16. Concept Art Test Pieces

CONCEPT ART TEST PIECES

The first is based on the Dan Brown book 'Inferno', which centres around a worldwide plague being released by a criminal organisation, hence the setting of a graveyard, with one of its locations being Venice. As the film for this book has not been made yet, I did not have any visual representation of the story, so I created a photomanipulation that distorted the proportions and scale in the image, whilst maintaining a realistic look (with regards to lighting, masking, colouring, etc.). I used an image I took from venice, an image I had taken in a nearby graveyard (to visually represent death), and then an image of a hooded figure to also fit the theme of death. I looked at other film concept art, fan art and wallpapers and noted that the logo is usually placed on the bottom left. I found the logo on Google and typed over the text with a similar font, adjusting the size to fit. I then created the circular and star shaped graphic that subtly lies behind the text. I did this rather than use the original logo image because I could then increase the size without losing quality, and the mask cutout would be clearer than from the image. I duplicated it and added blur, removing the blur with a layer mask over some areas, to give the look seen here. I also added a very soft glow using a soft brush, to give the text a better look. The hooded figure was taken from an image of the internet, because I had not intended for a figure to be present; it seemed needed as a focal subject, to fill in space on the otherwise empty path. I masked out the background, spent a lot of time adjusting the lighting for the figure to fit in, and then further blended it and established its presence with a soft cloud of haze/smoke, using soft brushes and rendered cloud layer masks. On the floor beside him is also a shadow created with black brushes on reduced opacity, hidden beneath the smoke. I then exported the image as a JPG and opened it in Adobe After Effects, where I was able to use the Trapcode Shine plugin to create the wonderful volumetric light rays. I chose a colour and the depth, detail and direction of the light rays, matching the direction to the light source of the original image. I then exported solely the light ray layer from After Effects as a still image, and placed it on the Photoshop document, with a 'Lighten' layer mask. This meant I could still adjust other parts of the image, because the light rays were not rasterized with the rest of the document. Hidden within the light rays, I placed dust particles that added to the sense of atmosphere within the rays, also giving quite a cinematic look that I had seen in lots of film concept art.To this I added an iris blur that blurred the outer edges slightly, and added a layer set to 'Soft Light' blending mode, which allowed me to add colour with a soft large brush, which would appear very subtly almost as less intrusive light leaks. This had a big impact on the overall image, I felt, brightening up and adding interest to the piece as a whole.

I created two test pieces, both based on the ideas of concept art.

For the second piece, I wanted to create more of a concept art piece, that would be more purposeful towards creating concept of a particular scene or moment of a film with detail and realism rather than distorted perspective and symbolism to visually represent metaphysical objects/ideas, like in the first piece above. I wanted the two pieces to contrast in this way, nevertheless using atmosphere as a medium in similar ways. I used two main images for this piece: a picture of the school chapel and a picture of a helicopter that happened to be taking off from the playing fields that day. The chapel was filled with bright colourful flags, which although needed dimming, were appropriate, given the 'war' nature of the image. I hadn't thought of a specific film for the image to be based on, however when I look at it I immediately assosciate it with conflict; and this could hold relevance to most current conflict, with deeper meanings of religion, international relations and damage/destruction. I began with the image of the Chapel. I darkened and desaturated this. I then cut out, with brushes and a layer mask, a hole in the wall for the helicopter to fall through. Along the top of the hole I wanted to follow the structuring of the chapel, because if this event were to really occurr, the curved beam at the top would most probably stay as it is, with the wall below crumbling through. I then added spills of light around the hole, with soft white brushes. I created moving debris with dark erosion/splatter brushes and motion blur. As you can see, none of the colours are too obtrusive, and the contrast over the whole image is low. This is a way of creating atmosphere almost without using any smoke/mist at all. I then added a very thin, soft layer of smoke of various shades depending on its location in the image. I thinned this out and added detail by adding a layer mask, and rendering 'Clouds' onto the layer mask, which removes parts of the layer at random, using the generated 'Clouds' to do so. I then cut out the helicopter from its original picture. I reduced the colour entirely and filled the cutout with black (as this was to be a silhouette). I reduced the opacity of the black fill, only enough to still allow the tone and detail of the helicopter to come through slightly. I rotated and placed the image in the hole, and added some more debris that came from the helicopter itself. I then exported this to After Effects to add the light rays with Trapcode Shine. This time, however, I reduced the detail entirely, so the rays are less defined, to compliment the calmer look to the image. I imported this back into Photoshop, having chosen white rays to match the light coming from outside. After adding small tweaks, I then raised the warm tones of the image to give a nicer look. I felt that the warmer look actually enhanced the atmosphere in the image as well.