Film Permits & 3D Tracking

I started this week with the goal of getting back on track with our project management schedules. One of the reasons why we are so behind is because we don't have a proper schedule in order. Due to a lot of team friction, this was delayed and is affecting us both, which is why I needed to put my foot down and get things rolling as a teammate.

On Sunday 23rd February 2020, we scheduled a re-shoot for the scenes that needed to be taken out. We asked our actor to come for the shoot and quickly redid those shots within a span of 20 minutes. That same day, we went location scouting as we are aware that permits take way too long to get approved. Our locations to visit were: The Pointe, City Walk and box park.

This is because all these locations have the environments we have in mind to recreate an alleyway with graffiti/mural look. Below is an evaluation of all locations found.

LOCATION #1

This is at The Pointe at Palm Jumeriah. The murals on the walls look good but there isn't sufficient space in front of it for the cast to act and the crew to set up equipment. Hence, we chucked it away.

LOCATION #2

This is at City Walk by Meraas. The designs on the wall look good but this area is very exposed to the public so it would be hard to get the permit. The designs on the walls may also make it hard to focus on the characters and would cause issues when rotoscoping and masking.

LOCATION #3

This is also at City Walk and the graffiti lines well with our theme. However, the heavy contrast will make the characters hard to see and the branding of McDonald will cause us copyright issues. The area in front is also not sufficient for acting and filming.

LOCATION #4

This seemed the most convenient spot to film at city Walk because of its location and aesthetic. The grey walls are very neutral for both characters to be seen well, the area looks like a good alleyway location and is in between two buildings away from the public or any restaurants that would cause distractions to the customers. I stood there for human height reference but also because the red reflections on the top might can an issue for the robots. However, because the robots would be around a foot taller that a human, this seems fine.

We didn't find good spots at Box park so we settled with this. We also approached the management and filled out a form for location permit. We weren't aware that we need to carry all of the cast and crew's IDs. But we spoke to the lady in charge and she directed us to the right person of contact.

To our astonishment, we got the permit approved within a day of applying!

By Monday 24th February 2020, I got a Casting Call poster done, printed and posted around our uni. I even sent them out to some contacts. I contacted a couple of film students asking for a collaboration and even requested emails to be sent out from Student Services at SAE. Because this day was also the day of our Showcase, not much production work could be done.

By Tuesday 25th February 2020, I edited the new mock and sent it out to my teammate to add the CGI. I also researched templates for intro, outro and title sequences and discussed them with her before finalizing. Here's what we got so far. (check video below "MOCK")

By Wednesday 26th February 2020, we still didn't start modelling. Although I had advised that we should start, my teammate felt it would be best to wait for a complete approval. By that evening, my robot concepts were fully approved and we could start modelling.

(MOCK draft #3 with audio, CGI, and template sequences)

3D Tracking

3D Tracking, on the other hand, is really fun and intuitive. i really enjoyed learning and experimenting wiht the concept and I am super excited to try it out on our work. We would most likely be using this in the robot scenes as that needs tracking.

This advanced procedure tracks on the 3rd axis which is the Z axis. it allows for reverse engineering which converts tracking into point data. Some of the things that can be accomplished with this method are:

• Place elements in 3D space

• Sky/Background replacement

• Cheap VFX

• Clean up

• Set Extension

• Matte Painting

Here is what i cooked up within the class of us learning 3D tracking.

Saturday 29th February 2020

I still have a lot more to learn but as of now, I am really pushing to start modelling and be done with changes and feedback at the earliest. Our film shoot which is scheduled for week 7 needs a lot of preparation and pre-production (in the film aspect) to be done and sorted. I got 2 confirmed film students and a film Alumni who will be there to supervise us on the first day of our shoot. From the talk we had with Reshel on film scouting, we also broadened our knowledge on some more aspects of the legal formats. All forms & documents are in the process of completion and equipment will be booked by tomorrow - we have checked for the availability.

Today's auditions went well although some actors backed out last minute. From the attendees, we feel that we might need another day for auditions as we are not entirely satisfied with the ones today.

Overall, this has been one of the most productive weeks since the start of this trimester but I do hope our progress can enhance henceforth.