SET DESIGN
(Figure 1)
There are certain things about a video that help us believe it. Some things are not as obvious like camera framing, editing, something called The 180º Rule, and audio. Other elements of the production are right out there for everyone to see like acting, wardrobe, and set design. For many of our videos, the sets are standard: church interior, home interior, store front, etc. For Unnoticed Moms, LLC we were tasked with designing a very distintive set from scratch.
The first hurdle we encountered was the “vision”. There were three of us who had slightly different pictures of the set in our heads. Of course, it’s nice to have an Art Director who can dole out assignments for the vision and be the one who designs the set. Steve and I, however, did a little flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants (collective pants) to work out the set. It’s a mixture of old and new as well as fairly interesting looking generic boxes and stacks of stuff. We each ended up bringing ideas to the design and just seeing what would stick. It was a little confusing at times. It was even a little frustrating at times. But I feel like we were able to put our ideas together and work up a nice little nondescript world for our actors.
FILLER
(Figure 2)
Something that was really neat to me and sort of unexpected was a set of items our designer, Ashton, created for the background. She spent some time pulling together some old and interesting looking imagery that we printed out and hung on the wall behind the Akron character (Figure 2). She also found a great Post WWII map on the Library of Congress website that we turned in to a banner for the wall (Figure 3).
(Figure 3)
I’m sure you will agree that none of these items really caused any of our mothers to have a happier day, but it can be argued that these elements brought another level of realism to the set. Yes, the set might have been just fine otherwise. I am confident, though, that these extra– well, the Cajun word for it is “lagniappe” (LAHN-yahp)– this lagniappe made the world believable and caused the background to drift to the back of everyone’s minds so the action and dialogue could take center stage.
Of course, there isn’t a magic formula, but we ended up having a lot of fun with the set design. I would encourage you to do the same for YOUR productions!
Environments and compositing can take a video a long way toward it’s believability as well as setting a tone for the viewer. In our new Mother’s Day mini movie, Unnoticed Moms, LLC we were tasked with creating a large warehouse behind the green screen window that would, of course, seem believable.
My first attempt at creating the warehouse was, in my mind, an effort to bring a large amount of mystery to the scene– creating a space that is more like a dark hole. However, as you can see, (Figure 1) it made it more depressing than anything. The windows didn’t really look like they were on an outside wall or maybe it seemed that it was a dreary, rainy day. There is a little bit of texture on the far wall, but it seemed to be more confusing than anything.
The next iteration (Figure 2) was to take what I had done and brighten it up. We added some curves, a glow, and some lens flares to bring more of an afternoon feel to the look– golden hour. The thing we weren’t really happy with was that this still looked more like a dark hole than a warehouse. It wasn’t quite as depressing anymore, but the textures were still ambiguous enough for it to potentially cause confusion in the audience and take their focus away from the video.
The third attempt (Figure 3) was created by David Chapman (@DaveChap) over at Graceway Media. He made a really nice matte painting from warehouse texture reference images to give the back wall of the warehouse more realism. Then we just put some off-white shape layers and a glow over the texture to get the windows.
The warehouse and the interior of the clerk’s office are about the same brightness with a little shading for separation. This causes both areas to look like they are part of the same scene, and the brightness of the warehouse keeps the mood neutral instead of depressing.
The recognizable texture for the warehouse wall registers quickly and keeps confusion down for the audience. They notice it’s a big warehouse-like room behind the window and move on to paying attention to the actors.
Once again, it is good to see our process at work here turning this video into something we are proud to release into the wild.
Below are some other images from production to post!
On set getting the actors ready.
Raw footage from the Canon 7D.
Final composite with background elements and color-correction.
New! Unnoticed Moms, LLC.
If you need a mini-movie for your Mother’s Day service, consider this pleasant little reminder of all of the little things moms do. With a fun and quirky new look and style, this video was a little different than anything we have done before.
From props and wardrobe to shooting and editing, there were tons of details! The AfterEffects work was a bit tricky, but we are really happy with the finished product.
We know it might be a little late for this year, but hey, we are WAY early for Mother’s Day 2013!
Mother’s Day – May 13th!
As you plan to celebrate Moms on Sunday, May 13th, here are a few fun mini-movies:
Do you need some “Motherly-type” backgrounds? Click here to view our Mother’s Day store!
Today Martin Massinger passed away. We are rejoicing and mourning all at the same time. He was a spiritual guide for me as well as many. I was privileged to be on the Watermark worship team for 8 years with Martin. Some of my favorite memories are with him and our team. We also got to do some wedding receptions and other events and those were just as fun. The picture above is Martin playing bass at my wedding. Haley and I loved having the band play our reception.
I also got to hang out with Martin the last 5-6 years because he was the graphic design artist for my dad’s company magazines. Since we share office space, I would see Martin on a daily basis. In fact we often used Martin in our Igniter videos.
Below are the videos Martin graciously acted in. He was always a great sport about being in our videos and he had a great time with it. We are forever blessed to have known Martin Massinger.
