Reflection
After 15 weeks of Digital Image Compositing, I am left asking for more. I recommend this unit to anyone wanting to learn how to edit or do VFX at Curtin, purely because I learnt so much. I must admit, being thrown into the deep-end with only terminology and basic knowledge to get us started on our research, made the assignment daunting. However, even after changing my idea halfway through, I still made it to the end and learnt a lot on the way.
I had only very basic skills in After Effects and had barely done any colour grading before. I am happy with how everything turned out, however I realise my colour grading efforts still need work. There are also a few small flaws through the video. It is NOT professional work and won't be for a long time, but I do intend on working on it, and funnily enough, next year at Uni in my film course, I have a unit that explores the exact same thing! Talk about having the ultimate head start.
If I were to do this differently, I wouldn't have said yes to working this week and would have gone into uni to get some last feedback on the colour grade. I feel happy with it, but I know it could be better. I would also extend it and make the sound effects sit a little better with the final product. The thunderstorm did not fade in loud enough and has to be listened to with high bass speakers to get the desired effect. I also feel my end typography was pretty amateur, but it did suit my piece so I left it there.
I have learnt that pre-production is the be all and end all. I did not ideate well and this showed in my first idea. It lacked substance and was looking pretty crap, in my mind and in practice. For that reason I watched the third LOTR and changed my idea. It still had the same colour idea and setting idea, however the miniature was different and the story-line was way simpler.
One thing that surprised me is the upload of my VFX breakdown. It is not perfectly made but I do believe it shows the process. However I have already received a dislike within the last 10 hours, and that really shocked me because a) either someone is being a troll and disliking it just cause or b) someone who watches breakdowns often has watched mine, and that's pretty cool that it even came up on their Youtube feed. I admit, it is no where near professional or good, but I am so proud of my efforts.
This has been my most enjoyable and rewarding unit. I want to do VFX for the rest of uni now in more depth, to round out and perfect my skills. It will be so useful when it comes to working more with film prac next year. Thankyou so much to Jarrad who made the journey a light-hearted, well explained and enjoyable one! Please make second and third year units that explore this area in more detail PLEASE. I promise to keep refining my skills, as maybe this is the area of work I would like to go into.
I feel sad that this is my last post, but after the assignment submission I may keep uploading projects of mine. Thanks also to the 11 people following me, I wasn't expecting anyone to follow this blog and got such a nice surprise when I had followers there as a mini support group!