Matte Paintings

A matte painting is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit. Historically, matte painters and film technicians have used various techniques to combine a matte-painted image with live-action footage. At its best, depending on the skill levels of the artists and technicians, the effect is "seamless" and creates environments that would otherwise be impossible to film.

Percy Jackson : Hellywood

 One of my  Tim Matney's first duties was finalizing the matte painting for the above shots. The matte painting had been under development by at least three other artists before he came on board the project. He was handed two pages of type written notes in an 8-point font to address before beginning anything. Most of the notes were in regard to the city and the lighting, but he had to completely redevelop the cliffs for the open chasms. Above is the actual background matte painting he worked on.

One of his specialties seems to be rocky cliffs, which he had to develop for these shots, as the show VFX Sup and Director had as specific look in mind – long jagged vertical faces. He sourced an island in Tasmania which he had used in the past (Underworld: Evolution), and everybody was pleased. The city and sky were developed by a combination of either Thilo Ewers, Richard Lee, or Matt Conway. The matte paintings were projected in 3D by John Lindstein, and rendered out for comp. 

Creating An Environment - in C4D

Camera projection Mapping

 I placed the picture in cinema 4d and I calibrated a camera in order to match the focal length and the perspective of the picture so I could create an "environment". It's as if you create the geometry and you project the picture the same way you do it through a projector. By doing this you can create 3d movement from a 2d image. The next step was to make a camera movement and place a sphere where I have also mapped the same picture and I exploded it into the "environment".
The quality of the video is not very good I need to try and fix it and make some renders.
By working on this my original idea came to my mind again, making a set.

Process

Final Outcome

Olafur Eliasson

For my next step I want to try and create an environment, how Eliasson does with tricks of lightings etc. I want to combine the 3d sphere I made with of the exploded pieces with a picture of the site and try to put it inside it somehow.

"Take Your Time"

Olafur Eliasson, whose immersive environments, sculptures, and photographs elegantly recreate the extremes of landscape and atmosphere in his native Scandinavia, while foregrounding the sensory experience of the work itself. His constructions, at once eccentric and highly geometric, use multicolored washes, focused projections of light, mirrors, and elements such as water, stone, and moss to shift the viewer's perception of place and self. By transforming the gallery into a hybrid space of nature and culture, Eliasson prompts an intensive engagement with the world and offers a fresh consideration of everyday life.

The Weather Project - Tate Modern

In this installation, The Weather Project, representations of the sun and sky dominate the expanse of the Turbine Hall. A fine mist permeates the space, as if creeping in from the environment outside. Throughout the day, the mist accumulates into faint, cloud-like formations, before dissipating across the space. A glance overhead, to see where the mist might escape, reveals that the ceiling of the Turbine Hall has disappeared, replaced by a reflection of the space below. At the far end of the hall is a giant semi-circular form made up of hundreds of mono-frequency lamps. The arc repeated in the mirror overhead produces a sphere of dazzling radiance linking the real space with the reflection. Generally used in street lighting, mono-frequency lamps emit light at such a narrow frequency that colours other than yellow and black are invisible, thus transforming the visual field around the sun into a vast duotone landscape.

3d Kaleidoscope Explosion Using Cinema 4d

PROCESS

 Creating a plane and extruding it a little bit

 Inserting the picture

Using a plug in - nitroblast to break the picture

Using deformers and putting randomly all the broken pieces into a space of a sphere

FINAL OUTCOME

Note : click on the pictures below and see them in order, it gives you the feeling of movement.

When we see a 2D picture our mind is what makes it 3D according to our experiences because we know the perspectives/angles. In other words we look at something which is 2D and we build a 3D picture in our mind. For example in reality when we look at something each one of us observes it differently, based on what we think it's more important for us: colours, shapes, materials. Every person is different and doesn't pay attention to they same things in an image, what attract us we see it bigger and what not smaller, by doing this it's as if we rearrange what we see and what affects us and filter it. 

By making this model in cinema 4d I wanted to exaggerate the 3d effect of the picture since I was failing to achieve it in all my previous experiments. 
The idea came when I broke the mirror in order to create a new device. All those pieces where giving me different reflections and perspectives of how you see things so I wanted to explode a picture from portobello road and create something similar. The image is not clear at all and it is hard to make sense of what you see but this was my intention, it looks like a puzzle that needs to be fixed but the question is how are you going to fix it? are you going to use your imagination and rearrange the pieces and create something completely new or you want it how it originally was?

Creating a New Device # 3

  

My tutors suggested me to create a device as the one above in order to get an effect that would be more 3 dimensional. I broke a mirror into many small pieces and stuck it into a large scale cardboard tube. 

Above I have a few pictures I took with it. Unfortunately for once again I didn't get the effect I was hoping for. The cardboard tube was the same size all along that's why it didn't work, it should have been more like a cone and I should have also placed more carefully the mirrors inside it. 

I will make a new one by paying closer attention to the details and try of making it more accurate.

Research Related to My Next Steps

Deconstructing ways by Isidro Blasco 

Using giant photographs supported by an 800-kilogram wooden frame, Blasco built an uncannily realistic 3D mirror image of a streetscape installed in Sydney in order to create a giant optical illusion of the alley going in another direction.

His goal was to trick somebody and actually believe it.

Cornelia Parker 

The installation is lit with a single light-bulb at the very centre of the arrangement, casting shadows on the walls. The title gives us a whole new way of understanding the artwork, making us think of other dramatic moments of destruction and creation in the 
much wider universe.

She is interested in how everyday objects can be changed by (often violent) processes.

She is in fact fascinated by how change can create something completely new.

 This is exactly what i'm interested in, how you can create something new by changing it by taking fragments of it, by taking the parts that intrest you the most and join them all together in order to create an optical illusion in a way.

Blasco's installation is something I would really like to try and make at some point of my project. It reminds my the first collage I made with the perspectives and it would be really interesting if i could convert it in a similar model.

Area I Will Be Focusing On

I walked around almost everywhere between Landbroke Grove, Westbourne Park and Notting Hill and I finally decided that for the rest of my project/research my main focus will be around Portobello Road, so I set some boundaries marked with red on the maps above. 

WHY ? 

Im really interested in the colours that you find on the houses the materials, the market and the movement around this area all the different cultures and people that come together. From the videos i've made the main thing you realize is the many perspectives you get and all the different images that join and make one. I think the device I created can bring all those aspects together.

Saturday Walk At Portobello

IMG 8770 from evelyn on Vimeo.

kaleidoscope effect video experimentation 6 from evelyn on Vimeo.

As you can see from Saturday's pictures the market is really busy and you can barely walk on Portobello Road. I'm planning to go everyday of the week at the same time in order to record the movement and the differences between the days. Since I'm interested in perspectives, colours and materials I will use the kaleidoscope effect in order to combine them to create a result including all three aspects. I will also incorporate optical illusions which disable clear vision at first glance and always makes you discover something new and that's what makes it so exciting and interesting, that you focus on something specific but you also get in the picture/video something that you wouldn't expect. 

I want to find which areas of the market are more interesting and provide better results and why. From my walk last Saturday I realized that most of the people are tourists and they don't really stop to make purchases, they just walk around  taking pictures and soaking up the atmosphere. Of course this is not an accurate analysis it's just something that caught my attention and I'd like to take a further look at it.