become a matchmove artist, the essential skills may need are as the following.

Videos introducing what is matchmove and an example of matchmove showreel:

What is MatchMove – YouTube

matchmove showreel – YouTube

Lighting artist

Lighting artist is a member of CG department in VFX industry and is responsible for creating lights for all the characters, objects, environments and other 3D elements. They work closely with any other artist in the departments, especially the CG supervisor, to achieve the artistic style and level needed for the production.

Lighting artist is an integral part of the storytelling process, they control the light and colour to emphasize shift of mood, create atmosphere, add realism and depth.

This article explained different 3D lights that a lighting artist may use, for instance, spotlight, point light, ambient light, etc.

What is a 3D Lighting Artist? (A Beginner’s Guide On What They Do) (conceptartempire.com)

To become a lighting artist, they need to know how to use all these lights and also pair this information with knowledge about lighting set-ups in real world areas to create a similarly realistic to the scene to whatever they are working on.

Here is an example showing the works and process a lighting artist have done.

Lighting Showreel – Aravind Kumar – YouTube

CG Supervisor (computer graphics supervisor)

CG Supervisor is a key leader who oversees the teams at a project level, providing technical and artistic leadership across multiple projects and managing the day to day production needs. CG Supervisor may closely work with project management team, VFX supervisor, VFX producer and other producer and directors of the project, to oversee every aspect of production for an animated feature film.

CG Supervisor is responsible for managing and supervising the post production teams to create 3D content for a variety of styles and projects on schedule and budget. They have to control the quality output by the team on assigned tasks in line with budget requirements and actively provide creative or technical solutions to production challenges. Moreover, they have to attend all relevant meetings to promote effective communication to the team, etc. In a word, to be an CG Supervisor needs to take huge responsibility for a film and have to pay a lot of efforts to it. The one who wants to become a CG Supervisor should have strong leadership abilities with a desire to confidently lead, motivate develop and supervise a team.

Here is a short interview with a CG Supervisor, including what’s the role of a CG Supervisor and the problems they may face, and what would happen in the future, etc.

CG Supervisor Mike Perry interviewed by The CG Career – YouTube

CG Supervisor Showreel:

William Laban – CG Supervisor Showreel – 2021 – YouTube

Look development artist

Look development artist works with modelers and texture artists to establish the final look for a range of CG assets. They have to define the look of different 3D characters or objects under different circumstances or environments. They have to consider, when the weather changes, how the 3D character or object would look like. How would it be when the character is happy? Or how would it be when he or she is angry? They work with the modeling and texture team to balance the processes of texturing, lighting and rendering to match reference images and real footage. They have to ensure that the geometry and textures are optimum.

The qualifications that companies would appreciate are as follows:

Here is a video which includes several examples of the look development.

CGI & VFX Showreels: “Texturing / Look Development / Lighting / Compositing” – by Corentin Provost – YouTube

Modelling Artist

Modelling Artist create 3D models like characters, animals, weapons, vehicles, trees and so on. They usually start with concepts drawings in 2D and transfer them into 3D. The modelers are responsible for creating hard surface and organic models for use in the production of live-action and fully CG images.

Some companies may subdivide the job for 3D modelling, like environment artist, character artist, vehicle artist and so on. There are also different ways to build models and 3D models have formed different types, for instance, box modelling, polygon modelling, etc.

Reference: VFX Modelling Artist Breakdown – Yellow Cat Recruitment

Here are examples of hard surface and organic models. Modelling artists may also give textures to their models when they are making modeling demoreel, to show their ability of making textures, while some company may also require texture skills.

Aditya Vishwakarma – 3D Modelling Showreel 2021 – YouTube

3D MODELING DEMOREEL 2021 – YouTube

2D Drawing to 3D Model using ZBRUSH and BLENDER – YouTube

To become a 3D modelling artist, many software and skills are required. Maya, Z-brush, Mudbox, Photoshop are basic software that a 3D modelling artist should be familiar with. Other software like Substance, XSI, Mari are also required by some companies.

However, a traditional art background and good technical skills are always asked for being a 3D modelling artist.

Animator

Animators add movements to 3D characters, vehicles or other moving objects in the film. Basically anything that moves on film needs to be animated. If something moves and has a performance, an animator will most likely be behind the controls.

For animators, they may spend their days doing things like, developing performance and movement for objects, generating movement for creatures and characters, working hands on with live action film and television productions and so on. Their job is all about making the moving objects in the film looks real and vivid.

With the development of technology, many films are using motion capture for some characters, which allow the animators so much more movements to work with. It can not only save the time for animators using on rigging and animating characters, but also can help the characters to have closer shots and more realistically movements.

To become an animator, strong artistic skills are always needed. Apart from that, animators also need a strong sense of camera work and understand all aspects of 3D animation.

Here are examples of rigging characters and putting them into real-life video.

Robot VFX in Blender – YouTube

How to Add Animated Characters Into Your Video | Blender + AE VFX – YouTube

Texture artist

Texture artists in VFX paint surface textures on 3D characters, animals, machines or other 3D objects. They may work with textures like wrinkles, fur, scales and so on. In some cases, they may create new textures for some certain 3D models used in animation, which cannot be found in real life. Therefore, it requires imagination and creativity skills.

When painting textures, they may not only consider what the color is, how the model would look like, but also they have to think about how those textures appear in different environments. For example, how the texture may look like under different lights. Texture artists should try to make an image appear realistic in terms of light, color, composition and perspective.

There are a lot of software that texture artists can use to paint textures. Here I found different examples showing several ways to created textures.

Mari VS Substance Painter: A Professional VFX Texture Artist Perspective – YouTube

TUTORIAL TEXTURING 3D MODEL DI PHOTOSHOP – YouTube

ZBrush Spotlight Polypaint Quick Tutorial – YouTube

Most of the companies may require texture artist to have a solid understanding of visual language, like texture, color, dimension, scale, perspective, lighting, etc. They need to have strong artistic skills and experience using Maya, Z-Brush, Mudbox, Photoshop and so on.

Environment artist

Environment artist create indoor and outdoor 3D environment using modelling or sculpting software. They are responsible for visuals with which characters and objects will interact, such as building, roads, furniture, etc. On top of that, many environments that cannot be found in real life should be build by environment artist like outer space or virtual city. Apart from modelling, their responsibility may also contain texturing elements.

Environment artist may get a brief of an environment from concept artist, which may be in the form of 2D or 3D, then they create 3D models. They may work and communicate closely with modelling artist and texture artist, they may also put models made by modelling artists into their environment.  

An environment artist must have a keen eye for landscape, cityscapes and geography as these skills will be used to create virtual worlds. Solid understanding of visual language is always required. More importantly, good understanding of different environments. Software may be used by environment artist are Maya, Z-Brush, Mudbox, Blender, 3ds Max, Substance and so on.

Here are examples of the showreels made by environment artist.

CGI & VFX Showreels: “DMP / Environment / CG Generalist” – by Lucas Tebib – YouTube

CGI & VFX Showreels: “Environment Reel” – by Emmanuel Humbert – YouTubeCGI & VFX Showreels: “Environment Artist” – by Jeremy Diederich | TheCGBros – YouTube

Runner

When searching for VFX runner online, every company or employer would say, it is a good start for those who have a passion for VFX industry and would like to work in the industry in the future. Runners are always in demand in production management department.

Runners will get to know every inch of the VFX departments and get unique insight into how everything works. What’s more, runners should know a wide cross-section of the stuff among the departments.

Here are examples that the responsibilities a runner would take when working in VFX and the qualities companies may value when they are looking for VFX runners.

Overall, runner is a great job for entering the VFX industry. It does not require really hard technical skills or rich working experiences. When applying for this job, apart from showing the intense passion for the work, it would be great to add examples of the vigilance and diligence required in running work in the covering letter.

Prep artist

Prep artist clean up the background of live action-footage, to allow other compositors to integrate all the elements of the image to create film visual effects shots afterwards. They remove unwanted items from the plates, such as brands, advertisements, wires, cameras and so on. By doing this, they give good and clean footages to the next person, which may be roto artist.

These two pictures show an example of what a prep artist does. For further examples, I found a video, it contains different examples of the result of the clean up.

Here is an example what responsibilities a prep artist should take when working.

The responsibilities may vary from different companies, but the basic skills the prep artist should have is rig removals, painting our markers, wires and other imperfections.

People who apply for the job should also have good technical skills in Nuke, some may ask for Maya and Photoshop. Experiences in working in the VFX industry are always appreciated by those companies.

Prep artists are always working with roto artists, so having some knowledge about roto may always helps.

Roto artist

Roto artists draw around and cut out objects, moving items or actors in live-action frames. By doing this, those moving items can be separated from the frames, which becomes a new layer. Therefore, those cut out images can be combined with other live-action images, or CG images and so on. Roto artists help to cut required parts out from moving frames.

This job is about editing with every frame needed in the film, so roto artists need to be really patient, careful and pay attention to details. The job sometimes can be really boring and requires hard work.

I have also noticed that some companies may combine this job with paint artist. Which means the roto artist should also know how to remove items like wires, rigs or tracking markers.

In the early days, roto artists had to manually trace on each frame, however, thanks to the technology, much time have been saving now.

Here are the software and tools needed for being a roto artists, along with required skills.

Examples of roto demoreel and showreel below:

This week we kept working on the face modle. By using the photoshop, we add new patterns and textures to the UV. We could use the stamp tool to copy textures from real human face to make the texture looks lifelike.

In addition, we add new face expressions to the model. We firstly used the insert edge loop to add polygons to where we want to edit, then we could do adjustments only to that area.

After we set the animation to the face, we rendered it. Before rendering, we went to the render settings and add AOVs. This setting could bring all the layers we want to us after rendering.

We put the rendered images into Nuke, then we could see an animation was formed and we could make adjustments on it though.