Published the Survey

After finishing all the visual effects, I can now publish my survey to see what people think. The questions I have asked are:

Which version do you think told the story better? And why? 

Which version immersed you more in the film? And why? 

What was your initial feeling/reaction upon seeing the dinosaur in the version with visual effects?

What was your initial feeling/reaction upon seeing the point of view of the dinosaur in the version without visual effects?

And finally, if there were two similar films in the cinema, one marketed as having prominent visual effects and the other without any at all, which would you be more likely to see? 

These questions should all yield the most relevant and helpful results. I have specifically asked about story and immersion seperately because it is an important distinction. The storytelling is about communication and immersion is about the delivery of that. 
I am excited to read the results and really don't know what to expect.

Compositing

This is my favourite stage of the process. It is always very satisfying to put everything together in the end. The HDRI maps made this a much easier process. Most of what I had to do was colour correct the dinosaur to fit the footage. Upon importing the render, most of the shadows were way too dark so had to be levelled out with the correct exposure. 

I have read a few different sources talking about the blending of CG elements through camera characteristics. So I kept in mind matching; motion blur, sharpness, grain, lens distortion, lens flare and chromatic aberration.

"When we see, onscreen, an impossible event happening in ‘photorealistic’ CGI, we are invited into the fantasy that it has actually been recorded photographically, and thus has taken place in the real world. This performance of ‘photographicness’ (simulated motion blur, camera movement and so on) is as much a part of the illusory strategy as is the simulation of flesh and form on computer generated bodies." - Dan North, Performing Illusion

The main things I added were a very slight blur to de-sharpen the render, very subtle grain (the footage wasn't very grainy anyway) and motion blur (which rendered out of maya anyway)

What went well
I think that next time I do something like this, I will make sure to have more involvement with the ground interaction. I think this lack of presence has caused the effects to suffer a bit. I am proud of what I managed to do however and have got some good experience and practice.

Animating the Dinosaur

Despite it not being the model I would have liked, I am proud of the animation I managed to achieve. I tried to make sure I was including enough weight to the dinosaur to make it feel real. It had to feel like it was really stomping along in the woods. We tried to add curving motion in the tail, but due to issues in the model, this wasn't possible without it breaking. I think the up, down and side to side movement works well enough to have some form of visual interest in the tail however. 

There were some issues with moving the chest as well. If I moved the arms or neck, the chest would warp and break in unnatural ways. I tuned back any movement that caused this error to at least still have some movement of that area of it's body. 

These kinds of issues could have been avoided if we had spent more time searching for a model and rigging. I managed to work around these issues, but they were troublesome. I have significantly increased my confidence in maya animation through doing this. 

Also, using 360 degree HDRI images made lighting so much easier and more accurate. These consisted of many high dynamic range images stitched together in a spherical fashion. Since I don't have a 360 camera, I had to do this my camera just taking a picture every 45 degrees or so, and on different tilts. This, and the stitching process, were rather painstaking, however they yield the best results. 

Creature Rig

The original plan was to get the 3D creature from Dan which he is already creating for his COP. However, he informed me that he wished to take more time in planning and developing his creature and so it would be better for me to use a creature rig from online instead. This would let me at least get the survey out for the sake of my COP, but once his creature is finished, at his own pace, I can replace the temporary one.

While this was a shame since I was looking forward to the intergration of a creature specifically designed for the environment, I completely understand the reasons, and I don't want to hinder Dan's process and rush a creature from him. 

So I went searching for a good model to use from SketchFab.com. I found it a challenge to find a model that looked good and detailed, which was rigged for animation and didn't cost anything (since this is only a temporary placeholder creature). In the end, I came across this model...

https://sketchfab.com/models/d98b4f7dcf6d40b8b1f0b5523b3f551a

which was really nicely textured and could fit the story and environment. The problem here was that it wasn't rigged for animation, the model is meant for 3D printing. So I asked Dan to rig it. I didn't want him to take up too much of him time so as long as I can make it move in a somewhat realistic fashion, I'll be happy. It's only a temp version anyhow.

Editing and Colour Grading

I sorted through all of the footage we had shot, finding all the best takes. This took quite a long time but wasn't especially hard as I still had the best takes in my mind from shooting and the audio of me talking while filming was useful to remind me of the best takes.

There were a few shots I cut to make the overall edit tighter. These shots weren't really needed to help tell the story, only to reinforce something which the other shots around them were already telling. I think it's good to be able to let go of shots like this, even though I may have liked them from a cinematic perspective, the story comes first.

I believe the edit is concise and effective. Every shot has a purpose in telling the audience something new. I tried to trim every shot down more and more as the edit goes on in order to ramp up the energy, however I'm not certain I've truly succeeded. A couple of  shots at the end are still similar lengths to earlier ones. I will still try to trim here and there as I go.

I am happy with the initial colour grade and correction. I think it all look balanced and even. The colour correction could have been easier and quicker to manage if I'd have kept an eye on the white balance during filming, as there were many shots that started going very blue as the sunset, which was harder to match to the rest of the piece.

Here's an example of a few shots before and after colour correction and grading.

Filming the scene!

With the script finalised, I organised the shoot for Tuesday the 13th. We started off by going briefly through the script together to get a clear joint idea of what we would be doing and then we quickly got going. 

We shot in chronological order for most of the day, only shooting out of order if there was the need for a lens change for a couple of shots together. I used two lenses for the shoot; predominantly a vintage 50mm F1.8 which gives a much more cinematic depth of field (along with an anamorphic bokeh filter that I added to the back of the lens), and the other was my 15-45 kit lens for any shot in which I wanted a wider angle to show the isolation of the character. 

I shot the scene in 4k resolution so I have maximum image quality and flexibility in post. I tried to slowly increase the amount of handheld shots as the day went on in an attempt to create more unrest in the viewer. Liam Shevill was great to work with again and played the role nicely as well as offering suggestions. I am really pleased with his performance and contribution.

The only issues were that we had to re-shoot a couple of shots the next day due to the originals being far to noisy as a result of the high ISO to compensate for the sunset. This wasn't a problem and I am actually more happy with the new takes from a cinematic perspective as well as they are framed better (as well as lit better).

Scriptwriting for the short scene

Once I knew the location the scene would take place in, I could start scripting. 

Choosing shot types was something I put a lot of thought into, making sure that each shot was motivated and telling the audience something with visual communication. There were only 2 spoken lines in the script, both of which didn't even stay in the edit. The shots also get tighter and quicker as the story progresses to accentuate the tension. The way I visualised the difference between the VFX shots and NO VFX shots was intuitive and made a clear distinction.

I think that I could have done better in making action details more obvious when reading the script. There were a few times during filming where I would really have to read shots before and after in order to remember exactly what each shot was. This wasted time, and could have been easily solved by adding those details and maybe putting them in bold.

Here is the final script that was used for filming...

Location Decision

Yesterday, Me and Dan did a scout of the locations he has shortlisted for his creature. While Kirkstall Abbey does provide some interesting visuals and opportunity for creative shot types, it would be logistically much more complex to film there. It also doesn't provide any height difference for high angle shots. There are also signs everywhere with history information, which take away from any mystical atmosphere. 

We decided that the woods would be the location that would likely offer the most variety and freedom in shooting, while also being much easier to film there; with it being close to our house and not needing permission. Now I know where the scene will take place, I will finalise the script ready to shoot as soon as possible.