Week 3: Post-Production.

Once I had completed filming all of my animation, I then began to start editing it all 

together. I started this process by adding both of my video files to Adobe After-Effects,

 and once I added them to the program, they both appeared on the time line, 

ready to edit.

Once I started to edit my film, there were a few problems I had encounters with, one of

 them being my body sticking out of the designated “White zone,” created on the set of 

my film. To combat this issue, I created a mask layer, and went through the animation, 

frame by frame, and moved the mask layer’s points according to where I went over the

 white zone, adding a key frame to every change.

Once I had completed the white zone problem, I played through the film to ensure that all

 of the mask were in the correct places. I found that the “feather,” effect on the mask, 

worked well because of the smoother edges, making the mask edges much less obvious.

 I also lowered the masks opacity slightly so that the edges of the mask would meet the 

edge of the film smoothly and would not show any mistakes.

After I had edited that part of film, I moved onto the introductory part of my film, which

 involved me being filmed in front of a green screen. I opened this video in After-Effects

 and began to edit out the “green,” by changing its colour from the "green screen" panel, to orange, and then managed to change the orange to white, blending it in with the background.

Once I had the film in the correct order and put together, I then went onto editing my film.

 To do this I opened up the film in Final Cut Pro and began to cut it up into individual 

segments. This then made it easier for me to see which parts I could edit first, and the 

first piece I began to edit was the longest part which happened to be me painting the

 large E4 logo.

Once I had used the tools in Final Cut Pro to speed up the selected piece of film, by

 about 200%, I then moved the three pieces apart from each other and began to edit the

 final piece of the film which was focusing on the E4 logo beginning to drip. I had to edit a

 few pieces of film out of it, because there was about three seconds worth of unwanted film

 where I was unsure how to stop the constant photo taking. This made the film run much

 more smoothly, and gave me the opportunity to edit in frames that I will in order to make

 this animation look more like a silent film.

To do this I opened up a document in Photoshop with the requirements of “web and devices,”

and began to draw out the frame that I will apply to my whole film. I changed the frame size 

at the top and bottom so that the frame was even, and coloured the entire frame black to 

match the ones that would be seen in most generic silent films.

I then opened up Adobe Illustrator and began to draw out the designs for the frame which I 

put into my film. I looked through a number of silent films and found that the frames of the

 films usually consisted of swirled and floral patterns, the kinds usually found on old fashioned

 mirrors. The design I went for was a swirl and tear drop look, and I tried numerous ways to 

draw out this image, including making my own style of paintbrush, and using the pen tool. 

I ended up using the paint tool, and edited the lines to make them much smoother and more

flowing, which in the end, worked out very well in my opinion. I then changed the size of the

 “tear drops” in order to make them the correct size for the Photoshop document.

I then chose the swirl pattern to go on both the top and bottom of the frame, which I got as 

central as I could, and added them as smart objects before putting them in their places for 

definite.

I put the images on a new layer and filled in the colour of the shapes to make them stand 

out fully against the black background. I did experiment with colour, where I used a mix of

 greys and even some pastel colours, before realising that pastel colours would not make

 much of a difference since the film is in black and white.

Once I have the swirls placed correctly onto the border, I started to place the tear drop 

shapes onto the new layer on my Photoshop file. I wasn’t quite sure where about I would 

put them to begin with, as I originally wanted them on the left and right sides, stretched 

apart like the swirls were, but I eventually decided on placing them at the corners of the 

border, and I feel this makes the frame look more ornate and like an antique rather than 

something more modern. Once I had completed the look of my frame for the animation, I 

saved it as a file to use for web and video purposes, and uploaded it into Final Cut Pro and 

stretched it across the time line, so that it would last throughout the entire film.

I then went on to make a take frame, where dialogue is displayed to show what the characters

 are saying in silent films. I began by making a canvas the size of what would be the space in 

the middle of the ornate frame I made, and then chose and old, but legible style text to use

 as the written dialogue. I feel as though this worked out very well as I asked numerous

 people as well as tutors and they thought it looked rather authentic, I also added two 

tear drop shapes around the words to exaggerate and pronounce the words more.

After I had all of the elements of my film put together in the time line, I went on to edit 

the visual part of my film by using a variety of the settings available on the Final Cut Pro

 program. I chose to edit the blur settings so that the picture was blurred slightly, making

 it look slightly older and less HD than it is.

Here it shows the final adjustments that I made, visually, I added some visual effects, such

 as the Gaussian Blur which is what made the film so blurred and old fashioned. I also added

 the “Bad Film,” filter, which helped me make most of my changes to my film. I increased 

the saturate amount, scratches, hairs, and dust ever so slightly, which gave the great old 

fashioned Victorian film effect, which turned my film into the exact thing I had envisioned. 

I also ended up increasing the jitter Amount as well, which gave the film its jumpy and edgy 

feel.

Once I had taken the appropriate measures to ensure my film looked as authentic as I could, I went on to “colour correct” the E4 logo in my film so that the colour would remain in the logo whilst everything else was in black and white. To do this I went to the “3 Way Colour Correct” option on the menu in Final Cut Pro, and made sure that the saturation and Lumo were not selected, and opened up the range of colours that I still wanted to be visible throughout the video, I chose anywhere between lilac and violet, as the E4 logo is somewhere between those two colours and this made the E4 logo retain it’s colour throughout the film.

I then went on to add some sounds onto my film, I obtained these sounds through the means

 of the sound program named “Logic Pro,” found on the computers in the Music and Theatre

 building, so there would not be any legal issues.

The sounds I added included that of an old school film projector, which links in with the editing

 I did of my film. This sound is very authentic, and even has the click sound at the start of it to 

signify the projector being turned on, this works very well with my film because there is a 

slight jitter at the beginning of the film. I was also searching for some form of Photoplay music,

 usually found in silent films which comes with a full orchestra, however I could not find a 

sample of music without copyright issues, so I went in search of simple piano music. And to

 my luck I found quite a few samples of piano music from all ends of the spectrum, from 

western style bar music, to chilling and spooky samples. I ended up choosing a simple and 

echoing piece. I feel as though this music sample is most effective because it isn’t so busy 

that it takes away attention from what’s going on in the film, and does the opposite by 

exaggerating the movements and happenings in the film.

    This was one of my favourite projects to do this year, as it was mostly hands on and I got 

to paint my face, making actual fun out of the project. It was the project that I was completely excited about from start to finish and I am overjoyed with how my final, 10 second animation

 turned out!