Client: Independant Project (24-hour film festival)
Festival Curators: Kai Hiatt, Spencer Bowman, Aaron Gaponoff
Project Goals:
Inform viewers of upcoming event
Establish and highlight overarcing theme and mood of selected films
I'd be lying if I said my friends and I weren't big fans of older film. Each year, I co-host a 24-hour movie marathon dedicated entirely to a pre-selected genre. I decided that for this year's marathon, I should step up my efforts in creating the trailer. GALACTATHON was the chosen marathon theme- a full day of 70's and 80's classic sci-fi and their subsequent cheap knock offs.
The Post-Apocalyptathon's trailer turned out great. But I wanted to do something with equal— or even greater punch. With such a spacey (heh) subject matter, this opened the doors for me to go try some crazy new techniques and imagery I'd yet to work with.
After some concept sketches I decided to go with a sort of holographic-screens floating in space look. I did a series of tests of camera control and compositing techniques between After Effects and C4D, to make sure what I wanted to do was possible with the resources and time available.
The Post-Apocalyptathon's trailer turned out great. But I wanted to do something with equal— or even greater punch. With such a spacey (heh) subject matter, this opened the doors for me to go try some crazy new techniques and imagery I'd yet to work with.
After some concept sketches I decided to go with a sort of holographic-screens floating in space look. I did a series of tests of camera control and compositing techniques between After Effects and C4D, to make sure what I wanted to do was possible with the resources and time available.
Color swatch tests and concept art for the ‘Holo UI.’ You can't really go wrong with a complimentary warm gold/electric blue color scheme. Besides, as a nod to Star Wars, the holographic projects had to be blue, right?
Boards and layering breakdown
The workflow was a serious undertaking to tackle alone— this was a fully independant project, with every aspect my responsibility, and required some substantial juggling of 'rig-render-review-repeat'.
Each shot required 3+ plates composited on top of each other, a "starfield" plate (that matched and remained true to the camera's rotational motion. The "Action plate" with the holographic screens, film titles, and edited footage. And the holo-ship plate which rested on top/front of everything else.
Each shot required 3+ plates composited on top of each other, a "starfield" plate (that matched and remained true to the camera's rotational motion. The "Action plate" with the holographic screens, film titles, and edited footage. And the holo-ship plate which rested on top/front of everything else.
A walkthrough/breakdown of the compositing and effects process I had to go through for each shot— including alternating camera angles.
General workflow was staggered, but after concepts and boards, I proceeded with editing down footage to use (finding the right clips out of 12+ hours of footage to squeeze into 2 minutes is no joke!) creating assets in Illustrator. This was followed with rigging in AE, and making a rough edit cut in Final Cut Pro to getting everything matched to the audio track. Camera motion was exported to C4D, where starfield and holographic components were then animated and rendered out, then composited back into the AE file. Audio was manipulated and stylized in Soundbooth. Sections of alternating A/B camera shots were rendered out, and the final was edited in Premiere.
This predates the substantial crossover capabilities that Cinema 4D and After Effects now posess.
Total hours: 80-ish
Programs used: 5
All nighters pulled: 3
End result: Reception for the trailer was great! People were jazzed for the marathon, and attendance was up from the previous year's.
Total hours: 80-ish
Programs used: 5
All nighters pulled: 3
End result: Reception for the trailer was great! People were jazzed for the marathon, and attendance was up from the previous year's.
