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BREAKDOWN 001 - Princess Mononoke
🕑 Added 2018-04-08 07:28:52 +0000 UTC Welcome to the first photoshoot breakdown. With this series of articles I hope to go through what goes into a shoot from planning (some have lots and others have none at all), what the costumes are and where they are from to give the shoot context, location selection, lighting the subject and how to build up lighting, gear used and much more. The plan is to shoot more with these breakdowns in mind so I capture more settings and BTS footage to make this more educational as we go forward. This was my first attempt at one of these as I'm someone who shoots without thinking too much about what I'm doing so it’s been an interesting process breaking it down for a document.I shoot on full manual but the camera captures all this data in the images but what it doesn't capture is light power settings. I do alter these a bit on the fly so it is difficult information to capture but I'll see what I can work out.
So let’s get to it....
Character Origins
Princess Mononoke is a 1997 Japanese animated epic historical fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, animated by Studio Ghibli and originally released on July 12th 1997. The story follows the young Emishi prince Ashitaka's involvement in a struggle between the gods of a forest and the humans who consume its resources.
TRAILER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OiMOHRDs14
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Mononoke
Character Descriptions
San, otherwise known as Princess Mononoke or the "Wolf Girl," is a character in Princess Mononoke. She acts, behaves, and resembles a wolf due to the fact that she was raised by wolves. San is the Princess of the Wolf Gods. When San was a baby, the wolf goddess Moro attacked her parents, who were found damaging the forest. Her parents threw San to their feet to save themselves and ran away. Moro raised San as her own daughter, and in turn San treats Moro as her mother and Moro's two natural pups as siblings.
http://studio-ghibli.wikia.com
Cosplay Design & Creations
This version on San is based on a design by Pretzl Cosplay. The design was originally a commission for Katana Cosplay who wanted a version of Princess Mononoke depicting her as even more badass and with armour.
https://www.facebook.com/pretzlcosplay
Adelaide cosplayer Lydia made her costume out of worbla over the last two weeks in March 2017 leading up to Adelaide Oz Comic Con. Here are some of the progress shots from her Facebook page:
Shoot Planning
Lydia and I first discussed shooting her Mononoke in Feb 2017 when she was in the planning phase for the build but due to different factors it took us a year to get around to it. At the start of January 2018 we discussed it again but my main light, which had exploded during a Christmas shoot, was still in getting repaired. Most weekends for a while were already earmarked for other shoots but I could use the lead time to put a callout for a dog to play Moro.
So in early January I put a post up asking if anyone had a large white Husky, Samoyed, or Malamute. The good thing about having a fairly decent user base meant I got a good number of responses. While I liked a look of a couple of the dogs and they might be great for future projects, all the white dogs looked a bit friendly and the one I liked in the bottom right corner turned out to be interstate.
I had done a similar shoot in 2015 and used an amazing fluffy Samoyed named Kuma but he was such a happy dog and couldn’t look mean if he tried. So for this shoot I wanted a dog with a more serious guarded expression and obviously more wolf like.
So I was still without a Moro when a friend who owns a photo studio messaged Advance Behavioural Training about a dog they had used previously in a Music Clip and other projects and I was introduced to Kayan. As soon as I saw his picture and that stare I knew he was the one. And it turns out Kayan was a rescue dog from the RSPCA which is obviously close to my heart so it worked out perfectly.
The other issue of course is scale, Moro is big. When standing he is taller than San. It’s something I tend to ignore. We could try force perspective and put Moro closer to camera to make Moro look bigger, or just photoshop the scale but I tend to approach things like this from a less literal standpoint. It’s San and a white dog, the motifs are there and so it works.
Location
There is a riverbed near my house which I have used for a couple shoots in the past and most recently for an Ewok shoot. It has some beautiful and varied textures and it is very convenient being so close.
It's only a viable location about 2-3 months of the year when its dry as it obviously has water in it the rest of the year. I was worried leading up to the shoot as the weather report said 60% chance of rain. When I awoke that morning there had been some rainfall overnight. This presented a number of concerns, firstly how much water there would be in the riverbed, and secondly the large rocks become extremely slippery and precarious when wet. Something I experienced first hand when in 2016 on a shoot there it rained for like 20 seconds and I slipped on a rock and actually thought I’d broken my ankle! So with my mobility issue now it was not something I was looking forward to. When we arrived at the location at about 10am there was a number of water pools about the place throughout the riverbed which had me concerned.
So I decided to alter the plan. Next to the river were a couple of trees creating a beautiful natural enclosure with a floor of leaves and I made the call to start there as it was less dangerous, didn't involve me crawling on my hands to get into place and lastly I was concerned the images might look too similar to the ewok shots if I used the same location so close to that shoot. You can use the same location but you generally have to give it some time so natural changes occur.
I had remembered to pack a towel and placed this on the wet ground and spent most of the shoot lying on it. You basically want to take all photos from a lying and sitting position (or up high) but avoid shooting at general standing height.
Gear
I usually over pack, thinking I need so much more than I actually use, or plan really complicated lighting but when I get on set it just doesn't logistically work out. So this is a list of gear actually used in the shoot.
Lighting Setup - Background and Ambient light
My go-to starting position for my main light basically follows the rules of Rembrandt lighting.
Rembrandt lighting can be achieved with one key light that is placed approximately 1.5m from the model at an angle of 45 degrees to the side of the camera and roughly 80cms above their eye level angled downwards.
1 | I set up my main light to my left, braced up against a tree branch* at a 45 degree angle to my model position with the light angled down at approximately 45 degrees and took a test shot. All the setting were still those from the previous shoot a week earlier but I had a starting point for adjustments.
TIP - I often carry velcro stips because they have so many uses. One I use a lot is if you can position a light stand against a branch you can wrap velcro around the stand and branch to better secure it, especially if it's windy.
2 | I turned my flash trigger off because the first thing I wanted to do is get my ambient background exposure. There was a lot of cloud cover which I really appreciate for creating an almost perfect even light but in the trees the image was exposing darker that I expected considering my settings. My first instinct was to drop the shutter speed to brighten up the background. I have always had an almost irrational desire to leave my ISO at around 100 and in the past have compromised shots by adjusting other settings when ISO would have produced a better result. The one issue with lowing the shutter speed is you have to tell the model to be quite still which is generally fine but when you have a dog in shot this in near impossible so I decided to roll the ISO up instead.
3 | The image with slightly lower shutter speed but still at 1/100 F3.5 and the ISO up at 640 was getting close to how I wanted the background to look in the photos. I know it's easy to darken areas in post.
4 | The same shot now with the light trigger back on. With the extra light from the flash it was lighting the greenery up a little more so I rolled the aperture down to 3.2F
5 | With models in place I did a final background check without lights. I was happy with how the background was looking and then it was time to concentrate on lighting the subjects. This was just setting up a starting point. As I moved the model both the background exposure and lights would need to be adjusted to suit.
Here is image 5 again compared this time to image 6 (below), where all setting are the same except one is with the main light off and the other with the main light on. In image 6 I have also added a hairlight on the back right of the camera. This created the white glow around the edge of the character you can see primarily on the fur.
Lighting Setup - Building Up the Light
Later in the shoot I wanted to tweak the lighting so I started building up the lights again from the back to the front. As you can see the camera setting for images 7-11 do not change, with a small tweak to image 12. So this sequence was just turning on or tweaking lights.
7 | Once again I started with a shot with no lights on at all. So this was a shot just so I could see what the background would look like with the ambient light.
8 | Next I turn on my Canon 600EX with the yellow gel that was located at the back left of the camera. I put it behind the tree so the truck could act as a gobo or flag which was something between the light and the camera to stop lens flare. The light was pointing at the back of the model but also pointing at the camera. To start with, the yellow was a bit brighter than I wanted.
9 | I dropped the power down on the Canon 600EX with the yellow gel, till I was happy.
10 | I then turned on the hairlight which was my MARS3 bare head and I could see how it lit up the end of my model.
11 | I then turned on my main light and I could see all three lights working together.
12 | Lastly I rolled the shutter speed down which brightened the background.
It's definitely worth it to have a trigger that allows you to turn off and on light groups and adjust them on the fly. It makes it easy to see what each one is doing.
Let’s take a look at the lighting setup for this series of shots and some examples taken with this lighting.
This lighting setup was used in the following image but with the MARS3 turned off.
Exposure 1/50sec F6.4 50mm ISO640 (with Flash) - The colours were altered in post and the light-rays added.
Exposure 1/50sec F6.4 50mm ISO640 (with Flash)
POSING
Lydia turned up on set realising she had left a major part of the costume at home, the knee/skin pads (which you can see in the build progress shots at the start of this article). As she lives over an hour away from the shoot location we just had to carry on without them. Most cosplay costumes are very complicated with many parts and this is something that happens a lot. While they would looked amazing in the standing shots it would have made sitting and kneeling very difficult, and this is something I wanted Lydia to do in the shot because shooting with an animal there can be a disconnect if the subject is standing so I wanted Lydia closer to the ground so their faces were at a similar level.
The other consideration when working with an animal is you will never be sure when they will strike the perfect pose or expression so you need to be ready. More importantly your model has to be ready. They need to stay in character so when the dog hits a pose the model looks good. If the model is too concerned about what the dog is doing or trying to get the animal to do something you can miss a shot altogether.
I did however tell Lydia to be aware of what Kayan was doing and almost follow his lead in terms of posing in particular head position. So depending on what he was doing she would either match or do the opposite. If he stopped and stared at something Lydia would look in same direction. if he looked higher she would look up as well but in the opposite direction as if they were scouting , If Kayan looked up at her she would look at him to try and capture an unspoken moment.
After a series of shots I'd let Kayan have a run around just so he didn't get to fidgety staying in place too long. We didn't use treats during the shoot to make Kayan look at camera as the animal becomes too preoccupied with them. He did get treats during his breaks though.
EFFECTS
I haven't used smoke effects on a shoot in a while but thought I'd bring along to this shoot because it can add atmosphere to a shot, but physical effects can be tricky to control.
I am very careful when using smoke effects in terms of safety. I have a smoke kit that, apart from the various smoke cartridges, includes a BBQ lighter to light them safely, heat resistant gloves and a fire extinguisher in case of an emergency. Fire is involved when lighting the cartridges and they do flare a bit when first lit so it’s for this reason I always have safety gear on hand but luckily I have never needed to use it. I also only use smoke effects when the temperature is below about 26 degrees C. South Australia is a very hot and dry place, particularly in summer, and I don't take any chances.
Secondly I'm very careful with letting people know what we are doing. If you in the middle of nowhere it’s generally okay as we are never going to produce enough smoke to cause an issue but with this shoot we were next to a road and we didn't want anyone panicking. We printed out large signs and posted them in both direction next to the road so if anyone did see smoke they wouldn't assume it was a bushfire.
Thirdly we lit a test cartridge in full view of Kayan so he could see it and get used it before we started using them behind him. Apparently smoke was used on a film project he was on and it came from behind him and freaked him out, so to avoid any issues we made sure he was comfortable.
The main logistical issue with smoke is getting it to go where you want. Smoke is greatly affected by wind and even the smallest breeze will dissipate it in no time. It also affects where you place the smoke as you want it to move across your scene not blow out of it.
For this shoot the wind kept changing and one moment it was hanging where we want other times it was blowing out of shot so one side had smoke and the other didn't instead of a nice even distribution. Sometimes, like the image below, the smoke came forward and obscured our models.
With the image below the smoke was placed directly behind Lydia but the small breeze carried it to camera right, so the smoke on the left was added in post to balance the shot out.
Kodama are prominently featured in Hayao Miyazaki's film Princess Mononoke, in which they are portrayed as small, white humanoids with large, rattling heads and mask-like features (similar to bobbleheads).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodama_(spirit)
Anytime a movie has iconic imagery it good to work into the photos.
Kodama are spirits in Japanese folklore that inhabit trees, similar to the dryads of Greek mythology. The term is also used to denote a tree in which a kodama supposedly resides. The phenomenon known as yamabiko, when sounds make a delayed echoing effect in mountains and valleys, is sometimes attributed to this kind of spirit, and may also be referred to as "kodama".
There article doesn't cover a lot of the post processing in this series but here is a 3 panel comparison of out of camera, raw processing and final Photoshop processing.
Time for a selfie with Kayan.
That's a wrap!
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Characters: San and Moro
Universe: Princess Mononoke
Date: 24th February 2018
Location: Coromandel Valley, SA, Australia
San: Lilla Bee Cosplay
https://www.facebook.com/LillaBeeCosplay
Moro: Kayan
https://www.facebook.com/advancebehaviouraltraining
Photographer: Steamkittens
https://www.facebook.com/steamkittens
Costume design: Pretzl Cosplay
https://www.facebook.com/pretzlcosplay
Assistant: Ren Panno
Assistant: Leighlan Doe
Shoot Time: 2 hours
Total Frames: 502
