For my investigation, I focused on foley and adobe after effects; specifically, trying to create the effect of a camera passing through a wall or floor to serve as a transition. Because of this, I will be separating my experiments into different sub-headings to accommodate them both.

ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS EXPERIMENTS:

So the purpose of these experiments was to teach me how to use after effects. I had very little prior knowledge of how to use after effects, so I had to start from scratch. Here are some of the (very bad) results.

Everyone loves explosions, so I tried to create one using some stock footage I found online. Working towards my objective of creating the effect of a camera moving through a wall/floor, this was the first step towards that goal. It gave me some general understandings of how after effects work, while also giving me experience in the usage of color keying.
It’s easy to tell a beginner made this effect, simply because you can still see some of the outline of the frame of the explosion if you look close enough. This was due to the color key not removing all the blacks out of the background. Thinking back, I think this could of been fixed by using a small mask to cover up the outline of the frame.

This next clip might not seem much different from the first one. It’s just the same clip, with 5 extra explosions of a different color. But the purpose of this experiment was not to create some visually different, but rather to get comfortable with some more concepts of adobe after effects. Specifically, compositions. This experiment taught me how to work more efficiently on AE using compositions. Similar to adjustment layers and nests on adobe premiere pro, compositions allow me to group a number of different layers on AE, and then apply effects to all of them at once, without having to edit each clip individually. It allowed me to create more explosions that went off at different times, without having to individually copy and paste, then move them to different points on the timeline. It allowed me to color grade them all at once to the same purple tinge, and it also allowed me to give them all the ‘plasma’ look all at once.

This next clip was a bit of a joke. I needed to learn how to mask objects into after effects, but I didn’t really have any good footage to experiment with. So, I just masked in a picture of my mate, and had it fall onto the crates in the base footage. While it’s not necessarily done well to any degree, I gained the understanding of how to mask in after effects – which will be a vital tool for creating the final effect of the wall/floor pass. I think if I wanted more experience in masking, I should have experimented with animating a mask to move with an object. I’ll have to keep that in mind for another future experiment.

So here was my attempt at passing a camera through a wall. As you can see, it didn’t turn out great at all. There are so many things going wrong in this clip, I’ve already lost count. I mean, the concept is there; the camera is passing through an object that’s meant to be concrete, to a different room. But it just looks like a really crappy wipe transition. So why did this happen?

First of all, the room we shot in. Especially in the first room, the rooms aren’t confined enough to produce this effect. In order for this shot to work flawlessly, you need certain criteria to be ticked off. All the rooms you intend to use this transition in, require walls on the left, right and at the back. It also requires a ceiling. As you can see in the first room, the ceiling is way too high, and there is no wall on the left-hand side. Also, I think the back wall was way too far back. The reason this is the case is because the 3d-layers you need in order to create this effect, need to sit perfectly on the walls and ceilings. If you pause the video at about 7 seconds, you can see the left-hand side begins to curve up. This is because the 3d-layer is just ‘floating’, so everything past the layer begins to curve up as the virtual camera goes down.

There is also white gaps in between the clips and the concrete. I think this happened because the 3d-layers that sit on the floor are too short. To explain why this is a problem, I need to explain the layout of the virtual light. A virtual light, shoots through a transparent version of the clip of me walking. This results in a projection, which projects onto the 3d-layers to give it the 3d effect. However, because the floor 3d-layer is too short, the light has nothing to project onto, and ends up just being cut-off, resulting in the white gaps.

And finally, I think the camera moves too quickly between the clips. I think that’s what give it the crappy wipe transition look. I feel if I want to create the effect of a camera passing through concrete, it needs to be slower; as if it’s struggling due to the solid nature of concrete. But instead, it just glides through. Also, I think the concrete is the wrong colour. I think it needed to be graded to match the two clips.

While there’s a few more problems, I think these are the major ones that needed to be pointed out, as the more minor ones probably get way too technical. Now this floor pass transition ended up being my only attempt during the semester, in fact, I ended up stopping my experiments with after effects entirely for the semester. I’ll go into detail as to why this is is the case later on.

FOLEY EXPERIMENTS:

My first usage of foley was actually outside of class. I decided to enter the Supercheap Auto Big Break competition, and I wanted to incorporate sound in a big way so I could experiment with it at the same time. So I thought; why not create a song using foley? I thought that a jingle was a good way of advertising a product, since they tend to stick in people’s minds if done correctly. Check it out:

So to sum it up; the song is compiled from the sounds that certain objects make: wrench, drill, toolbox etc. I think it turned out pretty well, but I think it’s too messy. I think I tried to incorporate so many sound effects, that it sort of just became a blur of noise. I think I just created it for the sake of showing how many sounds I can use to create a song, rather than just focusing on creating an actual catchy beat. Not surprisingly, I didn’t win.

If I could re-enter the competition, I would definitely aim to re-create the song, using less ‘instruments’, and just focusing on creating a beat that sounds good. I think the concept was good, but the execution could have been done better.

So this final experiment was born from collaboration. I worked with three others; Sem, Trong and Helen, and we aimed to incorporate all of our ideas to create a visual piece. Sem focused on colour, and to what extent he could use it to create an emotion of effect. Trong was interested in different ways one would film a person to get the zombie effect. And Helen wanted to experiment with the use of fake blood. However, she ended up abandoning that goal for this experiment. And me? I obviously worked on the foley of the video.

First things I want to nitpick; I think I recorded some of the footsteps a bit too quietly. I had never recorded my own footsteps prior to this, so I didn’t think of the best way to do it until I started recording the footsteps you hear later on in the video. The first few footsteps (especially those that I made for Helen), are pretty quiet. Recording quiet can sometimes be fixed in post, just simply boost the volume. However, because Sem was planning on editing music over it, I should have thought about that and recorded the footsteps at a louder volume.

I think the zombie groans work. I think they’re at a good volume, and they are pretty convincing in my opinion.

And finally, to nitpick even deeper, maybe using different shoes to record helen’s footsteps would have created a different sound effect. For the footsteps of the zombie and Helen, I used the same sneakers, but just walked in a different fashion to get a different sound effect. But looking at the video, you’ll notice that the zombie and Helen are wearing different shoes, so the question is; would recording converse shoes create a different noise to nike sneakers? Something to ponder.

FINAL SUMMARY IN CONTEXT OF MY INVESTIGATION:

So to re-state; my investigation focused on the usage of foley and after effects.

I originally wanted to solely focus on foley, but then I realized I needed visuals to foley. Thus, I created a secondary objective; mainly focusing on creating the effect of a camera passing through a floor/wall to serve as a transition from one shot to another. The reason why I chose such a specific effect is because it is a difficult one to produce. The usage of 3d-layers, and virtual cameras and lights, are considered to be very advanced tools that aren’t easy to pickup for a beginner. So by setting myself the target of creating this effect, it would force me to learn the basic and work my way through after effects vast number of tools and features, one step at a time. It also forces one to think extra hard about the location when shooting, because the effect requires shots that have visibly defined walls, floors and ceilings. However, I ended up dropping this investigation for my final experiment with the zombies; due to collaboration.

For the majority; if not all, of the weeks, I have been collaborating with some fellow classmates to experiment with film. We all worked together to create a short film of sorts, where a woman gets chased by a zombie. Pretty simple concept, but it gave us a lot of room to experiment with different shots.

One downside of collaboration is the conflict of interests and goals within a group. Before collaborating, we all had some form of objective we wanted to focus on for the rest of the semester. My personal one was foley and 3d-layers in Adobe after effects. However, this soon changed as I had to refocus my objectives to fit in with everyone else’s. Due to the nature of the chase scene we shot as a group, there was no opportunity for me to get the shots required to produce the through-the-floor transition I was so hellbent on re-creating. Thus, I ended up just dropping the goal entirely and just focusing on the foley for this experiment.

An upside; the combination of everyone’s skills, knowledge and experiences combines during collaboration, effectively filling in the gaps where one would lack skills in. In my case, my technical knowledge with cameras could stand to be a bit better. However, my classmates were extremely comfortable around operating the aperture, ISO, focal length etc.

So collaboration has its downsides, but I think in the end, it results in a greater looking result. It’s just up to the group members to get over those first few hurdles before they create something TRUE TO FORM.

In terms of foley and my ability to prove certain feelings within audience members; I think I could have done a bit better. First of all, looking at my ‘zombie’ experiment, I think the footsteps could have been a bit louder, and possibly have different reverb effects as the characters walk in different locations. The characters first begin in an undercover parking lot, then end at the rooftop which is completely exposed to the sky. Because of this two different locations, one would assume that the sounds of footsteps would sound different; the top level had no ceiling, so therefore the sound wouldn’t have that large surface to reverb off. However, I failed to think about this, and ended up just recording the same footstep sounds for both locations.

Furthermore, the usage of different shoes for each of the two characters may have resulted in different, more distinctive sounds. I don’t know from experience, but perhaps converse shoes make a different sound to nike sneakers. It could have been something to experiment with, but again, I failed to consider that.

One thing I think I did right with the footsteps was to record as I was watching the clip. To get a feel for the characters footsteps (i.e. the weight behind each foot, whether it was a clean step or if it drags etc), I had to be the character for just a moment. So when I recorded footsteps for Helen’s character, I would try to get in the mindset of being scared because someone is chasing me. When recording the zombie, I pretended my legs were decaying and therefore fragile. I think this does come across in the film, but do to the volume of the music; it may be hard for some to pick up on.

In terms of adobe after effects and creating the wall/floor pass-through transition, I failed to do so in the allotted weeks. Due to the nature of my final experiment, I had to drop the after effects experiments entirely. However, what I did manage to do with after effects is gain a foundation of knowledge. I can create basic effects, and I can only improve from there. Over the course of my semester break, and for the rest of my future, I plan to constantly experiment and practise with after effects. I will aim to eventually create the effect, and so much more in my own time.