I've been a bit shell shocked all week and consequently this is a week behind, so I have some catching up to do.

Tuesday was the start of Studio 2, the paper that follows Studio 1. We started with a small into and exercise replicating the bullet time effect best known from the movie The Matrix:

It's made by placing a series of still cameras around the subject being filmed, so each one takes a frame and triggers the next one to take a frame, giving the effect of the camera dollying around the  subject at a speed that renders the subject almost motionless. The cameras are all pretty much green screened so they are easy to paint out in post production and the bullet effect is added. Use of this effect started a trend where everything from all the latest terrible MTV music videos to road safety commercials attempted to emulate it (using different and cheaper techniques I assume).

To do this exercise, we broke into four large groups of 12-15 and pooled out Macbook Pro webcams together. The lack of control of the webcams meant that results were not spectacular but we got the idea.

It was then on to our main brief.

To conceive, design and fabricate a piece of equipment that holds 2 (or more) video cameras and capture images in a way we otherwise couldn't and produce a unique image quality. The video is of an experimental quality and non-linear narrative, and based on observations of the city. We had to get into groups of 4 and decide on our roles: Fabricator, Fabricator Assistant, CAD operator and producer.

A friend of mine who I haven't worked with before found me and 2 other people and we formed a very promising group that I was quite pleased with. None of us have worked together before.

For the rest of the week we did research and brainstorming of possible ideas, reading supplied texts, and browsing suggested links.

We came up with a number of ideas, a few of my favs at the beginning were 3D capture, using the cross-eyed method. That is, capturing 3D using the usual 2 cameras, and then splitting the screen, with the left eye footage playing on the right side and the right eye footage playing on the left side. The viewer crosses their eyes and after a bit of adjustment can usually settle seeing the footage in 3D. Here are some examples. Other possible methods of 3D viewing would have been using the red/blue glasses or perhaps other methods that involve special displays, but that would be creating inconvenience for our audience. Another idea was to capture in HDR. This would require more than 2 cameras and possibly 2-way mirror glass or just clever mounting to minimise the difference in angle. We then would have a few options with the resulting footage. One is to layer it on a timeline in Adobe After Effects and be able to move between exposures depending on where the camera was pointing or to tone map it to a single and striking image. Some examples of HDR still photography are here. HDR is usually done with still photography with non-moving objects because it takes multiple exposures merged into one shot. Another option, purely because the brief mentioned that we could use existing skills was to run the HDR in a MaxMSP environment and give the viewer control over exposure. Another idea was to capture images in infra-red and/or UV as well as visible light and super impose in an elegant way. Yet another idea was what got dubbed drunk-cam, which was a variant of another group member's idea. Two cameras, one's movement controlled by the other, but the hinges would be loose so that the two images would be out of sync whenever the camera was moved. The idea was to capture film that cannot just be emulated in post production with one camera. We had quite a few more ideas, what was interesting was the different angles from which we approached the problem. As one can see, my ideas were all technical and about technique. Other group members, one in particular approached the problem from a conceptual point of view, which at first I had trouble understanding. This was actually quite brilliant because I felt that our group is composed of really bright people but with totally different skills and approaches, and we all have respect for each other's thoughts.

The project has a time table and the first week we were to basically research ideas. We also had a couple of interesting tutorials. On the Wednesday we were introduced to Solid Works which is 3D CAD software, I'd heard of it before and was looking forward to finally being acquainted with it. You can apply real world physics to your creations and do cutaway views and then sent the results to normal plans or even 3D printing. It seems like one could very rapidly produce working models although I stumbled a bit on some basics for a few different reasons, some out of my control so I'll be doing some self-directed learning at some point. I'm not the CAD operator in the group so I didn't feel too much pressure to get it right but I wanted to be available to help our group's CAD operator should she have an issues, it's quite an undertaking to build a model in software you've known for barely 2 weeks, which is how long we had to get that far.

The next day we had an introduction to After Effects, it turned out that this was meant to happen much later but it was interesting nonetheless. It turned our group off the 3D idea though as part of the tutorial was about compositing 3D footage together, which meant that now the idea was public domain. Also, a year ago doing something in 3D would have made for an exciting, novel and interesting project, now, with Avatar, 2D to 3D converted movies everywhere you turn and every TV manufacturer jumping on the 3D bandwagon, it's just not as mysterious. I was still mildly interested, but it definitely had lost it's "coolness" factor.

The next day we went to a re-induction to the 3D fabrication labs (not to be confused with the previous paragraph's 3D), this time in more detail. We were introduced to the cutting, bending, drilling and lath machines among other things.

I'd started to draw variations of what the camera rig should look like, taking into account the feedback I've had in the past of not being visual enough. Well not on paper anyway, I need to start drawing more what goes on in my head. This will also help me get my drawing ability back what I seem to have lost somewhat.