SCAD x The Mill NY update 3
SCAD X THE MILL NY
9/7/20243 min read
Feedback / Notes
9/17/2024
Team KESS Notes - Week 1 class 3
Mentor Notes:
Shots 4, 5, and 6 are unclear; provide a verbal walkthrough.
Why is there a red Skittle on the palette? Where did it come from, and why is it only one color? Consider a more surprising way to introduce the red Skittle—perhaps there’s a pack or bag, and it’s poured out like it's the last one.
All Skittles are black and white, with the red one standing out, making it appear special compared to the others. Needs production design and film support with costumes and environment. Also, focus on the end card and fonts at the end.
Do they break Skittles in commercials? Make it look beautiful and appetizing. Focus on the beauty aspect.
Brands are careful about how they depict their products. Be mindful of how they usually present them—it's important to consider this in general.
Look at The Mill’s Skittles commercials—the fun factor is present. Many of them feature a character eating and benefiting from something weird and quirky happening with the Skittles. For example, the red one could make him go "ooo," and he keeps eating and painting.
Having trouble understanding his mic, but he was questioning the intention behind the center Skittle's placement. Make it different.
The painting should be a little bigger—it feels low resolution. The Skittles are too large. Make the whole canvas bigger, with more detail and more Skittles.
Professor Fowler:
Talking through your previs specifics is a good approach.
Adjustments
Changing Da Vinci into a female artist during the Renaissance/Baroque era, most likely Artemisia Gentileschi.
Problem: Why is there a red Skittle on the palette? Where did it come from, and why is it only one color? We need a more surprising way to introduce the red Skittle on the palette.
Solution offered by mentor: Maybe there’s a pack or bag, and it gets poured out like it’s the last one.
Another possible solution: The world is black and white except for the Skittles—every flavor of Skittles is always in color.
Feedback from Mazyar: Needs production design and film help with costumes and the environment. Also, consider the end card and fonts at the end.
Solution: Sydney has contacted a MOME person and found someone with an awesome costume and a Hair and Makeup artist.
Problem: Still searching for an actress to play Artemisia.
Feedback from DB: Do they break Skittles in commercials? Make it look beautiful and appetizing. Focus on the beauty aspect.
Solution: We are no longer going to show the destruction of a Skittle. Instead, we will highlight its details and do another simulation to accentuate the beauty of the Skittle.
Notes taken by Kulin.
Task
Effects R&D + tests
Pipeline test(Karma)
Shooting - 9/22/2024 8am in Wallin Hall
Another inspiration we found from previous commercials: 6:22 to 6:50.
Update Storyboard
some footage to experiment with camera movement and blocking
DP: Sydney
9/19/2024
Today, our storyboard artist adjusted the storyboard based on our new story, and she also created an animatic storyboard to check the timing.
The changes we made include moving the camera to avoid breaking the 180-degree rule, and keeping the Skittles in color while everything else in the scene remains black and white. When the painter throws a Skittle onto the canvas, everything turns colorful.
storyboard artist: Lin Lin
Storyboard Updated
USD test in farm
9/18/2024
Since I'm not familiar with Karma and USD workflows in Solaris, I decided to run a test to better understand the pipeline, including lighting and materials. After consulting with Saw and Davis, I successfully rendered using Karma USD on the render farm.
I began by setting up the geometry I wanted to render and used a USD export to save it as a USD file. Then, I referenced the USD file back into the stage and used the material library to assign materials to the geometry path.
In the material library, I added an mtlxMaterial and connected an mtlxStandard node to the surface output.
Once I added the camera and lights, I placed down a KarmaRenderSettings node. Finally, I used the USD_ROP to export the USD file and uploaded the entire folder to the render farm, using Houdini 20.5.
