Filming is over and the glammies are fast approaching. I've been lucky enough to be nominated for the "Best Stop Mo" category.
One of the last things i've had to do before wednesday is take out the last couple of rigs in a couple of shots.
This shot was particularly difficult to take rigs out of, as, being the clever, level headed forward thinking person that I am, I decided to put the rig in Arthurs shadow, meaning I couldn't simply mask the rig out.
After talking to my good friend and after effects wizard Ted Oliver (
see his blog here) and Jake Harvey (
link to blog here), they suggested I mask out the entire character on every frame, luckily there were only 22 with around 5 or 6 on twos, then add in a new shadow from the masked out shape.
So thats what I did. with each of the yellow squares (there are so many it looks like a solid line) being individually moved on each frame
around 8 hours later i'd done the 22 frames (a little under 1 second of animation) but he looked incredibly floaty without a shadow.
this is where I handed over to Ted, whose done the majority of the after effectsing on my film and has done an amazing job! His film "Under the Weather" has been nominated for the "Best 2nd Year" category at the glammies so keep an eye out for that.
The mask layer I had created (all be it on completely the wrong layer, but it was easily copied to the correct one) was copied again, then layered underneath the mask of the character, filled, opacity turned down (a little, i think) and feathered on the edges to match the exact shape the character is making on each frame. Ted then animated the shadow frame by frame corresponding to where it would actually be. It was then angled to match the light source (from the left) and,
TA DA!
Its there, I promise, and looks miles better than it originally did. Not bad for around a 10 hour days work and 1 second of my film!
