VFX Essay

The project I created was a 20-30 second VFX sequence with 3 composited VFX shots. I used
aftereffects to create my VFX shots which included a sky change, a holograph shot and an
eye tracking shot. In this critical analysis essay, I will review how I created my shots as well as
any difficulties I had on the on the way.
I began by looking at some influences in VFX such as movies and video games with
impressive visual effects. I began by looking at the matrix bullet time scene with the
greenscreen room and multi cam shot. The video “This is what ‘The Matrix’ really looks like
without CGI!!! – Special Effects Breakdown” really helped me understand how VFX works
and made me want to do more SCI-FI VFX work. While working on this project I was playing
through the hit game Halo 3 which featured a hologram character Cortana which led me
looking into holograph VFX ideas. Also, the way tony stark interacts with holograms
definitely inspired my work. The character cyborg from dc inspired me to look into futuristic
eye movements specifically “Cyborg Vol 1: unplugged” by David M Walker has a lot of great
art work for his eye which definitely inspired me.
Using aftereffects was new to me however Adobe has a very user friendly Ui and its quite
basic and helpful. I began by watching a basic aftereffects tutorial. I watched Learn After
Effects in 10 Minutes! Beginner Tutorial by Ben Marriott. This tutorial was great because it
went over everything, I was going to be using such as key frames, animation and masking.
After this I would search for effects, I could use in project I ended up going for a portal, a
holograph and an electronic eye. So, once I had my ideas, I went to film.
Filming was a fairly simple process however the actor was not used to having to pretend
something is in front of them which made it a bit awkward and dragged out the filming
process a little. After about an hour of filming I had my all my footage completed.
The first challenge I encounter when compositing was when I went to make the portal it
required paid assets that I do not have after searching around some more I decided to scrap
the portal idea and change it to a sky replacement which would act as an establishing scene
to the sequence. After holding my phone out of the window I had the prefect shot for a sky
replacement.
The second challenge I had was the sky I was trying to replace was dark and didn’t mesh
with my bright footage at all, so I looked around some more and found a much better Si-Fi
shot that fit it much better.
The sky replacement was simple. I created a simple point to point mask around the sky I
wanted to get rid of then I slotted the footage in. I did run into some trouble with the mask
messing up a lot, so it took about 2-3 tries to get something I was happy with.
The hologram is by far the one I am most proud of utilising 3d and 2d ideas. So, I began by
going into my browser and using inspect element I could view the tabs in mobile mode. So, I
recorded my screen then cropped them. Then I tracked the hand movement. I woud sync up
the cuts to the actors hand then make into 3d objects and link them to tracked movmeant. For the
final detials I added transions and lowered the oppasity and put grain on it. Then I duplicated it faded
the opacity more put them in the glassea to create reflections.

The last composotied shot was an glowing mechanical eye. It was fairly simple. I tracked the eye and
then used shape layeres that rotated. The layers were cut up, dotted ect. For the finishing touches I
used a glow effect. The only problem I had with this was that the shot was super far away so its really
hard to notice the details of the eye which is where I placed a lot of my effort.

The biggest challenge I faced was time management. Many outside factors effected my work
esspecially in the easter holidays. Which lead to lots of late night planning. I had a lot of mental
health issues during this time which deffinetly effected my time managmeant. I overcame this by
going to a doctor and I started taking medicationj which imporved my workflow a lot more. While I
am happy with the result I don’t think I should have sacraficed so much of my mental health for it.

My strength are definitley in the software I have become proficaiant at using after effects and with
my time using nuke. I think after effects was deffintley a good choice for year 1 because of how user
friendly it is and how it streamlined the process a lot. My weakness is still time managmeant, I
definatley need to manage projects, social life and my job a lot better.
In conclusion what I have learned a lot from this experience and my knoledge in after affects and vfx
has improved greatley. I went from knowing nothing about after effects to be able to composit a vfx
shot all on my own which will definetley help me later on in the course. I demonsrated my technical
skills using after effects and artistic decions and I am happy with my final project. Managing time was
definitley my biggest challenge but ive deffinatley learned a lot. Overall I think the project went well
and there are things to definietly improve upon such as time managmeant. I think I met a lot of the
breifs requiremeants such as the 3 composotied shots and the 20-30 second sequence. In the future
I would like to continue to improve my skills in vfx and take on more complex projects.

References
Frame focus (2020,31,1)This is what ‘The Matrix’ really looks like without CGI!!! – Special
Effects Breakdown https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKt-Jz_s9DE&t=112s
David M W 2015“Cyborg Vol 1: unplugged”
Ben Marriot (2020,28,5) Learn After Effects in 10 Minutes! Beginner Tutorial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb2bbfiNBXA&t=4s
Rad Todoroff (2022,20,1) Easy Sky Replacement in AFTER EFFECTS After Effects Tutorial 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZtuloHefys