Initially I find this project very interesting, as I feel rather comfortable in after effects and is also a good break from the workflow of processing, code etc.
This project does intrigue me, as we are essentially set free to use anything, our own footage, footage from films etc.
My first instinct for this project was to look into Liminal Spaces and the popular internet meme, the Backrooms.
Liminal spaces, in their new surge of popularity, portray a feeling of familiarity and lostness, an uncanny feeling thats almost primal similar to that of the Uncanny Valley. This can also be explored in film, The Shining is probably the best and most available example of this.
The framing of these shots are very intentional to portray that uneasy feeling, especially with the twins scene.
The camera trailing behind Danny as he is tricycling through the hallways and corridors gives an uncertain feeling and then when it cuts to the hallway the fixed position of the camera gives the impression that the hallways are continuously sprawling, making it even more impactful when he comes across the twins.
The backrooms is another example of this idea of Liminal Space, it has been expanded upon over time but I would like to focus on the original idea of the backrooms. This carries through the idea of Liminal Spaces, you are lost in an endless layout of office spaces, with yellowed carpets and the noise of the fluorescent light bulbs. The backrooms found their popularity from the creepypasta trend of short horror stories. With those claiming that to enter the backrooms you must “noclip out of reality”. Noclipping has been made popular with games like gmod that gives the player to fly around the map with collisions disabled, this allows the players to fly out of bounds of the map, often times coming to the point where the plane stops and it meets the skybox.
I used noclip.website to access these images of various game maps that you can get the noclip experience.
I looked up from my seat earlier and realised I was the only one in the studio which gave it that sort of backrooms feel. I will use this footage to experiment with in.
Some examples of distorted faces and other visual effects, mainly taken inspiration from different forms of music, particularly aphex twins distorted faces, and putting his face on other peoples faces, including children. As well as this I also included in my research a music video by Cole Bennet, not really into it all as much now but at the time it was seen as the best thing for various artists careers were to get a music video by him as it was a guaranteed way to gain exposure.
I especially enjoy the ones such as these where people are cloned etc.
having a look at various videos from corridor digital, they have most recently done a lot of work spoofing the Boston Dynamics robots with the robots and people conducting the same sort of behaviours.
Also looked back to our AR project for some inspo, especially since the idea of AR and this project remains the same.
A film I saw recently that has great special effects is the Jordan Peele’s NOPE. I found it a great take on the idea of an alien movie as the flying saucer is the a wild animal, marking its territory.
Had a bit of a technical disaster with my computer as my graphics card kicked the bucket so that hindered some of my experimentation but i now have a whole 12GB of vram at my disposal.
in terms of sounds etc, theres a very audible hum from my video this could be something I can use.
I was thinking of adding some sound effects to my work such as a low sort of chatter for segments where we there would be people a
the backrooms also a distinct look and sound with a yellowing from the lightbulbs,
Yellow filters in film / TV are typically used to give the idea that a place is warm, used extensively in shows like breaking bad
The new movie, extraction has been criticised for its use of the yellow filter, with those saying that despite the behind the scenes being very colourful the final is drab and void of colour.
This media has been criticised for upholding stereotypes, with people saying that other films, like Queen of Katwe, with it being shot in the same country it shows a completely different tone with bright colours etc.
I discovered a trend called doors to nowhere, as well as windows to nowhere, it reminds me of the monsters inc segment where they are going through the company building with the doors being held up in a conveyer belt, each of them are essentially portals to other closets.
I then conducted some experiments on after effects using footage of a window, tracking it and masking out the outside
I then went back refined the mask to get it more believable, masking out the handles and giving it a bit of a finer shape.
I also darkened the footage, in order to give a more gloomy feel to the footage.
This footage of the door is a bit rough but it works well for what it is. I will reshoot footage in my house and do the same effect, it will also look better as theres no windows so it’ll work much better instead of the image being frozen the perspective should change through the glass. Although the uncanny feeling it produces is pretty spot on for what I want to achieve.
I used a 3D camera tracker for the door opening to get a “3d” door that opens but doesn’t actually open. I then played with scale to get the effect of going through the door.
I also added some easy ease to my scale and position keyframes to give them a more natural and less abrupt movement.
I decided to stick with these 2 effects and variations of them as they fit into my final outcome well.
I had a lot of issues like this with my footage, mocha was falling out with me, unfortunate but its just the nature of the software, I didn’t end up using mocha because of this.
I chose these 2 sound effects to use mostly to showcase the comfort of the birds chirping vs the uncomfortable nature of the buzzing of lights, something that we dont notice until its at the forefront, its quiet and theres nothing else to hear.
I found this experience to be similar as to what those who use sensory deprivation tanks feel.
https://www.videvo.net/sound-effect/room-tone-large-industrial-warehouse/437931/
Final thoughts
I feel like I really enjoyed this project, I haven’t felt the need to work so late on something for a long time, weather or not thats a sign of bad time management I’m unsure but I felt like I wanted to do this project justice.
I feel like theres some issues with my footage and masks that need resolved but I decided to cut my losses and get it done.
especially things like this, I have no idea why thats there but it only came up in the final render.
I also kept a small journal of this project just to help me collect my thoughts and keep them together, this is something that really helped and I will continue with this moving forward.
These types of projects I have always enjoyed as they keep me fresh and learning new things with more traditional softwares that we sometimes don’t get the chance to spend much time on but are so useful in terms of gaining usable experience in a software that is widely desired in the creative industries. These sorts of workflows also go hand in hand with conceptualisation of projects, with the idea of “smoke and mirrors” using these workflows to help demo others. It is also something that demands respect, after effects is such a heavy software and I found it very rewarding to figure out ways to do things I wanted to achieve combining what I already know and online tutorials.
Stewart Marshall IxD 