Now it's fair to say the visual effects (CGI) has got a bit of a bad reputation as if it's just
explosions and green screens no substance
Then if you add to that all of the time and skill that's required for a good visual effect shot
,then you can understand why a lot of filmmakers go for projects that aren't too heavy on the visual effects.
but I don't want it to be laziness and
Kind of blockbuster stereotypes that stop me from learning about something. This week
I thought we'd try some simple effects that low-budget filmmakers can use for more creative freedom
This first one is real simple imagine that you're editing away
and you realize that the microphone is accidentally shown up in the frame of one of your good takes
So do we just scrap that whole take even if it's a good performance?
Or do we spend time and money doing a reshoot? Of course the third option would be to say those infamous words:
I got in touch with Peter France, a visual effects artist
and basically asked if he could help me out. This first one was pretty quick
he motion tracked the footage in After Effects, then found a frame without the microphone in it to use as like a patch over the
problem. After parenting that with the motion tracking data. You can see how it now moves with the camera
He combined the two
And you'd never know that the microphone was there in the first place
Now the reason we're not going into the full click by click how to do this exactly is because this is just about the core principles
you could remove a microphone like this or you could get rid of a light that wasn't supposed to be there or a
cable that was running across the set there no one noticed
Sometimes productions even decide it's actually easier to paint something out later
than it would be to just hide it from the camera in the first place.
So if you want to make use of the power of painting things out then just have a quick search for a motion tracking
tutorial and how to remove objects and you'll find plenty
of tutorials in there. This next one is matte painting all set extension
It's really common in shows like Game of Thrones
Must often be cheaper or faster to simulate things than actually building this stuff. Now obviously those are very complex shots
But we can do it on a smaller scale take for example this shot, so we wanted a mountain in the background
But we didn't want to spend the money traveling somewhere that had a mountain
We could just find a 2d image and motion track the footage just like last time
Do a bit of quick color correction so it matches and then carefully mask around the foreground so we can bring it in front of
the mountain. Now, that's a bit of a silly example, but again
It's about the technique that you can apply to all kinds of things.
For example sky placement is pretty common: if you don't want to wait for the perfect cloud formation
One of the core principles of visual effects
I'm told is that it's often better to combine the digital trickery with something real: practical effects
So if you're going to add some fake fire to a shot
it's worth adding some real light to the scene when you're on set making sure it's orange and
flickering slightly that way when the fake flames are added the shadows and reflections
Around it will be a lot more realistic on a smaller scale let's say we're going for a cliche haunted house effect where objects start
levitating and moving around. We could spend ages designing an entirely digital book from scratch and
texturing it and animating it to float around the room with all the reflections and all the little details
But it's probably going to take a lot of time to make that look realistic so instead
we just tape some thread to some real books and yank them off the shelf
Then Peter could use the same painting out technique from the first shot to remove those strings
So for the last shot we wanted to try something that wouldn't be safe or
possible without visual effects so say if you wanted to have someone look as if they're walking along a roof
To do that by the book you'd need a stunt coordinator all kinds of safety precautions and a very good insurance package plus
You'd need permission from the property owner and a way to get up on the roof
So it's not that easy to do on an indie film so instead we found a staircase which meant I could have the camera
looking up to roughly match the perspective of a camera on the ground looking up at the roof:
then I got a shot of the roof who was supposed to be on and we were careful to make sure we were facing
the same way so that the light was identical.
I probably should have been more mathematical about matching up the angles and the distances so that all of the perspectives would match up perfectly
but this seemed close enough for the demo so with a bit of
Rotoscoping to cut him out from the background then after lowering the contrast since he's further away adding a slight edge
glow and a bit of blur then he blends in much better.
So for me at least this has been a nice reminder
that visual effects don't just have to be about sci-fi and
creating entirely new characters out of CGI
Actually it can be just a really helpful tool to have available to indie filmmakers basically just to
expand our options
So big, thanks to Peter for helping out with the visual effects his channels link below and also
Thanks to Squarespace
Who have sponsored this video?
Every filmmaker needs a portfolio and let's be honest most of us aren't web designers and don't really get excited by the idea of trolling
through a bunch of HTML codes. Squarespace with their all-in-one platform basically just makes it really easy to create your own website.
If you're interested you can go to Squarespace.com slash DSLR Guide to get yourself a free trial and 10% off your first purchase
Okay, so set up with a template and basically have a really slick looking website set up in no time.
My name's Simon Cade. It's been Dslrguide, and i'll see you next week.
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