After screening by the director, more than 30 video clips were finally selected. My task this week is to process all the footage.

I used AE for cutout work. I searched for a lot of video tutorials on the Internet and finally chose to use the Primatte Keyer 6 plugin. It helped me with a quick cutout.

I also encountered a lot of trouble. For example, the actor’s hair is a bit messy, the actor is too close to the green screen to reflect green light, and the ISO is incorrect during recording, resulting in too much noise, etc., which will affect the post-cutting effect. I try my best to process every video material well.

I also worked on video footage for several action shots. This is cumbersome. Because of the many tracking points on the wall, I had to adjust the mask frame by frame. Although I had a lot of troubles, I also learned a lot of useful things from it, and I will avoid a lot of troubles and do better next time.

We’re doing a green screen shoot this week, and we went to the green screen venue a day early for the set. I put tracking points on the green screen for later motion tracking.

These are some stills. In this shooting mission, I was mainly responsible for shooting stills and raising the microphone, etc. At the same time, coordinate the work of the recording division for the post-production work.

To achieve better results, we had the actors record the lines again in the studio.

These are the script and shot list.

The filming is progressing smoothly, and we are looking forward to the next tasks and results!

This week the producer brought two actors, Katia Kapustin and Jon Mckenna. After we communicated, we decided to start shooting next week. My task this week is very simple, just find some references and make a demo of the scene.

I tried making a demo of the woods based on these references, but it doesn’t look very harmonious and needs to be changed. But don’t worry too much, this demo is just an experiment to confirm the size and distance between the characters and the scene. 🙂

This is the reference map of the laboratory

I made a modern laboratory according to the reference, which did not meet the director’s ideal expectations, so director handed it over to my partner Zhongyao Zhang to find another reference and model the laboratory.

We also went to the motion capture classroom and tried motion capture with Noma removing her arm.

This week I found a lot of reference pictures of labs and forests, and I tried modeling large scenes in C4D. I wanted to convey a quiet and anti-tech feel, so I needed to add a lot of detail.

There is the proposal:

The Last AI

Team Members:

Director & Screenwriter: Bin Li(b.li0420202@arts.ac.uk) MA film

Executive Producer: Mao Lin(m.lin0320211@arts.ac.uk) MA media(extra)

Cameraman: Mingxuan Yang(m.yang0520201@arts.ac.uk) MA film

Post-Production: Mengyang Yin(m.yin0420211@arts.ac.uk), Yaozhang Zhong(y.zhong0420212@arts.ac.uk) MA 3D computer animation

Project Brief:

This is a short film exploring difference, humanity and technology working with Film major students. The film will be shot using live-action and post-production special effects compositing. The story takes place in a future where humans fear that the technology they create will rule them. They lead to a series of anti-technology movements, one of which is the destruction of AI robots

Story Brief:

When only one robot named Noma is left in the world, the person sent to hang her is Steven, the professor who created her at the time. Noma has almost human-like feelings and consciousness, and she is based on the image of Steven’s deceased daughter. When they meet, a conversation ensues…

Reference Style:

Task Assignment:

I am responsible for scene design, mapping, lighting, rendering of the scene, modeling and the fusion of characters and scenes in the later stage in this production.

Aiming to get and career direction:

In this project I want to learn about filmmaking. There are too many things worth learning, such as the use of lighting, the integration of virtual and reality, and so on.