Final Film Opening!

The Final Export is Here!

            Hello! I am extremely excited to finally show everyone the film opening that my group and I have been working so hard on for the last eight weeks. If you want to watch, click here. Hope you enjoy! I will be posting a video reflecting on my group's progress, some of the challenges we faced, and things we could have executed differently. Stay on the lookout for that post, it will be up tomorrow by midnight! 

Final Reflection

I Guess This is Goodbye... For Now

  Man… Eight weeks! That is how long my group has been working on this project. I have to admit, certain moments throughout the creation of this film opening made me doubt whether or not my group and I would make it through, but I am very glad that we toughed it out and came out together in one piece.

Personally, I think the beginning of the project was the most difficult. I joined a group with three other people from my TV production class, meaning we all knew what we were doing and wanted to make sure we made something that was good quality. Because we wanted the end result to meet our high expectations, we struggled to come to a decision in terms of what genre we wanted to do, who our main character should be, and more. Not only was it difficult to decide, but all of us happen to be very opinionated and stubborn, causing the planning process much longer than it needed to be. What can I say? We are passionate about what we do!

Fortunately, we were able to agree on a topic and begin to create character profiles, shot lists, storyboards, and more. However, another large problem arose - we were unable to meet regularly due to our conflicting schedules. This meant that whenever we met up to plan, the calls would last for hours, since we did not want to risk not being able to meet another day. Despite these scheduling conflicts, we were able to finish planning and move into the production stage.

We met up one Saturday to drive to our selected location and start filming. Overall, the adjustment from storyboard to the actual location was not terrible, but there were many shots we had to rethink due to technical problems like exposure and composition. Because of this, we captured lots of extra footage to make sure we had plenty to work with, and ended up filming the entire project in a span of just a couple hours. We sacrificed breaks to get the entirety of the filming done, which was definitely time-efficient but extremely exhausting for all of us. Additionally, because we were tight on time, some of the solutions we had come up with for the technical problems I had mentioned earlier were not necessarily the best, simply just the easiest and quickest solutions possible. Looking back, I definitely wish we had somehow gotten more time to film the opening, since it felt very rushed and we even had to cut out a section due to technical errors.

Next came the editing. Because of our already conflicting schedules, finding a day to meet and edit all together was close to impossible. Consequently, we did most of the editing remotely, splitting up the work so that we were all involved in each step of the process. I ended up doing sound design and attempting to apply a volumetric light effect to the beginning of the opening. Unfortunately, there were some complications  that prevented After Effects from being able to track the footage, ultimately making it impossible for me to apply the effect. Regardless, I enjoyed playing with the settings and getting more familiar with the program. The rest of my group handled line editing, color grading, and the other tasks needed to complete the project. Even though I am glad we spit up the work, I really wish I could have mixed the sound since the final mix sounded a little imbalanced to me. I guess I am just being nit-picky, but that is another aspect of this project that I have been reflecting on recently!

Anyway, it has been a great (and very stressful) eight weeks, but I am really satisfied that this project has finally come to an end. I am very grateful for my group despite the complications we faced, and I am surprised at how we went from being completely undecided about the topic to creating a complete, professional-looking film opening. Thank you to everyone that has been keeping up with my blog, it has been a privilege to write to you guys! I hope you enjoy the film opening. As always, thanks for reading!

Film Opening - Blog Post #22

I Think Volumetric Lighting Hates Me

        Hello everyone! As you can tell from the title of this blog post, the new method I found for the volumetric lighting did not work as planned. I was really excited to try this new approach (especially since it looked so promising) but unfortunately, I ran into some problems with the effects needed to make it happen. Let me explain this so you guys can understand what went wrong.

        Basically, like the last method, I needed to track the footage using the 3D Camera Tracker effect on Adobe After Effects. This effect allows points to be added and tracked throughout the duration of the footage, allowing the editor to create a 3D camera within the scene, solids (like in the last approach), null objects, and more. In this method, I had to create a 3D camera and null object, create an adjustment layer with radial blur and slight color correction, and then attach this adjustment layer to the null object I created from some of the tracked points I made with the 3D Camera Tracker effect (it sounds very complicated, but it is actually quite simple). Now, in order to explain what went wrong, I will show you the clip that I was trying to apply the effect to:

As you can see in this shot, there are many areas that are either overexposed or underexposed. 

We had struggled with finding the right exposure for the shot while filming, but eventually 

found something that worked - despite our efforts, however, the shot's exposure was something 

that caused problems later in editing. 

        I was luckily able to get the volumetric lighting effect to work in the first half of the footage. This is what it looked like without any additional editing:

It might not seem like much of a difference, but it was definitely a step forward. After adding
this basic effect, I was planning on making it look slightly more realistic by playing with the radial
blur settings as well as adding some dust overlays. Before I did this, however, I wanted to apply
the effect to the second part of the footage. This is where more issues came up.

        Sadly, because of the notable contrast between over and under exposed objects within the shot, the second half of the clip was basically un-trackable (since points could not be found and tracked). This caused a warning to pop up while I was editing:

        I thought this was an error on my part rather than an actual problem with the footage, so I sat in front of my computer for over two hours trying to solve this issue. I tried to create a point and then manually track it throughout the footage, which did not work. I also tried to use points from other parts in the clip (such as the wall that was nowhere near the source of the light, which was where the points were supposed to be located) and just move them over, however that proved to be useless as well. Here is a picture of that:

Though it is difficult to see in the picture, I used three points from the wall near the
entrance in order to  create the 3D camera and null object that I needed to achieve the
volumetric light effect. Once those two were created, I was planning on simply
moving their position to the light source in the second half of the shot.
Sadly, this did not work either.

        As you can probably guess, I became very frustrated and decided to contact my group mates after hours of unsuccessful attempts to fix the issue. After some discussion, we realized that the effect itself did not add much to the film opening and that therefore, we should no longer try to achieve this effect. This felt very unsatisfying - especially after working on it for so long and going through so much trouble to make it happen - but I am relieved to hear that I do not have to worry about it anymore. Since this is no longer an issue, the only thing we need to finish is the audio! We definitely plan on finishing this early next week, so I will post an update as soon as we finish. Even without the volumetric lighting, I think our final project will be quite decent, so I am excited to see the finished result! I will post an update when something new happens. Thanks for reading!

Film Opening - Blog Post #21

We Meet At Last

        Good news! Our group was finally able to meet to discuss the placement of the credits, which names will be put for what, and discuss what needs to be added or changed to the latest version of our project. As we talked in our Discord channel, we wrote down who we would credit for what in the chat. This is what we came up with:

        In addition, we were able to watch the most updated version all together and discuss what we wanted to add or change. We all liked how it looked, however I personally thought that we needed more sound throughout the opening. For instance, we need footsteps as the main character walks, sounds of her hand touching the paper on the desks, sounds of the door closing behind her when she walks in, and more. We had all discussed this in a previous meeting when we planning out our ideas for audio, however I guess we were mostly focused on finding royalty free music that fit our opening. Because of this, Logan and Kim will continue looking for sounds and I will mostly edit them in. I personally really enjoy working with audio, so I am excited for when that time comes. We also wrote down what each of us had to do in order to bring post-production to a close:

        But that's not all.. I have even more good news! I was finally able to find a tutorial that achieved the same volumetric light effect but through a different approach. I was very glad to find this video, since it was not only easier to pull off, but it would look better considering what our footage looks like. For instance, I remember mentioning in a previous post that using the other method would require an absurd amount of complicated masking in order to make it look realistic. Luckily, this method uses the Radial Blue Effect, which looks much more natural and would not require any of this crazy masking. Here is the video:

        I will be trying this effect out as soon as I finish this blog post! I cannot wait to tell you guys how it goes. Expect another update tomorrow!

Film Opening - Blog Post #20

Another Week Begins

        Good morning! I hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far (though it is only the second day). I come bearing some updates! Let me explain.

        Now that we are well into the editing process and are moving forward with our project, we are planning on meeting once again this week to discuss a couple things. For instance, we have to discuss the credits that will be appearing on screen throughout the film opening. These include the director, producer, any starring actors, and more. Not only do we have to decide what names to put for each one, but we also have to decide on the placement (where they will be placed within the shot, since we were thinking of making them look slightly three-dimensional).

We were thinking of placing our credits in certain places and making them look three dimensional
by incorporating them into the scenes in the opening. In this shot, for instance, one of the titles could
be aligned with the window and slightly angled to make it look like it is a part of the environment.
This will not only make the opening more visually appealing, but it will also make it more
engaging (since it is more creative than just placing the credits in the corner of the screen).

        We also want to discuss some of the finishing touches, as well as watch the edited film opening (the edited version we have so far) all together to discuss our final thoughts. Since Sabrina has been busy with work, Kim and I have not been able to see the most updated version with audio nor the color grading. During out next meeting, we plan on going over all of this together, discuss anything that we may need to change, and of course discuss what we will be doing moving forward. Individually, I will also be working on the volumetric lighting effect that I have had so much difficulty with. 

        The only thing I am slightly worried about for this week is the scheduling of the actual meeting. Sabrina is working for the majority of the break, Kim is still out of town and I will be temporarily going out of town as well starting today at 5PM. Because of this, we will have to work extra hard to ensure that we can find a time that works for all of us, so it looks like we will have to meet sometime late in the day (around 10PM) or in the morning (around 10AM). Since all of our schedules are different, we will be constantly updating each other in our chats in order to decide on a time for all of this to happen. Scheduling has been an issue before, but we have been able to work around not being able to meet, since we each had individual tasks to get done. However, this time around, we really need some time as a group to make these final decisions, so finding this extra time will be vital to the completion of our project. As always, I will update the blog if anything happens! 

Film Opening - Blog Post #19

Some More Updates!

        Hello! I have some exciting updates in terms of what we have gotten done these last couple days. Since the film opening is done being line edited and Sabrina had some extra time, she was able to play with the color grading and find a look that we all liked. Here are some of the before and after pictures she sent in the chat when making suggestions:

Though it does not look like much of a difference, it definitely creates
that gloomy and lifeless feel that we were looking to convey.

        Unfortunately, there have been some complications with my mother's health and other events in my personal life that have made it very difficult for me to focus on this project over the weekend, so I have not had the chance to look for other tutorials for the volumetric lighting effect. However, I plan on working on this more throughout spring break, that way my group can move forward in this project and that we can have almost all the editing (if not all the editing) done by the end of break. This will allow us to have an entire week to complete our CCRs, which are a significant part of the AICE portfolio project.

        However, that is not the only thing that we have accomplished recently! Like we had planned, Kim (with Logan's help) was able to find some fonts for the title graphic at the end of the film opening. This is a screen shot that they sent on our WhatsApp chat:

        We were thinking of using the top font for the ending title graphic and then the bottom font for the credits that will be shown throughout the film opening. We plan on using a different color, but we think that these will work well considering the story, title, and genre of our film opening. We cannot wait to see how it looks when it is edited in! Like I mentioned above, we will continue working on this project throughout the week, so I will post updates as they come. Stay tuned!

Film Opening - Blog Post #18

Bad News...

        Hello everyone! It looks like we have run into some complications... We planned to meet around 1:00PM on Friday (today), but sometime in the morning, Sabrina had asked both Logan and I if we could possibly show up to her house earlier. I had a meeting for another project (that Kim is also involved in) around 10:00AM that lasted around an hour, and after this I had to get ready to leave for Sabrina's, so I was unable to show up earlier. The worst part? Once I was ready to leave (to get there at the original time we planned), my mom could no longer drive me since she had a work conflict come up last second. As you could probably guess, this was very frustrating, especially since we had all been waiting for this day to come all together and edit...

        However, since we have all become used to working with others remotely, we were able to adjust quickly and get things done regardless. Logan showed up to Sabrina's where they began line editing and figuring out audio, and I began working on the volumetric lighting from my house. We were all able to communicate through applications like as Discord and WhatsApp, so we were all aware of what was getting done and what changes were being made.

        Like I had planned to do at Sabrina's, I immediately began working on the volumetric lighting effect by watching the tutorial I found and following it step by step. Since Sabrina and Logan had already decided what shot we were using, I simply imported the clip they chose and began applying the effect.

Another Problem Arises

        Unfortunately, I ran into a complication very early on. In the method discussed in the video, I had to grab a clip, apply the 3D Camera Tracking effect, create a 3D camera and Solid, and then create a mask that covered the area where the volumetric lighting was supposed to be. After this, I had to add the grid effect onto the "Solid" layer (the layer with the mask) and align it to the windows in the shot, since that is where the light was supposed to be coming from. Unfortunately, every time I would apply the effect onto the layer, it would disappear and then tell me that there was an error. After hours of trying different things, messing around with the program and looking for solutions online, I was unable to fix the problem.

This was the step that I was unable to complete. As shown here, the layer
with the solid has the Grid Effect applied, which is used to show the surface that
the light will be shining on. Though you cannot see the ground in the shot we
chose, this is a vital part in the creation of the three-dimensional light effect that
we want in our film opening.

        Another complication that I realized we would have later on (if this method was doable) was that there were many objects in the frame that would need shadows, including a moving subject (our main character). This would mean that multiple masks (with tracking) would have been needed, including one that moved as Sabrina moved throughout the shot, which would have been very difficult to pull off (and pull off well). Since this method seems to be unusable at the moment, I will do my best to look at other tutorials online to see if there is a better method for our project. There are many tutorials available that achieve the same effect in different ways, so I will be on the lookout from now on!

On the Bright Side

        Though my part of the editing was not as successful, Sabrina and Logan were able to line edit the opening and add the majority of the audio we needed. It's looking great so far! Hopefully I can figure out the effect, export it, and have Sabrina replace the unedited shots with my new ones. I also can't wait to see what the color grading looks like! I'm sure it will be one of the finishing touches that will make this film opening truly come to life. Talk to you guys later! I will let you know what happens.