Final Video

The following video is property of Ben Bunting and Madilyn Davidson 

contains drug scenes.

BSA227 Final shots

Final Compositing shots 

After Effects

Nuke

For my last compositing shot I decided to experiment with both programmes to get a feel for how they work. The results were marginally different with certain aspects causing trouble. After effects camera tracker was harder to use while the Nuke tracker worked smoothly but took a lot of work to get the sign where i wanted it on the track. I'm not sure which i preferred as each had its positive and negative points. Nuke made it very difficult to export while I am more accustomed to after effects so it was easier to navigate around.

Ben and I both worked on sound on the last day to get everything looking how we wanted it to look. Ben was in charge of colour correction as he has more experience then I.

Overall I am happy with how our film turned out both Ben and I have worked very hard on making sure it fits our original vision. Will be released after the 10th November 

BSA206 Drugstore Cowboy Review

Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Director: Gus Van Sant

I really liked watching this movie. Drug movies are interesting to me as there are so many ways to tell the story differently. The genre gives the director a chance to be creative with shots and scenes that otherwise would not be possible or seem completely out of place in any other type of movie. The story line was typical and predictable, however, The actors and film made it stand out enough to be an interesting movie. 

Bsa227 Compositing, Frame by frame continues...

I have been working on our rotoscoping shot for the past week and can safely say I am halfway through! not sure if I am a hundred percent satisfied with the result as although the strobe lights do significantly cut down my frame number they make the scene very jumpy and a little hard to read, however, given the time restraint I cannot afford to rotoscope over these frames aswell.

Update BSA 227 Compositing

So time is slowly running out and I still haven't locked down a style for our rotoscope scene. I prefer the look of frame by frame painting but it is taking a lot of time to achieve. all other attempts at shortening the time have produced varying results, some of which I like but none compare to traditional rotoscoping style which I will have to have decided on in the next couple of days if I am to leave enough time to finish the project by November 10th.

I have got my speed down to around 2 minutes per frame and can alter the style to cut down the amount of rotoscoping needed, however I still have over 400 frames to paint. that is 800 minutes or approximately 13 hours if I get each frame done in 2 minutes which technically means I could have this done by the end of the week. I am having issues with Lab times as its difficult to get on the computer and actually spend time painting. I think it is worth the effort to achieve the effect we are after, though my painting skills are not great and will be rushed a little we can alter these with different effects to get the really unique style we are after. I will discuss this option with Ben today as we are tackling sounds also this afternoon.

BSA227 Compositing Begins!

Filming has finished! We lost our main actor due to sickness so instead had Liam help us out for the two days of shooting, not exactly who we type casted but beggars can't be choosers this late into the semester. It was really important for us to finish filming before semester break so I would have enough lab time to work on editing.

I have been working all week on my first compositing shot, I started off first in After effects but was not happy with the result as I could not get the camera tracker to work in my favour and resorted to animating frame by frame. However, it was a good way to get an idea for what I was after and start to learn my way around the programme better:

Next I bought the footage into Nuke. This is probably my fourth time using Nuke and I'm starting to really enjoy it. The nodal based system works for me as I find it easier to organise and follow exactly what part of the shot I am working on. Using an online tutorial I think I have created a look that I am happy with. After some false starts where I lost whole days worth of footage I am on my way to completing our first real fx shot.

The tracking tool in Nuke is also a lot easier to follow and I think wields a much better result then Adobe After Effects.

Final shot 

BSA227 Shoot Day 1

 Day One on Set

We had a really successful first day on set

We had an issue with not very many extras turning up for shoot which made some of the scenes difficult to film.

Josh Clive was our camera man, Ben Bunting directed and I was first AD

We stayed on schedule and were able to finish up by 9:30 as planned.

Dinner break at 6pm. we were too scared to touch the bar lights as it took us a long time to get them set up 

Last shot was taken at 9:15pm ! 

we had a few issues with noise as someone decided to start construction at 9:00 which stretched our film time further