Architectural Design to Architectural Cinematography: part 2: Journey of growth and discovery

The ‘CARBONADO RESIDENCE’ project was a pivotal point in my journey. Although I was still navigating my way through the field, I was confident in my ability to deliver. The clients and the homeowner initially perceived me as an assistant, a role I embraced as it allowed me to learn without the pressure of expectations.

This project was a two-day shoot, and we began our work at 9 am after a hearty breakfast. The setup process, which included cleaning lenses and setting up the camera, gimbal, and slider for architectural shots, took us an hour.

By this time, I had developed a technique that involved using a gimbal to hold the camera with a lens, which I controlled indirectly with its app on my phone. This freed up my hands to slide the whole setup on a manual slider, allowing me to control the start and end position of the shot. This technique enabled me to capture high-quality architectural shots with 3D flow movements.

However, I was still grappling with the art of recognizing good composition and capturing beautifully composed shots. I knew this was a skill that couldn’t be developed overnight, so I tried my best to imitate my friend’s photography shots and produce a similar result. Despite being careful, I made a few mistakes, but each mistake was a learning opportunity that helped me grow.

The post-production work for the ‘CARBONADO RESIDENCE’ project was a significant challenge. I spent months refining the editing and color-grading process, going through hundreds of shot edits. I delved deeper into HDR editing, wide gamut, Video Nits, concepts of color theory, and film grading. I learned many new concepts and was able to bring the color grade level up after several edits.

Music choice is very subjective and can sometimes seem illogical because everyone has different preferences. I practiced with different music and created emotions with synchronization, much like the beautiful background scores common in movies. I started creating versions, each one with a different concept and music, aiming for different audiences. This practice helped me become proficient with musical edits.

I started appreciating the change of music tones and scenes in Netflix-Amazon serials, I started noticing the editing decisions of a particular style and it started coming to me further catalyzed by all those cinematography tutorial videos on YouTube. So, I am not a cinematographer but I started appreciating their craft and noticing the beauty of it.

After completing the ‘CARBONADO RESIDENCE’ project, I experienced a period of burnout. I decided to take a break from videography and focus on my health and well-being. During this time, I also resumed learning Unreal Engine and started exploring virtual production.

By this time I was able to connect the learned cinematic skills to my visualization skills so I started applying those principles I learned on my own creative works and to my surprise, my compositions had gotten drastically better and I was able to produce far beautiful and relevant shots. I was able to move in my 3D projects like a videographer and was deciding upon more humanly angles. I thought that maybe it was the destiny and this is the end of my videography learning and I should now go back to my design and visualization work for which I learned all this originally. So I resumed learning Unreal engine, and transfer these skills in unreal sequencer, trying to learn virtual production along.

I spent next few months reflecting back on what I learned with the whole experience, and taken out time to relax and improve upon my health. This was my base forming experience in this field.

In the following months, I had the opportunity to work on more shoots and collaborate with renowned architecture firms and big corporate clients like HPE, DSM, and MMOSER. These experiences further sharpened my cinematography skills and optimized my workflow, allowing me to seamlessly merge my 3D animation and interactive Unreal development workflow.

Looking back, I see this journey not as a series of ups and downs, but as a continuous learning experience that has shaped me into the professional I am today. I am excited about the future and look forward to exploring new opportunities in Canada, where I hope to continue my work. I believe that the skills and experiences I have gained will open new doors and pave the way for exciting projects in the future.