I acted at the Special Effects supervisor on-set and worked with 2nd unit DP Jack Wallace to shoot the elements that we needed to create this effect.   We were lucky enough to be able to shoot with the RED at 4k for most of the effects shots.  Here’s how it went down.

We planned on a 3 part composite for the shot.  First we framed and lit the shot, then we locked down the camera and kept it completely still for the duration of the shots.

We recorded the main talent first at 23.976 fps:

The First shot of our 3 part composite

Ideally we would have done this with a green screen, but alas one was not available that day.

Next we adjusted the frame rate of the camera and shot the students walking in the background at 4 fps, being very careful to mark off the area where our main talent would be standing.  When played back at 23.976 fps this created the perfect amount of motion blur for our purposes.

The second part of our composite

We needed only 10 seconds of footage for this shot, but because we were shooting at such a low frame rate, we ended up having the same 30 students walking back and forth through the hallway for about 6 minutes.

The last part of our composite was to shoot journal entries falling from the sky.  The director wanted it to look sort of like it was snowing pages from the main character’s journal.  The falling papers were envisioned in slow motion, and would need to be composited on top of the other images.

Again, we didn’t have a proper green screen at our disposal.  So, planning to pull a luma key in After Effects, we used blackout in the background, and shot the papers falling against that.  We shot these at 80 fps, which meant we were limited to shooting in 2k.

Slow Motion Papers falling

The trickiest part was getting the pages to gently drift through the frame without passing out of the frame to the left or right.

That was it for the production!  Next I snagged the footage and began tweaking it in post.  Step one was color treating the footage.

Removed color and adjusted exposure on background shot

Adjusted the white balance and kicked up the saturation on his shirt

Next it was time to do some rotoscoping!  This is a very time consuming process, but I got some great tips on how to best do it!  The most useful tip was to split the subject into multiple sections and deal with each one individually.  Here’s how that looked:

I started with the head

Then I split the rest of his body into sections

The bag was the hardest part to do

Here are all 5 parts put together

Next I brought my rotoscoped guy into my main composition and I used the bulge effect to make him look a little heftier.  The film IS called The Fat Boy Chonicles after all.

Just a simple overlay, nothing to smooth out the composite yet

It’s a good start, but he doesn’t quite blend very well.  his feet in particular bother me, as does the fact that he has no shadow.  So the first step was to work on the integration of his feet with the background image.

Added a shadow and masked the floor around the feet to blend the composite

Next I added an effect to blend the background color/shades with the foreground composite.  Once that was done, it was time to add the papers falling in the foreground.  I pulled a luma key from our source footage and layered many different takes together to create the feeling of constantly falling paper.  I also scaled some of the falling paper down and placed it behind the composite to give the impression of depth, and even isolated a few pieces of paper to swoosh behind him, then swing around in front of him.

Added the paper in the foreground and background

The final step in the shot was to really tweak the image to create the feeling of speed and confusion in the background.  I did this in several ways:  I added a defocus vignette around the entire screen, then I added a radial blur to the entire shot, being careful to ensure the blur got less noticeable as you get closer to the main talent.  I also spent many hours tweaking and adjusting the edges of my rotoscope to soften the composite and make it look a little more believable.

Here we have a still frame from the final animation

And there you have it!  I’m still tweaking a few of the pieces of paper, but it’s basically 95% done, just have to do the final full-res render, which will most likely take a few hours at least.  For the final version, check up on The Fat Boy Chronicles site.  In the meantime, here is my final test render to whet your pallet:

We utilized a design style which has gotten very popular over the last year or so. You can see it on all the major networks, and all over YouTube. The style is called Kinetic Typographgy, which is just a really fancy way of saying it’s just a text-based graphics piece. This was actually a really fun project to do, it allows you to stray away from the typical style of using text.

I enjoy the fact that you can re-arrange words in a fun and creative way that emphasizes the content. I got started by checking out as many kinetic typography samples as I could find on youtube. Here are just a few of the ones I really liked.

Next I found a tutorial that could give me some basic info on what I needed to do in Illustrator to keep the text crisp and clear no matter how close or far away my camera is.

This one worked great for me: http://www.vimeo.com/1271357

Many hard hours of work later, we have our own marketing tool using this incredibly popular look:

The new Comcast spots are amazing!

I’m still trying to figure out how they did it.  I can’t tell where the video ends and the graphics begin.

The colors are amazing!  The song is infectious!  The forced-perspective is exciting.  The transitions are clever.  I can’t say enough good things about it. I think the best part may be that it reminds me of playing SimCity.

If you haven’t seen it already, watch it below:

We recently completed a new Demo for ECG Productions.  This short (30 sec) demo highlights our services and features the 3d logo resolve that I teased here.

You can watch the video here.

Through the use of Cinema 4D, ECG productions can now provide clients with TRUE 3D modeling, animation, and compositing.

Currently, I am working on our new Demo reel using C4D. Attached are some quick WiP pics of the new logo resolve.  Look for the full animation on our main site soon!

Make sure to watch the video in High Quality for the full effect!

ECG Productions once again put together this year’s Atlanta Film Festival Trailer, and I have to say, we’ve outdone ourselves this time.

We worked with Max2o advertising and The Atlanta Film festival to create the concept, and then utilizing nothing but high resolution still images from last years films, came up with this year’s Trailer.

I used the method outlined in my previous post to create the faux 3d look.  It was very time consuming and required MANY hours of tedious photoshopping, but the results are well worth it.

Jason Marraccini did the sound design for the project and it really came together well.

Cinema Concepts is printing the theatrical version on 35mm film as we speak, so make sure you buy some tickets to the Atlanta Film Festival this year and check it out, it will be playing before each of the films in the festival.

We were recently commisioned to do a graphics-only spot for GA Southern University that utilized still images provided by the University.  For more specific deatails about what they asked for, check out my previous post.

Click the link below to see a sample of the animation.

SAMPLE ANIMATION LINK: Opening Animation for GSU Branding Spot

It took about 3 weeks of full-time graphic design work to get the spot done.  The effects that they wanted required a TON of layered design work, and in this post, I’m going to show you how I put together the opening sequence of the spot.

The final product looks like this:

It seems pretty straight forward, but there are actually quite a few layers of images working here.  Here is how I got to the final composition.

I started by adding the foreground elements:

This sidewalk is extracted from a picture I took on a location scout.

The original picture looks like this:

I then added this branded flagpole which is indicative of the university:

The original flagpole image looks like this: 

The flagpole was placed a bit farther away from the virtual camera in After Effects so that it moves a little differently from the sidewalk, giving the feeling of perspective.

Next a picture of the building was added to the background.

I had to use Vanishing Point in Photoshop to really sell the building, also I had to replace the sky, which was very overexposed and blown out in the original picutre.

The Original Picture looks like this: 

Next I added the groups of students to the image, 3 of them crossing the street, and 3 of them chatting on the sidewalk in the background.

I extracted the students from a picture GSU provided to us: 

And lastly, I grabbed the GSU bushes out of this shot:

After extracting all the elements I needed out of the individual pictures, it was just a matter of placing them in 3d space and using the AE camera to move through the scene and really create the illusion of depth.

Check out the final intro sequence again HERE.

The final spot is complete and will be on line shortly, I’ll post a link for you to check out in the next few days.

…endtransmission…

Two of the spots will be shot with our XL-H1 using a mini35 Image converter, and a set of prime lenses.  However, the third spot will be assembled using hundreds of high-quality images provided to us by the university.  The concept for the graphical advertisement is simple, but the execution will be tricky.  I’m going to be using empty shots of the campus, and placing students into the pictures.  Not only that I will be using a faux-3D style to give it a more dynamic look.

The best way to show what the final spot will look like is to link to some samples of what our client likes.

Also:

As you can see, the client has requested something very cool and visually stunning that uses still images, but makes them more dynamic than just fading them or panning across them.

My plan is to use Vanishing Point in photoshop to create my faux-3d scenes and then populating those scenes with students extracted from other images.  I’ve been running tests on this for the past 2 weeks and have finally established how my workflow for the project will work.  I’ll keep you posted on my progress over the next few weeks.

I’ll be shooting in Statesboro for the next so no more updates till September.  See you then.

Call me ignorant, but I really had no idea they even handed out awards for main titles sequences.  Don’t get me wrong,  I think it’s very cool that they do.  But I have to admit, I can’t sit through an awards show to save my life.  I look forward to seeing who takes home the prize for best Main Title Design, I found the nominees listed on montiongrapher.com:

The 60^th Primetime Emmy Awards are coming up on September 21st, and it looks like there will be some decent competition among the nominees for Main Title Design:

• Bernard And Doris • HBO
  Studio: yu+Co
  Garson Yu, Creative Director/Art Director
  Synderela Peng, Designer/Art Director
  Etsuko Uji, Designer/Animator
  Edwin Baker, Designer
• Chuck • NBC
  Studio: Imaginary Forces
  Karin Fong, Title Designer
  Jonathan Gershon, Title Designer
  Dana Yee, Title Designer
• Mad Men • AMC
  Studio: Imaginary Forces
  Mark Gardner, Designer/Director
  Steve Fuller, Designer/Director
  Cara McKenney, Main Title Producer
• New Amsterdam • FOX
  Studio: Pure NY
  Johanna Marciano, Creative Director/Designer
  Wendy Brovetto, Main Title Producer
  Bryan Keeling, Animator
• The Company • TNT
  Studio: Digital Kitchen
  Matthew Mulder, Creative Director
  Ryan Gagnier, Designer/Animator
  Igor Choromanski, 3D Designer/Animator
  Cody Cobb, 3D Animator/Designer

If you’ve never heard of Imaginary Forces head on over to their site and check out the work that they do.  It’s some of the consistently slickest graphics work being produced on the market today.  I’ve been keeping an eye on this company for a few years now, and I am ALWAYS impressed by the calibre of work they do and the care and thought that goes into every project they put together. Not to mention, they make some of the best show intros that are being used today!

Here is a little about them from their site:

IT’S THE QUESTION WE GET ASKED THE MOST.

We research, we write, we draw, we design, we paint, we photograph, we sculpt, we program, we talk, we argue, we collaborate, we pitch, we imagine.

What do we make?

Film titles. Commercials. Interactive spaces. Television. Live action.  Broadcast design. Virtual destinations. Experience Design. Graphics. Branding. The list goes on.

Regardless of the project, though, we always want to tell a story. Simple or complicated, it doesn’t matter. Whether it be a main title or a journey through  an immersive architectural environment, complete with audio, video, giant puppets and acrobats - the story needs to be compelling and relevant. And however we need to tell it, we will.

Above all, we approach our work as an opportunity to be innovative and always strive to create something that’s never been done before. This is what excites us, what makes us tick.