SCAD x The Mill Week 2: Camera & Environment

This week I iterated on the previsualization, began blocking out our set decoration, and prepared the project for transition into Houdini. The biggest notes we got on the previs were to establish our environment more clearly to solidify the time travel story and to economize our shot list, as certain shots didn’t necessarily need to be separated by a cut.

I first took on the idea of stitching shots together which I found to be challenging. The shot of the license plate, the orbiting transitional shot, and the ending shot were at similar angles but used different focal lengths and alternated between steady and shaky motion. I initially tried to preserve the framing of all three without adding too many intermediate keyframes.

Initial attempts <

When presenting to Prof. Fowler and Prof. Gaynor, it was recommended that I study the range of motion possible in real-life camera rigs.

While my previous iteration was pivoting around a locator shape, it still had unrestricted motion which resulted in an unnatural transition. My new rig has a limited range of motion, requiring me to rethink my approach to framing. Every motion made by the rig uses only two keyframes +interpolation in the graph editor. I also used a noise expression to create subtle imperfections in the camera rotation in areas of low motion.

Rig Demo <

Current Previs <

Once I had that motion in place, I began addressing other notes.

The previs now begins with a birdseye view of the alleyway and holds to give the audience time to orient themselves. There are old Italian posters on the wall, along with a ladder and a bicycle. Above it is a billboard, as well as some old trash cans.

The bike and ladder could belong to a poster hanger in the middle of a job, inspired by the film Bicycle Thieves, an Italian film shot in Rome in 1948, which we studied for this project.

The transition has been retimed to give the viewer a better look at the old environment before transitioning to the new one. In the modern day, the posters have been replaced with scaffolding, as safety/construction standards have gone in the past century. It’s adorned with hanging plants and some outdoor fans which serve to break up the background and imply modernity. Next to the bike is a Starbucks-esque cafe sign that starkly contrasts the old trash cans.

This is based on the many walking tours of modern-day Rome that exist online.

While re-rendering segments of the sequence, I had a corruption error that resulted in losing the material assignments in Maya. The result is that the opening shot switches to an unshaded view, and our stretch-goal shot (keys in the ignition) is not included.

I prioritized finishing with what I had because my next step was to transition the layout and camera animation into Houdini. A simple version of the scene now exists in Houdini with full camera motion (including the stretch-goal shot), and is ready to be populated with all the excellent work that my teammates have done this week.

Assets used in the previs may not directly translate to the final scene. I will go over these with my team as we continue working.