The Mountains

Last year I created a very short film for 10x10 which depicted a mountain landscape going from day to night by using different colour palettes and simple key frame animation.

Mountain Day

Mountain Sunset

Mountain Night

I knew that I wanted a mountain scene in my film. Something breath taking that would show the audience what a beautiful place my characters lived in. I also knew that it would be a visually striking plot device to signal the passage of time. As my film takes place over the course of a day, a mountain landscape seemed like a good way to show when the day was coming to a close and it was time for my characters to head home. It would be an effective mid way point for my film. The first half was setting the scene and gathering the ingredients, now it's time to head home and create something with them.

Mountains 1

This is the first mountain landscape that I came up with. I used elements similar to the ones that I created last year, but this is a massive improvement on them. There are many more components, colours, and textures to this piece. These won't be the final colours that I'll be using but I'm pleased with how nicely they all look together - they're very complimentary.

Mountains 2

This version is obviously very similar to the one above, however, I changed the sky so that it had more of a gradient effect. The real sky is never just one solid colour and I wanted to reflect this within my work. I wasn't confident with creating gradient textures or patterns with Adobe Photoshop before this shot, but now I feel like I could do it with my eyes closed so that's an important learning curve.

In my next version of the mountains scene I know that I want to create day, evening, and night time versions of the landscape which would therefore include the sun, moon, and stars. I also want to have clouds in the shot as well as flying birds.

I created this flying bird by looking at a helpful template that I found. It was very simple to create, just 3/4 drawings placed in a certain sequence to give the illusion of flapping wings. I would then simply turn it into a smart object on Photoshop and key frame it's position across the screen. It looks quite primitive up close, but from far away it will resemble a flying bird more closely and look quite natural and effective.

Mountains Day

I'm really happy with the colours that I've used here. It looks like such a beautiful day, and it wasn't until I'd finished it that I'd remembered that I wanted my film to take place during the Autumn. I'm still happy that I created one with this lush colour palette though. I have an idea for the credits of the film that will involve this mountain landscape.

I'm so unbelievably happy with how this scene has turned out. The most time consuming part of it was creating the landscape. The animation is just very simple key framing. It looks so good though, it looks more complicated than it actually is. I used the Kyle Webster Brushes found on Adobe Photoshop to create the clouds. They will definitely be something that I use again for future concept art.

For my next version I need to create a mountain day scene which has more appropriate colours for Autumn. I'd like to revisit the wheat coloured sky that I used in scene 3 alongside browns, reds, and oranges to achieve this.

Autumn Day 1

I think that this version resembles a stark Autumn day much more than the previous one. I'm really happy with the colours, even when I used more greens that I thought I would it still looks good. The only thing I would change is the red hill to the left. I think that I might try to find another green to replace it with as it seems a little out of place.

Autumn Day 2

I think that by changing the red to a green it has definitely improved the overall shot. The red was too vibrant for the landscape and stuck out like a sore thumb. exchanging it for a green was a much better choice.

This is the animated sequence for the second version of the day landscape. For my next version I want to create a sunset landscape.

Autumn Sunset

I really like the colours that I've used in this version of the shot. The sky gradient is especially nice and contrasts really well with the dark greens in the foreground. I also love the way that the peach colour of the lake splits up the greenery - it helps the audience pick out the separate components more easily.

This is the animate segment for the sunset shot. I think it looks so lovely. For my next version I want to do a nice time landscape with the moon and stars.

Autumn Night

I'm incredibly happy with how this shot has turned out. I think that the colours I've used really do give the illusion that it's night time. I'm pleased with the sky as well, I used a special Kyle Webster Brush to create a nebula for the stars. Despite using primarily greens and blues, the shot does still possess a sort of warmth - it's inviting.

This is the animated segment for the night landscape.

I'm so pleased with how all of these have turned out - I won't be able to use all of them in the film, but they will be good for a show reel and I also have an idea for the credits which might be nice to explore later on. For the film though, I think I'm going to stick with day turning to sunset. I want to experiment sunset colours with other shots so it wouldn't make sense for it to become night in this particular shot.

This is the final version of the shot that I'm going to use in my film. The changes are very subtle, more subtle than I would like, but I want other shots to have sunset colours in them which will be more striking than this, therefore I should only hint to the fact that time is passing. It's still obvious what's happening, though, and I think that the shot is a very beautiful one overall, maybe my favourite in the whole film so far.