Help with VFX Corrections

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digitalskylight

Active member
Hello!

My fiancee did this composite idea for class back in the summer (I helped shoot it), and we are now looking for advice to make the girl blend better with the city so we can finally put it up and in our 2012 portfolio!

Only note: the first shot with the girl in the city at night is one we still need to correct scale-wise with the pop-zoom; had we done it properly before, we would have gotten a pop-zoom on her arm.

[url]https://vimeo.com/47886563[/URL]
password: smu

Any specific advice would be great!!
 
What is your complaint? Her blending better? You mention the first shot of her in the city at night, but thats all I see in the video: Her in the City at night.

I think she looks lovely. But if you wanted to tweak it, I suppose you could concentrate on making her whatever color the lights happen to be in a given scene. Sodium vapor lights tend to look rather sickly IMO. The overall cast seems to be a wash of earth tones, and she does as well.
 
Didn't look bad. I think I saw one place where there was some spill on her stomach, but on Vimeo you can't really scrub around to verify.
 
tom_wise said:
What is your complaint? Her blending better? You mention the first shot of her in the city at night, but thats all I see in the video: Her in the City at night.

I think she looks lovely. But if you wanted to tweak it, I suppose you could concentrate on making her whatever color the lights happen to be in a given scene. Sodium vapor lights tend to look rather sickly IMO. The overall cast seems to be a wash of earth tones, and she does as well.
Click to expand...

Yep! Just want her to blend better.

Are there any scenes in particular that stand out lighting-wise more than others? We've both looked at this a million times over already and have tweaked things to death, but want to see what color correction or softening to the edges etc. we can still do?
 
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In terms of the overall lighting and perspective, everything looks well executed. The key you pulled looks good (even the shot where her hair detail is most apparent was done nicely). Not sure if you added any light wrap to your composites but I do see some edge blur being used. The one thing I would tweak more—if anything—are the color values of your actress. She is sitting in the plates well, however, a stronger tint or "light spill" (depending on the color of the lights) might add the believability of these shots.

The shot where her back is turned to the camera and the shot where only her shoes are shown, were ones I felt could use a tad more work. The shoe shot in particular, stands out most. I think there is a drop shadow behind your actress that could be worked out too. I would mask out the top part of the shadow and just keep the part under the soles of her feet... so that it looks like she's standing on top of the floor, as opposed to "popping off" the building—if that makes any sense.

All of this is of course just my opinion. As others have said, this is nice work.
-B
 
1) I feel that the shot of her shoes could stand to be tracked into the shot a bit better
2) Something is off with her hair, it seems to pick up too much light for the environments she's in. The rest of her is well matched, especially when she looks down on the elevated train.
3) For the scenes where she peers into the buildings, we need a little shadow cast when she gets close. As there is plenty of building texture, I think a displacement map could sell this effect well. But very subtle obviously.
4) Nice work so far.
 
Not sure if you're using this, but a great trick for "Giant" compositing is shoot your background at 24 fps, but shoot the actor at 30 fps. Then slow down the actor to 24 fps. It will make their motions seem much bigger and heavier.
 
I think she could use just a little noise/grain added. She is rather clean compared to the BG. Just a touch mind you, just to even out the texture. Also I would check your overall saturation level, it looks like her saturation might be a bit high for the environment. And as bgodoy said, a little light wrap would help her sit better in the frame. Similarly, some light pollution from the street lights would be good, just some of that slight glow that bounces around inside a lens.
 
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