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The Calling – A CG Short Film 1
The Calling – A CG Short Film.
Benjamin Fedder Jensen, Lasse Bruun Hansen,
Daniel Eskildsen, Magnus Koed Møller and Jesper Olsen.
5th Semester Medialogy Project, Med 5-1 Fall 2008.
Aalborg University Esbjerg.
Supervisors
Mikael Sorknæs and Bruno Herbelin.
Signatures
Daniel Eskildsen
Date
Signature
Lasse Bruun Hansen
Date
Signature
Benjamin Fedder Jensen
Date
Signature
Magnus Koed Møller
Date
Signature
Jesper Olsen
Date
Signature
The Calling – A CG Short Film 2
1. PREFACE
In this paper we investigate the ability of a short film to mediate the personalities of
its characters. We aim to apply the theories and content from our PE courses: “Screen
Media”, “Computer Graphics and Digital Scenography” and “Animation”.
The majority of work has been done on campus at Aalborg University Esbjerg as part
of this year's semester project. AAUE served as a facilitator in granting funds for our
screening, and lending us the necessary equipment to help create the film. The E-Studyboard
helped finance our cinema event at BioCity Esbjerg. We would like to thank AAUE and the
E-Studyboard for their help in making this project and semester a pleasant experience.
We would like to thank our supervisors Bruno Herbelin and Mikael Sorknæs for their
suggestions, input and advice during our meetings. We would like to thank Jens Arnspang
and Eva Petersson for their help with getting in touch with the right people. We would also
like to thank Ján Cíger for his technical assistance. Finally, we would like to thank the
audience that showed up for our event and for participating in our screening.
We hope you enjoy the film.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 3
2. ABSTRACT
With this project we investigate if a test audience composed mainly of people aged
18-30, could understand the personalities of characters presented to them in a short film.
To do this, we created a short film using still pictures of characters superimposed on
to a 3D background. 3D models for the background and still pictures were taken of our
characters and edited and finally cut into a film.
A film screening was arranged, using questionnaires following the viewing of our
short film and featured per-character word association tests, as well as a few additional
questions.
This report covers the processes in making our film, the decisions and considerations
regarding design choices and the results from our screening.
Our results show that the mediation of personalities was successful, despite the use of
some difficult words in our questionnaire, which meant the personalities perceived were not
the personalities intended.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Preface...................................................................................................................................2
2. Abstract..................................................................................................................................3
3. Introduction............................................................................................................................5
4. Hypothesis..............................................................................................................................5
5. Goal statements......................................................................................................................5
6. Idea.........................................................................................................................................6
7. Method...................................................................................................................................8
8. Pre-Production........................................................................................................................9
8.1. Theme of the Film..........................................................................................................9
8.2. Technological Design...................................................................................................10
8.3. Dramaturgy...................................................................................................................13
8.4. Visual Design and Cinematography.............................................................................19
8.5. Sound and Music..........................................................................................................21
8.6. Storyboard and Animatic..............................................................................................23
9. Preliminary Test...................................................................................................................24
9.1. How we Test.................................................................................................................24
9.2. Focus-Group Test.........................................................................................................24
9.3. Results..........................................................................................................................25
10. Film Production..................................................................................................................27
10.1. Environment...............................................................................................................27
10.2. Modelling....................................................................................................................29
10.3. 2D Assets....................................................................................................................32
10.4. Rendering Techniques................................................................................................35
11. Post-Production..................................................................................................................39
12. Screening............................................................................................................................42
12.1. Results........................................................................................................................43
13. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................47
14. References..........................................................................................................................48
15. Appendix............................................................................................................................49
15.1. Screenplay...................................................................................................................49
15.2. Storyboard – Ending B...............................................................................................53
15.3. Storyboard – Ending A...............................................................................................72
15.4. Preliminary Test Questions.........................................................................................76
15.5. Preliminary Test Results.............................................................................................77
15.6. Questionnaire..............................................................................................................78
15.7. Word Association Data...............................................................................................79
15.8. Extra Questionnaire Data............................................................................................81
The Calling – A CG Short Film 5
3. INTRODUCTION
We intend to investigate if we can mediate characters' personalities to an audience
through the medium of a computer graphic-created short film. In order to mediate this
information best, we will research which form of technology, scenography, visuals and audio
serves the film better.
4. HYPOTHESIS
A short film with a duration of approximately 4-5 minutes can mediate the
personalities of characters to an audience.
5. GOAL STATEMENTS
1. Create characters through characterization and dramaturgy.
2. Create a computer animated short film.
3. Validate hypothesis with a film screening on an audience.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 6
6. IDEA
The scope of this semester is to create living image media production utilizing
computer graphic theory and practise, that can be both non-interactive or interactive or
something in between. We chose our media subject to be a computer graphic animated short
film, without any interaction.
Instead of investigating interaction, we rather want to look into how elements are
communicated, or mediated, through the traditional film medium, while still applying the
computer aided techniques of this semester. Since we are only able to do a limited amount of
work within the timespan of the project, we find it appropriate that the length of the film
should span no more than 4-5 minutes. We still wish to create a film that is a finished work,
complete with a beginning, middle and end.
While the above will satisfy the objectives set for our semester, we want to investigate
something more specific and we have considered the following subjects:
•
Archetypes
•
Atmosphere
•
Characters' feelings
•
The viewer's feelings
•
Emphasising and object
•
Differences between first and third person
•
Subliminal messaging
We discussed which subjects that none of us were interested in pursuing, and so we
eliminated subjects "Differences between first and third person" and "Subliminal messaging"
from our list of possible candidates.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 7
We discussed the subjects that we were both interested in, but also thought feasible to
investigate with our abilities and knowledge. Our first choice of subject was “Archetypes”
and “Atmosphere”, but after investigating the material available, we chose to investigate the
personalities of characters instead. Characters' personalities was not on our original list, but
emerged from “Characters' feelings”.
We decided to focus on only one subject instead of two, as it might become too
overwhelming. The reason we decided against “Archetypes”, was that the material on Jungian
and literary archetypes (Novak, 2005, p. 148-155) revealed that it was not what we intended
to investigate. Instead, the personality of characters, created and analysed through the theory
of characterization, came closer to our intention of investigating the efficiency of mediating
characters.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 8
7. METHOD
During the first phase of pre-production, we create the film theme, narrative and
characters, and decide upon visual and audio devices to help mediate those three main
qualities of our film, as these devices are what make our motion picture. Since we are
creating rather than analysing, we are defining these devices instead of discovering them.
We will use theory supplied in our “Screen Media” course; Dramaturgy, narratology,
characterization, visual design, cinematography, editing and audio design (Boggs & Petrie,
2008).
An important part of pre-production is the creation of a storyboard (Adelman, 2004, p.
91-93), but animatics (Animated storyboard) can also be employed to help further the
understanding of the film, be it analogue or digital. The storyboard allows us to plan what
shots and scenes that must be animated, where the animatic allows us to test timing and shot
length.
Knowing the timing, we can determine approximately how many frames each shot
consists of in the finished film. This information is useful, should we create a pre-rendered
film, as it allows us to calculate the time it will take to render the animation.
We will use the theory set forth in the course “Computer Graphics and Digital
Scenography” however, to determine which technology is best suited for creating our film.
Once we have made our animatic, a target audience will be determined. The reason
for choosing a target group after the creation of our animatic, is to allow us greater artistic
freedom during the story's creation.
At the end of our pre-production phase, we will conduct a preliminary test, the
purpose of which will be to determine if the film is correctly understood by our target group.
This test gives us the chance to make alterations in the story, before production begins.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 9
Pre-production will be followed by the production stage, where we document the
creation of our film, including any alterations or considerations we have to make, as we use
the theory in praxis and create our film.
In the post-production phase we will determine if any of the audio or visual devices
needs to be enhanced through post processing, as well as edit the film.
Finally, we will make use of a screening test where we gather data in the form of
questionnaires, which we will use to test our hypothesis. We will then conclude and reflect
upon our results, which will mark the end of our report.
8. PRE-PRODUCTION
8.1. Theme of the Film
Although our film focuses on the characters, this does not mean that plot, mood, style
and structure are without importance, but rather that they must aid in the description of the
characters.
The theme of the film is a science fiction venture into the future, which shows a few
soldiers' reactions and decisions when faced against something unknown. The alien entity
poses a threat to the group, revealing their true personality, hidden behind their military
professionalism.
The statement we are trying to make is that humanity will eventually go too far, be it
out of curiosity or conquest, and explore things or places that were never meant to be
discovered. Some questions the viewer might have were deliberately left unanswered, such as
“Why is there a soldier from the same armed force on an unidentified planet?”
We are not meant to know. Mankind was never meant to know, and that, ipso facto,
emphasizes our statement.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 10
8.2. Technological Design
Before we begin planning the devices used to mediate the theme, it is important to
first plan the style of the film. The choices we make regarding how it should be designed and
rendered, directly affects the techniques available for creating the film.
Before beginning production we considered the options we had available to the create
the film. There was quite a few, and this is the list we created, albeit there may be many more
possible:
•
3D objects on a 2D background.
◦ Allows detailed characters and quick environments.
•
2D objects on a 3D background.
◦ Allows detailed environments and quick characters.
•
Machinima animation.
◦ Enables use of pre-made assets, could use live animation.
•
Pre-rendered animation.
◦ Animation rendered along with the scene.
•
Post processing of animation.
◦ Scene rendered first, animation added as a post-process.
•
Machinima with post processing.
◦ Use of pre-made assets - enhanced visual quality with filters as post-processes.
Instead of using any of the above possibilities right away, we felt we had to
investigate which technique would mediate our film in the best way, when factors of quality,
The Calling – A CG Short Film 11
difficulty and time were considered. Of course, we could choose the highest possible quality,
but we would be unable to finish the film within the timespan.
We knew pretty early on that we did not want to animate our characters in full 3D, as
none of us had any experience in 3D animation we would probably not be able to convey
what we wanted from the characters and it would be very time consuming to do what we
wanted to achieve this way.
Furthermore we wanted the focus of our work to be on the personalities of our
characters, rather than on the technical aspects of the production. Still we wanted to keep our
options open and investigate more possibilities for creating our film.
We divided the film into facial mimicry, body language, movement and environment
as aspects that would have to be portrayed, and considered different approaches to how we
could portray these. This was done in order for us to be able to plan the most efficient way to
create the film.
We considered filming live actors using blue or green screen and then using post
processing to superimpose the characters unto a 3D environment. The problem with this idea
was our abilities as actors. None of us had any training in the field, and we did not feel
confident that we could portray the characters convincingly with our skill level.
Machinima would allow us to create a good looking and easily adjusted environment
relatively easy. We would use the assets of whatever engine we chose to lighten the workload,
but it would impose restrictions on our options concerning camera movement, lighting and
rendering, as it was dependent on how the engine and editor worked.
Using machinima, we would not have to worry about rendering time, as the film could
run in real-time, and could be used with the engine's own character models which we could
The Calling – A CG Short Film 12
modify. It could also be used with our own creations, or even none at all so that we could
later superimpose them during the editing process.
A pre-rendered approach would give us control and freedom over the things that could
be restrictive using machinima. We would then be able to control, what kind of rendering
technique we wanted, be it radiosity, raytracing or otherwise.
The downside to pre-rendering our film would be that we would have to take
rendering time into account, as well as some potentially complicated ways of doing things.
Editors for game engines are designed to only create levels for that game, and as such only
feature tools that were made specifically with that goal in mind. Using a fully-featured 3D
program, such as Blender, Maya or 3D Studio Max, do to what we want to do, but could be
overly complicated compared to a game editor.
For our characters, neither video or 3D animation is a viable solution. Instead, we
discussed taking still pictures of ourselves only as reference, and then painting uniforms,
expressions and weapons on top of the pictures. We felt more comfortable with this idea, and
confident enough in our abilities in this department to say that this is the style we will be
going for.
We agreed that modelling the environment in 3D were well within our abilities to
create satisfactory results, but the question was which method to present it in. We talked
about using machinima and a pre-rendered approach, which we felt were the best contenders.
After discussing this, we decided that the amount of sacrifices of control we would have to
make using machinima, left pre-rendering the film the best solution.
To sum up, we want to create 3D environments with 2D animation. We want to use a
pre-rendered approach, rendering everything at once. Plans are one thing, but reality another,
The Calling – A CG Short Film 13
and we had to change some things after our preliminary test (Fejl: Henvisningskilde ikke
fundet Fejl: Henvisningskilde ikke fundet).
The feedback we got from our preliminary test changed some of our plans. The
participants liked the style we had created in our animatic, using key-frames without any inbetweens. We decided that we would stick more to that style and use less animation, and
more of a key-frame-approach where the extreme states or expressions of the characters were
represented.
As time progressed, we realized that we would not be able to paint everything on the
characters as it took a lot longer than we had anticipated. To counter this, we agreed that
instead of painting everything, using only the photographs we would take as reference, we
would use most of the information already in the pictures. This meant that we would only
paint key features that would make them look as soldiers, such as bandoleers and weapons,
and keep our faces intact.
8.3. Dramaturgy
8.3.1 Screenplay
One of the first steps in creating a film is to write a screenplay, which is the written
plan or blueprint of the film. It contains the action, dialogue, describes the surroundings and
also goes into detail about the shots, camera angles and transitions used. This will be the
foundation on which we will identify the things needed, necessary to turn the screenplay into
a motion picture.
The screenplay is based upon a short story by Daniel Eskildsen, describing the events
at “Colony VIII”. We kept the setting from the short story, but made alterations to the plot so
that it featured fewer and more detailed characters, took place on an unidentified planet, but
also featured an actual narrative structure.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 14
The screenplay describes each scene, shot and spoken word as well as actions taken by
the characters. To create the screenplay we used a program called Celtx (Celtx, 2008), which
automatically formats the text.
Our screenplay (15.1 Screenplay, p. 49) details the story of a small military unit
landing on an unidentified planet, sent to investigate the existence of buildings as well as an
emergency beacon on the surface. They quickly realize that something is wrong, and are
subsequently killed off by an unknown threat. The way the characters die, expresses their
weaknesses, as they panic when faced with the unknown.
8.3.2 Narrative
Our film will use a simple linear dramatic structure (Illustration 1), in order to put the
focus on the characters instead of the plot. The elements that make up any narrative is the
exposition, complication, resolution and dénouement (Boggs & Petrie, 2008, p. 54-56).
Illustration 1: The dramatic structure of our short film.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 15
In our screenplay, these points correspond to the following:
•
Exposition: A Military unit lands on the surface of an unidentified desert planet with
a sandstorm looming over a city. Their mission is to locate a distress call, and must
traverse the sandstorm to find it.
•
Complication: They find a dead body, which from the looks of it is one of their own
and has been there for at least 50 years. A scream is heard, and doubt about whether
the planet is lifeless arises.
•
Climax: Two soldiers from the unit is sent back to the ship to establish contact with
their superiors, but another scream is heard and contact is unable to be established
with the two soldiers. Something else is definitely there.
•
Resolution: One by one the remaining soldiers are killed by the unknown threat, until
only the captain remains.
•
Dénouement: The captain dies and the planet is once again “lifeless”, inhabited only
by the unknown entities – Equilibrium has been restored.
8.3.3 Main Characters
The characters are the most important aspect of our film, and so we will use the
techniques of characterization (Boggs & Petrie, 2008, p. 59-67) to create believable
characters. To avoid confusion with too many characters, only a few of them will be
considered important, as these are our main characters. They can all be considered
protagonists (Novak, 2005, p. 152-153), and are united against the antagonists, personified by
the unknown entities attacking them.
Each main character is defined by a Jungian archetype (Novak, 2005, p. 148-155) as
well as their internal and external traits (Boggs & Petrie, 2008, p. 62). We base our characters
on stereotypes, but their traits are what define them beyond being just flat characters, and give
The Calling – A CG Short Film 16
them the breath of life that makes them into round characters (Boggs & Petrie, 2008, p. 6770). Hopefully, this will allow the audience to identify the characters as being important,
because they have opinions and have an impact on the situation. The supporting cast does not
affect the situation other than being killed, and are merely puppets whose fate is being
orchestrated at the whim of the main cast.
Originally we intended to have facial hair on the characters, but in order to remove the
problem of lip synchronization during speech, the mouths were covered, removing the need
for it (8.4.1 Visual Design). The following is our initial internal and external traits of the three
main characters. Bold italic words indicate the words that fit the final characters that the
audience were subjected to.
The Captain
Archetype: Hero/Mentor (Novak, 2005, p. 148-149)
Stereotype: The leader
Character traits:
Internal traits
External traits
Butch
Upright
Confident
Star-rank
Calm
Clean-shaven
Protective
Brown Eyes
Strategic
Darker Caucasian
Responsible
Proud
The Calling – A CG Short Film 17
Damon
Archetype: Ally (Novak, 2005, p. 150)
Stereotype: War veteran
Character traits:
Internal traits
External traits
War experienced
Tense
"Contrast" to leader
Baggy eyes
Confident
Facial scar
Paranoid
Gruff
Intuitive
Blue eyes
War fatigued
Black hair
Tense
Worn skin
Reserved
Mark
Archetype: Ally
Stereotype: Inexperienced recruit
Character traits:
Internal traits
External traits
Edgy
Smallest
Nervous
Barefaced
Inexperienced
Blue eyes
Coward
Caucasian
Reliant
Blonde
Naive
Resistant/Slow to act
The Calling – A CG Short Film 18
8.3.4 Supporting Characters
As mentioned, the supporting cast are flat characters that do not affect the situation
they are in. They have no dialogue, and only act out the orders given to them by the leader. In
our film there are two supporting characters, and they both share the stock characterization of
a soldier. They have no internal traits, and their external traits are that of an ordinary soldier.
They are called Ethan and Thomas, as their names are necessary in order for the
captain to give them commands. We do not see the death of these either, but we do
communicate that they are gone.
8.3.5 Enemies
The antagonists serve as the opposition to the protagonists, both in the form of
challenges and direct engagement.
The storm
The storm serves as a guardian (Novak, 2005, p. 150), which the hero and his allies
must pass through, in order to continue their journey. This conflict marks the transition
between the exposition and the complication. When the protagonists has passed the guardian
there is no return, as the guardian blocks the path back.
The aliens
The aliens are the antagonists – they serve as the shadow (Novak, 2005, p. 149): the
ultimate evil whose purpose is to destroy the hero and his allies. They will only be shown as
silhouettes in the storm, enforcing their archetype within the story.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 19
8.4. Visual Design and Cinematography
8.4.1 Visual Design
Visual design concerns itself with our choices concerning the general look of the film
and why we made said choices.
We wanted the film to be set in a dark, sinister universe where good does not always
conquer. The planet where our story unfolds should be a perfect example of that; it should be
barren and hostile. Basically we want to give the viewer the impression that the soldiers are
out of place and not welcome. We decided to keep the colours of the environment in faded
shades of grey and light brown, and use the sky and weather to emphasize this effect, using a
sky that is cloudy and ominous.
To help the viewer understand that the characters were out of place, we kept their
colours fairly monochrome, but with a tint of purple, to set them apart from the background.
The badge on their uniforms is set to a bright yellow to draw the attention of the viewer, a
technique also used in Schindler's List (1993), and to make it easily recognisable when it was
shown again on the dead body.
Although we are working with animation, we still have to worry about costumes, so
we gave the characters things like weapons, bandoleers and uniforms. Some of the characters
also had some physical alterations done in Adobe Photoshop, to make them look more like
soldiers and less like college students; Their arms and shoulders were widened and t-shirt
logos removed.
We discussed the use of lip-syncing, be it fully animated lip-syncing, partial lipsyncing or none at all. In the end we decided to go with no lip-syncing, hiding the characters'
faces partially with masks. This served two purposes; For one, it provided the soldiers with
protection against the storm, but also, potentially, saved us a lot of time.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 20
At this point we were already planning on getting our film shown at the cinema in
Esbjerg, raising the issue of which screen format to use. We unanimously agreed that our film
should be in wide-screen, as it creates a sense of suspense to the viewer (Boggs & Petrie,
2008, p. 93) and which we knew from a meeting with the operator of the cinema would pose
no problem with equipment available at the cinema.
To create a cinematic movie-like feel, we decided to simulate a rough-grain film stock
(Boggs & Petrie, 2008, p. 93-96) to add imperfections to the film and to give it a gritty and
dirty look.
Our ideas concerning lighting was to make it look natural and believable. This would
include a strong and clear directional light in the beginning of the film, when the characters
were outside, or at the edge of the storm, and a weaker and more diffuse light that seemed to
come from all directions during the middle and end of the film, when the characters were
inside the storm.
8.4.2 Cinematography
Our choices of camera movement were pretty limited given the nature of our
animation. Since our characters were 2D cut outs, we could not move the camera as freely,
within a shot, as in an ordinary film.
Since we had to cut out the characters from photographs, we had to consider what
kind of background the pictures were taken against. We chose a fairly plain, white wall,
adjacent to a window that allowed us to take advantage of the natural light, as using a flash
would not give us the results we wanted.
This meant that we were not only dependent on the time of day the pictures were
taken, but also the angle of our shots. If we had moved the camera, the background would
The Calling – A CG Short Film 21
change, potentially increasing the amount of time it would take to cut out the characters
dramatically, as well as the risk of the lighting affecting the camera differently.
8.5. Sound and Music
Initially, our plan was to use an ambient track throughout the whole of the film, to
help set the mood and atmosphere, instead of a musical score. During our preliminary test we
were then confirmed in our assumption that we had made the right decision.
The mood is set from the very beginning, playing the dark ambiance alongside a quote
from Nietzsche and a dramatic intro of the title – we make sure to end the film with an
ominous track as well.
The dialogue was recorded using our own voice “talent” with a program called
Audacity (Audacity, 2008), and altered slightly to better fit the characters. Specifically, we
adjusted the pitch, while retaining the length of the sounds, (Roads, 1996, p. 440-447) on
some of our voices, so that we would sound more masculine and older. For Damon we
lowered the pitch with 5%, for the captain 2.5%. We left the kid's voice alone to hopefully
help emphasize his inexperience.
Even though none of us have ever taken any acting lessons, we tried our best getting
into character, since we felt it was very important to create convincing voice acting.
The film has 3 voices; Jesper Olsen as the captain, Daniel Eskildsen as Damon and
Lasse Bruun Hansen as the kid/Mark. Each of the characters' voices were recorded in an
empty room, minimizing the influence of outside sounds. We used a noise removal filter to,
as the name might suggest, remove any noise from the sounds.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 22
The aliens' cries were created by recording separate screams and growls, and then
layering them on top of each other. We aimed to make the sound resemble something
otherworldly and demonic.
Effects such as footsteps, radio static and uniform sounds, in our experience, require
quite a bit of foley work, and will instead be found on the internet. We use Soundsnap.com
(Soundsnap, 2008), which provides an excellent, wide-ranging library of sounds, where we
find user-created sounds that fit our purposes for the individual shots.
To create our weapon sounds, we used a sound owned by Daniel Eskildsen, layered
with a laser sound from Soundsnap to make it sound more futuristic. The resulting “Pulse
Rifle” sound was then altered by adjusting the echo and pitch. We created a variety of bursts
of varying lengths, such as 3-,4-,5-,6- and 7- round bursts.
In the end, we ended up using a balanced mix of custom sounds created by ourselves
and sound effects that we found on Soundsnap. During the editing process, some of the sound
effects, especially those from Soundsnap, were cut short as they often contained longer
sounds than we needed.
We also use invisible sounds (Boggs & Petrie, 2008, p. 263-264), which are sounds
appearing from outside the scene, having no relevance to the world the characters are in, to
evoke surprise and tension in the viewer. This is experienced when one of the aliens dashes
past the camera. Right before the alien passes by the camera, the only sound heard is the
ominous ambiance – and then without warning, as the alien flashes by the screen, it is
accompanied by a high pitched tone.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 23
8.6. Storyboard and Animatic
Storyboards are used as a visual representations of the screenplay (15.1 Screenplay,
p.49). It is usually done by using a series of drawings arranged in a chronological order in
rows and columns with comments (dialogue, actions, etc.) described beneath or beside each
picture. It does not exclude the possibility of having a non-linear film, but the construction of
the storyboard is meant to show the flow of the film as the user will experience it.
Our storyboard (15.2 Storyboard – Ending B, p.53) was hand-drawn with abbreviated
dialogue and actions written beneath each frame. We drew two frames per page, to leave
room for the text beneath.
To test if the story and characters were consistent and worked as a whole, we decided
to make an animatic. An animatic is basically all the frames from the storyboard, cut together
into a film, accompanied by sound and dialogue that can be thought of as place holders. One
of the upsides of creating an animatic is that you get an idea of the timing of the film, making
our work easier when editing the final film.
The animatic proved to be a very useful in our preliminary test, since it gave a much
better idea of how the film would play out, than showing the actual storyboard would have
done. We used the animatic to test whether or not people would understand the story and the
characters in their current shape. The animatic inspired us to keep some of the creative style it
offered, in the final film, which resulted in us ending up with a moving billboard style. It was
not quite “Cut-out”, but were not just the same as the animatic either.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 24
9. PRELIMINARY TEST
9.1. How we Test
Prior to production, we wished to perform some preliminary tests, which would be
small tests with a focus group representing our target group. The purpose of these tests was to
validate that our intentions were mediated correctly, and to find any shortcomings before the
screening.
We wanted to conduct two tests, at different stages of development consisting of a
word association test (Benedek & Miner, 2002) and a group discussion, with 3-4 people
between the age 18-25. Due to time constraints however, we were only able to perform one of
these preliminary tests.
9.2. Focus-Group Test
During the preliminary test, we presented our animatic to a focus group consisting of
four people between the age 20-25. The main purpose of the first test, was to see if the focus
group could understand the storyline, and if it made sense to them. We also asked, if the
characters were communicated properly through their actions, and if the focus group could
identify with them.
We showed the animatic twice, first with ending A and then with B. When they had
watched the film with both endings, we asked them to write down a small résumé of the story
and read it out loud.
We then continued with an open discussion (See appendix CD 1), based on a list of
questions about the story (15.4 Preliminary Test Questions, p.76), asking any additional
questions we could think of when they were relevant.
Lastly we conducted the word association test, but in order to keep the test within a
certain time frame, this part was performed as a group instead of individually. Words that
The Calling – A CG Short Film 25
were discarded by the group are marked in red, the words they did choose in blue and the top
5 words are marked with green (15.5 Preliminary Test Results, p.77).
9.3. Results
9.3.1 Characters
Our four focus-group participants all agreed that the captain was the main protagonist,
as he was always in focus and was the last one to die. Most of them (3 out of 4) recognized
Mark and Damon as the allies (The last participant of the group could not tell the difference
between the characters except for the captain). They described Mark as a rookie who did not
want to be a soldier; It was his first mission, the mission was supposed to be simple and the
planet was supposed to be lifeless.
Damon, to them, was the soldier who had been in the army a long time and on many
missions, but had never been anything but a soldier, had never climbed the ranks. The focus
group thought that Damon and Mark balanced each other out well.
There was also a general consensus that the voice of the captain could have been more
authoritative. His two allies were received as intended, as we had hoped.
We knew before showing the animatic that the focus group might have trouble
distinguishing the characters from each other visually, as the only cues that separated them
were their rank and a somewhat common expression for each character. During the
preliminary test, we were confirmed in our assumption, making it all the more important that
the characters are easily distinguishable from each other when we have to produce the film.
9.3.2 Story
The participants agreed, that they did not feel there were any problems plot-wise, in
the story. They did not quite understand the timeline of our story – the buildings seemed very
old, whereas the body was not nearly as old – which is correct, but they seemed confused.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 26
The focus group figured out that the body was a dead soldier, but did not know how
exactly he fit in with the other soldiers and the town, although they knew that he did not fit in,
and that there was something wrong with him being there (Which was the most important
thing we wanted the presence of the dead soldier to communicate).
The participants accepted that the kid was with the more experienced soldiers because
the planet was supposed to be lifeless, even though he was inexperienced.
Some of the participants expressed that they would have liked to have received more
background information regarding how the soldiers found the planet and buildings, why they
were there, and what their mission was. The participants wanted to know if the soldiers
thought the planet was lifeless or not.
Although they wanted to know these things, they also reasoned that because it was a
short film, too much background information would take focus away from the film. Some
even preferred that the viewer did not know everything, yet still knew more than the soldiers.
The participants that felt more background information was needed, suggested that we
could have a short conversation in the very beginning of the film explaining their mission and
what the soldiers knew of the planet. The participants also suggested to have more text in the
beginning, which was one of the things we later changed in the final film, phrasing it like a
sentence, rather than mission objectives.
The test also influenced our visual style, which, at the time, we had not decided upon
completely. We received a few comments about the style of the animatic – the facial
expressions going from one to another extreme without in-betweens was a cool and
unconventional effect and it would be enough to get the message through.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 27
10. FILM PRODUCTION
10.1. Environment
As planned we created a 3D environment in which the film will play out, allowing us
to place cameras in much the same way as reality. The purpose of the environment is to
realize the surface of the planet, as we have envisioned in our storyboard, and serve as the
background in most of the scenes.
3D models of buildings, roads and the spaceship have been created to add a high level
of detail to specific parts of the environment, being primarily the town in which the story is
played out. Parts of the town that are not seen in detail are billboards with images of
buildings, which gives the impression that the city continues past the models. These
billboards use transparency in order to blend together with the sky and the sandstorm.
Illustration 2: Smooth shading.
The landscape consists of a high polygon mesh (122,500 vertices), and uses a filter
within Blender, so that it is subdivided it twice before rendering, thus rendering 490,000
vertices. This level of detail is required since the landscape is very large compared to the 3D
models of the spaceship and the town, and decreases the amount of jagged edges visible. The
mesh is rendered with smooth shading making it appear smooth around the protrusions which
are supposed to look like hills and mountains (Illustration 2).
The Calling – A CG Short Film 28
Smooth shading is calculated by the vertex normals in such a way that there appears a
smooth transition between their neighbouring faces. (Hill & Kelley, 2007, p. 402-405) The
smooth transitions can be achieved by averaging the normals of the neighbouring faces for
each vertex, but how Blender does this, is unknown to us; Most likely, is that Blender uses
some sort of optimized algorithm for this purpose.
To shade the 3D objects, we use Lambert diffusion (Hill & Kelley, 2007, p. 383) and
Cook-Torrance specular highlighting, which is the default shading used by Blender, creating
smooth diffuse surfaces, and very shiny specular highlights compared to Phong or Gouraud
shading (Hill & Kelley, 2007, p. 402-404). Just like Phong, the default shading of Blender has
a shininess term, enabling us to give different objects different types of highlights.
Texturing have been used extensively, creating details that polygons and shading
cannot do alone. Textures are UV mapped to the colour of each texel of the faces, but we also
used it in some extent to apply normal and specular maps. The intention is to create an
illusion that the models are more detailed using shading with texture information instead of
actual polygons (Hill & Kelley, 2007, p. 410).
10.1.1 Sandstorm
To create the sandstorm we use “Mist” within Blender, which is a fog with more
options. As with normal fog, it will overwrite the shading until objects become fully occluded
in the colour of the mist, using the depth buffer for the distance of the pixels. (Hill & Kelley,
2007, p. 406)
Unlike real fog however, “Mist” uses quadratic progression. The fog density rising
exponentially, creating the effect that the fog becomes a solid wall of obscurity.
Another quality of the “Mist”, is that it has a height at which it will dissipate. This
allows tops of buildings, mountains, background planes and the sky dome to remain visible,
The Calling – A CG Short Film 29
even though everything on the ground is completely obscured. This fits nicely with how we
had envisioned the sandstorm.
Originally we intended to create the sandstorm using particles and emitters, which is
closer to how a sandstorm would behave in reality. A particle controlled sandstorm would
work by moving billboards of clouds, in several overlapping layers, creating a directional, but
random movement in each shot.
We found out that the particle system within Blender proved too cumbersome to
create a storm that looked satisfying, and therefore we went with an alternative solution.
Instead, we replaced the default colours of the “Mist” with a procedural generated
cloud texture, the texture coordinates mapped to a fraction of it, animating it to move along
the texture, giving the illusion that the storm is moving.
10.2. Modelling
To create the buildings, roads and sidewalks featured in the film, we used Wings3D,
partly because some of us already had some experience using it, but also because it features a
very minimalistic interface, making it fairly easy to learn.
We started with creating the buildings, as we needed quite a lot and it was easy to
move them around later. We did not use any sort of architectural guidelines, and opted instead
for something that “looked right”.
The building models were inspired by buildings we see in our surroundings, but were
not limited to any specific location. Since the city is intended to have been abandoned for
many years, we thought this would make sense, as they are not supposed to match the
futuristic look of the soldiers' weapons or spacecraft.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 30
Once enough buildings were made, we rearranged them, and duplicated the existing
ones to populate the city. Besides buildings, sidewalks and streets were created using the
same operations we used to create buildings; scaling, moving, subdividing, extruding and
bevelling.
Illustration 3: A composite of our city. From left to right: Wireframe, Shaded (With
Textured), Rendered (Without Textures)
For the streets and the sidewalks we created UV maps using Wings3D. UV maps are
used to map pictures, often seamless textures, unto the faces of the model. UV maps span
from 0 to 1 on both x- and y-axis and usually contains all the vertices of the model mapped
inside the UV space, with each face, assigned to different sections of the UV map. The faces
of the models can overlap inside the UV map without any problems, it simply means that
those faces share the same parts of the texture.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 31
We made the UV maps for streets and sidewalks because we knew how to get it done
relatively quickly. We selected the faces we wanted to texture, and projected along an average
normal for all the faces selected, which in the case of the street and pavement meant upwards.
Because the street is one object inside wings, and because the texture would become
blurred or not very detailed if we simply mapped the entire streets unto one UV map, we split
the street into several parts. Once each part were of somewhat equal sizes, we assigned new
materials to each section and UV mapped the street per-material.
Once the UV maps were created, they were exported as images and imported into
Photoshop where we painted the actual texture on top of the UV maps.
For the buildings, however, the process, in Wings3D becomes tedious and often with
less than perfect results. We instead looked to Blender, as it features cube projection, the
specifics of which are unknown to us. In practice, it works by automatically assigning the
selected faces with UV coordinates so that all adjacent faces line up texture-wise, creating
much more realistic patterns in the building.
Once the street and sidewalks had been textured and all the buildings modelled, we
exported the models from Wings3D and imported them into the scene in Blender. It was here
that the buildings were UV mapped and textured.
The textures for the buildings were seamless textures, created without any UV maps
as reference, in Photoshop. They can then be tiled to give the impression of large areas of
wall with bricks or concrete.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 32
10.3. 2D Assets
To create the images for our characters in our film, we first went over the storyboard
and wrote down what angles, which stances and expressions we wanted of each character.
When we took the pictures of the characters however, we found it much easier
looking directly at the storyboard, going through it from start to finish, and directing
ourselves to stand this or that way and which expression to wear.
We split the pictures we had to take into two; On the first day we took all the pictures
from a normal perspective, which we used throughout most of the film. On the second day,
we took all the pictures that were needed from a frog perspective.
As a rule of thumb, we took more pictures than we needed, as some might come out
blurred or with closed eyes. We did not worry too much about our expressions, as we could
fix most things inside Photoshop, using the “liquify” tool. But we did emphasize the use of
wide eyes whenever the situation called for it.
Taking all the pictures on the same day for each perspective, we ensured that the
lighting conditions would not vary too much. More importantly, however, it ensured us that
everyone was standing at the exact same spot and that the distance to the camera was
constant. This meant that the quality of all the pictures were relatively uniform.
One of the problems we did run into was that between the photo sessions for the
normal and frog perspective, some days had passed and we had forgotten to use the same
clothes, so there were some continuity problems in that sense. Examples includes using a
white T-Shirt on the first day and a dark-coloured or striped one on the next. Luckily, due to
the style we had decided on, this could be concealed or obscured somewhat.
Once the pictures had been taken, there lay a giant heap of work in front of us, in that
each picture that we wanted to use had to be cut out from the background, individually. Batch
The Calling – A CG Short Film 33
operations in Photoshop were used to adjust the brightness and contrast and saturation of all
the pictures in one go. After the first batch operation, each picture had to be filtered so that
everything but the face were reduced to about 3 colours, using the posterize filter in
Photoshop and any expression that was a little off was corrected using the liquify tool. Some
of the expressions were also altered to add emphasis to an already existing expression, such
as fear and sadness.
Once all the pictures had gone through these steps, a lot of the pictures were reviewed
and those that could be seen as being almost identical were then sorted out, to save time for
the step that lay ahead.
Once the pictures had been sorted, all pictures had to be painted, so that it looked
more like soldiers and less like people in their casual wear. Features and logos on our TShirts were removed, as were the sleeves on most of the characters. Our arms were broadened
and bandoleers were painted across our chests to help give the appearance that these were
soldiers. On top of that the features of the cardboard cut out of the weapon were simplified,
so that it looked less like a cardboard cut out and more like an actual weapon.
Once the characters had been painted, they all went through another batch operation
where all the pictures were given the same dimensions and a purple gradient was added.
Finally, the logo of the military unit was placed, on the characters where they would
be visible (Some were partly obscured). In most cased, the logo just had to be moved, but for
the pictures where a character would stand at an angle, they had to be rotated or distorted to
appear correctly.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 34
Illustration 4: From left to right: Basic cutout, Desaturated and adjusted brightness
contrast, Posterized, Painted, Purple Gradient, Logo, Outline
At this point we had a few problems with getting the characters to appear correctly in
Blender, so all the pictures were converted to another format, with an alpha channel.
Another problem we discovered just before we started to render, was that because the
pictures had been divided amongst the group to be cut out, they had gotten different names,
negating any sort of order or chronology in the pictures. Going through and renaming all the
pictures so that they matched the scene and shot they were meant for was a larger undertaking
than we imagined, but got done.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 35
10.4. Rendering Techniques
The 3D backgrounds in the film were rendered using only Blender's built-in
rasterization rendering engine (Illustration 5), without any shadows and only a very small
amount of Radiosity. This is particularly noticeable in the beginning of the film, when the
landscape is seen outside the sandstorm: no shadows, and no noticeable colour bleed between
the ground and spaceship.
Illustration 5: Rasterized render.
Illustration 6: Raytraced render using
sampled shadows.
We originally intended to use Radiosity for lighting instead of local illumination. That
would give us the benefit of shadows, and a more true-to-life shading of the surfaces, using
global illumination. However, we were unable to make Radiosity perform adequately in
Blender, and it was agreed to abandon the technique.
The reason for this abandonment is because of the way Radiosity works within
Blender. It is calculated through the use of “Patches”, each “Patch” calculating the sum of
absorbed illumination from its point of view (Hill & Kelley, 2007, p. 430).
We were unable to make Blender capable of subdividing the faces into “Patches”
of suitable sizes, which many Radiosity algorithms do automatically to adapt to the detail
The Calling – A CG Short Film 36
of each individual object. While it is possible to subdivide the objects manually, this
leaves much to be desired – it is impossible to know the degree of detail each face
requires for adequate illumination. Another concern is the rendering time, which
increases greatly with the growing complexity of objects. After much trial and error, no
satisfactory results were obtained, and it was agreed to continue without the technique.
A small amount of Radiosity is still used however, as mentioned. The objects have
not been subdivided, so the patches are very large, and point light sources are still being
used for illumination. Each object does in some degree illuminate each other however,
but with so few details that no shadows are created.
The reason we did not use Raytracing was to save time, as we agreed that the visual
effects it created would be obscured by the “Mist” inside the town (Illustration 6). It can be
argued however, that we should have kept the Raytracing rendering for the few scenes outside
the town, which would have given the spacecraft shadows, and shaded the desert environment
more realistically.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 37
10.4.1 Filters
To increase the visual quality of the film, we used two filters that are applied after
rendering has finished; Depth of field and sharpness.
First the rendered image is sharpened (Illustration 8), making corners, especially those
with high contrast, more visible, creating a similar effect to black outlines as in our drawn 2D
images.
Illustration 8: Sharpened.
Illustration 7: Depth of Field.
After we have sharpened the rendered image, depth of field will be applied, which is
an approximation of the phenomenon, as it's an shortcoming of optic camera lenses that 3D
computer graphics do not have (Blender Foundation, 2008). It blurs the fore- and background
of an image, using a stored z-buffer and the desired focal plane, which is chosen in the editor
before rendering. The effect is that the fore- and background will appear
increasingly/decreasingly out of focus until it reaches the focal plane, making the characters
appear in focus (Illustration 9).
The Calling – A CG Short Film 38
10.4.2 Characters
We originally intended to animate the 2D characters inside the 3D environment,
directly in Blender. However, there were two problems with this. The first is a direct
consequence of using depth of field filtering. Since depth of field information from the zbuffer to determine what, and what not, to render. A plane with transparent texturing will still
appear as a normal plane in z-buffer, creating artefacts in the transparent areas of the
character pictures. In effect, this means the transparent areas, which to the viewer are
invisible and should be affected by the depth of field, to the computer appears as an object
blocking the way, meaning it isn't affected by depth of field.
To solve this, we removed the character cut outs from the z-buffer, so that the
environment would be rendered correctly. We then render the environment first, apply the
filters, and then superimpose the character unto the final image. No depth of field would be
possible on the characters themselves, but that was a minor sacrifice.
The second problem was that changing the textures on the billboards was difficult,
and were needed as the animation changes during the shots. We thought that since the
characters were superimposed after the environment had been rendered, we could just as well
superimpose these in the post-production phase with editing tools, yielding the same results.
Therefore we only rendered the characters inside the scene in a few specific shots,
where they interact with the fog, or the camera is moving. All remaining characters are
images applied during the editing process afterwards, where we also added a blurring effect
to imitate the original intended depth of field.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 39
11. POST-PRODUCTION
When the shots had been rendered, our characters were finished and sorted, we
imported all of it in Adobe Premiere. We decided to use some of the same sound effects for
the film as we did in our animatic, but also to expand on the sound, searching for more sound
effects and horror tones.
The shots were laid out on the timeline in Premiere chronologically, after which we
started cutting the film from the beginning. Since many of our shots were rendered with a few
extra frames, we gave ourselves some freedom concerning the timing, being able to extend
some shots if we had to.
Illustration 9: Editing in Adobe Premiere
The timing was kept similar to the animatic, except for the scenes where characters
disappeared into the fog or when the captain got up from the ground and turned around,
which were sped up so that they felt more natural.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 40
We used different ambient sounds during the beginning of the film, specifically
something more varied than we did in the animatic. The tracks did not span the entire length
of the film, so several ambient sound tracks were used and cross faded in between to add
variance.
Sound effects were used to emphasize dramatic moments, such as the alien passing by
the screen, or the 3 remaining crew members not being able to raise their comrades over the
radio.
The characters were placed to match the shots in our storyboard, framing them in a
similar way. In the storyboard the characters' faces were almost in the centre, but we changed
that after looking at numerous stills from other films where it seemed to us that people were
framed much higher in a shot. Our characters were now framed with their eyes along the top
1/3 line, so that it matched with what we had observed in other films.
Unlike other films, we did not have a lot of footage to be assembled, and throughout
the process, we stuck closely to the screenplay and storyboard. All our shots were planned
and timed. Having said that, some of the shots that were rendered were confused. Some shots
were from the wrong angle, or were not nearly long enough for the shot. Luckily, we only had
to re-render one shot that was shot from a wrong angle, where we could not reuse a similar
angle.
Some shots were reused, and as the film was being edited, they were replaced by
previous shots because they were either very similar, or one looked better than the other.
Once the film had made the final cut, we added a 5% monochromatic grain to
everything except the text in the film. We did this to add a grittier and more dirty look, but
also partly to simulate grain found in stock film (The actual celluloid reels).
The Calling – A CG Short Film 41
During the film, we make use of a few editing transitions, using a cross dissolve
during transitions from outer space unto the planet, from there to where the soldiers are
walking and then between outside the storm and into the storm. We do this when the distance
traveled is large (From out space unto the planet), or when time has passed between shots
(From where the soldiers are standing to when they are walking along, and from venturing
into the storm to walking in the city in the storm).
We also use a cross dissolve between the two last shots, as it was two very different
angles (A close up of the captain and seeing the captain from above) and we wanted a
smoother transition than simply cutting between the two.
Fade to black and fade from black was used during the opening texts to set a slow
pace, but we also used fade to black at the end, to both hide the fate of the captain, though
hopefully it was obvious, but also to emphasize the futility of his final struggle.
The overall tempo of the film is quite slow, but it does rise and fall. Comparing the
beginning and end, the end is running at a faster pace, complementing the dramatic structure.
Blender already featured the ability to render in the 16:9 Wide screen format. The
dimensions of the files however, were 1:1, which meant the picture looked squished. The film
was also rendered in the 16:9 format in Adobe Premiere, but aspect ratio doesn't have
anything to do with the dimensions of a film. After adding subtitles to our film, we changed
the dimensions to fit the 16:9 format, so the film started with the dimensions of 720x576
(looking squished), and ended up with the dimensions 1024x576, essentially stretching the
film, as camera lenses does.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 42
12. SCREENING
In order to validate our hypothesis, we intend to perform the test in the guise of a film
screening to a large audience, and only use a few, but precise questions. We originally
planned to ask about 10 in-depth questions, but because there are no tables at the cinema, it
would make it difficult for the audience write down their answers.
Instead, the questionnaires we used are one page and designed to be quickly filled out
by the audience at their seats. The questionnaire contains a word association test for each of
the characters, with a picture accompanying each character, in order to test whether the
audience understood the same qualities in the characters that we are trying to mediate. Each
word, originating from the characterization (Boggs & Petrie, 2008, p. 59), have been
reviewed and adjusted so they fit the personality of the characters, we also add six control
words that fits none of the characters. The result is 24 words; 3x6 “correct” answers, and 6
“false” ones. The idea is then that the participants mark six words for each character out of
the 24 possible, and if we communicated the characters properly, their answers should
coincide with the “correct” words for each character. Beside the word association test, we
added 3 general questions about the characters.
We discussed translating the questionnaire into Danish, since the majority of the
audience would most likely be Danes, but we feared that translating the words would destroy
their meaning. In the end, we settled with using the original English words in a plain English
questionnaire. It was our intention to tell the audience, if they were unsure or incapable of
understanding all of the questions or words, that they should not fill out the questionnaire, but
we forgot.
The Calling – A CG Short Film 43
12.1. Results
12.1.1 Data Gathering
A total of 51 questionnaires were gathered after the screening of the film at BioCity
Esbjerg. After reviewing each questionnaire, we agreed that 14 of those were not filled out
correctly or completely – some audience members did not cross out six words for each
character, as was instructed. The spread of the participants age was too great, ranging from 19
to 73, so we narrowed down the results to include only those of age 18 to 30. This age group
contained the wast majority of the participants, leaving us with 31 valid questionnaires.
We plotted the questionnaires into a spreadsheet, calculating percentages, error
margins and standard deviations. The two sections of the questionnaire is separated, being the
word association matrix and the three Likert scale questions (Field & Hole, 2003, p. 45). The
first section concerns itself with the characters, whereas the second section is of relevance to
the characters in general.
The word association data can be found in 15.7 Word Association Data, p.79, which
displays the percentage of answers for each character, the error margins being the most
important. The words in green are the correct words, and the yellow cells contain data which
we will look deeper into. We consider an error margin of 30% the maximum, for a word to be
considered a success. Error margin values above 30% are less than satisfactory and may
indicate ambiguity, and values above 50% are considered invalid. Error margins are marked
with green, orange and red in the spreadsheet.
The data for the three additional questions can be found in 15.8 Extra Questionnaire
Data, p.81, the median and standard deviation are coloured green.
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12.1.2 Discussion
Damon
The Captain
100%
The Kid
80%
Error
Succes s
60%
40%
20%
Sum
Impressionable
Dependent
Inexperienced
Coward
Worried
Sum
Reserved
Tense
Instinctive
Paranoid
Defiant
Self-reliant
Sum
Confident
Res pons ible
Calm
Strategic
Protective
Com manding
Nervous
0%
Illustration 10: Results for each character from the word association test.
As can be seen in Illustration 10, the percentage of success and error have been
calculated for each correct word for the characters.
The Captain has an average success of 68,28% which is just below the 70%, or above
the 30% error margin mentioned earlier, which it needed to be below in order for it to be a
certain success with our criteria. The result is less than satisfactory, and even possibly
ambiguous. As can be seen in 15.7 Word Association Data, p.79, 87,5% (21 out of 24) of the
words were marked, giving the Captain the largest spread of all the characters. None of the
incorrect words were chosen more frequently than the correct words however, and all of the
incorrect words are less than 50% successful. As the chart (Illustration 10) shows, the
participants did not feel the captain was portrayed as confident. It is because of this that we
feel the mediation of this character is just less than satisfactory, but not a failure.
Damon is the character with the lowest average success of 35,48%, meaning that his
character was not mediated successfully in the film. Only 1 of the correct words, but also 3 of
the incorrect words were above the error margin threshold (15.7 Word Association Data,
p.79). This means that the character communicated to the audience was a character entirely
different to the one we envisioned. The audience saw Damon's character as eager,
overconfident and cocky, none of which are traits we intended Damon to have.
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The Kid, or Mark, has an average success of 68,28%, just like the Captain. Unlike the
captain however, the spread is only 62,5% (15 out of 24 words marked). Impressionable was
one of the correct words which was not mediated, instead paranoid was one of the traits the
audience saw in the kid. This means that unlike the Captain, who the kid shared the same
success rate with, the kid was mediated worse than the captain.
The results for the 3 characters from our word association data indicate that we have
only mediated the captain and the kid with some success, while Damon was communicated
completely wrong.
Considering our hypothesis, we feel that we have indeed validated it, in that even
though the intended personalities of the characters were not mediated, we did mediate some
personalities, albeit not the ones we wanted. The audience largely agreed upon the same traits
for the captain and for the kid. Even though Damon was communicated wrong, the traits that
were communicated were also largely agreed upon by the audience. This indicates that a
mediation of personalities was successful, despite any shortcomings in our ability to express
the personalities we intended for our characters.
One interesting result from the word association test, that we are unable to interpret
properly as it is beyond the scope of this semester, is that the word “Responsible” for the
captain was marked by 80% of the males, but 0% of the females. We think that this particular
trait in the captain is understood very differently by males and females, but we are unable to
make any proper conclusions.
The 3 remaining questions all have a fairly small [Standard Deviation], ranging from
(SD 1,5) to (SD 2,48), which means that the results are reliable. The audience found the
characters believable (Mdn 4, SD 1,54), which also helps validate our hypothesis.
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The audience furthermore felt they were able to distinguish between the 3 characters
(Mdn 4, SD 2,19), so we believe that the word association data were filled out correctly for
each character. It also shows that the audio and visual cues implement to communicate the
characters were successful.
Overall, the audience did not feel they needed the subtitles, but they did not dislike
them either (Mdn 2,5, SD 2,48). It is not possible to for us to interpret this result properly, as
it seems the subtitles were tolerated. A few of the participants did feel they require the
subtitles however, so they did serve their purpose.
12.1.3 Source of Errors
An obvious source of error, which became evident when we had to discard 14
questionnaires, was the difficulty of the words we used in the word association test, as they
were not filled out correctly. We believe it might be because the audience were unable to
decipher the meaning of some of the words, but we are unable to determine to what degree
the audience misunderstood the words (Compared to our understanding of them), or which
words were misunderstood.
We believe now, that if we had used Danish translations of the words, this confusion
could have been minimized, because we would be in control of any loss of meaning caused
by this translation. Instead we had given the audience the task of translating, in which we
have no control.
Lastly our choice of words are perhaps too subtle in their differentiation, and we
suspect that too many words have a similar meaning. This makes it possible that the audience
would choose a word that may actually be correct with their understanding of the word, while
being a word that did not intended as correct.
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13. CONCLUSION
In conclusion the short film was successful in mediating personalities of characters,
albeit not necessarily the personalities we intended, as only two characters were somewhat
successful in being understood by the audience.
The problem was in part due to an erroneous questionnaire, specifically ambiguous
words concerning the characters' personalities, but also partly due to lack of experience in the
creation of short films. If future opportunities in creating short film were to present
themselves, we are confident that we would be able to avoid some of these problems.
We have learned that when creating short films, you wish to give the audience the
experience you have imagined for yourself, and that you know in detail. The problem will
inevitably be that you will have a much deeper understanding of the characters, setting etc.,
than the audience will ever have, emphasizing the need for film screenings as a process for
creating a final film.
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14. REFERENCES
F. S. Hill, Jr. & Stephen M. Kelley, Jr., (2007). Computer Graphics using OpenGL. Depart of
Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts.
Joseph M. Boggs, Dennis W. Petrie, (2008). The art of watching films. New York, McGrawHill.
Field, A., & Hole, G., (2003). How to design and report experiments. Thousand Oaks,
California: Sage Publications Inc.
Jeannie Novak, (2005). Game Development Essentials. Clifton Park, New York: Thomson
Delmar Learning.
Kim Adelman, (2004). The Ultimate Filmmaker's Guide To Short Films. Saline, Michigan:
McNaughton & Gunn Inc.
Benedek, J., & Miner, T. (2002). Product Reaction Cards. Microsoft's Usability Engineers.
Retrieved October 23, 2008, from
http://www.microsoft.com/usability/publications.mspx
Blender Foundation, (2008), Depth Of Field (DOF) Explained. Stichtine Blender Foundation.
Retrieved November 27, 2008, from
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Depth_Of_Field
Lustig, B. (Producer), & Spielberg, S. (Director). (1993). Schindler's List [Motion picture].
Hollywood, CA: Universal Pictures.
Soundsnap, (2008). http://www.soundsnap.com. Tera Media & Canfield.
Audacity 1.3.6 (Beta), (2008). http://audacity.sourceforge.net/. Audacity.
Celtx 1.0, (2008). http://celtx.com/. Celtx.
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15. APPENDIX
15.1. Screenplay
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15.2. Storyboard – Ending B
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15.3. Storyboard – Ending A
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15.4. Preliminary Test Questions
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15.5. Preliminary Test Results
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15.6. Questionnaire
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15.7. Word Association Data
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15.8. Extra Questionnaire Data