After the filters arrived, I decided not to wait to use an actual camera and just test out the kaleidoscope filter with my phone camera. I was really happy with how this looked, and while I'm excited to see how this will look when actually attached to a lens, I found it quite interesting seeing how the effect changed when the filter was moved around and twisted, which won't be possible when on the actual camera, so seeing how that will turn out will be interesting. For this test video I also decided to take some of the footage that I didn't end up using in the concept video and try recreating some of the Kaleidoscope effects I'd seen in films digitally. For this post I'd like to look at the filter and the shots that I liked with it, as well as talk about the digital effects and how I think they looked.
The Filter
The filter itself did basically what I was hoping it would do, and while I was originally a bit concerned about how many facets it had and whether that may reflections wouldn't look how I wanted it too, I was pleasantly surprised by how it looked overall. While the effect itself isn't too new, I found it very interesting playing around with how changing the distance can create different distortions. Looking back at the video now, I can see that I didn't include examples of this filter when brought right up to the phone camera, but as you can see in the picture on the left, it creates only two or three reflections and can be quite subtle and dreamlike. When the camera is so far away you can see the rim of the lens, the reflections are very small and separated, but it was fun trying to see how much the image could be distorted while still making out some elements. The image on the right is a good example of this. I loved how it turned out, and while it may not be appropriate to use regularly, I think that this use will fit into a specific moment in the film, maybe one of the dream sequences or with candles in the church scene
Something else that happened when testing this out was the light refracting in unexpected ways, as seen below, occasionally there would be small rainbows on parts of the screen, and the white light separated into blue and red. While I really enjoyed these and would be interested to see how to recreate them, I feel like using this filter and trying to make this happen won't be realistic on set as it seems quite random. I will test out different lights to see how this can be achieved, but overall it may be something that I can't plan for. If I'm looking for a rainbow flare I still think a refraction filter is the best option.
Digital Effects
For the digital effects, I edited on premier pro and used a mixture of masking, keyframimg, and lots of layers. For the effect on the right, I tried to recreate what this looked like in psych out. This was originally the plan for my concept video, but at that point I didn't have enough time to work out how to do it. My main worry was that I wasn't sure how to get the separate images moving so that it was more of a circular motion than just straight lines, and I didn't want to have to do this frame by frame. In the end, I just put in one keyframe for where I wanted them to start and end, and while they do move in straight lines I think that the speed and diagonal direction gives this illusion quite nicely. I may look into making this more circular but overall this came out exactly how I was picturing it. While I know it doesn't look realistic it does remind me of effects used in the 60s and how they didn't look as polished as they might be now.
The effect on the left was just a test to see if this would work on a shot that was more close up and not straight on. Doing this with an object or set may have worked better, and while I do think this looks interesting I think that for doing close up shots the practical effect is more interesting. I'd like to explore this further as I like how it plays with distortion.
The last digital effect was inspired by last night in soho and the hexagon shape that one of the scenes reflections had, as well as them being different sizes. While the shot I was basing this off of had more movement, and the reflections also moved quite similarly to the first example, I decided to make this version just to see how shape and size would change how this effect feels for the viewer. In Last Night In Soho this was used during a very intense scene to create a sense of distress, and while this wasn't my goal for my own shot, it does feel a bit too overwhelming. I think maybe having the images move would have actually made the shot feel more cohesive, since the action in the shot has so much movement, these images being static doesn't feel like it fits with the shot overall. Also looking at that shot, in addition to different sizes, they also had the images at different opacity levels, which I would also like to try. In my next round of experimentation I will try this again, maybe using a different shape and including movement to see how this can be made more effective.
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