Music Video VFX

There are three shots in our music video that had to be edited, using visual effects:

• The lift door opening shot
• The evening interior driving shot
• The evening shot of Ben walking up the stairs

The Lift Door Shot
The first idea we had, regarding VFX, was to composite the title of the song, Insomnia, onto the lift doors, with half of the word on the left door - INSO - and half on the right - MNIA.

To do this I intended to track the doors of the lift separately and then parent the writing to each door respectively. I used small pieces of tape to act as tracking points on the door.

However, due to the way the light reflected off of the metal doors, Motion (the compositing software) could not track the points I had used. To fix this issue, I decided to keyframe the text to move along with the doors, sticking as closely as possible to the correct points. This was made more difficult, by the fact that the doors did not open at one consistent speed - they changed speed a lot, while opening.



Once I had keyframed the text, I added some motion blur to the layer to make it blend in more with the background. I keyframed the motion blur to come in when the door starts to move and stop when the door is fully open.

As the tracking points had not worked, I realised that by adding the tape to the door I had only made the shot look less appealing, with no added benefits. Due to this, I decided to digitally remove the tape in Motion.

The first step I took to remove the tape was to duplicate the footage and to move the duplicated clip, which was beneath the main clip, up and to the left. This ensured that the tape on the duplicated clip was not overlapping with the main clip. I also ensured that the curved light reflections on both layers stayed in line with each other.

Then I masked around the tape on the right-hand door in the top layer, revealing the clean part of the layer below. I then feathered the mask to make it blend more convincingly. To remove the tape on the left-hand door, I keyframed a mask to move around the 'O'.



Once all of the tape had been removed, I realised that if the text were really on the doors, there would be reflections on the sides next to them.

To add the reflections, I exported the entire project, to make it one video, and then started a new composition. I then duplicated the footage. With the top layer of footage, I rotated it on the Y-axis 180 degrees to make it look like a mirror image. I then moved the layer to the right, until the left side of the left door was perfectly in line with the right side of the right door.

I then dropped the opacity to 23.29% to make it seem more like a reflection in a dirty surface. I then masked around the 'MNIA' part of the text.

This then moved perfectly in time with the main text, however, the reflection could be seen on the wall next to the lift as well. To fix this, I added another mask, on top of everything, to remove the text on parts that would not be reflecting it if it were there in real life. I then did the same thing for the other side - the 'INSO' part.

I had then finished the VFX for this shot:









The Evening Driving Shot
When we shot part of the music video - the part where Ben walks into his house - it had got much later in the day than we had planned so it was very dark. We decided to try to fix this issue by lighting the scene with two 1000w softboxes and one 300 LED panel but the scene still looked too dark. To fix this, we decided to colour grade the driving shots that happened before hand to be much darker and look like evening. We also ended the timelapse section by have it move into late evening, which aids this.



Once we had decided to colour grade the driving shots to look darker, we started testing to see if it were plausible. We found that with one of the shots, we would have to colour grade it in three different sections - the outside, the inside (minus the mirror) and the mirror.



To do this, I duplicated the clip twice, so there were three different layers of the same clip. I then tried to track the mirror but there were no successful tracking points. Therefore, I chose to keyframe the mask to move with, and change shape according to, the mirror.



Once I had done this, I duplicated this mask data and applied it to the next layer. I then inverted the mask to capture everything but the mirror. Then, on the top layer, I keyframed a mask around the ceiling of the car.



Once all of the layers were isolated, Tom then colour graded each layer accordingly to make them look like they were shot during the evening. Once he had done that, I feathered each mask to make them blend more convincingly.

The shot was then finished and was ready to be put into the music video.








The Evening Shot of Ben Walking Up the Stairs
Before:

After:

First, we filmed a video in similar lighting and framing of the clock at the correct time.



I then tracked the motion of clock in the first part of the shot. I used two tracking points to allow me to track both the position and the size of the clock.



I then masked around the clock on the replacement shot so that I could position and size it. Tom then colour graded the clock to better match the scene and I applied the tracking data to the new clock.

I then moved on to the last part of the shot and did the same thing - tracking and applying the data.



Then, I keyframed the middle section so that it stayed where it should.



After I had done this, I needed to keyframe a mask (rotoscoping) around Ben so that the clock moved behind him. To do this, I duplicated the original footage and made a mask around the actor. I then went forward, frame-by-frame, to remove the clock.



I then added some noise to the clock layer, to make it fit in with the original footage more convincingly. Then I added some defocus blur to make it fit in with the part of the shot it was in. As the shot is moving, I needed to keyframe it to become further out-of-focus as the camera moves further away. The shot was then complete.






Nathan