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Pitch Video
A level 3 VFX students FMP
Pitch Video
A level 3 VFX students FMP
Secondary Research
Maps, Tsunamis and the islands
Historical research
looking into hakata bay and the outlying islands
The GenkÅ BÅrui
The man bulk of my research is going to be about the details surrounding the conflict that was the Mongol invasions, the biggest part of this is arguably the maps and locations in which the battles both diplomatic and physical happened, the main three places are the islands of Tsushima and Iki as well as the cataclysmic battle site of Hakata bay.
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To the right is a picture of modern Hakata bay:
Now as ancient Japan wasn't the best a keeping maps I will have to go off of modern recreations or just plain old modern maps of the area, same goes for both Tsushima and Iki, I will also use maps from YouTube docs as references when creating my own.
What is much more significant to me is the Hakata sea wall also known as the GenkÅ BÅrui (genkÅ being the term for the invasions by the Mongols)
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Below is a map from Stephenn Turnbulls book: 'The Mongol Invasions of Japan, 1274 and 1281'
It shows the apparent locations of the GenkÅ BÅrui and the Japanese defensive line.
There is a wealth of evidence to show the BÅrui being both a real and majorly important factor in the both the battles of Hakata, from paintings at the time (above right) to the still remaining base stones that you can see to this day (right).
There where a number of excavations over a period from 1968 to 2000 they all found similar stone and clay formations it was discovered to go for around 12 miles all along the west coast of Kyushu.
After the first invasion the wall was again strengthened by the order of hojo Tokimune the regent shogun, for the feared second invasions, this is more than likely what the archaeologist found in many of the dig sites.
When the battle was joined both times at Hakata the sea wall was a major advantage for the defenders as stated before.
I plan to really emphasise this in the video as there will be a section explaining the significance of how it gave the defenders a substantial force multiplier and stopped the Mongols from effectively using there most devastating and famous unit: hoarse archers.
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Im sure if the defenders didn't have the sea wall they would of been pushed back quickly, if the Mongols were allowed to fully secure a beachhead and lead raids the severity of the eventual kamikaze would be much reduced.
tsushima and Iki
And the spirited defences of the outlaying islands
In this section of research I plan on giving a overview of what happened to the defences of the two large outlying islands of Tsushima and Iki, This will be a relatively in depth retelling I've written to detail the characters and actions they take whilst defending there clan and people. There are few written accounts of the battles as most who were on the islands were slaughtered once the they were overrun.
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These battles live on in popular memory in japan and I feel it would be a waste of a tragic but heroic story if I didn't include it.
After putting this on my website I realised I probably should of done this the other way round but I feel like the islands in the grand scheme of the invasion take a back seat to the Hakata wall and the conflict on the mainland, If you remember my pitch Tsushima and Iki were relegated to a line or two.
This doesn't mean that they aren't important enough to be included in the video as the actions of SÅ Sukekuni the shugo (governor) of Tsushima who was quick to send word of the first invasion to the government in Kamakura ensuring that the mainland would have time to prepare and rally an army.
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There are few first hand accounts accounts of what happened one such text being the SÅ Shi Kafu a historical text following the history of the SÅ clan, the kafu states that the main landing site was at Komoda beach, which I can't seem to find photos of (save the one on the right)
The Mongols landed and deployed there troops to be met with volleys after volleys of arrows from Sukekunis around 80 defenders. one man; Sukesada was said to have cut down 25 Mongol warriors untill he was killed by arrows. The battle went on until nightfall when Sukekuni loosed the last of his arrows and lead a final hopeless cavalry charge into the Mongol lines it was then that he was slain, and Tsushima overrun.
I do plan on adding this battle to the video as I feel it defiantly warrants recognition of Sukekunis actions as it will lead me to a nice point to introduce the shogun. I'm only planning on going over the battles at Tsushima and Iki once as accentually the same thing happened in the second invasion.
Komoda beach
Two samurai on Komoda beach
What happened at Tsushima is basically what happened at Iki except after the initial beach landing Taira no Kagetaka (the governor) along with the remaining populace fell back to hinotsume castle to give one last stand.
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It was recorded that during the siege locals threw whatever they could at the Mongol attackers, this shows just how desperate the fighting was, after a few hours of siege fighting, the Mongols brought up catapults to hurl rocks at the wooden gatehouse, this is when Kagetaka decided to make a final sally with 36 samurai, they fought but were pushed back, seeing hope was lost he and his family commited suicide rather than fall into enemy hands.
A quote from the translated SÅ Shi Kafu by Stephan Turnbull
When it comes time to design the map of the beach battlegrounds I will more that likely draw off of other costal regions near to where the battle actually happened. there are other creators who seem to have done similar things.
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To the right is a screen capture from the video: 'Real Ghost of Tsushima - Mongol Invasion of Japan DOCUMENTARY' from the history channel Kings and Generals. I realy like there design of the map as well as the representation of a characters 'unit' in this case being Sukekuni, I think this is a feature I will try to include into my video.
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I do plan to contact them to ask about the creation of such battle maps and troop blocks, especially when there isn't much or any substantial historical information about them in terms of appearance as again historical accuracy is something I'm striving for.
A little about the book: THE MONGOL INVASIONS OF JAPAN 1274 AND 1281
By Stephan Turnbull
When it came time to think about our FMPs the most important thing I knew I had to get right was the research, this is why straight away I went looking for a book of some sort, as most of the time they are well sourced and veted for errors, this was important for me because I wanted my research sources to be quite varied and I knew historical subjects are almost guarantied to have books about them somewhere, I also want my project to be a way to get people interested in the subject and I cant do that If I don't have the proper and correct information.
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I knew who Stephan Turnbull was before I even conceptualised this project, hes a pretty well regarded Historian and has advised on many historical films games and other media all centred around Japan, most recently he was one of the 'talking heads' in the docu-series: 'Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan'.
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I've already sited this book a few times in the above research, to do with the translated SÅ Shi Kafu as well as names and deeds of many of the defenders on Tsushima and Iki. however the book covers the entirety of the conflict from start to finish, id say its a quintessential guide to the not just the battles but the preparation and instigating actions that preceded the invasions.
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I'm covering this because there is a number of things in this book that has massively furthered my knowledge on the subject, most will be incorporated into the script and planning of the video some examples will be highlighted below.
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Within the first few pages there is a chronology of events starting with the birth of Kublai Khan in 1215 and with the fall of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368, this is obviously helpful as I can now put a date and relative time to each action in the war.
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The illustrations, especially the maps make a huge difference to the digestibility of the book as a whole and help me out a lot as I couldn't get many good pictures of hakata bay as talked about above so the inclusion of such detailed battle maps will help not just the creation of my own maps but the scripting for the battles as well, I would of Included photos of these but most of them are two page spreads.
Over the course of this research stage I have read this book cover to cover a few times.
Visual effects
And animation I wish to emulate
Within my project there is going to be a large amount of animation mostly in after effects, but to do that I have to have stuff to animate, troop blocks, flags and maps.
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Now I didn't just suddenly know all this stuff, throughout my time on the VFX course I have developed many of my skills in motion graphics due to YouTube videos, here I will list and talk about the kind of things I think are going to be important for the video.
Not all of these will be Included in the Experimental research tab as I'm saving that for more specific things that might encompass a number of the skills shown here.
Video 1 - How to make a map
Here is the video I plan to use to figure out how I'm going to be making my maps, of both mainland Asia and japan as well as the islands of Tsushima and Iki.
Before watching this video I honestly had little idea on how I was going to go about creating the maps, but now with enough reference pictures and the help from this video, I'm now sure ill be able to create a aesthetically pleasing and functional map to animate in After effects.
Video 2 - How to use the camera tool
Video 3 - Improve audio quality
I've used the camera tool in a good few of my projects so far to both make transitions as well as to give the impression of a 3d environment when using 2d assets.
I used and plan to use a lot of the techniques outlined in this video to make the parts of my project that will only have still pictures, more entertaining as well as to make it stand out from other people making similar content.
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With the knowledge on how to work the camera tool as well as create transitions with it I'm sure I can up the quality of my work from a motion perspective.
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Video 4 - 2d to 3d images
This will be the first video I will site in my experimental tab as the audio is the printable thing I'm concerned with, the quality of the audio can make or break a project when it comes to audience retention, but ill get more into that in the next tab.
This is a video I've use before but to a much more limited degree, I simply just used the noise reduction feature whereas I'm going to be testing how the other effects applied in the video work and if it'll help me improve my audio quality.
All the principles of in terms of the effects to apply will also be useful now I'm going to be using audition for my audio editing.
This video will be used to supplement video 2, it's another way to make 2d images and placeholders there own spectacles it can denote movement and purpose to an otherwise quite possibly quite boring scene, the creator also explains parallax quite well which makes it easy to understand.
Its just something more I can add to my project that I think will keep people interested. Whilst its not shown in this video, an easy way to create a part of an image that isn't there is to use the content aware fill in after effects
This is an effect I've actually used before in this video where I animated a still image. It uses information from the surrounding picture to generate a fake continuation where you mask out.
Sadly I didn't get to end up animating the background with the Camera tool like I wanted to as it was a kind of one day project.
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I am however looking forward to trying both these effects out again!
Video 5 & 6 - Weather in after effects
the first video showcases another effect I used in the creation of my custodies animation, the weather affects were a nice touch in that video but the rain is what's going to be important in this project I need to get it right and not have it look tacky and out of place, honestly I think sound duck did a great job at this. the particle effects settings are really customisable and can be experimented with pretty much endlessly.
But speaking about avoiding tackiness the next videos effect is quite hard to make look good luckily I'm probably only going to need it for one or two scenes. so it will be fun at least when trying to make it work.
Video 7 - Animating a flag
I want to make flags for both the Japanese and Mongols to show where there troops are as well as conquered territory, when searching on how to do this I came across this video, As I've been making a lot of stuff in illustrator I'm certain that I could make a flag to the level I'd be happy with, the only problem could be the way the Yuan flags are shaped as it Isn't a simple rectangle and has lots of tassels that may make it harder to produce.
The guide however is about animating the flag, the whole guide seems pretty easy to follow and the end result is pretty good, I don't know if I will follow the whole thing as it may look a bit too detailed to fit with the rest of my style in terms of the maps and troop blocks.