Etude Three (3) - Introduction

Etude Title:

Ye Olde CGI

In this etude I intend to explore the field of compositing and CG in film. Compositing is a discipline that is now common place in feature films and TV whether it is obvious (large robot destroying a city) or subtle and seamless enough for it even to be disregarded as CGI (replacing a pen with a 3D pencil). A main alteration in modern cinema is due to technological advancement and thus the capabilities a film maker has is now infinite. In the past film makers were obviously unable to create such jaw dropping effects as they do today. This leads to the concept of my module of what would old films and TV programmes look like with CGI applied to them. The Director Steven Spielberg applied this notion with his film "E.T. - the extra terrestrial"(1982) in its remake (2002), which incorporated a 3D ET in many scenes which he had initially desired. However for my etude I intend to take footage from an even earlier period and apply additional effects to them as seamlessly as I can by either adding 3d objects or editing the footage to create sense of 3D depth. This will essentially alter the scene/film I select and create an interesting and original concept with the end product being a surreal combination of old film and CGI. This will involve some camera tracking and as I have yet to properly learn this skill it will also be an exercise in compositing techniques.

To achieve this I will most likely be using 3DS Max, After Effects and the free tracking software Voodoo.

ET reference cited: (available at: http://www.channel4.com/film/reviews/film.jsp?id=103012)
[accessed 18th March 2008]