2 4.2 Creating the Plan

foreign [Music] stuff we're gonna go away on our own in our uh office and we're gonna create the look of this project in our head we're going to look at some of the reference images that the director has sent through if you've got your own reference library you're going to go through some of those and see if you can't find something that feels uh like the project that you're looking for whether it's framing it's color it's lighting it's composition it's camera movement all of those things now is time if we had If Money Was No

Object Time Was No Object what would we make this thing look like so for our purposes here I'd like to start with the treatment that's where we're going to spend most of our time trying to window dwindle down what it is that we are going for what is the look that we can achieve and then we'll get into some of the necessary components to achieve that look and whether or not we can pull that into the text gal so if we look you know again this is just something that I would very very quickly do

I probably wouldn't sit here with the pen and draw it out I wouldn't even send reference images through to the director maybe if it's a new director or if it's a very specific style I would do that but as of late I've been getting away from sending references to directors it's more you get hired to do the job of the visuals as long as you're confident individuals and you can communicate that clearly to the director and they know what they're getting they know what they're in for and they're happy with that then that's fair enough

right so in the real world I wouldn't sit here and do this whole process with Crossing things out and honing the look that way I would just do it in my head very very quickly or if I needed some more study I would try and find some some newer references or some newer ideas if I was in a situation I hadn't been in before so if we jump in here to the treatment uh first things like this okay it's good I would say I would just basically go through every image and see what I like

in them and see if I can incorporate some of the things I like that the director also likes because this isn't treatment and see if I can't uh marry those up and try and bring them into the look that we're going to be creating so this is I like this we're never going to be inside the car though so so the framing and things like that doesn't really play this is also probably too late in the afternoon for us so as like a hero still this is probably a no for me but I mean it's

obviously a beautiful looking shot this one I like the angle of the cars relative to the Sun so maybe for car positioning this could be one but then I would go through and say okay well we're not going to have any of this stuff backlit back here I like the composition on the road right with a little tiny bit of Road in here and then you got a nice darkened down road cars facing this way Edge lights here this is something that we could work with right I would remember this one also the density that

feels a little bit saturated for what we're going for I would want to desaturate things but again might be saving doing that one just take it into Photoshop desaturate a little bit and maybe use that to pass on to the crew really because this is also an exercise if you're working with new crew or if there's something very specific that you're going to want to pass this stuff on be like well this is the look or this is the idea and usually the more specific you can be the less General the more constructive these can

actually or more additive these can actually be to the finished product getting crew on board with very specific things like if you really wanted in all of your shots to have lots and lots of layers you send this through and you say I like the layers right don't listen don't look at anything else because people get easily distracted this is what we're trying to do on set so let's get some of this if this is the art Department that you're talking to it's like well let's have items on set that we can do this with

right we want to really block up the frame I want lots of different little art elements in here maybe build something else over here that you could come up with these are ideas that you would just be flowing through your mind as you're sitting here because right now the sky is the limit right we're not on the day no one is we're not costing the production money with 30 people sitting on their hands while we come up with these ideas we're doing it all in our own time and just to make us better and to

make us more efficient this one like this time of day I like the shadows in the background I don't like how side lit it is all right I would probably go more backlight here but I like again I like this little thing in the front here I like the aspect along the road where we can sort of see into the distance that just sort of falls off and then of course they've got power lines like we have well we don't have power lines we've got light poles but I like those poles in the shot as

well again just to just to add some depth right even back here it's just a little point of Interest so I would be thinking well this is a good one for overall saturation as well not so sure about the color it's a little bit too desaturated and gray and blue so I probably wouldn't lean this way for color but I like certain things in the element so I'd say this is a keeper this one here just not even a starter right it's way too Moody we don't have any snow in Australia at least where we

are so that's not going to happen this one I like the density and I like the color I would probably be saying this is the sort of saturation that we're looking for and the color it feels realistic doesn't feel over the top uh but there's still some harshness here and it's that harshness that we're gonna we're gonna sort of embrace we're gonna embrace it in the wide shots and then when we go in for the close-up we're going to try and clean things up a little bit more than that but I like that color so

that would also be a keeper here I'd say this is just a little bit too overcast and or a little bit too soft like there's not much that difference between the background levels here and then her face right this is all done through an egg here you can feel the darkness that is happening over here and then there's a little tiny leak of light this way but really this looks like it's just softened off sky on an overcast day right there's not too much difference between the background values and the key value but I like

the softness I also like the distance all right like this feels like a good close-up especially in the 240 aspect ratio this feels like where we want to be for the focal length so maybe I add that to the focal length pile in here again a little bit too sunsetty a little bit too flarry we're not going really going for flares I like the feeling of the Sun in this one right so I know that this is diffused Sun I know there's some Negan here and I know there's a little tiny leak on this side

so this is probably what we are going for right something like this for our close-up look and then we're going to try and match it to something a little bit more harsh in the wide shots this one you can just cross off to desaturated to Bleak this one is probably oops big pen this one is probably the harshness you know probably the harshness and The Wider shots and then we'll go ahead and clean it up but even here I'd probably be saying well let's add just a little bit more wrap just a little bit something

to it but again the angle to the car is nice in the background uh having two people in the shot that's something to think about but I probably wouldn't keep that one either this one a little bit too overcasty not quite in our world this is too dark I like the look of this one this one's too flat I like this one but this is probably a little bit too sun sandwichy right you got angle here and angle here and probably too crunchy for the world that we're going to be living in I would probably

want to just open up those Shadows just a little bit maybe add Shadow down here wrap this way beautiful looking image just a different style than what we're going for sun is in sort of the perfect place but for our purposes I would say just a little bit too crunchy in here you know way too much saturation for our look but I like the level of highlights versus the level of Shadow it doesn't feel like you're underneath the tree but it feels like it's a sunny day here again we're not going to really be that

we don't want to be up and looking down we want to be ground level we want to be telling the story at the level of the car right in with these people we don't really want to be up high seeing anybody approaching or anything like that the landscape is nice but it's not super vast where we need something to take advantage of it uh here a little bit too much darkness in the frame to crunch you know the color is okay but probably too saturated right we want to pull that down this is probably the

closest right because it matches the environment that we're going to be in but this level of harshness on the sun and at times this level of backlight right where you really only get the top of the car with light coming on it everything else is in backlight and you know it's that little tiny difference you know it's like a stop and a half between what's there and what's here just filling it in opening it up making it easy here a little bit too gray slash a little bit too green and too much green this is

probably too close for our purposes a little bit of funky like I like that there's something in the foreground here but it doesn't really match up with our Vibe so I wouldn't really use it and then we're back here which is again this is now probably the angle and the depth of field that we would end up having very very shallow on the close-ups all I would say is we'll probably just end up opening things up a little bit more just get a little bit more like it's this key that's up here if we go

normal size pin this key that is up here coming from the Sun I just want to take it around a little bit more take it around a little bit more this way and just even it out because right now you've got hot high and then you've got all this keyed in area then you've got the super Darkness I'd probably say soften this off a little bit more to make it a little bit more even and then more Direction out of the bounce so rather than having all the way across the face look to just get

the triangle here and then open up these shadows and maybe extend this around so this is a good one for framing for those close-ups for mood I would just say open it up a little bit but really if we're just looking at the treatment images we're going through references you'd be doing the same thing with whatever reference catalog you have or Library you're just filtering down the images like what's the best way which where do we go next and it's just very very quickly doing it right you're not going to draw on these images you're

not going to save them into a folder unless you really have to it's just you're looking for ideas you're looking for them as fast as you can because you want to cycle through all of the possible options right you're curating The Look by seeing all these images you're just looking for ideas darkness no don't want it overcast don't want it backlight okay I like it softened off Sun even better this one's too overcast right you're just cycling through the options then you know now we know okay we want Sunny we want a little bit of

a softened off Sun nice little wrap around the edges we're going to want neg so we're going to bring in lots and lots of neg out there even though we're out there in the middle of the day and there'll be lots of crunch we want to balance that crunch we don't want any fill coming up from the ground or anything like that so I know neg is on the cards also with our schedule I know that we're going to have to use some overheads we're going to have to use some diffusion that's going to eat

up time just something to be aware of so this is just a process of going through finding the looks very very quickly skimming through what do you like do you like focal length do you like color do you like light do you like composition or movement those are usually the five that I will go through and stick to and then I'll I'll in my head I will sort of group them together oh I really like these focal lengths I like these focal lengths for these moments I like this composition in the wide shots I like

something in the frame I don't like something in the frame I like how there's depth I like how it's flat the lighting I like it harsh in the wides I like it slightly softer in the close-ups uh the color right like which way are we going to go with the color those are usually the main ones that I stick to and then I will categorize things inside my head like okay I need a look for this got it I need the focal length what are we going to do here for focal length this now I

take all of that information and one once you'll you'll see once we get to the tech Scout and we actually have a couple stand-ins whether it's the first ad or the producer or the the PA whoever it is it's going to stand in I'll just cycle through the focal lengths inside of Artemis I'll just cycle through throwing different things inside the frame inside of Artemis because we're still at that stage we're still curating ideas right we're not really curating the image just ideas of what is going to make it up and if we think about

those five categories those are all the five categories that we then have to curate right everyone is going to be separate focal length gonna be different much different than the lighting and you take all of those ideas in your head you come up with a plan and then that's what you're expressing in the text account to the team you're saying okay like this lens standing right here because the more information you can provide to the team the better the efficiency is going to be on set now every job is different sometimes you're not going to

be able to be that specific but the more specific you can be the more choices you can make beforehand the more the team is going to get out of it which in turn makes the shoot more efficient which in turn allows you to be more creative on set on the day once you see it and you see the talent there in the close-up maybe you thought oh the 50 is the way to go but maybe you see it and just like wow it feels like judging from the last shot it feels like if you were

just a lens up and just took a step back it would be that much more impactful so that's how you get those little opportunities on set and that's how you set yourself up to get the best possible results