A major component of post-production was the visual effects, which were instrumental in achieving a number of notable shots that were not possible or practical to achieve in-camera. The effects were realized using After Effects and Photoshop in conjunction with Premiere Pro. The use of Adobe’s Dynamic Link allowed seamless integration between the apps and permitted the finessing of shots up to the point of the final output.
Skittle's reveal on the backyard fence
a. Original photo of Skittles in early morning light.
b. Rotoscoped house with Vanishing Point extended fence.
c. Final composite of the artificial crane pass.
For Skittle’s reveal on the backyard fence, we started with a shot on the HVX200 locked off in position. The sun was at an approximate 10 o’clock position to the cat’s back, giving us the desired rim light. This “plate” was then imported into AE and the sky rotoscoped out, with the lower section of the fence extended in Photoshop using Vanishing Point and the clone tool. The fully reconstructed composition was extended vertically with night sky, full moon and stars added to facilitate a tilt up. The stars were created in Photoshop using the Noise, Gaussian Blur and Levels filters. We chose to use a very dark blue for the sky coloring instead of black. The night look was achieved with the use of the Hue/Saturation filter for color and Curves to take down the exposure. Stills of a full moon and some high clouds were then added, with the latter animated to give the shot some added life. These layers were dropped into an appropriately sized comp where the tilt up was added with AE’s Motion Blur switched on.
Day-For-Night Hunter's POV
a. Original Morning Background plate.
b. Greenscreen foreground plate of actor opening blinds.
c. Final composite with Day-for-night applied to background plate and blur applied to foreground plate.
For the Hunter’s POV of Skittles through a window, we started with locked off plate of Joe on the backyard fence shot with a Canon HV20 (a second camera was brought in during the cat’s shoot to make the most of his limited attention). The foreground element of the fingers holding open the blinds was shot with the HVX200 against green screen in sharp focus to facilitate a clean key. The green screen was first keyed with Keylight, and then placed in a pre-comp and the focus was adjusted using the T_Lens Blur filter. The HV20’s footage didn’t match that of the HVX200 due to its deep focus, so a blur was added to the cat’s layer that feathered inward to sharp focus. The cat’s layer was then adjusted for the night look.
