Lincoln... Project pre-production

Over the summer I will be producing my first feature film as part of my masters degree.

I have recently started the research and pre-production stage of this.

I will be adding links to documents that I write over this term, as well as adding some of the text directly to my blog.

Examples of what I will be covering are;

• Logistics of film making,
• Money and Budget,
• Critical Analysis,
• CGI research,
• Green screen research etc...

Lincoln... Media Production 2, landscape shoot 01

I went out during the afternoon yesterday to take some landscape images, as Lincoln finally had a cloudless day.

Before I set up I went to my local photography shop and brought myself a tripod.

I went for a Manfrotto system. I got the basic leg set and the basic 3 way head. But its such a luxury to have a great piece of kit like this that I can use when and where I want.

With my new piece of kit I headed up to a part of steep hill that I knew had a good view.

I set up my camera and got experimenting with my Cokin Filters.

I mainly used my graduated ND filters, as I found combining them with other ND filters caused a purple tint to my images.

I also gave my graduated red filter a go.

Hear are a collection of the best images from the shoot.

Lincoln... Media Production 2, studio shoot 01, more examples

Here are more images from my first shoot.

They have all had the usual Photoshop treatment including a high-pass filter.

The first one was taken using two lights and a reflector.

[insert images of light set up]

The next set of images were taken with an Octa directly behind me and the model right up close to the camera. This was the only light used.

This final image was taken in a three light set up with a reflector.

Lincoln... Media Production 2, studio shoot 01, first example

Today I had a great time messing around the University's photography studio.

This was the first chance I had to get my hand on all of the lights and the white infinity wall that the studio had to offer.

This is the first image that has come out of the shoot.

I really enjoyed working on this shot as I have already learnt a lot about Photoshop from just practical use.

I will post up more shots and also start getting my work on Flickr tomorrow.

For now here is the finished shot. I used the healing brush and the clone stamp tool to remove the logo and text from the foundation tub, I plan on uploading my some of my work to istock so this was necessary. I am very happy in the way I have managed to preserve the reflection of the finger.

The final shot has had some high-pass work done to it, a great tutorial on it can be found here. 

Image 01, RAW

Image 02, Retouched

Image 03, High-Pass

Lincoln... Media Production 2, location shoot 01, before and after shots

These are the before and after shots for my first photo shoot.

The first is the untouched image and the second has had Photoshop work.

Lincoln... Media Production 2, location shoot 01, UPDATE

Here are the 3 finished images from my first shoot, as well as the first one I uploaded a while ago.

The first one has been cropped, but that is it. This was because I was happy with the quality and the colours in the image.

The new three have been edited within Photoshop.

The heal brush has been used to remove mascara sprinkles and to smooth some skin bumps.

The eyes have been treated in all three as well.

The eye area has been selected, This area has then been brushed with colour (#82bdfe). This has had feathering applied as well as some re-masking to remove overflow. Finally the layers have been set to overlay and the opacity reduced to 50%.

Lincoln... Media Production 2, location shoot 01

This is my first test shoot, but I'm quite happy with some of the final images that it may make it into one of the portfolios.

The main aim of the shoot was to catch the reflections in the models eye, whilst retaining a deep depth of field.

Two lenses were used, firstly a Tamron 70-300mm f4/5.6 DI LD Macro with it set to macro to gain the depth of field.


Secondly a CANON EF 50mm F1.8 II which has a massive depth of field at F 1.8.


This is one of the final images:

Lincoln... Media Production 2, Introduction & Brief

This time round we have no set brief to work from, instead we set our own.

I have decided to concentrate, this term, on improving my Photoshop skills and my Maya skills.

Therefore I have decided to set my self a photography assignment.

For the most part this will consist of images taken using my 500D, with some Photoshop work.

In addition to this I will create some work entirely in Photoshop.

Lastly I will create art within Maya, with final paint overs in Photoshop. This will allow me to improve my knowledge of Maya with out the long render times needed for video.

I plan to create 5 Portfolios, each with a different theme;

1. Landscape
2. Studio Portrait
3. Location Portrait
4. Stylized art
5. CGI artwork

I will post my proposal and them my research when its ready...

Lincoln... Media Production 1, B - Finished work.

This is my finished time-lapse:




This is the second piece of course work from my MA in Media Production. It is a time-lapse of Lincoln city.
All images were taken with either a Canon G10 or a 500D. in the case of the 500D the Cokin filter system was used, with ND filters, to achive high shutter speeds.

Colour correction, motion stabilization and editing was done in Adobe After Effects.

Finaly the text was created using Red Giant Holomatrix.

The music was created by Dexter Prior.
It is the same piece I used for my 2009 show reel, I liked it so much I wanted to try it against some different images.


This link will take you to my short research report on this projects.


This link will take you to my short critique of the project.

Equipment... New additions.

My new kit bag became very plump quite quickly recently, with the addition of a Canon 500D.

In addition to the ability to take nice still images I am also interested in trying it out to film in HD. Most importantly the ability to use my cameras lenses to get more interesting images, with a great depth of field.

The piece of equipment I am most impressed with so far is my Speedlite 430EX II Flash gun.

The improvements in image quality because of a better flash, and the ability to bounce the light from different angles, can easly be seen.

I enjoy using this more than anything else.