AE Concept Sketch

This test is useful in testing my final footage and understanding where I will add atmosphere and fog into the shot. After looking at my references, with one having a lot of fog I feel I have overdone the fog/atmosphere in this sketch. The reference (in a previous post) from Scorsese's Hugo shows the use of particular areas of smoke and steam rather than the entire frame.

In the former reference from Jellyfish Pictures I believe they may have been using the smoke and atmosphere effect to detract the eye from the fact that the composited footage was shot at different places and times. The fact that I have a very beautiful shot to work with means I need to pick my areas which I want to add atmosphere into.

This test has helped, and I believe that the smoke should appear first of all from the extractor fan, and I think at the moment from the top left of the frame, with an overall atmosphere of fog applied.

Obviously, the execution of the effect isn't too realistic, if I have to explain it is a sketch and this will be 'perfected' for August.

There are such things as a light in shot which will be masked out with a cleanplate, beer company's names on cardboard boxes to paint out and using my photograph of a GRID in order to calculate lens distortion for these fog and other effects to work on first of all.

Test 1 | Further Light Wrap Test

After having problems creating a light wrap in one particular shot in my Test 1 video, I have created a light wrap using After Effects in addition to the highlights created with the node in Nuke.

Original - no light wrap:

With only Nuke light wrap:

With this particular, and all light wraps:

I have sourced this tutorial by Jerzy Drozda, Jr. It was recommended by Matt Cameron. 

Here is his description of the process:

"Apply a 'Set Channels' effect and set the source RGB values to the background composition. Apply a 'Channel Blur', blur the RGB channels by 10 and blur the alpha channel by around 200. Invert the alpha channel by applying a 'Levels' effect and swapping the 'Output Black' and 'Output White' values. Matte the result with the original alpha by applying 'CC Composite' and setting 'Composite Original' to Stencil Alpha. Next duplicate the light wrap composition and change the Alpha Blurriness to a value of about 30 for a sharper light wrap. Finally set the blend modes of the light wrap compositions to Add and reduce the opacity to taste."

I definitely think this is an imperative effect to create in compositing, and this has made the shot come on leaps and bounds in my opinion, and I now see this video visually as fully complete. The audio will hopefully be created over the next month in the form of a trial for the proposed sound engineer for the final film, and then I will upload a final version onto the net.