
CIARAN SHARP FILMAKING
Researching examples of compositing




Mindmap and mood board for sci-fi composition work





Planning and rationale

As my composited video will take place in space, it has a sci-fi genre. This means my target audience will be on the younger side, as they have more time and money to spend on watching sci-fi films. Sci-fi films have a small target audience as they are targeted towards people who are interceded in science fiction, these are typically people who are around 16-35, who have grown up being exposed to media like Doctor Who, Star Wars and Star Trek.
Storyboards for vfx shots


Practicing vfx techniques




Final vfx shots




Analysing my timeline

Looking at my timeline, it shows I have learnt to add in assets like smoke to my composition, I found these assets online, converted them to a mp4 then dragged them in. I then had to mask parts of these to make them blend into my matte painting, I also edited the hue and saturation of all my assets to make them fit my matte painting. I created a matte painting by blurring stock images together, and using adobe illustrator to paint over the images, blending them together. To make the sky change colour, I keyframed the hue and saturation, to make it change colour over the course of the shot. I also added a glow and shake to the horizon, to make it look like it was moving , this was also using keyframes.

For the second shot, I had to keyframe my model to mask parts of his chroma screen that hadn't been keyed out as he has blonde hair. I then added a visual trail, adjusting how many times the model repeats the action, the opacity and the time between them. Like the first shot, I also keyframed the hue and saturation of the model and the space background, so that they fit together. I downloaded the space background as a mp4 and dragged it into my composition.
My evaluation
I think this project has been a success, I think my work shows my ability to use multiple skills like matte painting, rotoscoping and key framing. I think I created a believable environment for my character to explore and I stayed accurate to my storyboard. During this process I learnt multiple skills like time management, as I spent most of my time creating the matte painting and should have started with the easiest shot first instead of the hardest. I also learnt how to rotoscope a subject and colour grade a background and subject together to make them look like they fit together naturally. I think my matte painting went well , I managed to add photos of rocks , trees and a mountain to a photo and edit them together to make it believable. I also managed to rotoscope my actor to fix a light burn in the video as I shot them with colour changing lights on. I could improve my preparation process beforehand, I could have had a clearer picture of what I want to create, so I can create photo assets beforehand instead of spending a lot of time searching for them. I should have also spent more time of my second shot, as I spent more time than I expected creating the matte painting, only leaving me a day to create the second space shot. I also think I should have made my shots fit together as a pair more, as they are not related to each other in a plot.
My main improvement I want to add is to apply a camera shake to the shot of my model in space, this will make the character look more weightless and more like he's in space.

