case study

1. Motion Graphics and
Compositing:
Case Study
name
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2. 2
Critical Discussion

3. Motion Graphics
Motion graphics is a form of video animation made up of moving design,
illustration and images that when put together create a video sequence for
audiences to watch. The purpose of them is to draw the attention of an audience
and inform them on an issue or topic of their desire, it is important that the
animations run smoothly so that the video sequence doesn’t disappoint the
audience, meaning that their interest for the topic is lost. Motion graphics first
came about during the silent era of film, directors would implement title cards at
the start of their films which usually stated the directors name, the title of the film
and possibly any other related information to the film such as copyright
trademarks. These titles were mainly black backgrounds with white lettering as this
matched nicely with black and white live action film. As the years went by title
sequences were experimented with in a number of different ways, directors kept
coming up new ways to format them such as stop motion, montage and live action.
It was in the late 50’s that breakthroughs were made with title sequencing,
designers now began to implement moving animations to the title sequences of
films, along with the addition of motion and sound this helped to set up the mood
and texture of the film, this was a huge breakthrough in film as not only did the
title sequence state the name of the film, they could now portray moving images
that matched with sounds to create a more interesting and appealing sequence.
Not alone this but they could now portray the basis of the film with the animations
they showed. An example of this done well is the 1963 film The Pink Panther by
Friz Freleng. The opening title sequence uses cartoon animations to detail the basis
of the film, its clear that the film revolves a crime mystery and the chasing down of
a jewelry thief as the title sequence presents the Pink Panther running from what
looks to be a detective.

4. Motion Graphics
Motion graphics have evolved more and more over the years yet the basis and principle of them have
remained the same, to create a climate for the story that was about to unfold, more often then not what
you are seeing is actually just a shortened version of what you are about to watch. Film makers have used
this principle for many used and you can still see this style being used in the current film industry, for
example the Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can follows this principle really well. The entire
sequence is animated simply, yet through the entirety of it the structure of the whole film is set out for us,
from start to finish. The audience is told exactly what the film will consist of, the basis of the story, the
characters involved and even the roles that the main character takes on through the narrative. Throughout
the title sequence the basis of the story is made clear, we see the main character continuously evading
capture from the detective, the tension builds closer and closer to the end of the sequence as shown in the
animation as well as in the music as we see the detective getting closer to capturing the main character.
“The audiences involvement with a film should really begin with the very first frame” – Saul Bass interview
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ybs9YAyOsKo)
Saul Bass is known to be one of cinema’s great craftsmen, he’s is know particularly for his striking
minimalist style of making title sequences. He first came around the film industry during the 50’s when
Hollywood was going through a huge change and Bass’ work is said to have greatly helped push forward
that change. Despite that most current movies now do not mainly feature title sequences, the ones that do
are almost always in debt to his style and philosophy. Bass believed that title sequences played a huge part
in the films we watch, he felt that these first frames are what set out the basis of the film that we as an
audience are about to see, he could effectively portray this in numerous amounts of ways, whether that
was through symbolizing pure emotions or even to portray terror, like in the opening sequence to Psycho.
He was truly a master of the title sequence and kept the same philosophy for every sequence he made, do
less for more, on the simpler side this means just because you can use anything, doesn’t mean you should
use everything.

5. Visual Effects
Since the start of cinema directors have always had to face the problem of
telling a story that is based around a fictional setting. More often than not
directors wouldn’t be able to afford to go off to tropical islands or huge
mountain ranges for a few moments of footage. As this was before advances
in technology that brought us CGI, this enabled directors to become much
more creative in their thinking, which then brought around the uses of visual
effects into the film industry. One of the first uses of visual effects was a
process called matte painting, this process involved making the audience
believe that actors were in different and fictional locations that would be
extremely difficult or impossible to film in real life. Matte painting is one of
the earliest forms of illusion in film, the term ‘Matte’ meaning to block an
image, an example of this could be that film crews could have the lower half
of a set built, for instance the lower half of a castle then with the use of matte
painting the top half could be placed over the footage to give the appearance
of seeing the entirety of the castle when screening the film to an audience.
Matte painting came in handy especially for film sets that didn’t have a large
enough budget to build an entire set so the parts they couldn’t afford could
be implemented later with the use of matte painting. One of the first
directors to use this method was George Melies, a French director in early
1900’s, George was a genius of film and largely known for his intuitive and
ingenious ideas in which he brought to the world of film. He famously known
for using matte painting for his film The Four Troublesome Heads, in which
George self starred presenting himself duplicating his own head on film, this
was in 1898 so no one had ever seen anything quite like it before and he did
so by first using a glass pane painted black to create a matte, he would then
shoot the scene and then rewind the film, in doing so the matte painted
section would not be exposed to light which left the section of the frame
empty therefore giving the effect that he was headless.
Never Ending Story Matte painting
George Melies The Four Troublesome Heads

6. Visual Effects
As the years when on through the mid 1900’s matte painting continued to evolve, scenes started
to look more and more convincing and audiences were still being tricked into believing that the
footage was in fact real. George Lucas was another director effectively using this method to
portray new and wonderful scenes, examples of this can be found through out the original
trilogy, from the hanger bays inside empire cruisers to the forests moon of Endor where we see
the celebrations held by the Jawas after the defeat of the empire. All of which used this same
method of matte painting in sceneries to give the audience the idea that this was real footage.
As we came closer to the 20th century, digital matting techniques became the prevalent method
to use, matte artists could now use computer software such as Photoshop, After Effects and
Maya to create new 2D and 3D worlds, this meant that artists no longer had to paint huge
freehand scenes but instead create them on the specific software and then place them onto pre-
recorded footage. As new techniques in visual effects arose over the years, the blue screen
method was developed, it worked by using a large blue canvas as the background to a scene,
then removing a colour range in the foreground footage, allowing it to be composited onto
background footage. However this method was developed in the 1930’s so there was still many
issues with separation to create the matte, this would often create blue fringing around the
person or object. One of the first films to famously use this method was the 1940s film The Thief
of Bagdad. The next biggest evolution of film was chroma key, this method involved a keyer,
which was a mathematical process that would take a range of colours of a video signal and make
them transparent, this also introduced the replacement of blue screens for green screens as
they proved easier to use, they required less light, they worked better outside and green was a
colour that was unlikely to clash with any costume design. As chroma keying became the norm it
also brought through with it the method known as CGI (computer generated imagery), this
method was first seen in the Michael Crichton’s 1973 film Westworld, this marked the first ever
use of CGI in film when they used it to give a POV shot of the Gunslinger’s pixelated heat vision.
As CGI started to progress more and more as software began to get better the film industry
started to see huge breakthroughs with film companies like Pixar and Lucasfilm, Pixar creating
one of their first ever animations using CGI software and Lucasfilm with one of the biggest
breakthroughs in CGI with Jurassic Park and the famous T-rex and the car scene which still holds
up today with its quality of CGI.
Westworld gunslinger’s vision
The thief of Bagdad
Jurassic Park

7. 7
Analysis

8. Motion Graphics Sequence - Skyfall
Skyfall is the 2nd most recent instalment of the James Bond franchise staring Daniel Craig as
the protagonist. The opening title sequence begins when Bond has been shot off of a moving
train into the sea, the soundtrack ‘Skyfall’ by Adele accompanies the opening title sequences
and begins while Bond is sinking further under water. The sequence was directed David
Kleinman who has been behind every bond title sequence since Goldeneye. Kleinman is
known for incorporating a narrative element to the Bond sequences, I noticed that in this
sequence he tries to address the emotional currents of the film by depicting the thoughts and
feelings going on inside Bond’s head, which reflects on the film itself as Skyfall is the first Bond
film to delve into 007’s psychological past. The entirety of the sequence is shot in ominous
dark tones, significantly darker then the past Bond sequences. Kleinman uses these tones to
replicate the fact Bond is underwater in the entire sequence, he ensure the tones remain
murky and gives the running colours the effect of blood underwater. One of the most
prominent technical features that I noticed was the use of match cuts to transition nearly
every single frame together, as the camera is constantly moving forward through each scene
this makes for a nice clear transition into the next frame. As most good titles sequence this
portrays most of the narrative aspects in which the film will feature, for example we are briefly
shown the Bond villain in the scene with the shadows, we are also shown the Bond girl who is
under the water at the start. All these aspects are shown to the audience without them really
realising, you aren’t meant to know until you have watched the film yet you are still given this
insight within the title sequence, this short insight is what makes a well constructed title
sequence. In correlation to previous Bond sequences before Skyfall it is clear that they have
evolved and developed much further, the original sequences for their time were well made
impressive to look at title sequences, however with the technical CGI software available for
directors nowadays we can see much more illustrative and detailed sequences being made
such as Skyfall in this case. For example the 1962 Bond Dr. No feature this first Bond title
sequence which was masterfully created using a type of edit which cut the coloured circles to
the beat of the music, the idea was very effective yet extremely simple in correlation to what
we see in films such as Skyfall now, we now have to ability to create wonderful imaginary
scenarios such as match cuts leading through the pupil of an eye into a new scene all in one
smooth motion. This is all due to the advancements in our film animated software, to create
the bond sequence they needed an enormous amount of artists to create the actual visuals as
there are numerous amounts of liquid and blood elements the consist through the sequence
making it very complicated to create, most of the sequence is animated.
match cut
Underwater tones

9. Motion Graphics Sequence – Fight Club
The 1999 action film Fight Club starts off with what sounds like classical music however
this is quickly changed as the sound of a record changing jolts us from classical to hard
core fast paced electronic rock, the 3D CGI opening sequence then begins to play out as
we are thrown through what looks like thousands of intricate winding neurons going
through the brain. Director David Fincher stated that what we are seeing is a tour of fear
happening in the brain. This interesting use of CGI goes unnoticed by first time watchers
however, if you have already seen the film and you’ll know that the entirety is about
mental self conflict. This opening sequences hints at the macro twist at the ending,
portraying that what he the protagonist believes is in fact all in his head. this is a
foreshadowing title sequence, the director is toying with us to come around on a second
viewing and realise it was all there in the obvious at the beginning. This title sequence
also incorporates a huge cliff-hanger leaving the audience questioning everything, who
this hostage is, why he’s being held hostage, who is Tyler? And so on and so on. The
audience is dropped right into the action, there is no subtlety about it which also hints
at what the films going to be like, just like the title sequence, fast paced action. The
sequence carefully sets up the whole tone for the film, the bleak and dark colours used
relate to the film as a whole and as we see the camera running various neurons and
nerves then exiting a skin pore covered in sweat, finally ending between the sights of a
Smith and Wesson pointed into the protagonists mouth, it is made clear to the audience
that the films main characteristics are fear, action and violence, if the title of the film
didn’t already suggest that enough. As this opening sequence mainly features 3D CGI
animation we can relate it to another title sequence by David Fincher, ‘The Girl With The
Dragon Tattoo’, the entirety of this is shot and created using CGI software, they both
used fast pacing edit cuts along side two sound tracks with huge drive that sets the tone
for the film. In contrast both of these sequences feature similar aspects using CGI to
create terrifying and wonderful worlds which could never be recreated with live action
footage.
The girl with the dragon tattoo

10. Visual Effects – Star Wars A New Hope
In the classic opening scene to Star Wars A New Hope we begin with a huge
establishing shot of the vast blackness of space, the camera slowly tilts down to show
the blue haze of an enormous planet that takes up the entirety of the bottom half of
the screen, this is also accompanied by John Williams orchestra which briefly quietens
to murmur, allowing the audience a moment to appreciate the scenery. Suddenly from
behind the camera a small ship shoots past, a few moments later shots are fired on the
ship and then unexpectedly another huge ships looms into view in hot pursuit of the
vastly smaller ship, taking up most the screen we get our first glimpse of an Imperial
Star Destroyer in all its might. This opening scene sets the tone and context of the
entire film to the viewers, it was shot using a miniature effect which is a technique
where the crew create miniature models, for example a model Star Destroyer and then
films with these models in the scene which tricks the viewer into thinking that they are
in fact much larger. This scene is done perfectly, the audience could completely ignore
the beginning text and still get an idea of what star wars was about, the small ship
depicting the weak rebel forces escaping and the colossal and streamlined imperial star
destroyer which perfectly represents the true overpowering strength of the empire,
effectively visually representing the good yet much weaker side of the rebels against
the evil might of the empire, summing up the basis of Star Wars‘ narrative perfectly
within the very first moments of the film. The evolution of visual effects within the Star
Wars franchise has seen huge advancements, to compare the original trilogy with its
use of miniature models shot over a man made set to give the impression that its all
live action footage shot in real locations was huge at the time and worked extremely
well, however when the sequels were made George Lucas instead relied heavily on the
use of CGI which at the time was no where near as good as it is now which in turn left
an end product that was rather disappointing compared to the originals, Lucas lost that
sense of realism and replaced it with 3D CGI. However now with the advancements in
CGI the franchise has got back to where it began with the new instalments such as
Rouge One, the old feel of Star Wars had returned back to where it began due to the 3D
CGI software being so advanced now that worlds and scenes can be created with such
realism you can hardly tell what’s CGI and what’s not anymore.

11. Screen Ratios
Screen Ratio:
For Film – 1.85:1 and 2.40:1 (most anamorphic showings)
Television – 1.77:1 (16:9)
For Web - YouTube and vimeo primarily uses 16:9
Resolution
Due to screen ratios, this can effect the resolution. As a rule of thumb, the higher the resolution, the better the image
quality due to the number of pixels present. 4K: 3840x2160, Full HD: 1920x1080, HD: 1280x720, SD: 720x576.
Frame Rate
Frame Rate: This depends entirely on the usage of the final product.
For Film – projected at 24fps
Television in the UK – 25fps
Internet/web use – up to 60fps
Video Format
Mp4 – web format
Mov – uncompressed lossless
Mpeg 2 – DVDs
Compression
When exporting finished pieces take into consideration what the preferred playback method is. With our college pieces
we mainly upload them to YouTube to them be share on to our blogs, the format for this involves H.264 and the present
“YouTube” 1080p 24fps.