The idea at the time last year, came from the Polar Express movie, where the camera moves from outside tracking the train, then transitions inside through a window. Only problem is at that time I had to do these split shifts and didnt have time to finish this project, now that my schedule is a bit more geared towards working on projects instead of doing daily show graphics, I was able to bring this project out and complete it.
Its amazing how much better in AfterEffects ive gotten, because now that I look back on this project, it was just a unnecessarily large project. haha.. and at the time I was just learning to build a dolly for a camera within AfterEffects. So completing this project was going to be easy..
The move was already in place, I had the camera set to 200mm, and a pretty shallow depth of field so you can see the how the foreground and the background blur out a bit, that took a bit of time of adjusting just to get what I need in focus, it also takes a big hit on your CPU especially on our non-intel G5s at work, so just adjusting settings on the camera really takes some time for the previews to render.
Originally the project was going to be John St Jon (our voiceover talent) to just say happy holiday from all of us at San Diego 6 (Fox6 back then) But now that I've done a few more composites I decided to go for a green screen shoot of our night anchors, I only had time to shoot our night anchors since I was also doing another 6 Promos for Stephanie and this promo was going to be done on my off time from those promos.
Once I got the green screens shot and composited, I threw in a banner that read Happy Holidays to be more PC. Geoff decided on me animating the banner so that it strokes in, like its being written, I added the lens flare to follow and it actually turned out pretty cool.
Everything in the piece is pretty much and individual element, and I let the camera determine what is in focus and what is not, the Z Space (for those who arent familiar with 3D space, Z Space is the space from front to back, X Space is the Horizontal Pan and Y is the Vertical Pan) so in this piece I pretty much a long string of items in Z Space heres a diagram:
Look at this from left to right, but imagine that this is the top view of the project...
Snow Window Decorations Candles Banner Talent Tree Fireplace
| | | X | | | | | | |
So the camera started with the snow, then as it pushes in towards the window the the snow gradually blurs out and pushes in passed the window bringing in the decorations in focus soon the candles, the banner and ending its move (at the X) as the talent becomes in focus leaving the decorations and candles in the foreground blurred out slightly and the tree and fireplace background out of focus as well. This gives it a more natural look and completes the 3D feel of the piece.. granted the background elements have that 2D look, but hey one step at a time. LOL.
one of the effects on the piece that was created from scratch was the use of an expression for the candle fire, the flickering effect was achieved using the wiggler on the opacity and setting the z value only giving you that look of it getting brighter and softer at a random sequence.
its the subtle things that make the piece so special. =)
Well after a year its finally complete hahah.. its not really a years worth of work, but just something that needed to be finished.. and now it is. Enjoy.
