Need to become a Film Maker/Visual Effects Artist

[Joe 90]

Evening guys, well today saw the first lecture of the visual effects section of one of my final year modules.

Our task for the next 8 weeks is to produce a piece of film between 10 & 30 seconds, featuring live action and some kind of visual effects.

To quote from the brief;

Create a digital movie using a variety of special effects techniques but to include at
least one of the following:
• Rag doll simulations
• Green screening
• Motion tracking
The movie must:
• Show interaction between real footage and computer generated assets,
• Be a QuickTime movie which can play on the SHU PCs in lab 9141
• Be in Standard Definition Widescreen resolution
• Be between 10 and 30 seconds in length,
• Be under 10 Megabytes

I'm not a film maker, nor a visual artist (beyond my photoshop work and photography!) - and I've never shot a video of anything other than stuff on a night out!

If anybody has any ideas for something that could work out quite good, without being too complicated, I'd be much appreciative as last time I found my animation story from you guys ;D
(http://www.youtube.com/user/Showuk#p/a/u/0/9TrVVZMj7KU)

We were shown some pretty awesome examples today, but I've still not thought of anything :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IU_reTt7Hj4

[Kitten]

If anybody has any ideas for something that could work out quite good, without being too complicated, I'd be much appreciative as last time I found my animation story from you guys ;D
(http://www.youtube.com/user/Showuk#p/a/u/0/9TrVVZMj7KU)


Awww!! Much heartage, how sweet!

[Joe 90]

The entire collection of animations from last semester were shown in class today, and mine got a laugh from most of the group which was reassuring ;D

And I think I've now got an idea for this movie - shoot the streets of sheffield from up at the top of one of the big uni buildings, with some street level shots possibly, and then have like a giant Pac-man & ghosts moving along the streets eating buses!

Hopefully it wont be too hard, I just need to figure out what software needs to be used - any ideas? Max & After Effects I'm guessing, but not entirely sure If a Max model needs animating or whether that can all be done in AE