VFX: A Woodsy View

Quick post today.  Just wanted to share another photo composite I did.  This is basically the view from Charlie's window (my main character).  The perspective is a tad off in parts, and I think I may have placed the view a little higher than it should be, but otherwise I'm very happy with how it turned out.  Should provide me with some good POV shots, and some cool moments looking over Charlie's shoulder out at the mysterious woods.

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And like I did with my last few posts, here's a breakdown of the shot:

Really pumping out these VFX shots now.  Looking forward to posting more!

- Erik (Director)

VFX: Creating a Weathered Sign

More VFX stuff today, all about creating a weathered street sign.

In the story, there's an abandoned road that leads to the local woods.  This calls for a forgotten street sign, one that's been slightly worn through years of neglect.  The first step?  Setting out to research different designs of street signs as they appear in the real world.  The second step?  Recreate your own in Photoshop:

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Now the fun part, messing it up!  Through a combination of smudges, filters, and burn techniques, we have our weathered look.  I chose to keep the text very readable though, so it's only slightly weathered.  Still, our sign has seen better days...

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The next step is to put it in the actual scene.  Through some relatively simple 3d modeling of a street pole, and the combined efforts of various 3d applications, we are able to turn this still image into a digital prop.

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And through some simple compositing and animation, our scene goes from this...

To this...

I'm really happy with how it turned out; one of my favorite shots in the film so far!  Looking forward to posting more!

- Erik (Director)

Preparing a News Scene

I must confess, I'm not entirely done with filming.  There's a few odds and ends still left that I've been setting aside since they don't involve the main actors (and hence can be filmed whenever).  But after continually going back and forth between editing, visual effects, and filming the occasional insert shot, it's been a little hard to keep track of it all.  So, for the time being I've set aside post-production until I'm truly done with filming.  And I gotta say, it feels really nice to be back in production, standing and moving, getting outside, working with something physical rather than just a computer.

There's still about 3-4 full side scenes left to film.  And one of those… a news report.

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This is the main thing I needed up until recently for the scene: a mic flag, you know… one of those little boxes with the channel's logo on it.

I was able to get it pretty cheap: approx. $10.  And that would otherwise be uneventful news… if not for the fact that I foolishly decided to CUSTOM BUILD one out of a tissue box BEFORE realizing I could just buy one!  Argh!

So, without further ado, I bring you my crazy process of building one on my own...

As I mentioned earlier, I began with a tissue box, cutting it into corners so I could shrink it to the right size I wanted.

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Here's a size comparison.  Ah, the power of "Tissue Box Shrinkage"!

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After taping it together at the right size, I began cutting appropriately sized holes for the mic I was going to use.  Then, I wrapped it in a single sheet of paper to smooth out the edges.

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Up next, designing a logo.

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Then printing it out and wrapping it around the box.

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Tape it down, and you've got yourself your very own, custom-built (and completely unnecessary) mic flag!

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- Erik (Director)