Monroville said:
adywan said:
Monroville said:
Even so, it would make more sense (to me) to show the Falcon moving away from us, since that is what it was doing in the previous shot as it was leaving the underbelly of the frigate, as opposed to just veering off to the left. That's all I'm sayin'.I tried it with the falcon just flying straight towards it, but in the final shot there was nothing to see. The falcon works best if it veers off to the left and in the final shot we can see it in the distance flying off screen
Understandable; I never thought that the Falcon would already be pretty small in the picture and having it fly directly away from us could get it lost in the galaxy image.
I guess maybe actually show the Falcon heading directly away and veer to the left/lower left (or even more to the center left of the screen)? That way you still have a good profile of the Falcon, and altering the left turn towards the lower end of the screen as opposed to the higher end would keep it in the same general plane of space it was when it left from underneath the frigate.
Overall, I'm just a composition guy. It's not a big deal, but the Falcon always looked weird just flying off to the upper left corner the way it does.
Okay adywan, I've been meaning to bring up a few things to do with the whole 'galaxy' sequence ever since Monroville first brought it up on page 146 in 2008. (but I knew it would need a long post to describe properly, so kept putting it off, lol) Better late than never, I guess! :)
Since then, you've confirmed that you think of the 'celestial object' as being a distant 'star' that's forming, as opposed to being the distant 'galaxy' where Han is being kept prisoner. And your interpretation certainly works for me, as it makes sense of Lando's eventual 'wayward' flightpath upwards to the left, and away from the 'celestial object', if this is the case...
(Alternatively, for anyone that still wants to look on the original effect as a 'galaxy' as described in the screenplay...well, it's not necessarily the one where Tatooine and Han are located...and could just be a *random* 'Star Wars galaxy' seen in the far distance...which would equally account for why the Falcon currently flies away in a different direction from it, instead of heading towards it)
Either way, I see you've also now confirmed that you're planning on keeping a similar Falcon flightpath in the overall sequence, as seen originally. However, there are a couple of things I'd like to bring up about the Falcon's current trajectory between the various shots, so I've organised these screenshots of the sequence to help me explain my thoughts better to everyone, as I go along (but you really need to study the actual footage to see the proper movements, of course) -
Shot 1. At the start of this shot below, the Falcon is 'hovering' and turning around a little, just slightly below and along from the position where the window with Luke, Leia, R2 and C3PO is situated 'offscreen' on the left of the frame. As it does this, the 'Medical Frigate' continues to move along to the left...so that by the time the Falcon finally blasts away near the end of the shot, the 'offscreen' window is a good bit away to the left of it at this point...
Shot 2. ...we then cut to this next shot below (I didn't have time to grab the exact start and finish of this, so you'd need to study the footage) which shows the Falcon now appearing from a point underneath the middle of the window, as it heads towards the right-hand side of the 'celestial body' in the distance, and ends up roughly in line with, and just slightly to the right of the 'small white dot', before the shot ends...
...but the Falcon's appearance from underneath the middle of the 'Medical Frigate's window here has always seemed wrong to me, due to the fact that the window had moved quite a bit away from the position from where the 'hovering' Falcon blasted away in Shot 1 just beforehand.
However, judging by the angle of the Falcon in adywan's recent new screenshot below, it looks like this problem is 'fixed' now, and will tie-in far better with the previous shot...
So far so good, and this new shot looks great.
Shot 3. ...but we then cut to this next shot of Leia and Luke looking out at the Falcon...
...and this is where my own particular problems with the sequence start...because as the shot progresses (and again, I didn't have time to grab a shot from the very end of this, so you'd need to study the footage), not only do their eyes 'follow' the flight of the Falcon upwards, but they also slowly look over to (their) right...especially Leia, who is looking quite a bit over to her right by the very end of the shot. And bear in mind that the 'Medical Frigate' is still continuing to travel to Leia's right during this shot too...so this makes the Falcon's existing position that we previously saw at the very end of Shot 2 seem as if it didn't go far enough over to the right of that shot, before it eventually starts to 'veer around' offscreen during this one...
So I reckon that Leia's 'eye-line' here indicates that the Falcon should have been seen to pass 'across' her viewpoint a bit more to the right in Shot 2, compared to what it currently shows...and I'm hoping that adywan's new Falcon trajectory in Shot 2 is going to show that.
Shot 4. ...we then cut to this 'closer' shot of the Falcon, which happens to be my own biggest bugbear with the overall sequence...because although it certainly follows the look of the original 'storyboard' closely, I've always disliked this particular effects shot...mainly because it always looks to me as if the Falcon is just flying closely over the top of a very tiny 'celestial body' here!...
...and there's something else that I find jarring about this shot too, although it's a bit tricky to get across - as I say, I don't think the Falcon ended up far enough over to the right by the end of Shot 2, judging by how far over to the right that Leia is looking by the end of Shot 3...but I also don't think the starting position of the Falcon in this 'closer' shot of the 'celestial body' ties-in very well with where the Falcon ended up at the very end of Shot 2 either (and once again you need to watch the footage as I didn't have time to grab the very beginning of this shot)...because previously in Shot 2, the 'celestial body' was centrally located in the shot compared to where Luke and Leia were looking out, and it was moving slowly to their left in the shot due to the travel of the 'Medical Frigate' they were aboard...and that was before Leia then carried on looking to her right to watch the Falcon's (offscreen) trajectory.
My point is this - to make sense of the Falcon's direction at the start of this 'closer' shot of the 'celestial body' compared to where we last saw it at the end of Shot 2, I ideally imagine the Falcon has just ended 'veering around' (offscreen) at the moment that Leia is most looking up to her right at the very end of Shot 3...but it always seems that the Falcon should be further to the right of the frame here at the very start of this shot, than it currently is...or should even be actually entering the far right of the frame, to better match where Leia's 'eye-line' had been looking previously...
However, at the moment I don't know where adywan's new trajectory in Shot 2 is going to end up in the frame when the shot finishes...so I'm interested to see if it ends up further over to the right of the shot than in the existing version, so that it takes Leia's continued 'look to her right' in Shot 3 into consideration.
But whether the Falcon finishes up in roughly the same position by the end of Shot 2 as is currently shown, or not...there's still a couple of possible variations that I reckon might be worth considering for this later, 'closer' shot of the 'celestial body'. I think it's because the Falcon element in Shot 4 doesn't seem to 'recede into the distance' very much, that always makes me think the 'celestial body' looks tiny as the Falcon heads towards it/passes closely over it...so I'd personally prefer to see the existing Falcon removed and replaced with a more obviously 'receding' Falcon element from another shot instead (if that's possible)...which would perhaps give a 'bigger scale' to the 'celestial object' in relation to it...
Here's a few screenshots/descriptions that will hopefully give an indication of the kind of thing I mean, since I've not got mock-ups organised. Okay, this first Falcon replacement example is from 'A New Hope', and shows a more obviously 'receding' Falcon than the current one seen in Shot 4. I reckon that if this element could be added to start further to the right of Shot 4 than the current Falcon does, close to the edge of the frame...that this would tie-in better with where Leia was previously looking, and improve the 'scale' of the 'celestial object' -
...alternatively...since it's a 'seperate camera-angle' shot that's sandwiched between the reaction shots of Leia/Luke and R2/C3PO either side of it, I also reckon that a totally different-looking Falcon approach towards the general direction of the 'celestial object' could be used for Shot 4 altogether, that would give a more dramatic and 'close-up' visual of Lando and Chewie leaving to look for Han at the end of the movie... You'd need to watch the footage to see the full effect, but this particular 'receding' Falcon example below is from 'A New Hope' (soon after the end of the Death Star escape/TIE dogfight), and starts it's trajectory by 'entering' the bottom of the frame, close to our viewpoint -
...and here's another possible version. Again, you'd need to watch the footage to see the full effect, but this particular 'receding' Falcon example below is from 'Return of the Jedi' (where the Falcon veers underneath the 'Medical Frigate' during the space battle), and starts it's trajectory by 'entering' the right of the frame, close to our viewpoint. This particular element veers to the left a little then moves upwards towards the end of the shot -
If either of these bottom 2 examples were to be used, then the prominent 'small white dot' seen near the top of the 'celestial body' could be moved nearer towards the central 'orb' in Shot 4 to help give the impression that we are seeing the Falcon approach the 'celestial body' from an angle more to the right of it...that ties-in somewhat with the position that Leia was last looking towards at the end of Shot 3. (Unlike the example at the top though, I guess the 'engine roar' would need to be boosted up a little for either of these 2 examples, since they start off 'closer' to our viewpoint)
Shot 5. ...we then cut to this next shot below of R2 and C3PO looking out...
Shot 6. ...we then cut to this next shot below (which shows the very start of it), which shows the Falcon's existing final flightpath as it moves upwards to the left of the frame and away from the 'celestial' body...then disappears from our view altogether, before the shot ends a couple of seconds later...
Final thought - adywan, I know you're also planning to keep the tiny Falcon's current trajectory going upwards to the left in this final shot, but perhaps you'd consider making it eventually 'recede' into 'nothingness' as it travels away from the 'celestial body'? Thing is, the existing tiny Falcon element stays at roughly the same size during this shot, which kind of makes the 'celestial body' seen here seem very small in comparison too...so making it more obviously 'recede' into the distance here would help to give the 'celestial body' a bigger 'scale' in this shot...and would also help to tie-in with the Falcon's previous 'momentum' if you do decide to replace the existing Falcon element in Shot 4 with a more 'receding' one...
At the end of the day, I'm looking forward to whatever you end up doing in this sequence, as I know your blue engine glows are gonna look great throughout. :)