Hi Barellan Central Rappers,
What an excellent response and questions! By the way,
I’ve been in the US
all last week and so haven’t been able to respond to you Rappers, but
I’ve enjoyed the discussions between Carol and all of you.
Film techniques & elements
The Chicken Coop
Yes, the Chicken Coop scenes from Noah & Saskia were actually shot in a
mall in Melbourne.
The shop front was a set and was located in a part of the mall that had a lot
of open space. I visited that mall whilst one of those scenes was being shot-
much more realistic than a set. The ACTF always tries to use real houses, shops
and schools when producing our TV series, so Noah and Saskia’s schools
are real. For a location that’s going to have lots of people (eg
shoppers) the logistics are worked out a long way ahead and the mall becomes
involved by allowing the production to set up barriers (out of sight of the
camera) so that shoppers don’t get in the way. But, of course, shooting,
with a largish crew, always creates a lot of attention, so sometimes shoots occur
out of hours, or we wait until there are few onlookers. Sound recording
nowadays is so good that background noise, unless very loud, doesn’t
interfere. Take a look at the mall and school shots again and you’ll see
what I mean. The background buzz of shoppers or students adds to the ambience
of the scene.
Saskia’s home
We do take time to choose outside locations too. We
scout streets that look as though the characters would live there and then
choose a house. Sometimes, the owners are happy for us to rent it from them for
the period of the shoot, sometimes we can only get permission to shoot the
inside, and then we use another home’s interior or a set. Saskia’s
house was one house where we were able to use both the exterior and the
interior shot looking out onto the garden and then Saskia’s bedroom was a
studio set.
Saskia’s School
Two schools were chosen, one for the interior
classroom, corridor, library, music and computer room and another for exterior
shots.
Special Effects
The film element in this scene we
considered was the use of special effects. You have the image of the earth that
flattens into a map, then settings that the individual characters appear in
front of and finally the tracking technology – radar, information, etc -
that also overlap the settings. How do you get this many layers into one shot?
Layers are built up in many of the shots in Noah & Saskia using digital techniques
and a composting tool. This tool allows as many layers as you want. Cool hey?
The Noah & Saskia DVD has a
“Making Of” section that explains how this was done, so ask your
teachers to show you that section.
The
other scene is where Max & Saskia are making the deal and they seem to be
walking down the street but then odd things happen – streetlights, guitars
flying, background changes – is this a ‘blue screen’ effect
or something else? How is animation different to creating special effects
– are the flying guitars animation or SFX?
Yes, all this is blue screen- again this particular
scene is discussed and deconstructed in ‘The Making Of’. The flying
guitars are 3D computer graphics. Animation can be a SFX, so can digital
manipulation of light and actual drama footage. Animation can be cell (painted
and filmed shot by shot), clay (Wallace and Gromit), model, cut outs,
digital…etc. If you’d like to find out more about animation and how
to make your own, explore our online kit. http://www.actf.com.au/learning_centre/title_pages/ani_tp.php
Which took longest the actors
acting, the animation or the SFX?
According to our director of special effects, who also
helped me out on the technical question above, the animation took the longest
to create.
How did you get into making TV?
I don’t actually produce TV any more. I
was a university lecturer who trained teachers and taught TV production. Now, I
manage all of the educational resources for the ACTF. If you’re interested
in TV Production start now! Make your own TV- it’s so simple now with
digital cameras, enter competitions and express your selves at school via film
and TV production.
Lee
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