Pictures in the style of a product

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Phoenix Smith

The task was to take five pictures in the style of the product I did detailed research on; “SFX” magazine. These are just tests to try and work out the style, before I move on to my final photo shoot.

Of the many picture I took these are the five I picked.

See the full gallery on Posterous

The next step was to choose three of the five images and alter them in Photoshop: New back grounds, Colour correction, lens flares etc.

Before:

The first step here was to cut out the figure and place him on a black background. I then added the sort of explosion effect with just an orange brush on a lowered opacity.

I played around with the RGB curves, altering the contrast. I tried to give the skin a kind of smooth, mat, look, to help it feel polished and cinematic. Finally a warming photo filter gave the figure his red-ish tint.

The effect I was going for was an image representing an action movie or prehaps TV drama that has a very polished and “done up” look.

After:

Before:

This one was probably the most complicated. I wanted to give the whole picture a blue tone and so photo filtered it that way and added the blu lens flare. However this gave the skin a really pale and lifeless look. So I made a layer that just covered the skin, trying to make it a bit reder and warmer. On top of this i used a very soft and low opactiy brush to draw in a blue light on the face and hand which represents the light from the lens flare.

I also cut out the eyes and pasted them onto a seperate layer so i coul brighten them and bring up the green level.

The idea behind all of this was to give the picture more colour. Whilst I liked the cold blue look as it matched the space theme it sort of left the figure looking very dull. I really just tried to sharpen it by putting more colour into it.

After:

Before:

For this picture I cut out the figure, placed him on a black background, and built up layers of mist infront of him and in the background.

For the couolors I used the RGB curves to ramp up the green of the whole picture. I then created a transparent black layer and used the brush to draw shadows on the left side. I then had another transparent layer which I used to paint a transparent green over the right side.

This just accentuated the light and shadows already in the picture, the shadows were already on the left and the lightest side the right.

Some other things I tinkered about with were the sword length( I just used free transform to stretch it out) And the colour of the figures shirt. In the original photo it’s striped pink and that didn’t really match the mysterious and intimidating tone. So I used the lasso to select just the visibal t-shirt, copied that into a new layer, and then used the image adjustments Black and White”. In hindesight I probably should have asked the subject to just wear a different shirt but I wasn’t really thinking about what the final tone of each picture would be at that stage.This is a mind set I should work on when taking an future photos.

The final thing added was a lens flare, put on the right to match the photos light sources.

I idea with the fog, green colours and accentuated shadows was to make the image creepy and mysterious, a tone sugested by the figures expression and cloths.

After:

Detailed Product Research: ‘SFX’ Magazine

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Phoenix Smith

SFX Magazine is a British magazine featuring news, reviews, and other features relating to Sc-fi and Fantasy films, television shows, and even comic books cartoons, and literature. It’s published every four weeks and has been running since 1995.

The Magazine is specifically marketed towards fans of the Si-fi genre. Because of this they don’t often need to explain their covers or articles, as most buyers will already have a knowledge of the film or show the cover represents. This is why the covers are so simple. All they really need to do is show the film or show in a basic way and promise news and features on it within. The target audience will know what it is but want to read more.

The style of the cover photos is often a portrait of a character, James Bond, Harry Potter, Batman, etc. They are always pictures of the actors done up and in character, usually in a moment of the movie; reacting to something in the distance or conveying an emotion their character would feel. The actors are never just the actors on the cover.

Often the covers will have a strip running across the lower half of the page, featuring smaller images representing other upcoming films/shows. These are often just screen grabs rather then set up photographs.

The interior pages are also very simple. The idea being to show off the pictures and text in an easy to read way, whilst also making each page very striking. Each page usually features one big image with strips of text, and sometimes smaller pictures, running down the sides or across the bottom. This creates a boarder for the larger picture, framing it. A large picture is always the center of attention and is placed to make it so.

With each page pretty much one big picture the pages will each be attention grabbing and unique, it sort of seems designed to pull in anyone flicking through the magazine.

Composite Head Shattering

Posted on October 4, 2012 by Phoenix Smith

Part One: The shattered man

The broken head man was created using two images; the screaming bald man and the shattered wine glass. The goal was to composite the two together, and then add some strange composite creature bursting from the shattered head.

First I cut the man out of his background using the quick select tool. After he was cut out the image had some quite jagged edges so I used a really useful option I’d not heard of before; Refine edges. This allows you to basically feather the edges and had many settings and sliders so that you can get it just right.

The background he was placed on was created simply with the gradient tool.

The head now ready I then placed the glass into the document. The important thing here was to place the glass in such a way that it matched the curves of the head before breaking away. I used the free transform to change the scale and rotation until it fit. It’s at this point that masks came in.

Masks allow you to hide certain parts of the image, as if you’re covering them with paper. It’s different to the eraser tool because the parts are hidden rather than deleted meaning you can reveal them at any point if you want to undo your work. Masks only use black and white values; what is black is masked out and what is white is visible. After clicking the mask button (A small square with a circle inside near the new layer button) a second thumbnail will appear next to the selected layer: this is the mask. With the mask selected you can just use the paint brush to draw in black over what you want hidden.

Layer masks were used to hide parts of the glass so that only the cracked edges are showing. A mask for the head was also created, in the shape of the outer edge of the glass, meaning the head will fit the cracks and spikes in the glass.

Then the glass layer was changed to the “screen” layer mode; which renders any black in the layer as transparent. This meant that only the whit cracks in the glass were visible and blended onto the head.

A “levels” adjustment layer was created to darken the back part of the man head to sell the idea that it’s the hollow inside of his head.

Part Two: Gauntlet cat creature

The “man riding a gauntlet cat” was creating using pretty much the same techniques as the first part. I used a mask on the rider to obscure some parts of his body behind the cat whilst have the arm and leg stretch over the top, and I added scales to the lower half of the creatures body, using a mask to make them fade out as they travelled up the cats body by using a soft black brush with low opacity.

The main thing I did here but not so much in part 1 was a lot of colour correction. As there were more elements to the cat creature it was important they all tied together so I put a “Curves” adjustment layer over some of the layers to try and make them match everything else in terms of contrast and general colour. This did have the effect of giving the whole image a very burnt orange colour.

Finally I copied all the layers merged and pasted the image into the shattered man document. The last thing I did was; adjust its placement and create a mask so that the front part of the head covered it whilst the back part didn’t.

Bomb Action Sequence

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Phoenix Smith

The task was to create a short action sequence comprising of ten storyboarded shots, which would show an agent racing towards the location of a bomb and ultimately discovering the explosive.

When storyboarding we went out and planed the route the agent would take. We tried to plan a route that would make sense geographically as well give us opportunities for interesting shots.

We tried to incorporate a variety of interesting shots;

High angle shots – The idea with these was to make the agent seem small. Everything is bigger than him, the universe against him. The idea of turning the shots into CCTV footage came up and I really love that idea. It reinforces all that helplessness and makes it feel like the agent is being watched the whole time by an unseen force. It also sort of puts the race into real time, making it even more urgent.

POV shots – The theory behind this is that it puts you in the agents’ shoes. Other than that I think we all just thought it would look really cool. I especially love the moment when the agents hand comes up and pushes the civilian out of the way (which is my prestigious claim to onscreen fame: “Guy who is shoved”)

When filming we did a couple of variations of some shots, so that we had a couple of options during editing. Each of us in the group edited our own version of the scene and some of us used different variations according to our own taste. For example the first shot of the agent against the tree was filmed both straight on and at the side.

Once in the environment we also slightly expanded upon the storyboards. An example of this is the second high angle shot. In the story board it was just one position, on the stairs, looking down at the agent running. But once we found you could get a really nice looking shot out of the window we incorporated that into the shot, adding a pan between the two camera positions.

After filming came editing. I uploaded all the shots, chose the best out of the multiple versions and takes, and then assembled them in order according to the story board. I tried to keep trim each clip as short as possible to keep the momentum, having each clip begin with the agent already a few pixels into the shot and end just as he clears it.

The one exception to this is at the end of the last CCTV shot. As he leaves frame the screen flickers before going to black for a second. I did this for two reasons; one is that I thought a brief moment of darkness would build suspense and create a moment of build-up, and the second reason was I thought I needed some sort of transition: a way to exit the CCTV vision. I thought the shot flickering out would nicely end it. In the end I think it works okay. I actually rather like it

I added some basic static and desaturation effects to the high angle shots to give them a CCTV look.

I also put in some digital zooms to a couple of scenes. They were just short, tight little zooms added to a couple of usually static shots to add drama or emphasize something (As in the case of the final POV shot with the agent looking around.)

The last job was to create a soundtrack using Garage band and music loops. This was probably the most challenging part for me as I’m not at all musically inclined. I tried to create a basic sound that would build and build, whilst also including a couple of deviating stings or breaks to fit dramatic moments in the sequence. In the end I think it was okay. I’m not overly happy with it but it hits in all the rights places and sinks up with the video.