THE NIGHTSHIFTERS - better late than never!
- Thread starter Zenon
- Start date
R.L. Scott
Well-known member
that ish was nuts... good clean fun.
Zenon
Active member
Here's a quick breakdown of the Wolf Punch, all done in After Effects!
This is the raw shot
Here is the Wolf arm shot coming though green screen
After the arm has been matted out I played around with the levels and size, then comped it over the raw shot
Now the masked shadow is added to highlight the scene
Finally the overall cc is added
hope this helps
This is the raw shot
Here is the Wolf arm shot coming though green screen
After the arm has been matted out I played around with the levels and size, then comped it over the raw shot
Now the masked shadow is added to highlight the scene
Finally the overall cc is added
hope this helps
Your Movie Rocks so hard its crazy.
Mark Harris
Pain in the ass
Nice use of the masks. We did that too to focus attention on certain spots.
wow man you pulled one INSANE key off that wrinkled ass half overexposed, half black shadowed sheet...... Lol
When I first saw the grabs on the first page I was totally stunned - this must be posted in to the wrong forum, this is 35mm and you're just teasing all of us fellow dvxusers 
Besides the stunning imagenery, your creative use of effects was also very... ehhh ...creative 
I like a lot of these kind of simple stories unless they're entertaining me. Not every tale has to has breath takingly deep meanings behind it.
Keep going!
Besides the stunning imagenery, your creative use of effects was also very... ehhh ...creative I like a lot of these kind of simple stories unless they're entertaining me. Not every tale has to has breath takingly deep meanings behind it.
Keep going!
peter orland
Well-known member
What a great effort, unbelievably good.
How much previous experience had you had working with After Effects or SFX in general?
Looks like the bar just got raised again.
How much previous experience had you had working with After Effects or SFX in general?
Looks like the bar just got raised again.
jamesh
Well-known member
I'm interested to know how you cast the film? Mates? Actors from the net (ie. starnow), drama students etc?
What was the budget? How many crew?
How long did it take to shoot/edit/composite?
Forgive my nosiness but i just need to know what it takes to pull something like this.
Congrats again.
What was the budget? How many crew?
How long did it take to shoot/edit/composite?
Forgive my nosiness but i just need to know what it takes to pull something like this.
Congrats again.
Zenon
Active member
Badlaa,
Yes the story is very simple. I had an idea ages ago about some vampires picking on this really weedy guy, and the upshot was him surprising everyone by turning into a kick ass werewolf! It was simple yes and in the future I plan to write more in depth scripts (drama fest maybe?), but for this being my first project I didn't want to rely on actors I couldn't get a performance out of.
Which brings me to Jamesh's question. In a mad rush to get this made (finding out about horror fest 2 late) I used a website called 'shooting people'. The site helps film makers make contacts and find people willing to help on independent and professional projects. I just bit the bullet and rang around, which found me my DOP, make up girl and lead actor. The rest of the crew and actors where basically my mates and my dad!
Believe me it wasn't an easy shoot, I nearly went mad doing everything myself, from setting up shots, re-writing the script, looking for lost actors and making sure everyone had enough food and water!! Luckily having my brother helping brought me back to reality. But the effort I think was worth it and as I said before an invaluable crash course into filmmaking.
As for experience in after effects and sfx, I really don't have any. It was trial and error which probably explains why I couldn't get the film in on time
An invaluable source of resources, tutorials and information was this site www.videocopilot.net
Andrew Kramer has done a fantastic job of putting easy to follow tutorials up on his site, I basically learnt most of them and adapted the techniques to suit what I needed to achieve.
From start to finish the whole thing took around three weeks on and off with more than a few all nighters!
oh and budget was around £500, this was mainly props, things like contact lenses, rubber arms.....
If I didn't have to work for a living it might of been done on time
Richard
Yes the story is very simple. I had an idea ages ago about some vampires picking on this really weedy guy, and the upshot was him surprising everyone by turning into a kick ass werewolf! It was simple yes and in the future I plan to write more in depth scripts (drama fest maybe?), but for this being my first project I didn't want to rely on actors I couldn't get a performance out of.
Which brings me to Jamesh's question. In a mad rush to get this made (finding out about horror fest 2 late) I used a website called 'shooting people'. The site helps film makers make contacts and find people willing to help on independent and professional projects. I just bit the bullet and rang around, which found me my DOP, make up girl and lead actor. The rest of the crew and actors where basically my mates and my dad!
Believe me it wasn't an easy shoot, I nearly went mad doing everything myself, from setting up shots, re-writing the script, looking for lost actors and making sure everyone had enough food and water!! Luckily having my brother helping brought me back to reality. But the effort I think was worth it and as I said before an invaluable crash course into filmmaking.
As for experience in after effects and sfx, I really don't have any. It was trial and error which probably explains why I couldn't get the film in on time
An invaluable source of resources, tutorials and information was this site www.videocopilot.net
Andrew Kramer has done a fantastic job of putting easy to follow tutorials up on his site, I basically learnt most of them and adapted the techniques to suit what I needed to achieve.
From start to finish the whole thing took around three weeks on and off with more than a few all nighters!
oh and budget was around £500, this was mainly props, things like contact lenses, rubber arms.....
If I didn't have to work for a living it might of been done on time
Richard
Last edited:
peter orland
Well-known member
Thanks for the quick reply Richard, it's great to here what people go through to create this kind of work.
Did you edit in premier then transfer to AE for the compositing and FX stuff? Did you transfer to uncompressed for all the FX/ Colour correction or did you stick with the DV compression? Did you create the colour correction yourself or did you use one of Andrews filter presets?
Thanks again.
Pete.
Did you edit in premier then transfer to AE for the compositing and FX stuff? Did you transfer to uncompressed for all the FX/ Colour correction or did you stick with the DV compression? Did you create the colour correction yourself or did you use one of Andrews filter presets?
Thanks again.
Pete.
Zenon
Active member
Hello again!
Just a quick re-cap on the CG Wolf FX.
The base low-poly mesh was created in Maya using reference photos of the mask.
Bones were created and linked to the mesh for facial expresions. The mesh was imported into a high poly sculpting program called Zbrush where the high details were sculpted in and exported as a render only displacement map, which is basically a texture that turns the low poly mesh into a high resolution sculpture when rendered (yes hurts my head too sometimes!)
Here is the model how it looked in real time:
The original footage plate was placed as a background and I animated the model frame by frame to fit the motion of the mask. I used an alpha map to hide alot of the hard edges of the mesh whilst also blending it into the costume mask in the background plate.
Original background plate:
3d Model:
Final Composite:
The model and background were rendered together using production quality rendering and motion blur to match the motion blur of the footage.
Tomorrow I will go over the wolf stomp / head splat scene, which was actually the easiest effect...ever!
g'night
Ed
Just a quick re-cap on the CG Wolf FX.
The base low-poly mesh was created in Maya using reference photos of the mask.
Bones were created and linked to the mesh for facial expresions. The mesh was imported into a high poly sculpting program called Zbrush where the high details were sculpted in and exported as a render only displacement map, which is basically a texture that turns the low poly mesh into a high resolution sculpture when rendered (yes hurts my head too sometimes!)
Here is the model how it looked in real time:
The original footage plate was placed as a background and I animated the model frame by frame to fit the motion of the mask. I used an alpha map to hide alot of the hard edges of the mesh whilst also blending it into the costume mask in the background plate.
Original background plate:
3d Model:
Final Composite:
The model and background were rendered together using production quality rendering and motion blur to match the motion blur of the footage.
Tomorrow I will go over the wolf stomp / head splat scene, which was actually the easiest effect...ever!
g'night
Ed
AndrewKramer
Active member
Killer Impressive! It's one thing to follow a tutorial but quite another to change it for your needs and incorporate it into a project with a story and purpose.
When I first saw it I was lost in the film and had to go back and watch it to see the effects because they were so well integrated, I believed them. Great use of Camera shake and the lighting atmosphere. I look forward to seeing the next one.
Andrew Kramer
http://www.videocopilot.net
When I first saw it I was lost in the film and had to go back and watch it to see the effects because they were so well integrated, I believed them. Great use of Camera shake and the lighting atmosphere. I look forward to seeing the next one.
Andrew Kramer
http://www.videocopilot.net
Congratulations, great work Richard. You shoul've been making movies since you were a teen. You'd be a major player in the Industry right now. The way I see it, it's simple, you either got it in you or you dont.
"VISION" its been there, a dormant talent. The perception of your mind and the ability to portray it for everyone else to see. I have a suggestion for you, I'm sure you have some projects in mind for the near future. Work on several short films like this one, but plan ahead so that in the end all the short films come together to make one full length movie. If you keep up the quality and polish a few minor things here and there I'm sure someone will pick it up. Keep it up man, you got it in you.
Cheers!!!!
"VISION" its been there, a dormant talent. The perception of your mind and the ability to portray it for everyone else to see. I have a suggestion for you, I'm sure you have some projects in mind for the near future. Work on several short films like this one, but plan ahead so that in the end all the short films come together to make one full length movie. If you keep up the quality and polish a few minor things here and there I'm sure someone will pick it up. Keep it up man, you got it in you.
Cheers!!!!
Zenon
Active member
peter orland said:
Pete,
I did edit in premiere and transfer to AE for all effects including composting some of Ed's CG wolf head.
I edited, CC, and did all the composting effects in full resolution. This was very silly of me, I didn't learn about proxies or create low rez versions. Luckily I have a high spec PC so I got through the whole process fairly easily.
All colour correction was created with Andrew Kramers 'Film Magic Pro', which I highly recommend.
Richard
Zenon
Active member
Jeff0969 said:
That's some really great advice Jeff thanks. Yes I've been making movies in my head for the last 15 years. It took something as accessible and encouraging as this site to really make the leap.
I hope to catch up and start making many more shorts in the future.
Richard
MovieTroll
Active member
No words, just... wow.
Great Job!
Great Job!