Datasheet
Color
Your use of color also plays a big part in creating impact in your frame. Warm colors tend to
come out toward you, and cooler colors recede into the frame. Placing a warm color on a
subject on a cool background creates a nice color contrast to help the dynamics of your frame.
Colors opposing each other on the color wheel are complementary colors and usually
clash when put together. Using complementary colors can create a wide variation of con-
trast in your scene.
Design theory may not seem specifically pertinent to CG right now, but recognizing
that there is indeed a way to quantify design elements of a pretty picture greatly helps the
design student progress.
Basic Film Concepts
In addition to the design concepts used in framing a shot, you’ll want to understand some
other filmmaking concepts.
Planning a Production
Understanding the paradigm filmmakers use for their productions will make it easier to
plan, create, and manage your own shorts. Most narrative films are broken into acts,
which comprise sequences made up of scenes that are made up of shots.
Narrative films are typically divided into three acts. The first act establishes the main
characters and the conflict or struggle that will define the story. Act II covers most of the
action of the story as the hero attempts to overcome this conflict. Act III concludes the
film by resolving the action in the story and tying up all the loose ends.
Acts can be separated into sequences, which are groups of sequential scenes that unite
around a particular dramatic or narrative point.
A scene is a part of a film that takes place in a specific place or time with specific charac-
ters to present that part of the story. Films are broken into scenes for organization purposes
by their locations (that is, by where or when they take place). Don’t confuse the scene in a
film with the word scene in CG terms, which refers to the elements in the 3D file that make
up the CG.
Scenes are then broken into shots, which correspond to a particular camera angle, or
framing. Shots break up the monotony of a scene by giving different views of the scene and
its characters. Shots are broken by cuts between the shots.
Shots are defined by angle of view, or the POV (point of view) of the camera. Shots
change as soon as the camera’s view is changed.
A narrative film is a film that tells a story of a hero called a protagonist and his or her struggle
against an antagonist.
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