Leanne
Stone
editing my film into premiere
My first export
The first thing I did, was collect all the shots I had filmed and put them together in Premiere for my first rough export of my film. I wanted to create the sequence of my shots to see how the narrative flows, I found myself following along my shot list very loosely, adding and using different shots if one didn't particularly fit or there wasn't enough footage. For example I decided to add in some establishing shots at the start of my film to set the scene, which were taken from moments when I hadn't come into shot yet. I wanted to focus on how I could use many different types of shots to create a narrative that gives lots of detail yet flows well with each shot. Although the narrative is a little patchy without the VFX and audio in it to help understand the plot, I am extremely happy with my first outcome. I think the timing and shots compliment each other and I am very happy with the narrative flow so far.
Phone motion blur;
At first I was going to throw my phone practically when recording but the weather conditions made it so that this was not an option, therefore I was able to drop my phone into shot, but I would have to do the motion blur over the shots. I first tried using a phone on a green screen how this looked off as you could tell it was a complete different phone and I couldn't find a rose gold iPhone on a green screen. To the right is the video I watched and my first attempt.
My next approach and the approach that worked was taking an image of an iPhone and cutting it out using the pen tool. I then keyframed the scale, position and rotation to appear as if the phone was flying across the screen. I added motion blur and kept going back to my Premiere file to see if it flowed well. I did a lot of adjusting on this to get it to look as realistic as possible, including opacity changed when the blur didn't have a big enough impact. I have exported the final segment by watching the video below to show what my final result looks like. I am overall, quite happy with this.
creating my portal;
There were two different types of portal effects I needed to do here. The first being a portal effect on the phone screen that spun to make it appear as if the portal was generating and the the main portal effect of what the actual portal looked like. I decided to tackle the overall main portal look first. I used the YouTube tutorial below, and the fire asset below to create the ring.
By following the tutorial I decided to first make my portal on the clearest shot I had, this means there wasn't too much else for me to worry about whilst I figured out my portal. I found myself using a lot of effects I hadn't used before to create this, the first being Fractal Noise which created the overall fuzz look to the inside of the portal. I keyframed the evolution of this to create the effect that it was moving. I used Turbulent Displace to create the wave effect around the portal, this will be most useful when the portal is appearing however it will also prove useful to make the animations in the portal flow better. I used the values on the tutorial as an estimate and edited mine for my situation. I used the ellipse shape tool to create the shape of my portal and positioned it roughly where the phone was on the ground. After having these main effects in place, I then tracked the scene using the white object in the back of the footage, and linked this to my portal, I changed the anchor point to centre it in the right place.
The next thing was to focus on completing and refining the shot. The first thing I did was add a plug-in called CC color vibrance to get that purple. I then added a glow to give it a fantasy, magical effect. To do the frame like aspect I used polar co-ordinates on the fire video to create a complete circle. I then eye dropped the colour I created on the portal to get a matching frame. I added the tracker point to this fire element, adjusted the anchor point and added a bigger glow to create the environmental effect the portal would give from it's frame. This worked well. I then duplicated the fire asset with all the effects and rotated and positioned this so it was on the opposite side to the other fire asset. This thickened the frame and added some contrast to the frame. This was the portal done. I also had to think about the effect on the environment, for all shots like this, I added a mask to create a nice environmental light. These were all in different shapes depending on the shot but I used a low opacity and the tint effect, eye dropping the portal colours. I also added the compound blur to give less sharp lines at the side of the shadow and then attached the tracker point to this. I had to repeat this in each step where the portal was visible. However, each shot had a different element where I had to something different in.
In this shot, I had to worry about the angle of the shot. To manage for this I had to think about the shape of the portal. I did everything the same here except I flattened one of the edges to show the camera was not exposed and therefore at a different angle. This also meant I had to shape the frame of the portal a little more.
The only difference in this shot was that the whole portal was exposed, therefore I had to think properly about where the portal would actually stand up to. I decided after messing around with the scale that this was the best size.
creating my second portal;
This portal was quite easy to do as I used an already animated asset as my portal didn't seem to fit the style I wanted. To add this, I used the tint and the curves tool to create the colour I wanted after a lot of struggle. I then added a 3D layer and tried giving this a little more depth for the shot where my phone was on an angle. This was easy to repeat. A picture from the animation is on the left.
Doing each shot was fairly similar aside from the angles each of them were at. However for the first shot something felt off due to the piece of grass not effecting the light from the portal. This was a small effect but one I felt made a big a difference. Therefore I created a mask and keyframed it to follow that part of the grass. I then feathered the mask a lot and turned down the opacity somewhat. I think this looked good as it somewhat prevented the light flow but not restricting it as if a complete solid object was in front of it.
The last challenge I had to face was how to make the portal appear. I had been experimenting with many different ways, but found doing it faster was the best way as I hadn't worked a lot with animation yet. I decided to animate the twirl effect for when the portal appears. However on the first shot I decided to animate the portal shooting up as I couldn't figure how to properly animate the twirl effect. The reason I did it this way and not the way on the tutorial is because I had trouble creating the pre-comp for the frame part of my portal. I would like to try this again as without the audio it doesn't appear as smooth. I'm hoping the audio will help this as I had just had to key-frame things when they come into the shot.
Overall, I am happy with how this turned out. I feel this is quite different from any visuals I have done before as I am putting in a full size object into my scene rather than a small visual change like fire. This is a real standing, still object. I was happy with how I was able to effect the environment with the lighting and the glow, colour and general visual appeal of my portal. I was also quite happy with the mask I was able to put round the portal I had on my phone as I think it was good to experiment with a subtle mask that still lets some light through. However I would like to make the portal more 3D as it does feel quite flat, especially when looking at it from the angled shots. I am also not completely happy with how the transition works from the phone to portal. I had trouble making the frame of the portal as it was supposed to be therefore this came out wrong. I would also like to figure out how I could better use the surface of the phone to appear there is something on the screen that has been put there in post, as in my shots you can still see the reflections of the environment and also myself as I misjudged the camera angle and didn't check the reflections before deciding I didn't need to do another take, however this is more a filming issue. Overall I am quite happy with the result.
creating the explosion
The screenshots below are from the shot where the explosion took place. They document some of the different steps and stages I took to make the explosion. I started to follow this tutorial but once I understood where he was going I decided to mess around by myself. I understood this effect was about layering to make it realistic. Choosing and finding the footage for the explosion took a lot of time. Once I had my footage, I tracked the motion on my video footage. I then used the saber effect on a solid to create the blast that will come from the tech. I scaled and tracked my explosion using a 3D layer to slightly adjust the angle. I then keyframed the smoke effect to big bigger than the explosion and to rise as the explosion does. Then using the debris, I used the eyedropper tool to match it to the ground as best as possible. I cut this so you don't get all the debris landing into the hole. After finding the hold I tinted the colour and matched it with the ground. With each of the elements there was either removing the screen behind the imported element or some colour matching and keyframing to do. The only other thing was the environmental light. For this I created a shape layer and turn down the opacity. I then tinted it to the colour of the explosion using the eye dropper tool, keyframing it so that the mask grows quicker as the explosion rises up. There is a flash of light to signify the speed and impact of the explosion.
The next shot contains the smoke from after the explosion. I wanted to portray the view that the explosion had caused the air to become smokey. To do this I created a white solid and used the pen tool to create a randomly shaped mask. I feathered the mask and played around with the opacity to give it a smoke like look.
I then added turbulent displace which will move and evolve my smoke through the shot. I played around with the amounts so it gave a translucent view but so there were no obvious gaps. I then keyframed the evolution and the offset turbulence to move the smoke throughout the scene. I wanted it looking as if it was rising so set the offset to move upwards and to the left slightly. I feel this effect worked alright.
refinement
After getting feedback on this particular part, I quickly went back and duplicated the mask to create a thicker mask. This is because the mask before felt as if the portal behind was still coming through too much. I do feel the out of focus phone makes this less believable and also my reflection. I would have to think more when practically filming next time.
One other thing I did was add motion blur to the transformation of the portal from the phone to the scene. I feel this helped as the transition is quite quick and adding this little amount of motion blur makes it more realistic. This added to the effect having to be quite quick due to not creating a pre-comp properly.
In this shot I was told to look a little more at the environment impact of the light of the portal. Although it is daytime and the light from the portal will not have such a big effect, I added another mask in the same way I did the one on the floor to recreate the light bouncing off from the tree that it is headed towards. This is a minor change but in all really helps sell this scene. I used directional blur so it had a sharp line on the tree instead of unrealistically coming out from the tree into the air. I am happy with this particular shot.
My film so far
compositing my tech into my film
fully composited film
After creating my animations in Maya it was then the process of compositing and editing them into after effects. I had 4 shots where my robot needed to be composited into. It was at this point I realised that my animations were quite sketchy and didn't fit the feel I wanted them to have. I did each scene starting with the ones that had less of the robot in first. The first scene shows the robots leg appearing out from the portal, to do this I simply tracked my footage and applied this motion to the animation, anchoring it in place. I then created a mask, using the compound blur to slowly reveal the leg as it came forward through the portal and increased the feathering to blend into the portal. I tried to show how the parts most forward would appear first however the masking felt a little unrealistic and would have looked better if I had spent more time figuring out in what order the leg would actually appear. To get the robot into each scene, I imported my export from premiere in which I had adjusted the speed and used the linear colour tool to get rid of the green screen in the back of my animation. I was left with a green line around my animation in which I used the spill suppressor effect to rid of the green line. I then imported my robot into my other scenes, in which I completely got rid of the green screen and tracked the robot for each scene. In a couple of my scenes I created a mask to account for some of the environmental effect that the portal lighting was giving off. For the shot of my robot walking behind the branches, I first tried masking my branches and keyframing the mask, however due to the shakiness on the camera this would have taken a long time as the branches were very fiddly. Therefore in an attempt to create a similar effect I took some green screen branches, keyed out the green and tracked then to somewhat match the branches already there. I am not very happy with this as the branches seem to move a lot but also feel as though they are following a very similar path, I really struggled to make this look any better. For the last shot, I was very unhappy with the jagged look to my robot, it had appeared extremely fake. So after importing my animation and keying out the green, I decided to add the environmental light on the ground as well as masking some of the grass over my robots feet to create the illusion some of the grass was appearing in front on my robot. I also duplicated my robot and inverted it to create a shadow. I used the radial shadow tool and the compound blur to create this effect. I lined it up with the feet on the actual robot and put it above the grass mask, tracking it so it moved the same as my actual robot. I think these along with the scaling and up and down movement of my robot helped to pull off the fact that my robot may have actually been walking in the scene. I would have liked to have some sort of trail being left behind him where he steps. I am not extremely happy with these scenes.
