UNIT 10
James Bond Title Sequence
James Bond : Silver Lights
For this project we have to create a James Bond Title sequence, this is basically the intro in each and every James Bond film giving some sort insight to what might happen in each movie. The idea of having such an intricate sequence seems hard but it does have to go through many development ideas to get to the final piece. Each of the opening sequences has its own theme relating to the movie giving us and idea of the story and who the villain is. This project seems rather difficult and complex but only has to be visually impressive but simple.
I do find the James Bond intros to be interesting. I have watched the newer intros and I sort of gotten inspiration from, Casino Royal, Skyfall , and Specter the all have their own style and theme. Casino Royal has this theme of gambling the rich in colour but also desaturated colour giving a tone and atmosphere of the movie. In all the intros follow the same formula having the main focus on silhouette telling a little bit of the story. With a mix of CGI playing with the scale of the animation
What I do like about the James bond intro sequences is the vast amount of editing, planning and thought that goes into each of the opening sequences, all of it are visually impressive and has a seamless blend between each scene. Making it rather satisfying to watch and giving you the feel how things are placed in each scene and that it is not just placed by accident .
Mood Board
I do have many ideas that I would like to implement into my version of the James Bond intro. I want to make very colourful instead of a desaturated tone like most of the other intros. However choosing a song to match the same tone I'm going for, it will be hard. What I have to remember is what will make James Bond and how things are laid out.
The kaleidoscope effect is used quite a lot in the intros and symmetry is used quite a lot. Most of them do have a slow pace so that it can show the viewer an idea what is going to happen in the movie
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Choosing what music to use
When choosing a song for my project, this seemed rather difficult deciding what song to pick and that would go well with James bond and rather a serious tone. James bond Die another Day had a Britney Spears song which was pop music in the early 2000s. Normally it has good instrumentals with an orchestra playing the theme song. I do like the change in theme instead of the traditional theme, so I have gone with a more alternative rock but nothing too out of proportionate for James Bond. The song I have decided on was two-song from Panic at the disco. each song can feel somewhat feel similar to a James Bond theme just more upbeat.
Both Songs from Panic at the Disco are really good, and both of the songs will go with the theme of James Bond. The song Mercenary has rather a faster tempo and probably would make editing a bit harder and the video will end up being very short. When choosing a song I think about the pacing of it and how the final outcome will be. The song Vegas Lights has a much more substantial tempo to it and just matches the James Bond theme more and the video of the song has been taken in Vegas in the 70s And has this old VHS tape look to it.
Choosing the song was difficult. I wanted to go with a cover of the Skyfall as more of an alternative rock by the band Our Last Night but choosing a cover felt too simple than just looking for another song. While I was looking for music I came across two songs from The Young Gaint. Their videos have this similar themes implemented, like the mirror symmetry and kaleidoscope effect with rotoscoping animation in the videos as well as the feeling of constantly moving forward and moving through women's eyes and ears with a fair use of CGI for liquid and bigger set pieces. The videos also have this two or only one tone of colour.
Saul Bass: Motion Graphic
Saul Bass was a well-known graphics designer and he created a motion graphic sequence for some of the James Bond titles. His work is incredible and really stylised and simplistic with the cutout pieces of paper each being animated and names of the actors on each of those.
His work is interesting to me and how I find some inspiration towards his work but I don't tend to have anything similar in my final piece but could have similar text animations like it would have on the cut on the paper.
Maurice Binder
He created the signature gun barrel sequence for the opening titles of the first Bond film, Dr No. After that, it has been used in all or most of the James Bond title sequence. However, I don't think I will use this in my version of the open sequence I might have something similar to it to better suit my theme I have.
Greenscreen test
Week 3
in this week we began to learn how to green-screen in after effects and set up a green screen, for the test footage was of me just walking across the green screen and doing some poses. Once in after taking the video clip into after effects, load the clip onto the composition or the timeline and under the effects tab you look for keying and then Keylight 2.0 and the Keylight box will show in the top left-hand corner then click on the eyedrop tool and select the green screen and that would take out whatever that is green. If the green screen was assembled up correctly then shadows will not show in the video clip, however in the Keylight box going to screen matte and adjusting the black screen matte it will take shadows away
Blending videos and Symmetry
In After Effects layering videos are only of getting unique looking footage. I was looking, Mitch Martinez stock footage and was looking for ink dropping in water and found one I liked and found water waves which looked interesting and when trying to blend the videos together I got this amazing looking effect while ink spreads outward and the wave of water appears but in order to get this effect the ink had to be dark and a layer above the water and change the blend mode to lighten.
StoryBoard
James Bond : Silver Lights
Progress
I started to run into a few issues trying to edit the video with the particular music I have chosen thus far, the Panic at the Disco was rather a fast pace song and how it will fit into a James Bond title would be questionable. I went back to start and all started all over again with the pyramid I modelled in Maya it was rather playing at a slow pace because I wanted it to be slow, and to me I felt like that it would not fit well with the song although the idea sounded great and it is always good to see what and not will go well together. I then chose a song from TOTEM called Shadows which just blended will with the scene of the pyramid panning around. The song had a James Bond feel to it as well and it was really hard to find a specific song so match what I had in mind.
The first one was just to see what layout I was after, I then realised that what I had in the first half of the storyboard was not going to fit well in as the first scene of the video clip I then rather moved it to the second scene. I would swap around some scene that will not look right and follow the flow of the music. I think that the layout is very crucial to the story of the video clip and knowing when to time is a good thing
I began to experiment a little bit more only with layering videos to see what effect I got and just started to build on that and playing with symmetry, masking and chromaKey.
When I blending two or more videos together I use the blend modes which are exactly the same in Photoshop and you get unexpected results most of the time so it just finds the best one that will look good. When I do symmetry I like to use that blend mode lighten It tends to make the lighter objects in the scene show and the darker and black will not show up but if the object is too dark nothing will show.
For some scenes, I wanted to use some aspect of CGI like the pyramid in the second scene and the slight gun barrel in the scene with the watches ticking, but one iI had to get correct proportion to the screen and to have as much accurate as possible. I then save an individual frame on the last scene with that timelapse and then imported it as an image plane in Maya and what I wanted for this last scene is skulls falling. I start to add Ridgid Bodies and other dynamics to the skull and making it fall. I then rendered it as if it was in front of a green screen and used Keylight in After Effects to remove the green screen.
I use Pre-Composition or pre-comp as its know in after effects is just a group managing for all the footage that you have edited and is a very useful thing to use just to keep the timeline clear and it will keep all the edits you have done and you can still edit on top of the Pre-comp and pre-comps can be layered multiple times as well.
Before and after Color Grade
Before
Evaluation
This project was overall enjoyable and bring a bring a James Bond title sequences to live made it that much more interesting. We have been taught how to use chroma key in After Effects as well as creating the famous silhouettes in James Bond films. I had also done the stunts and acting for the James Bond role using props.
After
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