Practice
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hJfoYZv6zgWJ3fcpbOqSA?view_as=subscriber
The bouncing ball. The simple practice for animators. If you didn’t already know after effects crashes for me a lot. Luckily these first few projects I tolerated and saved often. I placed the ball in each location working with the FPS to make a smooth bouncing ball animation. If I could do anything better it would be squash and stretch. The ball throughout this is the same shape the whole time. For the thumbnail I went into Krita and placed the ball on different layers and different places to make the bouncy ball placement. I then went on each layer and lowered the opacity getting lower each time. Them took a screen shot, cropped it and had a thumbnail.
Again I saved a lot so I could keep progress in-between crashes. This was pretty fun to make though the glow effect was not good. I again worked with FPS and when each letter would come in and where from. This thumbnail is just the stranger things title.
This project was fun. I recorded the first scene just for fun and I wasn’t planning to put it in the full video but it really showed my stupid side so I had to put it in. It does contrast with the next scene which is me concentrating. This is one of the best things I’ve done all year.
Story Board
I planned out two story boards. The first story board was a little to much to do for a first VFX project so I chose the second one.
This first story board shows a little fire spirit coming out of a monitor and picking up the pencil to draw. His name in blank and he draws an axe. Though because he’s small and weak he falls back and the axe goes into the pc breaking it. That is when a shadow comes over him and he acts innocent. See why I chose not to do this one? I didn’t have enough time or knowledge to complete it.
This second story board is a lot simpler and easier to complete. This will been seen in the final video. It about a UFO coming to investigate Earth. Its find me recording it and shoots the phone.
Aim
My aim for this project was to record a small video of me and a UFO. The plan was for the UFO to shot at my phone and it would fall on the floor and I would pick it up and run inside. That is when the video would end. As I was filming I forgot to film that part so I just didn’t include it in the final. Instead I’d Have the video cut of there where the UFO would shoot the phone and it would be destroyed.
Time Table
I had a long period of time to finish this project. It didn’t take me long to finish the aim and story board so that left the rest of the time for recording and editing and at the end to make this blog.
I have finished the time table, story board, aim, recording and both of the edits. Once I finished the two edits I picked the best one and worked on making that one better. Sadly, I over lost the first edit to a crash in my computer. This is why I have no proof for this first edit.
Videos
First I filmed the video itself. Watching it back I hate it so there’s not much done with the begging. The only editing done in this is blurring out the street where I live on because this video is on YouTube and that’s privet. Surprisingly being cringy on purpose feels less cringy then this(beginning of Brooklyn 99 edit I did).
I had and original edit I did which was better on FPS but didn’t look as edited as the final edit. This video shows the UFO slowly coming into view and shooting. Though in this video there is no audio for the ships shooting noises so in the final edit I’ve added it in.
Then I went into editing mode and added two things. The first thing I did was add two glowing yellow eyes as the camera passes by the bushes. It was simple frame by frame animation as I put in the two dots and each frame I moved them a bit. This made them look like it was something under the bush rather then just two dots on the screen.
The second and more obvious edit I did was the UFO. Now I did all this filming and editing at home. My computer doesn’t seam able to run after effect as it keeps crashing. I didn’t know what to do so I used an animation app called flip-a-clip. (p.s. do more research into apps I can use) Though flip-a-clip is better at seeing frames then much else I had to hand place each frame for the UFO. This is why it came out with low FPS.
Overview
Overall I’m very proud of the video. It came out a lot better then I expected it to and when you work with things for a long time you always see the little problems that others will not. I was also unmotivated with this project and I’m glad I still finished it the best I could along side two other projects and two channels.
Things to Improve
I could improve a lot on this. First of I should have looked into a better app to edit this on as hand by hand placing takes a long time and I slowly got unmotivated as I went on.
Secondly I should have planned the filming better. The beginning is long and boring and not fun to watch. I knew I had to get myself into the video and it looked better in my head then it does in the video. The timing is all of. I was in screen doing nothing for to long and the UFO didn’t have a lot of time.
Finally I could have added better lasers for this UFO. Its just orange and doesn’t make the video more realistic but more fake.
One thing that I want to add is a camera thing around the screen. I think it would be quiet interesting if this was filmed on an old camera as most UFO things are filmed on these old cameras and phones.
Remake. Still not good put I made the lazer better.
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