Eye enlarging and split screen effects

Today I returned to my enlarged eye shot with the assistance of my friend online to help me along. AS we worked through it I realised why the technique hadn't worked before, I had forgotten to apply the track and stabilisation after I had run them! How stupid! Once I corrected this the enlargement worked perfectly and I am over the moon with the results. I think the shot will look really affective in the final video.

I also worked on the montage at the beginning of the video. I decided that I didn't like the original idea that I storyboarded and I wanted to do something different. I remembered I had some really good footage from the shoot with Rihannon of some really nice graffiti from the skatepark, so I thought I could do something with that. In the end I decided on a split screen, where the shot gradually splits into 4 sections throughout the 17 seconds its on screen. I am really glad I decided to do this as it looks really good and much better than I'm sure my original idea would.

The last thing I need to do to complete my project is to shoot the footage of myself for the first section and to complete the split screens that already have the other 3 girls in place. Im hoping that I will be able to shoot the day we go back to uni after Easter and will be able to finish the editing and get everything done that week.

Not long now!

Eye enlarging

Effects and Final Composition

Today I set up my final Premiere Pro composition and put in the clips that are finished into it. This has helped me see exactly what is left to do. I also finished off the opening cityscape shot by key framing a warp mesh so that it created the warping effect that I wanted in that shot.

Later on today I attempted to create the enlarged eye scene for the end of the video. I followed the advice that my course mate gave me but it didn't quite work out how I wanted it to. I tried to track the footage and stabilise it so that the new larger eyes would stay in position when you played the clip. However the eyes move around in the clip and aren't fixed properly to the original footage. I will have another attempt at this shot and if I still struggle I will ask my course mate for help when we return to uni after easter.

Postponed filming

My final filming has been postponed until after the Easter holidays due to the stores closing on Wednesday 20th March. We were not told that the stores would close 2 days early which is really annoying. I also find it ridiculous that 3rd year students cant have equipment booked out over Easter!

However there isn't anything I can do about it so I will just have to make sure that I have the rest of the post production and effects done over Easter so that I wont lose too much time. My course mate showed me a fairly simple way to do the enlarged eye effect so I will try and do this for 3 of my 4 girls over Easter.

I will also use my DSLR to film the montage footage, as these clips will be really short so it won't be noticeable that it is a different camera. I will put all of the footage I have finished so far into the final Premiere Pro project ready for the final export.

Refilming

On Friday Nisha and I are going to re shoot the footage we shot of me last week. After looking at the footage a couple of times I decided that I really wasn't happy with how I looked in the footage. It may seem vain to want to reshoot because I don't like how I look but I want to be really proud of my final piece and I know that if I'm not happy with my section of footage then I'll not be happy to show it to other people which would be a real shame after all the work I've put into it.

On Friday I will also shoot the montage footage that was supposed to be done last week.

Filming

Today we filmed my section of the video. Nisha and I met up at half 10 and I did my make up and got changed (I already did my hair at home). I colllected the equipment and we headed out...in the rain. For this shot I didnt have an exact location but I had an idea fo the area I wanted to film in. We walked to that area and found a side alley with an interesting graffitti background. We set up and shot fairly quickly, as I didn't need to explain to someone what I wanted them to do in each shot.

I am not 100% happy with the footage purely because I don't like looking at myself on camera. Hopefully once I have edited and colour graded the footage I will be happier with the look of it and will need to remember that it's not about whether I think I look nice or not and more about the quality and techniques in the project.

The last little thing I need to do is shoot the small clips to go in the montage at the beginning of the video. The plan was to shoot them today after my shoot, but the weather was horrible and we just wanted to get back, so I will do these quickly nect week.

Final shoot

My last shoot is scheduled for Friday morning at 10:30am, and I am going to be the model! My last girl Laura is unable to be in the video because she is too busy finishing off her A Level coursework. I asked the two girls from the drama courses to ask any of their friends if they wanted to be in the video, but no one got back to them. I decided that the best thing to do was to do it myself, as I know exactly what I want the model to do and what I want the shot to look like. I asked my course mate Nisha to do the camera work for me and she happily agreed.

Also on this shoot I will film the small clips for the montage at the beginning of the video.

The equipment is booked and I'm ready for my close up!

Editing

After I had edited my footage, I noticed how low quality the footage had become. I couldn't understand why because I had used a none codec when rendering out any of the footage. I spoke to a course mate who told me to check the settings of my sequence in premiere Pro to make sure they were set to 1920x1080 resolution (full HD). I checked my sequences and found that they were set to 720x460, way way under the HD format size. This was why the footage was blurry because I had been scaling it up and down to fit in the stage.

I was glad that I had figured out what I needed to do to make my footage look as good as it did when I shot it. However, to fix my work I would need to re edit everything! But it needed to be done!

It took me about 2 and a half hours to re edit all of my work in new sequences, I managed to cut the time down by using the old edits as templates for the new footage, so I could locate the shots I had used and then just replace the old with the new.

Once I had everything redone, I put them back into after effects and added the colour grading and redid the spilt screens. Luckily everything looks so much better!

I'm looking forward to getting the test of my footage together so I can start work on the visual effects shot of the video.