Visual Effects Compositing - Week 16



31/10/2019


 I spent time meticulously continuing with keyframing the position of the track points for tracking the motion for the portal to be placed in, but ultimately found that it took the portal and rotoscope out of control and the same goes for tracking the camera.

 I went down an alternate option and spent time rotoscoping myself frame by frame. I had a add more curves effects because I found that taking out the curves effects already there will effect the rotoscoping. I feathered the edges to make the rotoscoping look more effective. 

 Now I just need to colour grade this short film since all the VFX shots are done.




With the VFX all done for this short film, I went ahead with the colour grading on Premiere. 
For the scenes with the portal I made to the a saturated blue like I had imagined by bringing the colour temperature all the way to the most blue, dimming the contrast and shadows down, and slightly increasing the exposure. Each shot varied.



I only adjusted the highlights colour wheel to blue and to a high level to shots without the portal VFX because it would affect the look of the portal VFX.




It was a lot of troubleshooting in finding the right way to putting together the title and credits graphics. I tried to do it on After Effects like I did for my BSA231 Digital Filmmaking short film, but including a white SIT logo made it challenging to keep the scrolling motion consistent and smooth. I added two bars of grey solids in attempt to keep it consistent and aligned, but it didn't make things any better.



I gave a go at doing the titles and credits graphics and it took quite some until I figured out the right way fro me to do it on here. I did somehow manage to have it smooth and consistent with the SIT logo included (unlike After Effects). I got most of the end credit scrolling done today, but there's still more to do tomorrow.

02/11/2019



 I had problems with scrolling text graphics and had to delete it all and do it again. I excluded the music and sfx effects until I know which ones I will have in this short film once the sound mix is done. I had the opening credits and the first part of the ending credits graphics exported from After Effects and into a DNxHD file, which would be then put it into the timeline on Premiere.

 With title and credits graphics done and out of the way, I rendered an OMF file of the Premiere project to use to have all the edited sounds into the ProTools session. 

 I made an effort to get the levels right in my ProTools session, which was a challenge.
It was amazing to hear how the music blended so well into each other, I had to do very well little in mixing the music together

 Unfortunately, I found a big VFX blooper that needs to be fixed before submission. There is a couple of seconds where I am behind the portal VFX when I'm meant to be walking towards it. I may have to give a go at fixing this blunder tomorrow.


Finding the right sound effects on freesound.org was another challenge. There wasn't any suitable SFX that could work and most of them seemed more like music than a sound especially when it came to finding a sound for the spinning in the portal. I was searching under 'whirl', 'spinning', and 'surreal'. I then started to get the right sounds when searching under 'alien'. 

 To give an atmospheric end to the story, I got a selection of stomach and sipping sounds to suggest the protagonist's demise since I didn't have time to get someone to ADR or voice the portal, so I had to make do with Kres' lines said in the shoot. Maybe one day, I will get someone to voice the portal. 

 The project is coming along so well that I regret not entering this film into Think & Create. This year's Think & Create has allowed films by students completed in previous years and so if they allow the same next year, I may enter this VFX short film into the Think & Create next year.

 In putting this soundtrack together, it becoming more of a sci-fi horror in order to give it a surreal atmosphere.

03/11/2019


 I must say that this VFX film is shaping up to be the best project that I have made compared to my other projects / short films from Screen Arts and Digital Filmmaking.

 I gave a go at fixing the problem, but the rotoscoping was taking too long to do and it felt like a waste of time. I eventually found that trimming down the clip to before the VFX looks out of place still looks good and saves me time doing more rotoscoping.
.

I then did the final touches with the sound mix on ProTools before exporting the bounced file and put it into my edit on Premiere. From there, I was able to render the whole short film and get it submitted.


05/11/2019


 I had a talk with Kres letting him know that his voice will be used for my VFX short film, which he was fine and asked him if he was available later to sign a release form. He told me to text him later to see if he is available when I'm available. This would give me give to organise a proper release form for this short film

 However, he came to see me a while later and changed his mind. He just signed a release form template that he had and gave it to me. It's not specific to me or my short film. In fact, it's very vague to anything, but I'll just make do.

 I hope to get someone to ADR over Kres' voice in the future for this short film and enter it in film competitions.

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