The Final Piece...

The Natural History Museum Ident:-

N.H.M



I decided to add my final piece, on this very last post to my blog. Firstly just in case for some reason the CD doesn't play, or is corrupted in some sort, so its more or less here for a back up.

I also wanted to make a couple of point about the final animation sequence. Putting all the scenes together was a bit of a challenge because i had to make some changes of the order they suppose to appear as shown on the storyboard i drew out.
As you may noticed, i didn't include the globe scene because after many viewings over and over again, i realise that particular scene wasn't as strong as the others and just didn't really connect nor make sense, so the best option was to get rid of it.

As a whole i realise that i ran way over schedule with my timing. I originally stated on my brief that it will be a max of 10 seconds for my ident, but unfortunately i exceed an extra 31-2 seconds of footage. I couldn't help it as i realise that 10 seconds was very quick, and was quite hard to fit something interesting on such a short time sequence. So overall that was one of the objective's i failed on, and had to mention on this post.

Overall i am happy in the way the ident has turnted out, but has been quite challenging at the same time. I think at the start getting the ideas out and on to paper was abit tricky because i was getting really indecisive and couldn't settle with a positive plan.
But in terms of my new approach to the research, i feel has run alot smoother than the last project, so theres definately improvement in my mind. However i am glad that i did devote this terms project, to 2D. Because i still see this as a learning curve for me as a student, and to continue to try out different aspects of work is positive and clear way to making a right decision for my chosen career path, and as a flexible individual.

Clouds...On Test Run.

Clouds:- Scene 1

To do this, i took the clouds i worked from on photoshop and just merged each cloud to one layer, saving them as an alpha channel as i went along, then uploaded on final cut, and slowly moved each set of clouds, frame by frame starting from either the left or right. I kept the timing very minimal as i didnt want to take any unesscessary seconds, so that the sequence wouldn't play for so long.

The Opening Introduction...Scene 1

Scene 1:-

As i elaborated on previous posts of how i wanted the opening scene to be perfect. This is all the elements i worked on separately finally coming together in one scene. I kept this quite busy with alot of moving images coming in at center point, but moving at a steady pace so that it is easy on the eyes.

Closing Credits..

The "Bones Effect"
Test Run:-



Just a test run of the animated bones spelling out the initials to the museum- N.H.M. To do this, i moved each bone individually, rotating each of them at a pivot point to not lose the positioning of the shape, then it was a case of repeating the process for the remaining lines to spell out the letter.

Popping In...

I just came in today's session to find out if new extensions have been added on to all modules, which is always a good thing. This way i can further work and improve on the existing areas i already have.

Also stated on the email's, a lecture will be held this afternoon by an animation guest lecturer named Ravi Swami. A commercial director user of after effects.
Since this lecturer sounds like he's a whizz on after effects. It will be an excellent opportunity to introduce myself to what after effects can do as well as improve on my skills. So i'll see you there this afternoon....

Painting The Museum...

Sketch of Museum:-
Just a quick sketch of the museum, done very roughly not worrying about the use of lines i used.

Museum
Heres the final look to the museum. It's exactly how it stands today. The idea was i didnt want to change the appearance to the museum because at the end of the day my aim to this project was to promote the museum, attracting visitors to come and see the exhibition and what the museum has to offer.

I did this through my sketch outline of the museum, to start with. The added features such as pillars, staircase, windows etc. were taken from photos i took, and referred back for reference. The colours were all done by smudging, blending and colour burning using photoshop. This took alot of time to get the image perfect to my standard, but i feel the time and effort has paid off.


Just a print screen image of how the final look to the museum.

Mini Me...

Mini Towers...

Next are the set of mini towers, the same like shown below, but will extra buildings attachs. Where i will place these elements are for my opening scene, so the appearance, colour and shape has to look perfect.

Single Towers...

Single:-

These single towers were taken from the main museum structure and cut to individual sizes.
Below are examples of the two towers,

both left and right it shown:-

I'm On CLOUD nine...

As the cheesy tagline states, this post will specifically focus on how i came to tackle the clouds.

Just a quick run through, i drew the clouds very roughly, for my template and started to colour

them with photoshop.


Next i used the smudge tool to bring out the line features to really bring out the character in the clouds.
I remain to keep the look very cartoony, because i didn't want to lose the sense of animation in the piece and is something that would appeal to younger viewers (teenager/younger children)






To my right, is just a blue background in which the clouds willing be passing through from. Kept simple, with simple tones of sky blue and the hint of navy.

SCENE 2-3....

SCENE 2-3:- EMERGING LEAVES - N CUBE

This here is the final layout and structure of scene 2-3 put together. It has come a long way trying to put these elements into the scenes but has worked well in the end. The idea intentionally was when the leaves separate from each other, it reveals a whole new scene, which opens up to the N cube sculpture. I didn't want any scenes to be so obvious, but still include some sort of element of suprise.

BackGround LoGo

For scene 2, as the n cube model appears on screen, i realised that the background looked alittle bare, and needed some element to bring the model alive. So it got me thinking back, to the visit i made at the museum. I could use the logo (above) and duplicate it several times, lining them up in a diagonal line, finished off with a grey scale image. This is so that the background doesn't over power the main feature which is the cube of the scene.

Rhino...Its THREE

1st Running Cycle Test Of Rhino

As it states in the title, the first test experiment of the rhino running cycle. taking my drawings as reference to produce the animation, i drew the rhino's feet down and lifting up, to achieve the run and as i incorporated the drawings in final-cut i just added in between frames to increase cycle and make it to a much smoother result.



I think to improve on this test, i will need to add more frames in between, before the animal takes off and it makes before impact/comtact to the ground...some pointers i'm going to work on.

Part 2...To The Rhino

Shown here are the drawings brought to life with some colour. I chose to texture them using photo shop, clearly because i am alot more confident with the software, also i was able to blend colours and achieve great tonal results whislt changing the brightness and contrast, using the "Smudge" tool.

Rhino image after take off, both feets off the ground, with added dash lines to increase emphasism on impact take off.

Rhino image before take off. Both feet firmly making contact on ground & both feet drawn and aligh in position already to animate run.

Its RhinO...!!!!!

The First Stages Of Building This Fella...

This drawing was brought as the final picture through many, many research on rhinoes and alot of concept drawings. I wanted recreate a sense of realism to the animal so that it would look very effective on the editing process.

Also a few touches on style of drawing and interpretation to the creature. I increase the size of his hump, extended, broader shoulders. Gave him more of a "rabbit ear" effect and finished with a mishaped horn. That's it to the completed rhino design.

Progress Report...

Today was a good day, i was able to test and render out two more scenes to my footage, which i am quite happy about. Through the comments made on the two test videos i ve uploaded, I know how i can improve on the scenes and what needs to be looked into a little more.

Also i just continued to do a little more with my drawings, yet again playing about with differents mediums.

...thats all for now,bye

Pterodactyl & Arches...SCENE..

SCENE 6:- Running Stampede Pterodactyl & Rhinoes

Another test experiment but this time with scene six, the flying Pterodactyl. I feel this worked extremely well with the arches, the chosen colour of the creature really incorporated with scene and really stands out due to the bright ambient lighting which was added in.

The perspective of the dino. was done by placing it at the centre of the arch, to it's far back peak and moving each indiviual frame which was increase one by one by size to achieve the effect of perspective.

Much GREENER On The Other Side....

Scene 2:- Leaves Animation Test 2

For this second attempt of the leaves, they were each distinctively placed in order to cover up the black background and to join one another as they merge slowly together.

Achieving the part as the leaves came together was abit tricky at some point. Everytime you move or rotate each component it begins to fall out of place and out of position, so this was why each leaf was drawn and coloured very distinctively in order to create this animation scene.

The idea of the leaves emerging away from the center relates and follows the next scene, as it unveils an "N-cube sculpture" model on maya, by obviously me. I want to overall, add a sense of suspense and excitement to the scene so that it will hopfully compliment the final piece.

My Progress...Update

Today was a little disappointment, especially with the globe test experiment. The texturing went well however, that was probably the plus side of it.

I was particularly impressed in how the flying birds have turned out. I liked the way in how the scene has stood out with a variety of vibrant colours, and flying together in a sycronized manner. It has run very smoothly, and i feel that this scene doesn't have to be worked on any further.

To finish off my day i ended it on a positive note by finding some appropriate soundtracks to suit my ident piece.... that's it for now.

More UTUBE videos...

Youtube yet again, but it was funny because i didn't expect to find the potential soundtracks i will be using from this site. But however what you do see is a Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Ballet and John Williams:- Jurassic Park theme. The soundtracks is what i am mostly focussing on, but added on this post to let you have a listen, and see if any of the two are suitable for my ident.


SWAN LAKE theme tune..



JURASSIC PARK Theme Tune..




I knew swan lake, from my previous project i did where i used the soundtrack to play in the background whislt my moving furniture project was taking place. It was such a lovely, calming piece composed by Tchaikovsky, nothing to heavy on the ears, which is something i want bring back on this project.

But however the Jurassic pk theme tune, is a ultimate classic that everyone is familiar with, but the question is, which one would work well for my ident. I'll find out very soon.

The Globe....3

Animation Render test:

I understood that watching back at this first test was quite fast to catch on the eyes. But i wasn't particular happy in the way it had turned out. I had many ideas of how i would like to present the globe on my piece, but when it came to attempting the ideas, it either looked unrealistic or just looked boring i guess. This test below was alittle potential, but the "catherine" like wheels behind spinning didn't work well with the globe, and probably come to a decision of removing it and not showing it on my final piece.

The zoomed in will also be ditched, and replaced with a emerged effect or something else which i am still unsure about.
All these test have helped me further in thinking, and it's a aim in how i could improve it and make it better, but more is needed from this scene. So i will focus alot more on this particular scene.

Army Of Birds....Flying That Is!!!!

Scene 4:- 2ND Animation TEST

This test is the newly improved version from the first attempt without colour. This time I've increased the dose of birds with a more variety of different colours, to really bring the scene to life. I wanted them all to fly synchronized but widely spread across the page, covering at least 50% of it. The idea was to add some realism and some order to the character of the birds.

For this test, i've increased the speed duration to 300%, because originally on the first attempt, it was 100% which i felt was extremely slow and had no sense of pace and depth to the scene. But as this result has turned out, i must admit it looks alot better.

The Globe Part 2....Let's Filter Effect

PhotoShop Images:- Filter Effects.

After scanning the globes drawings i did, i uploaded them on photoShop and started to experiment around with different types of filter effects located on the "filter" header. Here are a few favourite samples i conjured up.

Poster Edge:- poster edge focuses on three areas, from this effect you could increase the edge thickness, intensity and posterizsation. For this outcome, i increased more on the thickness of the lines to add more bolder outlines.
Sponge:- thickness, smoothness and definition. I worked a little more on the smoothness to the colour, blending all with one another.

Glowing Edges:- Edge width, brightness and smoothness. As it states in the filter heading, i fully emphasize the brightness to the edges to increase the glow effect and just darken the inner areas of the image.

Smudge Stick:- stroke length, highlight area & intensity. I just smudge the globe area overlapping all colours together, whilst complimented with dark outlines to finish off with. I added some existing escalators that i took at the museum on the day.

"N" Cube Sculpture- The Result

As the title states here, here are the finishing results of the cube. A printscreen shot was taken from photoshop, hence the background. But the last touches was finished with some colour and basically assembly the stand together with the cube. I lefted the other sides of the letter plain because i didn't want to over complicate the letter and make it look obvious that the detail was trying to spell out "N" and not add confusion to the piece, lets hope it works. fingers crossed.


Print screen shot taken off photoshop. Just an image showing progress to my project.

"N" Cube Sculpture

The n cube model started out from a basic cube polygon on maya.
Basically once i had the basic shape, i attached each vertices's to the appropriate edge and just deleted any unwanted faces to slowly build the N shape i desired. As simple as that !!!!


For the sculpture stand, yet again done on maya. I started with a cylinder polygon and shorten the size whilst widening the diameter to a reasonable size i was happy with.
After that I highlighted the inner face of the cylinder and just extruded up, recreating another cylinder but smaller in size. Finally the pole was again another cylinder but this time smaller in width, and narrower in size.

Here are just print screen images of the process taking place.

T-RexX...Part 3

render mouth animation test :

Another test but this time on t rex. The main aim was perfect the animation on the mouth and basically nothing else.
The first test that you see here is an experiment with the character. I tried to see what it would look like if the character had suddenly emerged onto screen, or more of a zoomed effect is probably best to describe it. overall it seemed more like a floating head which didn't accompanied the next following scene, but however this video is uploaded on my blog to show my working, and how i could improve it on the next stages in work.

Pointers to think about:-

- Avoid "zoom in" effects.
- Maintain head in position, enlarge the size.
- Maybe add cross dissolve or fade in/fade out!!!!

Progress...Update

Just a quick recap of how the project is taking place. Today's been alittle complicated, colouring the t rex took the most time out of my schedule, but im glad the result has paid off.

Tackling the leaves test was quite interesting, it also took very long to achieve one rotating animation, which left me really warn and stressed out after animating several of them to move. But through all this i was able to learn from this exercise, and allow myself to research more easier techniques to produce these animations, and create work load alot more smoothly.

I feel like i'm hitting on track, but there's still alot to do and specific areas to perfect, but however through the schedule i made and following, it should hopefully lead me finishing on time and with a positive attitude in mind.

The Globe....

From all the ideas i took looking at the existing globe at the museum i approach my own interpretation to the design.

Below is a quick sketch of the globe design, i didn't worry about neatness as it will be work on digitally with colour on photoshop. It was more a template guideline, making it alot more easyer to work with the drawing.

H Is For "History"...

To start the flooring, I originally was going to draw the H on paper, but realised maya was alot more easyer and able to produce a more believeable perspective with the letter.
I marked out the letter on a grid plane first, then got rid of any unwanted faces to take shape. After that it was a case of bringing selected vertices to center point to create perspective shape with the letter.

After those stages, i just imported the image to photoshop and started to filter with the colour, using a marble grain effect. So it would blend with the flooring, and not look so obvious.

T-RexX Part 2

Part 2 was adding some colour to the creature. I got my inspiration from photos i took on my visit. Originally t rex ain't really this bright but decided to input my own interpretation of colour and give off a more cartoony appearance in order to connect with the other important scenes.


To achieve this result, i randomly mapped out all the colours to highlight the purposed features, and started to slowly smudge and let each colour bleed with one another. As a result i came out with the result like this (left).

The mouth however, was kept dark and the "M" shape was enhanced with extra whitening to make the letter stand out from a far.

As Light As A Leaf...Part 2

I did a first test with the leaves i drew, and the video above was more of a mess around and experiment to see how the leaves would interact with the animation. I just started with to leaves and slowly spun each of them individually, frame by frame to create an "spinning effect"

My aim hopefully in the end is to create a chain of rotating leaves framing the scene of the animation and all moving simultaneously. It should end with all leaves meeting at the center point and emerging away from the picture.

For The Birds...Part 2

Animation Render Test:-

This was my first attempt to the profile birds flying, I just cut down each sequence of the wings up and the wings down, place together on the timeline and played it in one sequence.

The wings look alittle stiff for starters. Same as the dino. it needs more in betweens to create a more smooth look to the character.

But overall i am happy in the way the first test has turned out, many more positive flying's to come.

Let's Fly Awaaay... Part.3

First Render Test:-
Flapping Pterodacty



My very first animation test of the Flapping Pterodacty. This test was put together without any inbetweens just to see how the flow of the animation would look, so i could see how i would improve, the character and look of the animation.

The first test looked ok, but definately needs more the inbetweens in the piece to avoid less stiff to the character. More future tests to come.

Building The Arches...Stage 3 & 4

Stage 3:-
Texture & Colour Experimentation.

After the outer body structure of the arches, the fun part was playing with the colour. I wanted to stick with the appropriate textures and colours such as tones of yellow and brown to not lose the realism of the feature.
Below are a selection of experiments with different tonal shading's using all sorts of filters on photoshop. for the first attempt, i just followed the lines i drew on my sketch and painted over them one by one. For the result, i personally didn't like the way it looked. The stripped colours just didn't compliment with the features, and just looked awful.

Second (below) is another texture test, but using the spray tool with a mixture of the same colours shown above. This is an improvement to the first, more mixture in colour. But however, i am still not happy in the way in looks or the way it stands out. Needs more work.

The third one is a major improvement from the two above. As i was playing about with photo shop, i came across a tool called "colour burn" and clearly all it does is darkens the existing colour on the page and more or less burns it, desaturating the colour.

This was definately a thumbs up, because i was able to bring out the different tones in the yellows and browns and some shadow and depth to the piece.

Stage 4:- Final outcome of arches put together

So here after all the colour testing, i ending up going with this look, all it took to complete the arches was mirror the existing arch drawn already and connecting them together side by side.

Next i just merged the layers to one, and duplicated several decreasing the size and positioning as i am going down.

Building The Arches...Stage 2

Stage 2:-
Next stage was adding alittle more structure to the arches, but this time with some design. I originally had all sorts of designs crafted on the arches already but as soon as it came to texturing it on ph.shp, the final look wasn't as significant as i hoped. So plan B was trying something out with the photos i took that day. I felt that since i took all the time capturing all these moments on camera and not using it for my project, would of been a tremendous shame. So through all the textured i took, i picked afew favourites of mine and individually cut and re arranged it on the outlined sketch.
This took quite abit of time, but the ending result was so much more better than the original. It gave sense of realism through a photography perspective.

Building The Arches...Stage 1

Stage 1:-
Building the arches was probably the longest area in achieving what i wanted. It involved many, many stages, So heres a brief layout in how i approach this.
I began drawing how i would like them to look, after researching them through all the photos i took during my visit. I didn't want to overcomplicate the design otherwise it could interfere with the look of the animation.
The first image below was a first attempt to the design, i realised it look very bulky with uneven edges that didn't look appealing in my eyes.
So the second attempt had more structure to the curves with, more added features such as bricks, and embossed designs.

As Light As A Leaf...

For my "leaf" scene. I wanted to use this plant to open up my introduction to the ident of the piece.
The research to this part wasn't as heavy and so in depth like the others. Clearly because i already knew how leaves would look and in terms of the colour, was green!!.



Above is a painted image of the leaves that i drew and scanned with a added green backdrop which i found online to enhance the colour and improve on the picture. Kept very simple with alot of shades of green.

Below was how i started off with the leaves, a simple rough sketch for my basic outline.

T-RexX....Part 1

The T-rex was one of the main attractions to the museum, a moving anamotrone with realistic roaring effect.
I personally was amazed and interested with the feature at the museum, so including t rexx to my project was a definitely a must.
Below is a sketch taken from my own interpretation to rexy. More or less the features are kept the same, but with a more widen structured jaw line, for more fierce appeal i guess.


Both drawn and traced to create jaw opening and closing.

The idea to this image, is the moment hw opens his mouth he's revealing a letter shape "M" created in the shape of his teeth, which stand's for museum. An area in which to promote and advertise the museum, which is my aim to this project.

I outlined the t rex for better viewing on the post as well as for texturing on photoshop.

For The Birds...

THE MISTAKE!!!
As it states in the title, here was a mistake i made when drawing out the flying birds, i didn't realise until the picture was completed that the bird can't be animated with wings layout in the way i had drawn it (LEFT).

One it will be hard to animate and keep the consistency and two, there would be no sense of realism to the character.

In the end, the mistake had been corrected, and has been redrawn which is located below....









So as i promised the newly improved birds.

I realise through alot of experimented drawings that the wings will work best drawn like this (LEFT).
keeping them both paired and consecutive up and down allows the flapping to be consistent and generates the flow in the animation piece.




Here are three sets of textured birds both with wings up and down.
The colours were done on photoshop, and smudged together to create some tone and appeal to the character. Overall as long as the birds do stand out in the scene, then its more positive things to come, to the project.

Animal Sketches..

More sketches, yet again but this time RHINOES!!!. Drawing keeps my mind working & is a good way of researching ideas for potential designs to incorporate your piece.
I went through the same process looking up online to get a feel of the body structures to rhinos and just applied some of my own concept ideas in how i would like to interpret my look in this animals.
This time i experimented with alot of different medium, purposley for fun, and also get some ideas on colour to go with.

I use all sorts of colouring pencils ranging from bright noticable colours, with a hint of some shading involved, but again kept very simple....

Sketches...

Here are some sketches taken from my scrap book when i was looking up on flying dinosaurs. I wanted to study their body gesture, positions and who they would interact with their environment.
I kept it very rough not forgetting their lines of action, and use of shapes to start my outlines off.

The features weren't so much important to me, but how their body shapes would look like followed by the shape of the wings.

Chosen medium was a standard graphic pencil 7B.

Let's Fly Awaaay... Part.2

Ok so here are the final designs to the Pterodactyl. Taken from the original drawings, all it took was an outline using just a simple fine-liner to bring out the image, so that when it came to me scanning the images, it will be easily seen and can work with, using colour.

I began to draw the creature at a flying position first,wings flat out.

Again repeated the same process but tracing only the head and body this time with wings re-drawn to a lower angle, a more of a curved shape that is.

For the in-betweens frames, kept on tracing the body. But slowly reduced the size of the wings to add more flow and realism to the animation.

These are the same images uploaded above but, obviously with colour and texture applied this time. I didn't want to apply any bright clashing colours to the dino. just in case it would affect the scene and not stand out, in terms of appearance.

So i had alittle look online for some ideas, and came across many with quite pale, tranquil colours. But in the end green was what i fancied in the end and worked well to the fella, so i stuck with it.

Wings flapping up (image above)

Wings flapped down.!!!!

Alpha Channels= TiFF files

Just a link to remind me in how to convert images to alpha channels.

http://www.veoh.com/collection/houseofrandom/watch/v14388619wfs3B8y#watch%3Dv1438868w4NmpzB3

Let's Fly Awaaay...

Video Examples of Flying 2D Animation

I looked up on Utube. and came across some videos of 2D animation focussing on flying and walk cycles done by some unknown students.
This one in particular above is something i want to try and do for my final piece. It's a different selection of all types of flying creatures flapping continuously on one spot...just a little idea to keep my mind working.

Planning & Scheduling

I suppose to have produce a production schedule right at the start of my project, so i could keep track of my time management. But as silly as i was, i forgot and somehow didn't realise how important it could be. So i'll begin one now, starting from this date.

THURSDAY 12TH FEB.

FRIDAY 13TH FEB.

SATURDAY 14TH FEB.

Formative Assessment CVA.204

It was that time again, formative!!! you either love it or hate it!! there was no choice but to sit through it. I feel it always helps to talk to your tutor and hear them be alittle critical about your as well as finding out, how you are getting on with the project.

I don't know what happen but i cracked under pressure and didn't know what to say overrall about how i am taking on the project. I think when your put on the spot, and your tutor starts to reflect on what you haven't been focusing on to succeed in the project, i came to realize how stupid i've been for not planning what i had to research at the start. By doing this, it would of allowed me to be so much more organize and aware of how i could tackle this project.

I think that this term has been the biggest brain teaser for me so far, i can't really explain why i am thinking this way, but i guess i'm wondering how i could really pull this project out of the bag and produce something quite amazing. Setting a challenge is one thing but doubting myself at the same time, is something i want to stop doing.

Jared said that my research is good, my blog's shown more than enough of what i've done, but however i need to start applying the research i've gain into action ie. (evidence of work in what i have learnt). Jared has clearly made some fair points of what needs to be improved on, so i'll continue to do so straight away.

So all in all it's just a case of me pulling my weight now and working a lot more harder and faster. I'll try to stay as positive as i can and continue to work hard in order to successfully complete this project.

Strengths

-Confident

-hardworking

-confident in drawing and research in technical visualization.

Weaknesses/Improve

-need to research more into "how to animate 2D/work drawings?"= SHOW evidence on BLOG

-Show evidence of Final Cut Pro work

-Apply techniques that has been research as a evidence of work (BLOG)

-STOP researching and start applying what you have learnt.

Notes

Ideas & Influences
-More youtube videos:- Night at the museum
-Jurassic Park (T-REX)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wja_O5LboPI

Night at the museum Trailer



I posted this video because i recently i watch it on dvd and realise it had alot areas that related to my project, and clearly because it was at a natural history museum, but the fact that animals and all sorts came to life, causing all kinds of havoc. The way in which the characters work with the scene really got me planning out some layouts to my final piece animation.

Formative on Editing/Compositing module

This post, has nothing to do with the industry exercise project. But i posted it on my blog as a reminder of what Gareth had to say about my editing project so far, and the few pointers he told me to look out for.
Improve:-
-look into more of the colour ( horror/murder lighting)
-model weapons as my source of 3D element in the scene,which are:- Revolver, rope, wrench, candle stick holder, knife, lead pipe
- refer back to more trailers as reference, such as Se7en, the SaW saga's etc.

Se7en Movie Trailer



This was where Gareth told me to check out the opening credits to the amazing movie that is Se7en by David Fincher. Watch how the use of colour and lighting really sets the mood and tone, with a lot of over layering with images to add a little mysterious errie effect.
Do take a look...because its something i'm aiming to achieve in the end, not exactly like Hollywood style but, good enough to a student standard.

Se7en (Opening Credits)

PhotoShop.

A Little Bit about the Software:-

Adobe Photoshop, or simply Photoshop, is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems. It is the current and primary market leader for commercial bitmap and image manipulation, and is the flagship product of Adobe Systems. It has been described as "an industry standard for graphics professionals"and was one of the early killer applications on the PC.
Early History

In 1987, Thomas Knoll, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, began writing a program on his Macintosh Plus to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. This program, called Display, caught the attention of his brother John Knoll, an Industrial Light & Magic employee, who recommended Thomas turn it into a full-fledged image editing program. Thomas took a six month break from his studies in 1988 to collaborate with his brother on the program, which had been renamed ImagePro.Later that year, Thomas renamed his program Photoshop and worked out a short-term deal with scanner manufacturer Barneyscan to distribute copies of the program with a slide scanner.

Features

Photoshop has strong ties with other Adobe software for media editing, animation, and authoring. Files in Photoshop's native format, .PSD, can be exported to and from Adobe I

ImageReady, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Adobe Encore to make professional standard DVDs and provide non-linear editing and special effects services, such as backgrounds, textures, and so on, for television, film, and the Web. For example, Photoshop CS broadly supports making menus and buttons for DVDs. For .PSD files exported as a menu or button, it only needs to have layers, nested in layer sets with a cuing format, and Adobe Encore DVD reads them as buttons or menus. Photoshop is a pixel-based image editor, unlike Adobe Illustrator, which is a vector-based image editor.
Photoshop can utilize the color models RGB, lab, CMYK, grayscale, binary bitmap, and duotone. Photoshop has the ability to read and write raster and vector image formats such as .EPS, .PNG, .GIF, .JPEG, and Fireworks. It also has several native file formats:
The .PSD (Photoshop Document) format stores an image with support for most imaging options available in Photoshop. These include layers with masks, color spaces, ICC profiles, transparency, text, alpha channels and spot colors, clipping paths, and duotone settings. This is in contrast to many other file formats (e.g. .EPS or .GIF) that restrict content to provide streamlined, predictable functionality. Photoshop's popularity means that the .PSD format is widely used, and it is supported to some extent by most competing software.
The .PSB (Large Document Format) format is a newer version of .PSD designed for files over 2 gigabytes. The .PDD (PhotoDeluxe Document) format is a version of .PSD that only supports the features found in the discontinued PhotoDeluxe software.