P1. Explanations of After Effects

I produced on Adobe After Effects a total of 6 visual effects. Here are the 3 I found most challenging to produce, and how I made them.



This was my third visual effect, which was a shot of a boy, played by Charlie Hall using telekinesis to pick up an apple.

To produce this I firstly went out and set up a DLSR camcorder on a tripod. I then recorded the background with out anything in it (no Charlie or apple etc..) then, with out moving the tripod or camera, I positioned the characters in frame, and got some one to hold a fondu skewer with an apple attached in the air. When I began recording again, the person with the skewer moved the apple from the ground and into Charlies hand.

Once I had got these shots, I brought them into Adobe After Effects, and placed the footage with the apple and characters in, on top of the background footage.

I then created a mask on the top layer, around the boy and the apple, making sure the mask didn't include the skewer, this then meant that the person holding the skewer and the skewer itself wasn't, visible, so it appears as if the applies floating. Once I had done this for the first frame, I then jumped to the next frame by pressing 'cmd' and the right key, which took me to the next frame. In each frame the apple was in a different place, so I had to use the pen tool and hand tool to move the mask anchor points around the apple.

Once this was done, and I had adjusted every frame, It appeared as if the apple was floating, which was  successful, although you could sometimes see a difference in the colour of the walls, as shadows and lighting changed when we shot the top clip. To blend the layers together, I had to feather the mask by 28%, which worked well, although towards the end if you look closely you can see a hint of the skewer.

For my second visual effect, I used a similar technique to my first. I went out and got two shots, one of the character Jay standing in the frame completely still, and another of Jay standing still and a girl walking into frame and walking into his bag (again keeping the camera still).

Then in After Effects, I firstly attempted to use the footage of only Jay in the frame, but he wasn't still enough, so I resulted in taking a few still shots placing them in Premiere Pro and repeating them over and over again, to get the impression (movement on the screen) that it is a recorded shot.

I placed the layer with the girl in, over the top, and created a mask around her as soon as I wanted her to step in frame (changing the opacity of the layer to 0 before that). Then, I jumped to the next frame, and moved the anchor points to follow her, and continued doing this until she reached Jay.

When she reached Jay I realised things would get extremely complicated, as Jay was moving too much, and his eyeliner wasn't following her, which was a mistake we made during filming. To solve this, I resulted in taking a few still shots of the clip, placing them in Premiere Pro and repeating them over and over again, to get the impression of movement on the screen and that it is a recorded shot.

Then I replaced this clip with the original, and continued my masking around the much more stationary Jay. To give the impression that the girl walks behind Jay, I made sure the mask didn't go over him, and waited until she was completely hidden by him. I then moved the mask to the other side of Jay and continued moving the mask around the girl. One this was done, I changed the opacity of the mask to 64% to give the impression she is invisible.

To improve this, I would have made it more clear that the girl bumps into Jay bag, which results in her appearing, as it doesn't make much narrative sense if she just randomly appears.

This is a visual effect I used 4 times. This particular shot was done by firstly filming Jay with his arm out reaching for a bag that Mikes holding. Then with out moving the camera, Jay stays still and Mike moves out of frame.

I edited this on After Effects by firstly cropping the two pieces of footage together, so when Jay reaches out to Mike, it then cuts to the shot with out Mike, which gives the illusion that he's disappeared. To cover up this cut, and make the teleporting more interesting, I added a puff of smoke that was downloaded from a royalty free site, and placed it many times around Mike to disguise his disappearing.

I then did this for all teleporting shots, changing the size of the smoke depending on how far away Mike was in the frame. This worked effectively, although I may have added a bit too much smoke.