Post Production - Semester 2

Post Production Tutorials & Assessments

Little Miss Sunshine 4 Minute Feature Film Re-production

As a part of our Post Production Module, we were given the assignment of re-producing a feature length film, and condensing it down to four minutes. Within this assessment, it was expected of us to keep the narrative, pace and continuity, ensuring that it made sense to the viewer. Along with the edit, we had to include new titles for the film, and they had to be created using Photoshop & After Effects.

The feature film that I decided to re-produce was Little Miss Sunshine by the Directors Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris. I chose this film because it's one that I thoroughly enjoy. I believe that to re-produce or to condense a film down to a limited time frame from an 'editors' point of view, it's important to understand a fully know your footage. As I have watched 'Little Miss Sunshine' several times, I had the advantage of knowing some key points within the movie without having to scrub too much into the footage. The film itself is very dialogue based, and is a comedy drama. Before beginning the editing, I had the idea that the comedy within the movie would be key to creating a good pace within the movie.

The assessment was indeed a difficult task, and one I had originally struggled with, but I learnt that it is possible, and It can be done. I had started with aiming for a 6 minute edit, and gradually I would condense it down more and more until I had reached the 4 minute mark. It was really important for me to keep many of the comedy elements of the film within my re-production, as I felt it would otherwise make the edit flat lined without anything that would engage the viewer.

Creating The Film Titles
As a part of the assessment we had to give the film new titles created on After Effects or Photoshop. For me personally, I think Titles and the way they interact with the video is important, and they can significantly add to a film or production.

The titles I was looking to create were to be similar to the sense of style the film already had. Therefore the font that I had chosen was ' Orator Std ', and I decided on the yellow color to keep in relevance to the way the film had been branded previously.


Here is the first set of titles that I had created for the re-production:

For these titles I used various effects using Adobe After Effects, such as Wave Warp, Noise & Venetian Blinds. The reason for doing so was because the background video was displaying a television screen, and naturally with that you can see wave lines which are almost distorted therefore I wanted to make the titles blend well with the background and make it seem like the titles are also on the television.

Click for Larger Image, to see detailed effect of Noise and Venetian Blinds

For the titles '' Little Miss Sunshine '' , I wanted to keep it rather simple, yet bold in it's appearance therefore I decided to use the rotobrush tool on After Effects.

To do this, I selected the Rotobrush tool and started outlining the girl 'Olive' who I wanted to become the foreground image in front of the titles. As she moves in the clip, I had to do this frame by frame to ensure that the roto was the perfect outline of her silhouette. After doing that.. the layer was only showing the silhouette of the girl that I had rotobrushed and not the background. As I still wanted the original background video, I duplicated the layer, ensuring that the text layer saying 'Little Miss Sunshine was sandwiched inbetween the backrgound layer, and the new rotoscoped layer of the girl. By doing so, it made the text appear that it was behind the girl rather than in front, and I think it's an effect that works rather well. The title again was used with the font ''Orator Std'' with the color yellow, as it made a bold statement and kept in line with the original look of the film.

Here is the final 4 Minute Re-Production of ''Little Miss Sunshine'' that I had created for the assignment... 


Little Miss Sunshine - 4 Minute Re-Production - Sion Campbell from Sion Campbell on Vimeo.

On the whole I believe that the edit works rather well. It has definitely been a challenge, but a great one for that matter, and has really opened my eyes to show that if you want to become and editor, knowing your footage is key, and that learning the important points within a film is important too. Although not exactly four minutes... (4.06 to be exact) It has shown me what I thought would be impossible... is actually possible and has been a great challenge to do!


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3D Camera Tracking With Adobe After Effects

In this tutorial, we were  to Use After Effects to 3D track the motion of the camera, and the position and rotation of the Car within the video. After doing that had to add something to the video that would move in the same way that the Car would do, with the roation and scale similar.

As the car in the video was missing a numberplate, I decided to add one in, trying to keep in scale and in line with the car, and the way that it looked as the camera panned around.

I began by using the effect '' Warp Stabilizer ''  on after effects that would essentially get rid of any bumps and jumps that the video had previously that would inevitably effect the 3D tracking that I would create.  Having warp Stabilized successfully, I was then able to go forward and use the 3D track Motion tool. But just before doing so, I had to precompose the footage that I had already stabilized, as sometimes After Effects has a glitch that doesn't enable you to successfully 3D Track a video with previous effects on it, unless it had been pre-composed.

Using the track motion tool, the program would analyze the movement of the objects within in the video, tracking their 3D movements, and eventually leave you with multiple points on the screen.

From the tracking, you can then pick three (or more) points that you would like to use as the successful 3D Track, Right Click and create new Track and Motion.

After doing so, it allowed me to add an image to this new track, by dragging and clicking alt. The image I had used was a basic Number Plate image that I had searched off Google.
Having placed it within the new track motion layer, I was then able to position and scale the image more accurately ensuring that it looked realistic and blended well with the car.

Although there are many ways in which I could improve on this 3D track I had made, on the whole as a first time attempt, I think it was rather successful.

The video can be viewed below.



3D Camera Tracking - Sion Campbell from Sion Campbell on Vimeo.

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TITLE DESIGN AND CREATION USING AFTER EFFECTS

For this tutorial we were expected to create Titles by using After Effects. We looked at several different examples of title works made in after effects, whilst also looking at several examples on the website www.artofthetitle.com  which gave great examples used in the film industry and explained how they were made, which was something I found personally interesting.

The example we were given to create our title in the tutorial was from the film 'The Matrix'.
We were given the quote ' Unfortunately No One Can Be Told What The Matrix Is, You Have To See It For Yourself'
We had to type each word as a separate title which would then give us the control to animate it without affecting the entire sentence. Having done this, we were then able to begin animating the words on how we would like them to appear.

We did this by selecting the relevant title/layer and going to its transform properties in the drop down menu. The menu included position, scale, rotation, opacity ect, which would allow us to animate the words, but to do this we had to use keyframes.

I would have to add a keyframe from the scale option to the beginning of the timeline. From there I would scrub across the timeline to add my next keyframe. This would be done automatically after I had adjusted the titles size on another part of the timeline.

I would repeat this step with the keyframes until I had the desired effect. And then replicate the same using other options such as the position and rotation.

The title I had eventually created didn't quite have the desired effect I was looking for, but baring in mind it was my first encounter of creating titles with after effects therefore it was a beginning.

Matrix - Title Making After Effects from Sion Campbell on Vimeo.


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Photo Displacement Using PhotoShop & After Effects
In this tutorial, we were introduced to the creation of Photo Displacement. Although I wasn't aware of how they were created, I did have a great interest to know how it worked.

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One fine example that I remember seeing on the television of Photo displacement was an advert that was used by SKY to Advertise their High Definition Service. The advert cleverly had the use of Photo displacement which made the video seem like it was video and it was slowed down in HD, when in fact they were only images blended together.

 
Photo Displacement Trial - Sion Campbell from Sion Campbell on Vimeo.
Here is an example of the Photo Displacement Tutorial that we had done in the lesson, using the photo below. Although the effect wasn't extremely obvious in the video, 

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Gravity Photoshop Work
Basic Photoshop & After Effects Tutorials In our Post Production Tutorial, we were learning the basics of Photoshop and also After Effects. For this we were given two seperate images. One of George Clooney from the film Gravity, and the other is a random high resolution image of a planet in space.The idea of this tutorial was to eliminate the original background image from the Gravity still and incorporate the new background by making it look believable.I had to select the image that I wanted to keep. To do this I used the Polygonal lasso tool, to select around the foreground image carefully. I would zoom in on the image to ensure that I wasn't cutting out any elements that were important, and working my way around the image slowly. Once the image was selected, I would use CTRL + J  to create the new layer, therefore the background image would still remain in the project had I need to go back and change.Once having done that I focused on the the new background image that I was going to use. The most noticeable issue with the image was the fact there was a 3D graphic of a UFO which made the image look incredibly unrealistic, and it would not blend well with the rest of my composition. For this reason I went on to try and eliminate the UFO from the image without it looking like it had been tampered with and that it blended seamlessly.To do this, I decided to use the Clone Stamp Tool on Photoshop, which would essentially enable me  to select a part of the background image, and recreate it on another part of the layer. This is something that can sometimes be incredibly successful, but other times not as much.Luckily for me I was able to do it rather successfully on the first attempt, by using a larger brush, which allowed me to select a larger area of the image.Having done that, I then put the layers in order, allowing the new background image to be behind the selected foreground.The most noticeable problem then was the fact that the colors did not match up very well, therefore they needed to be altered. I did this by applying multiple effects such as the Saturation, Levels & color balance to match up the colors between the foreground image and the background.

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Mobile Phone Chase Scene Challenge 

As a part of our Post Production Module, we were given the task of creating a chase scene sequence, using our mobile phones to film.

We were given a week to create an idea, film and edit, therefore time was not in our favor. Having this short space of time did teach us how to keep within timescales and enhance our time management skills.
For this task, we wanted to emphasize the main characteristics that make a chase scene successful, by including a solid reason for the chase, obstacles that may arise within the chase, whilst also giving a fitting ending without it becoming deflating.

The group members for this task were myself, Stinne Nielsen, Giorgia Perini & Charlotte Blount.
We spent around 3hours discussing idea's, ensuring we had a solid and vaild reason for the chase.We spent some time looking at different examples of chase scenes from different films on Youtube & Vimeo to gather some inspiration.

 After a long healthy discussion, we came up with our idea/plot...

The Storyline :  A Hacker who steals vital information from a corporate office building, but is caught in the act by the security guard. The chase will be the escape of the Hacker. 
With the storyline thought out, we then went onto create a shot list so when we went to film, we had a more accurate and clear idea of what we needed to film.

The Final Film :