Project Evaluation: My Thoughts

The beginning of this module was fairly easy for me. There was none of the usual panic about trying to think of a concept for a project, I already had one. Over the summer I had planned a project that was supposed to be for the Advanced Creative Media Project, but didn’t really fit well for that module, so I decided I would do the same project for this module instead.

I had taken the idea of linking the project to last years final project and wanted something that followed the themes of fashion and music. I had already gathered some media for inspiration and started to build this blog so I had a good idea of where I was going with the project. Despite this I was nervous at the beginning of this module, because compositing isn’t really my strongest skill and I knew I needed to pull something out of the bag this year, especially as this module is level 7 and worth double the normal credits. I knew that I couldn’t cut any corners and would need to strive for the absolute highest quality of effects at every step throughout the creation of this video. I decided the best way to ensure high quality of every effect was to test them all first, so that is what I spent semester one doing. I did test shots of every effect I wanted to include in the video, and also some new ones just to see how they would look. Doing this made me feel a lot better about achieving the final video because I knew that I would be able to recreate every effect and do it to a higher standard. It was also a huge time saver because by the time it came to compositing the real video, I already knew the techniques that I needed to use. I would definitely do this again if I found myself in a position where I had the time to test before a project.

I also took the time to organise a test shoot in the green screen studio. I knew that the keying of this footage was going to be vital in how professional the video looked at the end, and getting a good key can only come from good lighting on shoot, so I wanted to test this out. I hired the studio and lighting and camera equipment and went down with friends to work out the lighting set up. This again turned out to be a massive time saver and meant the real shoot only took around one hour in total. The idea to pre plan the lighting did help me when it came to the keying and while there was room for improvement, I did manage to get a key that I was happy with for the most part. Whilst testing the lighting I also shot some footage so that I would have something to play with during the ‘tester’ period in semester one.

With all of my planning done by December, I organised the shoot and filmed before Christmas. I was lucky because I managed to find the perfect model for the video. One of my course mate’s friends looked perfect and was willing to help me, which I was really grateful for. In my experience it isn’t often that people are willing to help you for no reason other than they are nice people, and after having trouble with actresses last year, I was nervous about using outside help for a project. Having someone that looked the part rather than just any friend of mine also adds to the overall look of the video and I think makes the whole thing look more realistic and professional.

With my footage ready and all of my effects planned out, I spent the next few months gradually building this video up, literally layer by layer. I spent a lot of time going back and forward between compositions and ended up doing quite a bit of unnecessary work, but it was all a learning curve and I actually really enjoyed it. I was very aware of not rushing through each effect and making sure I was 100% happy with it before moving on to the next stage. During the compositing there were one or two things I had to change, for example the ‘removing underwear’ technique, but this was something I had a feeling would happen after I had failed to achieve what I wanted during the test of this effect. I adapted things as I went along and kept at it until I was at a place where I was half happy with it and half out of ideas. This is when I turned to my tutor for his feedback. I was really glad that I had achieved all of the effects I had planned for, but there was something missing. Luckily, with a fresh eye my tutor was able to give me some suggestions that got my creativity going again and I was able to revisit a lot of things and make improvements until I was much happier with the final outcome.

I think that if I had more time I would continue to look into new effects and techniques that I could learn and apply to build the video even more, but with the time and ideas I had I am very happy with what I have produced. I feel as though over the last four years at university I have learned what makes a great piece of work and I think that I have finally found the balance between concept, content and quality and I am really proud to add this video to my collection of work.

Fashion Catwalk Video

All changes have been made and the video is complete!

Redoing 3D text graphics

Yesterday I spent over 6 hours redoing the 3D text and putting it into all of the compositions. I then rendered all of the shots out ready to go back into the edit. I will do the edit today and then put the whole sequence back into After Effects for the very final effects, the camera flashes.

Changes to my Project

Today I met with my tutor and he gave me his opinion on my video. He said that it needed to be more vibrant and not as safe, and gave me some specifics to look at including the text graphics and the lips effect. I was also shown a grading plug in for After Effects called Magic Bullet that I could use to get some really professional looking grading very quickly. I took all of this feedback away with me and began making changes to improve the video.

I have gone back and looked at the keying of some of the shots which needed to be improved and I have done so. I have also changed the colours of the lips so that they vary from shot to shot, adding another dimension of interest to the shot. I then put all of my new and improved shots back into the After Effects project with the background and enlaced all the old work with the new. I then played around with Magic Bullet and found a few grading looks that I really like. Just grading my model and the background in different looks has made the entire video look completely different and much more striking.

Below are three examples of background grading looks, I personally think I will use the third one as it is the most dramatic.

The last thing I need to do to improve my project is to re-do the text graphics, as my tutor said they looked old fashioned and should be more striking and interesting, as they are an obvious part of the video.

Audio

Today I worked on finishing the audio for this video using Soundtrack Pro. I needed to take the voice recordings I had and fit them in place with the music, making sure that the volumes were all correct.

Now I have the audio finished I can put it in the visuals project and get everything rendered out to the spec needed for the hand in next week.

I managed to find a couple of really good techniques to create good camera flashes, so I ddi this yesterday and I am now completely happy with the visuals of this video.

The last thing I need to do is my evaluation, which will be in the next post.

New Music

I have been feeling recently that my piece is a little too long. Because it is a fairly repetitive piece I want it to have pace and be sharp and snappy and I felt that the shots dragged on for a little too long. Because I cut the video to the music track, I needed to revisit the music and make adjustments. Along with my brother, who has assisted me with this track, I looked at the music and cut it down from 1 minute 39 seconds to 1 minute 14 seconds. With this new music I have been able to cut down each shot so that the pace is much quicker. I also decided to add a super fast cut where the music does a drumroll before the big kick towards the end. I think this breaks the piece up a bit and adds another point of interest.

I am now going to revisit the camera flash effect because I am not happy with the flash effect I currently have at the beginning of the piece. I also want to add camera flashes later on in the video when the sound of the camera is reintroduced into the music.

Submitting for Feedback

Today I uploaded my video so far to Vimeo and sent the link to my tutor for his feedback. I am really hoping that he is happy with what I have done and there aren't too many things that need to be changed, as I only have a couple of weeks left before the deadline. Fingers crossed!

Progress

After speaking to a few people I have decided to keep the background plates the original colour as this was the favourite of almost everyone I asked. I have done a final render and edit with the music, and now just have to add the voice to the audio. I have the voice tracks and have manipulated them, but they aren't loud enough to be heard over the music, so I am going to have to put the video and the voice tracks into Soundtrack Pro and turn the void up so that it is loud enough. After I have done this, all that is left to do it to write my evaluation and hand in!
I will be showing the video to my tutor next week, so hopefully he will like it and won't want me to change or add anything to the piece, however if he does I do have time to make the changes, which is a good thing in terms of being able to get the best possible mark for the module.

Background Colours

Original and alternate colours for the background plates. I am going to ask the opinions of my class mates as I can't decide whether to stick to the original colours or change to something else.

First Full Draft Piece

I have put together one full sequence from start to finish with all of the effects and music. I wanted to do this to make sure that the edit was still right and to get a full view of everything I have. There are a few things that don't work properly, things I didn't notice when playing them through in After Effects, this is because it is difficult to get a smooth play through in After Effects. I have made notes on what needs tweaking in each shot and will do this tomorrow.

Progress

I am now at the final visual stage of this project, the 3D text. I am currently putting the 3D spinning text into the scenes and rendering them out. I am planning on getting all of the shots done today and will hopefully get them into Premiere and put back together. All I have to do then is put the music in and record the voice to go with the track.

Animating the tunnel camera and putting the plates together

Over the last two days I have worked towards finishing the background plates for this project. I animated a camera in Maya to move backwards out of the 3D tunnel, and then looped the animation to play for as many frames as I needed. I then rendered out over 1000 png files to put into After Effects.

I have then spent all of today putting the shots together with the background plates and making sure everything is positioned properly and looks how I want it to. I then rendered out 10 of the 14 shots with the background plates, so they are now ready to go back into After Effects for the last effects stage, the 3D text, before being put into Premiere Pro to fix all the shots back together and add the audio for the final render. 4 of the shots have not had the background plates added because they are side views so I need to render out a side view from Maya, which I will do during the Digital Compositing class next week.

I feel as though I am getting close to finishing now and I feel confident about the work I have produced so far. I am hoping to get this project finished in the next couple of weeks so that I can concentrate on my major project, as there is more work to do for that module.

3D Tunnel

Today I have made a start on the 3D tunnel for my project. This will be the background for the video. I used Maya to create a simple 3D model of a rectangular tunnel and then textured it with images I created in Photoshop. I already new what images I wanted to use from my test footage I produced in semester 1.

The next thing I need to do is animate a camera to zoom out of the tunnel and then render out those frames, ready to go into After Effects for the final composit.

The images above are the textures I created in Photoshop

 

 



 

Screen shots of the model in Maya

More Rotoscoping!

Today I finally finished the effects on my model footage. I had to rotoscope a lot of the shots because I couldn't track all the underwear in every shot because occasionally they went out of shot, therefore making them impossible to track. Again it took ages, but I was willing to do it to produce the effect I wanted on every shot.

I have enjoyed working with this footage and creating all of the effects, but a lot of them are so time consuming and tedious that I am quite glad to be moving on to the next stage in the project, which is producing the 3D environment for the background plates.

3D Text

Today I created the 3D text for my video. I did this in 3D Studio Max. I created the words 'Fashion' and 'Style' and did each one in two colours so that I have options. It was really easy and only took 10 minutes.

Underwear- Alternative Method

Today I began thinking of other easy I could cover my models underwear, as it is clear that the clone stamp tool won't work, and I didn't want to leave it, partly because it doesn't look grew and partly for the sake of the modesty of my model. I used a sample of the 3D text to see how much of the area the text is going to cover, but it wasn't enough to cover on its own.

I therefore watched a few tutorials and found one about pixelating someones face in a shot. I watched this tutorial and used the same method to blur and add noise to the underwear areas of my shots. I really liked the effect and although you could still see she is wearing underwear, it isn't as apparent and exposing. I used the motion tracker to track the underwear and then used an alternative layer to mask and add the effects.

This technique won't work for a few of the shots because the underwear goes in and out of the shot and is therefore untrackable, so I think I may have to rotoscope these areas (oh goody!)

Im hoping to have this all done by the end of the week so that I can start the 3D elements to my project, and then I'm on the home stretch!

Rotoscoping and Clone Stamp tool

The rotoscoping is finished!! Finally!! I'm really glad to have gotten that out of the way and now can move on to more interesting aspects of my project. The next thing I need to do is remove the underwear on my model. When I tested this in the first semester I used the clone stamp tool, which worked to an extent. It produced good results on small areas such as bra straps, but didn't work well removing everything as I couldn't get the texture to look smooth, or anything like skin. I think I've picked a really difficult thing to do because skin is so many different shades that it is really awkward to try and replicate.

However, because it worked well on the small areas I decided I would still use the tool and would think of another technique to use on the areas that wouldn't work with the clone stamp. But it isn't as easy this time around, and I am struggling with removing the bra straps at the moment. I will persist with the tool for now but I may have to look into an alternative technique for this portion of the project.

Rotoscoping Day 2

Today I continued rotoscoping my shots for this project. I now only have 4 shots left to do, which I will do at the end of this week.

Rotoscoping

Today I started the rotoscoping section of my project. There are 14 shots to complete and I plan to do at least 3 shots per day to break the work up as it is quite mundane. 

I went through each shot frame by frame and masked the lips. Luckily my model didn't really move her lips during filming so I mainly had to just move the mask to follow her face as she moved up and down, although occasionally I had to reshape the mask. When I had finished every frame I duplicated the layer and put the black and white effect back on the top layer. I then used hue and saturation to change the colour of her lips to the vibrant pink/purple you see in the second image below. I then toggle held the keyframes and pre comp'ed the layers together to make one layer/comp.

I will repeat this process for all the layers.

Masking

Finished effect

Keying the Footage

It was really important to me that i got a really good key from this footage. I want this piece to look professional and nothing says amature like bad keying. I was already in front because I had lit the scene as well as possible to get rid of as much shadow as I could. I took all of the footage into After Effects and just started experimenting with the keying tools. I decided to use the Linear Colour Key as aposed to the Keylight tool, just because I prefer it and seem to get better results, although I did experiment with both.

According to my gant chart I had given myself 28 days to key, but in reality it only took me a few hours over 2 days to get a key I was really happy with, which put me in front of my timeline massively, which worked for me as it was the Christmas holidays!

The next thing I am going to focus on is the rotoscoping of the lips on my model.