Digital Post Production | Journal by Shanice Gauci

Colour Grading For Thesis Project

Evaluation - (The Final Project)

The main idea for this project was to create a short advert for a polaroid camera. The story surrounding the advert is about two teenage girls who have just purchased a polaroid camera and are acting as tourists, trying their new camera. Whilst they take photos of the surroundings, one of the girls decides to take a picture of the other with the picturesque background behind her. As soon as she snaps the photo, the girl whose picture has just been taken disappears. As the girl taking the picture looks at the photo, she realises there is a whole different world behind the girl, which seems like the girl has just disappeared into a different world. The photo comes to life as the girl who disappeared waves at the other to join her. As they try to communicate, they realise that she is stuck there.

The idea was to create an advert which gives the option of working with Motion Tracking, Green Screen, Matte Painting and Motion Graphics. The idea, compared with the actual production process was as a success. Everything planned was filmed and edited accordingly to the planned storyboards and shot list, however there were some challenges encountered throughout the production process. For instance, when the majority of the advert was filmed at Tigne Point, the sun had still not set enough as it was still around 3:30pm. During the initial pre-production process planning, filming was set to be done round the time of 6:30pm, however due to the actresses commitments, there was no choice but to film during that time. Another small mistake with regards to the motion trackers points drawn on the photograph was done during filming at Tigne Point. A black marker was supposed to be used to make four points of reference to track the motion of the footage, however the marker was misplaced and a biro was used, which was not as effective as a marker would have been.

The green screen was then planned and filming took place. Even though booking for the studio was done beforehand and approved, some limitations were encountered during the process as space was limited due to a lecture being held in the studio. Filming on the green screen was still somewhat manageable, however there was a lot going on in the studio. The studio lights were used, which initially seemed enough. The footage was lit up nicely, however it was after analysing the footage properly that we realised some backlight was needed on the actress. Needles to say, it was definitely something we learnt from for future projects, keeping in mind that it was a challenge to film on green screen. Editing was then started and the first rough cut was edited. The matte paint was then created on Photoshop, consisting of three different images. This was done to create a different world in which the girl who disappears in the advert would be set in. It was quite a challenge, however after several attempts, a decent matte paint was created and the picture turned out as planned. After creating the matte paint, it was time to composite the green screen on it. Even though green screen is quite difficult to work with and involves an amount of work and effort to achieve the desired final look, working on it went better than expected. With the help of some tutorials found on the Adobe website and some suggestions from the lecturer, the green screen footage turned out great on the matte paint.

Tracking the composited green screen footage on the photograph with the tracking markers was an expected challenge and the biggest struggle encountered. Having had never worked properly with motion tracking, it was quite difficult to achieve what was initially planned. Several attempts were done, however nothing seemed to work. Help from the lecturer was then deemed and the mistakes done during own attempts were made aware of. The problems encountered were because of keyframe issues when working with the corner pin effect. Having a large amount of keyframes after tracking the motion of the footage, one has to make sure to select all frames before making any changes in the numbers. It goes without saying that watching a tutorial from the lecturer himself helped fully understand what was being done wrong.

Motion Tracking

It was used to track the footage of the girl on the photo. I had never done anything like this before, but ended up learning a lot from it. To achieve this, we tracked the motion of the source, which is the footage of the girl holding the photo. We then chose the track type and set our target, which was the composed green screen footage. Once we applied the motion track, we made some changes to the corner pin of the footage to make it seem as realistic as possible. We applied the fast blur effect and a matte choker to blur the edges. 

Green Screen Process

A matte painting created by myself for the purpose of this unit. 

Tuesday 12th April we filmed the green screen part of the advert. This is the part were one of the girls disappears into a different world. A different world will be composited around her using Photoshop and After Effects CC.

A couple of stills from the first filming after applying the desired colour correction. 

The editing process begins...

The second logo created using after effects for the final project: Fuji Advert. 

The first logo created using after effects for the final project: Fuji Advert.

These screenshots are from an after effects logo tutorial on youtube by moroccotutorials. The tutorial will be used to help create a logo in the first few seconds of the advert which will be produced. The logo and colours will be customised and changed to own purposes and liking. 

The advert, which will be about two girls using a polaroid fuji camera, will be the final project for this unit of digital post production. It will be produced by myself and another student Lynne Jo Fenech.