Unit 7: Narrative - Misdirection or is it?

Hello Everyone

Well I have spent the last few hours running tests for sound files on blog posts with the highly speculative topic of "Misdirection" a post some of you may have tried to click on to find it absent from the blog. Now I have either planned something entirely clever by creating a post called "Misdirection" which goes nowhere or I have something more elaborate and liken to a particular theme I wish to demonstrate to everyone...

Its option B in case you were wondering...

Now first let me explain what Misdirection is to those that do not know. It is actually a magicians tool. The Magician shows you something in one hand sparkly or captivating so that  you do not notice what he is doing with his other hand (in most cases the real trick or slight of hand).

Sergio Della Sala of "Tall Tales about the Mind and brain: Separating Fact from Fiction" observes:

"At the basis of every magic trick, for example, there is the ability of the performer in controlling the attention of the audience. This is what is usually termed "misdirection", and it consists essentially in directing the attention of the spectator towards non significant aspects of the performance, distracting it from the relevant ones..." (2007 : 36)

What this basically means in our case is we need to show our audience a character, a personality so fixating that they don't realise what is going on behind him... Something people will only notice with repeat viewings to let out that ever dignified "ahhh I get it!" For this I conducted a small experiment myself in my own home with people that I had at hand...

I did not tell them what I was doing or what they should be looking out for, I was vague, saying it was just a shape test and I wanted to know what they thought of it. I played the 10 second video once and got them to report to me what they saw... Which consisted of the primary research at the bottom of this post.


The video (shown above) was a crude rendering of 7 or so different shapes most of them the same. The camera however was not focusing on all of them... a bright red shiny blinn playing the role I envision for Charles. The grey shapes reflect objects in the environment. From showing these to my family people could not get past the red shape... why? because it sticks out... it is shiny... it is the focal point of the video. Is it because it morphs? Maybe... but for whatever reason we are inclined to pay more attention to the most visually stimulating object on screen...

This means that our background and props are in fact the relevant aspects of the performance . Charles even though he is shiny and pretty is not... Please watch the video yourselves and post feedback, tell me what you saw... who knows maybe you will notice something they didn't ;) But most importantly be honest here... you guys should be at an advantage if you have read this post... My family came in knowing nothing, as any unsuspecting audience should.

This fills me with comfort knowing that the ordinary person will not notice this the first time round, having to go back a second time to notice it which have been the exact conversations we have been in with Alan these past few weeks...

Primary Research - Misdirection


Subject 1 - Late 30s - Female

Before

After

Subject 2 - Early Teens - Female

Before

After

Subject 3 - Mid to Late 60s - Female

Before

After

Subject 4 - Early 40s - Male

Before

After

Subject 5 - Late 60s - Female

Before

After

Well I think that concludes this little post which has been a nightmare in the making I don't mind saying. Whod have thought sound files would be such a nightmare to embed. Please take a run at the video and see if you notice anything about it the first watch. You will probably get it after subsequent watches but try and go in with an empty mind... You will be surprised what you may find out...

BTW. The research tapes have had talk of the Misdirection stripped from them so you are gonna have to figure this out yourselves :P

Tah tah!!

xXStItChXx

Unit 7: Narrative - Shape Tests - Transition

Hello Everyone,

I spent all of Friday messing around with these transition tests just to find a way for them to work subtly on screen. There are probably more then this but to be honest I couldn't find any by searching terms "Object Merge" - etc. The one thing that was called up often was Blend Shape, it being suggested by Alan earlier in the week was the clincher so I decided to give it a punt... of course its not without its own problems.

 

I began testing briefly a few weeks earlier trying some post magic with object transition between a tea pot and a train. These were static 2D images that were to merge into each other. It was effective but again I couldn't see it working in 3D space without deforming or being inexplicably obvious. After this I put the attempt on stand still for a few weeks just thinking object switching would be the ideal way to go (i.e. an object is there, it leaves the shot when we see it again its something else.

 

Next came the post CC image test again done in AE much like the Image Wipe above. This just simply has a transition from one scene to another. Again not overly complicated but again I thought it was something I would notice. I mean an object being there and then it disappears only to reappear without a cut I would have thought it to be obvious unless delayed for a long duration so it subtly vanishes into nothingness...

Next the post Card wipe, I wasn't expecting much from this especially after the CC image which didn't exactly impress me much. However, I thought this looked pretty cool as you can adjust it to move parts at specific times. I may have been more impressed with the effect then its actual use in our short but never the less it could kind of work I guess... Still I think the blend shape option will probably be the best avenue for our transitions.

 

 Next CC Light wipe, to put it simply no way... too bright and just blatantly obvious the reason I put it up on here is it could work for the wish flower particularly. If we wanted to make it disappear or something... again just a suggestion but I thought I would post this up just to show I had looked into it. The majority of transitions in AE are simplistic if you want the more complicated ones you have to pay, and to be honest I tried demoing some and couldn't work them out... no tutorials.

  

Last but not least the Blend shape... the method Alan suggested to us and apparently there is something deep down that allows transition with materials meaning we can convert textures with this. Of course that is being dealt with by Lydia I did this test purely for my piece of mind. I will take this opportunity to mention something weird is going on with youtube and it has loaded about half of the video I made. This flat shape actually converted to 3 different shapes not 2 but never the less... I will also say the draw back with this blend shape method is the models need to have the same number of points and be converted into something else... so BEAR THAT IN MIND!

Well that concludes this little post, I kept this to basics using primitives I think working the transition in Production is the key lesson I have learnt here. Post production I just don't feel will do it subtle enough... in AE its all or nothing we couldn't do partials or serious delays. At least in Maya we can move objects around and alter them behind Charles when we move from point A to point B or impose a cut.

Take it easy people!
xXStItChXx