Finished!

I have thoroughly enjoyed doing this module and my project. I can't believe how much I have learnt from After Effects. I have spent hours and hours on this project but I love seeing the result at the end. I have created something I didn't think I was even capable of doing. It has definitely been a roller coaster where moments have been very tough and then I have overcome it and am happy with what I have achieved.

Coming To An End

I have now come to an end with my project. Throughout the film the male dancer Luke struggles with his power of fire whilst the woman, Samantha can't help him. Even when they dance fire sparks light on his hands, and at some points he can control it. 

At the end, I created raindrops from the particle system but I knew I wanted something else. I started playing with another particle composition and found myself making smoke. I put these together so when the rain fell onto the fire flame on Luke, Smoke rose for the end as if the rain was what they were waiting for all this time. 

Replacing the background and Further Improvements

I had been working on my graphics on just a black background, so my next step was to replace it.

I wanted to have a vignette background to create depth to the video, therefore, I created a new solid and chose a deep red and black. At the beginning, some parts in the middle and very end, I created key frames to change the solid colour from a deep red, to black and white. I used this in areas the fire was burning out .

 

Every time I take a break from my work I come back and work on areas I think need improving on. Today, I kept going back over the fire animations changing the movements and timing. I also adjusted the skin tones of the dancers in each pre-composed video as although I had already corrected the skin tones when I did the key lighting, their skin still looked fairly grey and flat.

 

 

 

Other effect ideas for the video....

I was hoping to have the contrast of fire and water or ice where Samantha in my video protects herself with water or some sort of blue bubble. However, I did start to create this around Samantha but It didn't look very good and it took your attention off the fire on Luke. For the ending I am going to create a rainfall to put the fire out on Luke.

Developing the animation

I have spent hours on After Effects and have eventually developed the fire. Compared to my first flame I created when I started this project, the fire in the screenshots below are layered more realistically and are less cartoon-like. The flames are not to look like ordinary fire but to look more like fire 'powers' that Luke can't prevent from lighting up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracking for the fire

 

In order to place the fire on Luke's hands and arms, I have used a tracking point to connect the fire to a path of movement. I found this difficult to get my head round at first but I as I continued to use it, I learnt the best ways to use the motion tracking. Some shots were particularly difficult to track such as when Luke holds his hands by his side and the turns. When Luke turns around, the tracking goes off point so I had to work around this in different ways.  I used tracking for the majority of shots with fire to create the movement of the fire with his hands.

 

 

 

Green Screen in After Effects

Green Screen:

After working out my problem, I carried on working on removing the green screen behind the dancers. I did this by controlling the different levels in 'keylight', removing the green and increasing the screen gain and decreasing the balance. After removing the green I had to tweak the colour of their skin and hair. This was difficult because the green reflected off their hair so I had to carefully adjust the saturation, contrast and brightness.

 

Fire:

The image below is a screenshot of my first fire flame, I created this using the particle system and layered it with other effects. This is my first attempt of the fire, I feel like I can definitely improve this as I carry on working as I want his hands and arms in flames and this flame I have created is not as realistic as I would like.

 

 

 

 

Problem with Avid to After Effects

When I arrived back from Easter break I was told that Avid Media Composer work flow to After Effects  is not very compatible, and that it would have been easier to have created the video on Premiere Pro, exported it and sent it straight to After Effects.

However, I knew there would be a way round it but It would take more time. I searched on Google how to do this and followed the steps. I needed to export the video as DNxHD Quicktime for it After Effects as reference, exported the file as an AAF and then when I opened up After Effects I went to 'Pro Import After Effects' and imported the file.

The timeline seemed to come into After Effects absolutely fine. Started to work with the key light, removing the green background and correcting the dancers' saturated skin. I spent about two hours playing around with the green screen and I saved what I had done.

I came back to work in After Effects today and opened up my project to find my work and the timeline in blocks of colour. Notifications kept popping up on my screen so I knew straight away it was something to do with not being able to access the Black Magic files. But I couldn't understand how to fix this problem.

I got help from Peter and Stefan who tried various different ways of trying access the files. In the end it was something to do with the MXF server and because the footage I shot were RAW files. I moved all the files into the same folder and connected to my avid project on the MXF. Every time I edit on After Effects, I need to make sure I open up the MXF server before hand connect to my project.

Final Cut In Avid

Today I finished my final edit in Avid. I had no problems cutting the video together as I am very familiar with Avid, therefore, I felt this was only a small part of the project. I wanted to get this done before the Easter break so I can come back early and start on working with After Effects. 

Cutting the video together in Avid Media Composer

The last few days I have been putting together the video. I aim for the video to be around four minutes long at a point where the music can come to a stop. I have used the different camera angles and cutaways to create a build up throughout the song, and when I am happy with my final idea I will then incorporate effects onto the cutaways. 

I offloaded the footage and put it on the MXF server, because I used a Black Magic camera I firstly had to open the footage up in Davinci Resolve and then put it into Avid so if I choose to color grade the video I can later on put it back into Resolve. I then created different bins so I could split up my footage as I filmed lots of different camera angles and cutaways, this made it easier for me when I came to cutting the clips together as I knew exactly what I wanted and where it was to find it. 

The list of Bins:

Footage in the bins:

Cutting together the footage with the soundtrack 'Teardrop' by Massive Attack: 

Filming in the Studio with the Green Screen

Today I had booked out the studio from 2 o'clock onwards. I aimed to finish by 4 o'clock / 16:15 at the latest as Andy told me wrap up time to clear away the equipment would be at half past four.

Andy had set up the lighting and green screen so I met him outside the studio with my friend Felicity who was going to give me a helping hand and the two dancers Luke and Sam. Before we started, I set up the tripod and camera, the dancers got dressed and Andy went through the health and safety rules with us. Felicity controlled the camera whilst I directed the dancers, we connected the Black Magic camera to the TV screen so the dancers and myself could see if they were in shot whilst dancing.

We did a few takes of Sam and Luke dancing with different camera angles, longs shots to close up shots and also filmed the two dancers standing still with Luke's arms open so we could use these as cutaways.

Surprisingly we had finished early at around half past three. Sam and Luke were great especially dancing without slipping on the green curtain. They had three different dances for the song and we filmed these at different angles. I had loads of footage to use and decided I had got everything I needed.

Practicing creating fire in After Effects

Today I followed a tutorial from YouTube on how to create fire / flames in After Effects. I started from using fire particles on a solid and tweeking layers and layers of effects. I didn't find it too challenging, however, it was very time consuming. The fire looks very realistic and you can do all sorts of effects on the fire. This is the type of flame I would like to incorporate into the film. The flames will be smaller on Luke's hands and arms. 

Studio Risk Assessment

 

 

Booking Out the Equipment - Equipment Risk Assessment

Meeting with Andrew Thorpe - General Manager of School of Media and Communications

Today I had a meeting with Andy to discuss my plans for filming in the studio. I ran through what I wanted to film with the two dancers. Andy spoke about how he was planning on staging the lights similar to the images I had sent him of Rihanna's music video, lighting up the green screen background and aiming the lights down on the dancers from the left corner of the green screen lighting up half of the dancers body and face creating a shadow on the other side. 

Andy went through the risk assessment for the studio with me, only one problem that did worry me is the green screen curtain that falls down from the ceiling and covers the space of the floor. Andy emphasized that dancing on the green screen curtain can be very slippy, therefore, the dancers have to be very careful when dancing on it.

Plans for Filming - Studio Lighting

Andy Thorpe asked me if I had any examples of how I would like the lighting to be in the studio. One example that came to mind that is similar to what I want to lighting to be like is the music video 'Umbrella' by Rihanna.  

I would like to have quite a dark surrounding with back lighting and lights shining down lighting up the skin / body of the dancers. The first image shows quite harsh lights lighting from the back drop - I want the green screen subtly lit not as harsh as this image but I like how the light is shining from the left corner of the image bouncing off Rihanna's skin. The second image is how I would like the backlighting to be lit, subtle so there is still darkness showing a contrast of the dancers skin and darkness. The images do not show the exact way I would like the lighting to be lit in the studio - It's just similar to what I have in mind. 

I haven't decided what I will be doing with the background green screen in After Effects at this time, but I know I can key out the green to black. In After Effects when I work on the powers the dancers will have such as the flames on Luke's arm, the fire will stand out brightly with darkness of the room and the shadows created by the lighting from the left side of the studio. 

Booking out the TV studio

On the 3rd of March I emailed Andrew Thorpe (the general manager of the School of Media and Communications) to discuss booking out the studio to film the dancers in front of the green screen. Before I emailed Andy I checked the online booking system for the studio and saw the Monday and Friday of week commencing the 16th of February was free. 

I spoke to Sam (dancer) and asked when herself and Luke would be available to film, Monday the 16th after two o'clock was the best time for them both and was perfect for me. I then emailed Andy to ask permission to use the studio and if that time and day suited him too. 

These are the emails Andy and I exchanged regarding the studio. We decided to have a short meeting on Friday the 13th February to discuss my plans for filming. 

My Idea - Inspiration and Initial Ideas

Teardrop by massive attack is one of my favourite songs and when we were told we could do a music video I knew I wanted to use this track. The idea of having people dance to this track came quickly to me as at the time we were given the briefs my friend Samantha Ellis a committee member of ‘Dance Exposé’ was choreographing dances for a dance show which was coming up. I watched the show and thoroughly enjoyed it - the talent was incredible. I felt inspired to use dancers in my project as watching the dances sent shivers down my spine. I thought about using two dancers and how I could incorporate effects so I could work in After Effects. I spent a few hours researching effects in After Effects on YouTube to give me a few ideas I could work on. I came across a video where two boys were filmed having a fight and when they came close to each others both had ‘super powers’ so they held out their hand and threw their powers at each other.  I then kept watching similar videos with people using After Effects to create a power for themselves and I came across a few videos of people holding out their hand and fire lighting up on their hands and body.

Searching tutorials and videos on fire in After Effects made me realise I could be capable of doing this. Conveniently it also suited the lyrics for my song as in the chorus lyrics reads ‘teardrop on the fire’ and therefore, I could really making a meaning through the use of special effects to connect to the song.

Therefore, for my project I would like to have two dancers dancing in the darkness with the man struggling with his power as he sets a light and the woman feels like she can’t fight to stop the fire from lighting but at the end they both stand still and feel the rain fall putting out the fire and creating a sense f peace.  I will use After Effects to create the fire and raindrop motion and possibly other effects if I decide the woman dancer will had a power. My first step will have be filming the dancers in front of a green screen then importing this into After effects before I work on the effects.

The Youtube Videos below are the links I used in my Proforma to use as an example of what I would like to create and some also include tutorials:

Fire on Arms and hands - above is a short tutorial. 

(This is a video of two guys fighting and using After Effects to create powers - this is an example of how I could use effects to cover a whole body in fire) 

Above is a tutorial I watched for beginners where you can create a fire motion from scratch in After Effects. 

Above and below are other effects I found interesting when doing some research on YouTube. I could think about incorporating these motions into the dance. Below are raindrops - this is an example of what I could do for the ending when the raindrops fall. 

My Project Proforma

My Typography Project -Formative

The video below is my typography project I did for the formative. I used the monologue from the film 'Taken' spoken by by Liam Neelson.  This formative allowed to me to get to grips with the basics  of After Effects.