Final Project Documentation

Abstract:

The plan with this video was to do a short tongue-in-cheek advertisement for a made up product called "Mandles", candles marketed to men.  The equipment I used included a lighting kit, a 10.1 megapixel digital camera, and of course Final Cut Pro.  Originally, I had rented a Panasonic 3-chip Camcorder, but they supplied me with the wrong battery charger for it.  Luckily, the digital camera footage came out fairly well (thanks in part to the rented light).  Before actually shooting the video, I made some prop candle labels for the scents of bacon and beer that I wrapped around a regular candle to use in it.  I also made the Mandles logo used in the opening of the video.

1. Raw Footage

There were a few places in the raw footage that had a few pixelated lines running horizontally that showed for about a second in the clip (see first still).  This happened within the camera; even the source footage from the camera itself has this problem.  Also, most of the shots could have been framed a little bit tighter (see second still).

2. Basic Edit

The basic edit I did was unrelated to my final project.  It consist of some footage of my band at practice.  I cut it together, added some cross dissolve, titles and credits. 

3. Storyboard

4. Rough Cut

The initial rough cut of the video consisted of all the good takes, put in sequence, with a few cross dissolves in between certain clips.  I also had the Mandles logo placed in the beginning of the video.  At this point, the edits still needed to be tightened up, editing of the footage itself needed to be done, and credits needed to be added.

5. Final Edit

For the final edit, the cuts and dissolves between clips were tightened up and fine-tuned, most of the clips were cropped to tighten up the framing around characters and remove some unnecessary background objects from view.  Music was added to the beginning and end, and credits were added as well.

Self Evaluation:

Despite the problems with the footage and the time restraint under which is was filmed, this came out fairly close to how I wanted it.  There were a few things which I could have done better, however.  One obvious mistake I made during the filming of this is in the opening shot, where "Tina" is walking in the door.  You can see the light and umbrella in the reflection of the glass door.  While there wasn't really anywhere else to put the umbrella, it would still be wise in the future to figure out how to avoid this.  It ends up being pretty distracting from the content of the video itself.  Another good idea, would be to pay more attention to the framing of each shot.  The raw footage all could have been zoomed in more.  Paying more attention to this would have saved me some work in the editing process, and if the quality of the footage was an issue, it could have rendered the shots unusable.  All in all, however, I would consider this a successful project.

Midterm Portfolio

Abstract: A portfolio of six digital images made in Photoshop.

Production log:

This is a photo from a live performance of the band Strapping Young Lad.  First I color corrected the photo so the highlights were very bright and the shadows were very dark, then I brought out the shadows again.  I got the negative effect by using the curves editor.  I blurred all of the background of the photo to accentuate the sharpness of the foreground.  Last, I skewed the photo to give it more of a psychedelic effect.

Second is a Photoshop painting of a dragon.  The dragon itself is a reproduction of one I found on the web, in only black and white.  I added color to it, and then added the mountains in the background.  I added a gradient to the mountains to simulate shadow.  The result is a cartoonish portrait of a dragon.

 

Third is a photo I took myself of three giant sword sculptures in Norway.  I color corrected the photo to bring out the color.  I adjusted the brightness/contrast and also brought out the cyan, green, blues.  I edited the sky, the swords, and the ground and lake in separate layers to bring out the right colors to make each section look brighter and more saturated.

Fourth, I have a composite photo, made from three separate images of myself.  I didn't have a tripod to take them so I had someone else take the photos from roughly the same angle.  Luckily they were close enough to easily be composited.  The image of me to the far left is the original.  The center and right images were copy and pasted over the original.  I used the burn tool for some shadowing and did some basic color correction as well.

 

Fifth is a another composite image, made with an original photo of a kitchen as well as two photos of paintings, and a photo of a picture frame found on the web.  The image of the painting on the left had a frame in it already, but I had to find a frame for the Mona Lisa myself.  I added the frame to the Mona Lisa, then copy and pasted the whole thing into the original image.  I skewed both paintings to match the angles of the wall, and used the burn tool to add a bit of shadowing on the outside of them.  I did some basic color correction as well to make everything blend in a bit better.

The last image is a simple color correction.  I edited the brightness and contrast, hue and saturation, and the vibrance to bring out the colors.  The top left was very bright and the bottom right was very dark.  I used the burn tool to accent the edges in the top left, and the dodge tool just a bit to lighten up the shadows in the bottom right.

Self Evaluation:

Generally speaking, I liked the way that most of these images came out.  Looking back, I can definitely see a huge improvement over time.  There are a few things I don't like about the images.  The two composites I did both ended up being a little bit too dark.  In the painting I did, mostly because I used a mouse, the lines are a little bit squiggly.  In the last color correction, the upper left still looks a bit washed out, which kind of sets the image off-balance.  I was really pleased, however, with the way the first artistic color correction turned out.  To add on to this portfolio, I would like to incorporate the use of filters as well.  The first image would probably benefit the most from them.

Rock and Roll Living Room

The guitar amp is a 3d model made in Maya, and the beer bottles and guitar are all from other images.  To put the amp behind the furniture, I copied the furniture into new layers to put in front of the amp.  I did some transformations to all the copied images to make sure the angles matched, and used the burn tool to add some shading.

Color Correction

 

On the left are the original photos, on the right are color corrected versions.

Another photo composite consisting of my girlfriend's kitchen, the Mona Lisa, and some Monet painting.  The original image of the Monet painting came with the frame, but the Mona Lisa didn't.  I found a high res image of just the top half of the frame, copied and pasted, then flipped it and transformed it to fit around the painting.  Then I merged that layer down so I could transform the painting and frame as a whole.

Also, I changed the brightness/contrast levels of the original photo as well as of the paintings so it would also match a bit better, then burned the area immediately around the painting for shadowing.

"Multitasking"

A basic image composite.  Just copied and pasted from three similar photos into one, and added some shadows with the burn tool.  Came out pretty well except that with the middle image of me it looks like my feet are floating a bit...

Rotoscoping

The same effect that the movie "A Scanner Darkly" has... looks way cooler when done to video.

Used the tutorial found here:

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/rotoscope/page-3.php