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Digital Post Production Techniques

By Richard Davis

Module Title: Digital Post Production Techniques Module Number: 204AAD Module Lecturer: Ian Killick

Being a huge fan of David Lynch, I wanted to capture something different, not necessarily the images themselves, but the reasons why I capture them is whats different. A story can have a thousand meanings to a thousand different people, film being a visual language; I want to translate my story to the screen in a personal way. I feel this is how you get film with real meaning and depth, by making it personal. When I was writing scripts, I used to keep a dream diary next to my bed, an idea pinched from Stephen King, who used to do the same, in fact he said most of his ideas arrive that way (I have since found out that Lynch does the same thing). So In my dream diary I had lots of crazy writings, some I have no reallocation writing. This one piece of writing has always puzzled me, its very clear and precise, not the meaning, but how it was written. Automatic writing or psychography is writing which the writer states to be produced from a subconscious, external or spiritual source without conscious awareness of the content. I have often thought this maybe the source of this text but either way its come through me, I feel its very personal and a great place to start. With this in mind, I started to create images of shots in my mind, which came to me when I thought about the piece of writing. The images are not directly related to the text, but again I let my subconscious do the work for me, and as I read the text over and over I build up a collection of shots. I do feel this project is now very personal, Im not claiming their to be some deep meaning or understand any kind of subtext, its more like a stream of unconscious thoughts directly from my mind, translated to film. As I have said, David Lynch being one of my Film heroes, allows people glimpses of his mind, this is clear in all his work, and he does not apologize for making film we may not fully understand, because I feel he may not understand all of it himself, but we are left to puzzle over the content and form our own opinions about his work, and this allows us to make deep connections with his films because they become personal to us. Techniques I aim to use in my Moving Poem My aim is to create this visual dream, so I want techniques that reflect this. When I think about a dream, I envision images morphing and blending into each other. I intend to use blends and transitions in my final piece. I am also filming in black and white with the blending in mind; I feel the blends will be more effective when working with two colors. I intend to film people and liquid swirls, using the liquid swirls to blend the pieces of footage together, creating a flowing video, the verisimilitude of a dream. I may also use a moving camera in After Effects, allowing the camera to explore the image and creating more fluid movement and have thought about colorizing some parts of the image, highlights certain aspects of the dream.

We have been given the task of producing a Moving Poem, a piece of video relating to a poem of our choice, a classic, one we have written ourselves or simply a piece of prose.

Assessment Title: Moving Poems

The Poem Below are pieces of prose I may be using for my video, they came to me in my dreams (very surreal). Shark in a Suit Log entry I think its been 3 weeks now havent slept for maybe four days every time I fall asleep, I wake to find someone sleeping behind me I dont even bother to turn over now as long as l leave them alone, they leave me alone but now I cant sleep because of the heavy breathing I think there are more of them now (Kill me. Why wont they just kill me?) whats the fucking point scrawled on the walls I think i saw one of the walls actually move the other day Its so hard to catch it If only we could keep an eye on all the walls All the time We could beat this place

Dreams of July

Walking down a road a girl runs past in a yellow jumper and swimming costume, she has a great ass (I think) I turn around so no one thinks I was going the wrong way waiting for the cars to pass A man holds and talks to a brick like a best friend I find a tin in the hedge full of biscuits in blue tin foil I run down the street so fast I run on the hedge Im late for a badminton tournament cant find the room E2.. E2.. I keep scores on a receipt I had to meet a Viking boss When I entered the room I had to crawl under the table I asked what should I call him Emma and Jo fight Emma leaves, but really lives in a crack in the wall She comes out a week later, dirty and embarrassed

When thinking about my poem many shots came to mind, I want them to be over stylized and unrealistic. A character walking into darkness and vanishing, a shot seen in Lynchs Lost Highway (1997), is particular favorite of mine. A Face match on action, one person transforming into another, I also intend to use light and dark very heavily, contrasting between two worlds, the waking world and the dream world, using silhouettes will be a great representation of this as well. An eye in close up and other intimate shots make an audience think about whats going on in a characters mind. I want a mirror shot, this literal reflection, reflecting the dream world. I want to use liquid to blend the shot together, the swirling motion and blends seamlessly connecting the images. I want to sexually charge the images, reflecting heightened emotions by shooting a girls legs and body in a voyeuristic manner. Shark in a Suit (Image Breakdown) I feel this poem will suit me best, so I start piecing together ideas. Log entry (Top of head, cut off, - water drop in water) (Long Walk up to camera, light cigarette. follow smoke from cigarette up to a streetlight)

I think its been 3 weeks now (Face under water, emerges) havent slept for maybe four days (overhead shot, legs on floor) every time I fall asleep, I wake to find someone sleeping behind me (Broken mirror shot light reflected in mirror to match maybe with light line. The light burns out the screen) I dont even bother to turn over now (Burn fades - lights shot from below, camera spins round the light moves around us) as long as l leave them alone, they leave me alone (Walking into darkness) but now I cant sleep because of the heavy breathing (feet walking on tiles) I think there are more of them now (eye match on image) (Kill me. Why wont they just kill me?) whats the fucking point scrawled on the walls (writing on the wall) I think i saw one of the walls actually move the other day (the 3 point corner of a room, match action to a box or similar) Its so hard to catch it (the water spill fallen light bleed in to bulb) If only we could keep an eye on all the walls (eye match on action) All the time (side track past doors to someone sitting in room in silhouette. Curtain open, light pours in?) We could beat this place (holding hands)

Images I started to collect images to reflect things I had in mind for my video.

Creating Effects Next I thought about the effects that would best suit my dream like Poem Video. Blends and overlays, I will use these to create transitions from shot to shot, create match on actions and create light paths. Fades/ dissolves will also be used to transition from shot to shot. Blurs will allow me to remove images in an alternative way other than just turning down the opacity. Color correction will allow me to create the heavy contrast Im looking for in each shot. With Freeze Frame Ill be able to capture a moment and hold it, adding meaning. Light burning out the screen is also another effect I have in my mind when it comes to blending shots, this burst of light burning out the screen, only to fade into a new place and image. Blend Example: A Place in the Sun (1951) Directed by George Stevens, is noted for its exceptionally long fades and dissolves.

Mix / Dissolve / Crossfade: These are all terms to describe the same transition a gradual fade from one shot to the next. Crossfades have a more relaxed feel than a cut and are useful if you want a meandering pace, contemplative mood, etc. Scenery sequences work well with crossfades, as do photo montages. Crossfades can also convey a sense of passing time or changing location.

First Im going to look at some of the techniques I could use in After Effects to get the look I desire. Im only going to look at the basic effects and their uses, as I wont know how Im going to apply them exactly until I have finished my video. I also wont go in to much detail on how to impalement each affect to save repeating myself when I come to explain my finish composition. Transitions:

After Effects Investigation

Above Is a Liner Wipe Transition, a pre-composed effect in After Effects. I drag my two videos into a new composition, leaving over lap for the transition. From the effect menu I choose Liner Wipe and drag this on to the top (or bottom) layer.

Alpha Channels: Another area I may look at is Alpha Channels. These are very important in After Effects and Photoshop: Its a component of a file that tells it about transparency information. I wont go into them here as it may only come up in I import a still from Photoshop.

In the Effects controls panel we will now have new options that allow us to customize our Liner Wipe. There are many Transitions in After Effects but I will most likely build my own, using the pre made ones as a guide.

Speed: I may speed up and slow down certain video clips. Now in AF there are a few ways to affect the speed of a clip. First we can right click the composition header bar can go to Columns Stretch.

Now we have a new column with speed duration. We can scroll this up and down to change the length of the clip. This can also be done by right clicking on the video clip its self in the composition window and selecting Time. In here we have many options, we can reverse time, speed up, slow down or freeze frame.

Blending modes: I will be using blending modes to create interesting transitions from one clip to the next. Blending modes allow different layer to interact in unique and different ways. Ill only touch on one blending mode as there are too many to cove here. In my composition I have two video clips. The top layer is black swirls on a white background. The bottom layer is a girls face. (I have resized the top layer for effect). From the composition bar, under Modes I select Multiply - this affect keys out the white of the top layer and blend the darkness of the top layer with the layer below.

Here I have rotated the top layer and now we have dark swirls moving in from the edge of the image Different blending modes interact in different ways, groups of them darken, some lighten, one group lightens light values and darkens dark values and some are special effects.

Masks: Masks in simple term remove a piece of a layer. I select the top layer in my composition, which is the girls face. From the top menu bar I select the Pen tool and with the top layer selected I draw my mask. The mask cuts the layer allowing me to see the layer below, here its more swirls. In the Composition window I expand my layer options and open the mask options.

From here I can invert may mask, feather it and animate it using the Mask Path option and Keys frames. Here the mask on the top layer has been inverted and feathered to create a nice blended moving background for the girl.

For my explanation of the different techniques used in After Effects (and Premiere Pro for sound), I will try and use different examples for each individual process as many parts of the video contain multiple layers of affects. The following affects are explained: Blending Modes Brightness & Contrast Masks Extract Moving Masks Freeze frame Colour Time Reverse Blur Text Wave Warp Sound

With Masks I also intend to create moving mask and colorize sections of the video. By duplicating a layer and making a mask around the section I want to colorize, ill them animate the mask as the footage moves, but Ill go in to this when I get the real thing. My Moving Poem

Blending Modes

Blending modes allow different layer to interact in unique and different ways, here the Divide mode belongs to the difference category of blending modes. The blending modes in this category (Difference, Classic Difference, Exclusion, Subtract, and Divide) create colors based on the differences between the values of the source color and the underlying color. Here I have used this mode to allow the light of the bottom layer (the lights) to interact with the darkness of the liquid swirls, creating the look of the light and the liquid becoming one. Masks Here I have created a simple mask on the top Face in the water layer. To do this, with the desired layer selected, I press G on the keyboard to get the Pen Tool, then in the composition window I start to put down mask points around the subject. In this instance the mask effectively cuts away the outside of the layer, exposing the layer below. In the layers expansion menu, I feather the mask to allow the blend mode, Luminescent Premul, to blend with the image below effectively, the feather being a graduated opacity ramp. (Luminescent Premul is a specialized utility blend mode, it Prevents clipping of color values that exceed the alpha channel value after compositing by adding them to the composition.)

In this shot I have one layer on top of another layer with the blend mode Divide applied on the top layer, which in this case is the layer with the swirling liquid. Blending modes are selected from the expanded Mode section on the time line.

Moving Masks

In this shot I have blended smoke moving across a shot of a corridor. I used a moving mask to slowly revel the smoke. To do this first I create a mask on my smoke layer around the footage.

The mask is set to Inverted mode, which will hide anything under the mask. In the time line menu, under the expanded mask menu I set the key frame button on next to Mask Path this means as I move forward in time and adjust the mask path, the program will add a new key frames for the path. So as we move forward in time the mask path will animate as it moves to its new position in time, thus revealing the layers properties.

Colour

This is the one piece of the video that has a colour other than black and white. I had filmed a white liquid moving across a tile floor and made a moving mask which I then colorized red.

I created this affect in a separate composition to be added to the final composition later. First I have to talk about adjustment layers. To create an adjustment layer, go Layer New Adjustment Layer. An Adjustment layer is a layer that has no properties; its effectively an empty layer, but any affects you put on this layer will affect the layer below it on the time line. This is very useful if you want to apply affects that would normally affect an entire layer. In this case I wanted to create a mask and colorize it. After animating my mask I went to the Effects & Presets menu and selected Hue/Saturation from the Color Correction group.

With the adjustment layer selects I drag the Hue/Saturation affect to this layer. Now I select Colorize from the layers Effects Controls menu. Now by adjusting the Colorize Hue option and Colorize Saturation options I get the red Im after. Here the colorize affect is changing the colour of the image within the mask of the adjustment layer, so it will still preserve the different tones from the original footage making the effect very realistic.

I wanted an image that disappeared in a blur. Here the girls face is frozen in time and blurs away into the darkness. From the Effects & Presets menu I select Directional Blur from the Blur & Sharpen group.

Blur

With the Directional Blur added to the layer I key frame the Blur length at the start and end of the clip, increasing the blur as time moves on (from 0% to 100%), I also set the opacity on the layer to decrease so the layer blurs to nothing. Wave Warp Another similar affect was achieved with Wave Warp. This created a more pronounced affect. With my photo layer selected I grab Wave Warp from the Effects & Presets menu.

Above I have added key frames to the Wave Warps height and width , this allowed me to create a kind of shattering affect as the photo breaks up over time.

In the layers expanded menu I am able to adjust the properties of the Wave Warp.

Brightness & Contrast

A simple but very important affect in my video is the Brightness & Contrast setting, as it has been altered in almost all of the shots, so the video has coherent ascetic. Brightness & Contrast is selected from the Effects & Presets menu.

The Brightness & Contrast levels are set and I compared shots side by side by viewing one image in the direct Layer window and one in the Composition window. I darkened much of my footage and boosted the contrast to give the images more punch and add more contrast between the blacks and whites. Extract

Again from the Effects & Presets menu I used Extract, an effect that allows you to key an image based on a range of one channel. Key frames are added in time and the individual channels of the Extract affect are adjusted to create an interesting transition where the gradient blacks in the image collapse inward. The black point is slowly increased and the black softness in adjusted to create a smooth transition.

Freeze Frame

Freeze Frame allows you to make a still image from a piece of footage, in this instance I wanted an eye to float in liquid. Freeze Frame works by freezing the first frame of the selected layer, so first we must create a new layer from the piece of footage that contains the frame we want to freeze. In the time line below I have my piece of footage (MVI_8038.MOV), I move along the time line to the precise moment I want the freeze frame and I then press - Ctrl Shift D (Command Shift D on the Mac) which cuts the layer at that point, placing it above our original layer. Now MVI_8038.MOV is on two layers, I right click the top layer (whos first frame is the freeze frame I want) select Time Freeze Frame. An icon will appear with the layers menu expanded to show us the Freeze Frame. Time Reverse

Time Reverse allows us to play a layer in reverse. In my composition I have this black liquid played in reverse so it appears the liquid is being pulled or sucked out.

This is found in the same menu as Freeze Frame, I right click the desired layer and select Time TimeReverse Layer.

Text

The layers footage icon will now have these red strips at the bottom to tell us its in reverse.

Text has been added to the wall in this shot. I wanted the text to look as though it had been written on the wall. Without any layers selected in the composition window, I select the Text Tool and click in the composition window and write my first line of text, this will automatically create a new text layer in the time line.

I repeat this process, creating a new layer for each line of text; this will allow me to adjust each line individually. I also put a blend mode on the text to help it fit blend with the image properties below. The blend mode is Soft Light which darkens or lightens the color channel values of the underlying layer, depending on the source color. I adjust the properties, Position, Scale, Rotation and Opacity, of each line of text so they look individual. Once each line of text was as I wanted it, I needed to be able to able to easily reposition all the text at once, so using the Pick Whip, I parented the bottom three text layers with the top text layer, now any position or scale changes I make to that layer affect all the text layers.

The Complete File

I used a few different methods to get my sound. I recorded myself reading from Walter Murchs book In the Blink of an Eye; I thought that had a kind of poetry to it. I simply used a cheap microphone and recorded my voice using the program Audacity and saved the files as .WAVs. I also used my Roland HD1 electronic drum kit to record a collection of industrial noises. Then I also recorded the sound of a metal light cover being flicked, it has a really nice reverberation I have always liked, so I recorded that sound with a field recorder. Once I had my sounds I set up a new project in Premiere Pro and imported all my sounds and the exported After Affects video file.

Here is the complete after effects project, its quite a beast. As I added new files I colour tagged them Red so I could easily see what was complete as I went along. The complete file was then added to the render queue and exported with Best Settings as a H.264 file. Sound

On some of the sound clips you can see a red line , this is where I have reversed the sound. To do this you right click the sound clip and select Speed/Duration Reverse Speed. From here we can also slow or speed up the sound.

Here is an overview of the completed sound file, as you can see there are a lot of Mono channels as I just used a cheap computer microphone to record the sound, I felt this would add to the dirty quality I was looking for in the sound I wanted for the video.

I altered the speed of the sounds I recorded on the drums and reversed them also; this gave me an almost alien, humming industrial sound. The different clips of me reading were layered on top of each other to create a garbled talking.

Because I want to be able to here the poem clearly I dropped the volume of the background sounds down when the poem was being read. To do this I grab the Pen tool and start to add audio key points either side of where the poem audio would sit. Then I decrease the volume in each section appropriately.

The audio of me reading the poem was heavily altered, because (no one likes the sound of their own voice and) I wanted it to sound slower and weirder, giving it a dream like quality. I added a Lowpass from the Effects panel Audio Effects. The Lowpass allowed me to cut out some background static hum, cleaning the audio up a bit, because I wanted it to be audible. Then I added PitchShifter from the same menu, this allowed me to drop the pitch for that strange, dream like voice effect. The volume was also increased by 1.8 dBs.

Photos and Original shots Below I have included some original shots, there arent that many as I captured most of my desired look in camera, this is always the best way, and any good camera man will tell you to never rely on post production! I have also included some set up shots.

Here is the Blood and Lamp shot, I have boosted the brightness here so you can see the white blood I used, it was corn flower mixed with water.

Above it a test shot I did in colour with tomato soup (it was too thin). When shooting black and white, its best to shoot in black and white, rather than change the colour after, because you need to see the image in black and white to get the contrasts exactly as you want them, yes you can sort this out in post, but by capturing in correctly in the first place you save time in the edit, which is critical when working professionally.

These shots were slightly graded. The shot below, in my moving poem video, has the text Whats the fucking point written on the wall.

Left is a shot used in the video (which was graded) and below it is the test shot, which I really like.

This was the original shot of my face to face match on action blend. Here the shot was much larger and was cropped and adjusted to match the shot of the girl with which it blends. This is a shot of the smoke, its clear to see the adjustment when compared to the video. I blew out the brightness and adjusted the contrast heavily. This is the original shot of the running spider in colour. It was very washed out so I really cranked the intensity of the shot. There were a few shot that never made the final cut, ones which I liked but were not needed.

A few pictures of my set up for the liquid shots and the moving box shot. A light, an empty vodka bottle and some ink.

Shot on the Canon 5d Mark II, with a Macro lens on a 50mm 1.8 lens.

I had the camera on wheels at a twisted angle. The light lets me get the high contrast look. Shot with a 210mm lens on the Mark II.

Story Boards

Below I have included my story boards which I used when shooting to make sure I covered all the shots I needed.

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