The Brief

The brief states that we are required to use elements of VFX to create a short movie of ourselves where we are using a superpower that we have created, either by using inspiration by others or just by thinking about it on ourself! We have to finish it by the 19th May 2024. There must be a range of different superpowers in our planning and research stage, about 4 will be fine. The video we are creating must not be longer than a minute. We are creating the visual effects by ourselves but we will need groups to help shoot the footage we need as someone needs to operate the lights and cameras in the green screen room. I also needed about 4 actors for my shoot so that resulted in having 5 people in the green screen room including me.

Concepts

Final Concept

My final idea is for my scene to be based around Magneto's powers, an actor will be standing in the middle of the shot and use the magnetism powers to pick up metal and strike the camera lens with it and cracking the lens so it feels immersive. For the final part of the shot I will be walking away whilst the shard of metal is stuck inside the camera with a broke glass effect and after a few seconds the camera will shut off. I could also use Magneto's theme in the background to add a little bit of sound quality which will enhance the overall short movie.

The 2 Different Versions of Magneto

The Magneto on the left is portrayed by the Scottish-German actor Michael Fassbender who is in many hit films including my personal favourite movie, Inglourious Bastards. On the right is the older version of Magneto who is played by the legendary Ian McKellen, the English actor has had an impressive career spanning over 60 years! He has been in many cult classics such as The Hobbit and he frequently takes on roles in Broadway! In the movies, the older Magneto (Ian McKellen) is more of a quietly convincing character and has a frightening confidence whereas the younger Magneto (Michael Fassbender) is more fuelled with rage which typically leads to outbursts. However, I would personally say that the latter is more powerful and his feats in the movies clearly demonstrates that, I would say that the older Magneto has a different kind of power with that being his confidence and leadership, he can rally an army behind him and due to his confidence you can clearly see why people would want to be on his side. Below I will link videos to Ian McKellen's leadership and Michael Fassbender's raw power.

The images above shows that Wolverine is a viscous character as he has his claws out in both of them and has an angry face. In the second image he is looking a little older and and has scars on his face. This shows that he has experienced more and has gone through a lot in his lifetime. It also shows that he has a tragic backstory as he is a scarred man and it isn't like he just has the odd scar as he has numerous. You can clearly see how aggressive Wolverine is and due to the horrible acts my character will commit in the scene it fits very, very well

How can a shot display power?

By having someone filling the camera it shows that they are very important and powerful, however, if there is a shot and he is far away and filling up less of the scree it shows that they don't have as much power. Also, if the camera is is on the ground and looking up at the person, that can show power as they are towering over the viewer.

Production

For the production stage we started filming inside the green screen room for our shoot. We began by setting the lighting up and because we were the first group to film we had to find out how to sort the lighting out by ourselves and that proved to be the first real challenge, however, after messing around with it for a little while we sorted it. On the first day however, once we had the lighting in the right place we barely had anytime to actually record anything. We only managed to complete one scene on that day but we enjoyed it and had a little bit of fun with it! On the second day we got the lighting right a lot faster and we filmed every single scene and was done to near perfection. We followed the script I created beforehand but I let them improvise so they weren't just restricted to doing whatever the script said and due to that we got some really good moments. Also with letting them improvise it let them have more creative control so it was a little more fun for the actors and we could get the best out of them and I feel like if they were following a script it could sound very robotic and unrealistic but if they came up with it on the spot it would probably sound a lot more human-like

Post-Production

Post-production is the stage where the real magic happens. This is where all the editing happens and I will be editing the green screen out so I can add whatever background I want and I can add the effects such as the metal being thrown over the interviewee's mouth's and the Wolverine claws smashing the camera. To do this we use various software's such as Blender's video editor, Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. I have decided to make the event seem like a live tragedy instead of making it cinematic, with 2 of the shots being a 'live broadcast' and the other shot being a little cinematic as it would be filmed on a camera that isn't physically there during the scene. This is sort of like the Police bodycam footage you can find online as it shows the true depiction of what went down.

I will also be adding some sound effects onto my short movie as an improved sound quality will improve the entire overall quality. For the dialogue we also re-recorded it inside a podcast room as the audio will be more crisp and clear. I will be adding some music to the scene aswell, such as a News opening title card with some music that sounds like it would fit to be on the news. Towards the end of the first shot I will be slowly introducing Magneto's theme tune to add suspense and by the time he appears on scene it will be fully built up. The reason why I will be slowly building it up instead of just hitting the audience with it is that it will feel like the fear is slowly creeping in and by the time the music is at its loudest I feel like their hearts would be racing which is similar to the characters within the scene instead of just being hit with it at once which would be more jumpscare esque.