Motion Graphics - Intro

Our brand development for P V Media Productions is coming along quite nicely. I have completed the 30 second intro clip which will precede any media we release. 

Before I go any further, I thought it would be appropriate to acknowledge and thank Michael Park of Creative Cow for the tutorial Creating a realistic earth using only Ae and the project files. Also thanks to Andrew Kramer of iStars for his tutorials which gave me inspiration as well as technical knowledge.

I had a vague idea of a concept which included a camera lens, the earth reflected in the lens 'Captured' is the term used by photographers and film makers. I have always been keen on special effects as can be seen on my earliest films (by those who are closest to me - charcoal outlines developing into colourful images and picture within picture, a difficult process with standard 8 film back in 1980). Today in 2015, Motion Graphics is the new trend to expand special effects into 3D affordably for the smaller film-maker and such a lot of fun.

I started off by simply following Michael Park's tutorial and using the project files he supplied and once I was able to replicate the effect I started experimenting to take the process a few steps further along. I would save the project with a version number so that I could go back a step to a clean slate if I became too entangled in the process and elements.

The first advancement for me was to have the cloud actually rotate around the earth a little faster than the rotation of the earth. I achieved this by using key-frames to offset the centre of the cloud mask. Then I thought it would be more interesting if we saw that cloud forming and dissipating while it rotated. To do this I duplicated the cloud layer, inverted the selection, changed the midpoint offset to oppose the original and set the radius a fraction larger than the original. Then I used key-frames to adjust the opacity of each cloud layer at irregular intervals.

Next was to add the moon to the clip and I wanted it to rotate as well, first a little research to get size, timings and rotation speed relative to the earth. I searched NASA's site for royalty free map of the moon which I found and so I created a pre-comp along the lines of the earth tutorial and set the rotation to 2 using an Adjustment layer for angle control. I used a path on the Final_Comp to have the Moon rotate around the earth at about 13 degrees over the 30 seconds. I pick-whipped the radius of my 'Moon' to my 'Master_Earth' so that any adjustments made to the size of my earth would be reflected in the moon - proportionally.

I then added a new composite background layer which was created from an image of the Andromeda Galaxy captured by Hubble and my own photograph of the Milky Way Galaxy, merged in photoshop. I placed this above my own version of the original 'Starfield' which I created using fractal noise (there are heaps of youtube tuts online to do this). I set the mode for this Composite_Space layer to 'Screen' so that I could do the same technique as my clouds layers and offset the centre which would give the illusion of moving star-fields (but very subtle).

Wanting to give the viewer the illusion of moving away from the earth to take up an orbiting position, I increased the starting size of my 'Master_Earth's radius until the moon was just hidden from view and used key-frames to control the reverse zoom effect. The end result was to give the illusion of the moon appearing from behind the earth as the viewer moved away into the universe slightly to the right whilst ascending. I then sought a piece of music that I wanted to associate with our brand whilst creating a mood of suspenseful anticipation. I purchased the piece from Pond5 and aligned the music and graphics to my liking.

Lastly I added our logo, the lens with P V Media across the face and our marketing blurb. I played around with different effects to make the appearance of each element separate and interesting and to take no more than 16 seconds. It is paramount to have the clip end before the viewers interest. This then is our intro clip which will transition into all future projects. 

Comments and feedback are most welcome.

Till next time, God Bless.

Stars timelapse

Over the weekend I decided to experiment with time lapse a little more having received a little encouragement from friends and family.

On Friday evening we decided to pop down to Lake Samsonvale to try and capture a time lapse sunset. The sun was very exposed and bright so the question was; what are we trying to capture exactly? Not merely the setting of the sun but changing colours, reflections, flora and fauna. 

I wanted to capture about an hour's worth of images at 10 second intervals, about 360 with about half prior to sunset. I figured that I could take images for about half an hour after sunset before running into serious exposure issues so what settings would be best for the transition from full sunlight to full dark without having to touch the camera and risk wrecking the lot. I'm open to suggestion by the way!

I decided to go with Program mode and control ISO whilst leaving all other settings for the camera. One thing I did do was change the format to 16:9 since I wanted wide screen (this can be changed at processing since I'm shooting in RAW but I want to get into the habit of checking and changing all settings quickly and efficiently until they become second nature.)

I set the Sony a99 ISO to 100 in Program mode, using my 18/250 lens at 18mm, aperture to f/4.0 added the Nero and set it to time lapse 10 second intervals and this is the result (no processing other than removing a couple of spots from lens dust).

I am quite pleased with the way this has turned out, and I'll use it in a movie in the future. What do you think?

On Saturday evening I thought I would go down to Woody Point and try a similar shoot but with the weather very different (it was overcast with showers) I thought I might revert back to fully auto on the camera and on checking the shots afterward there was a huge fluctuation of ISO and this did require me to use Lightroom to adjust the luminance in order to reduce noise. To do this I used Lightroom's Metadata filter to select the ISO settings above 800 and gradually increased all the luminance settings playing the Sharpening and Noise reduction settings against one another. Now I know that a lot of photographers are going to think that my white balance is off but I can assure you I checked and rechecked and besides, this is a true representation of what I saw.

I don't think that I will use fully auto again, too much post processing required. This is the end result of this particular event and I'm very happy with it.... yes that is rain and yes I did get caught in it but I didn't have far to go to get to cover (always carry a plastic bag to quickly cover your gear - unless it's waterproof) whilst my camera is weatherproof, the lens is not. Again feedback on this clip would be much appreciated.

Okay so on Sunday I asked Bonnie Ronnie if she would care to join me for an evening shoot up at our (wishful thinking) block on Ocean View Road near Mt Mee, she agreed and so began a semi-successful shoot. Man it's cold up there - love it. The plan was to capture another time lapse but this time I wanted the transition from daylight afterglow to starlight. 

I was sure that there would be no way to capture this transition but I had to try and if I could limit any changes to shutter speed only, I may stand a chance. I set the Sony a99 ISO to 1600 f/4.0 18mm in Manual mode. Using live view I adjusted the shutter speed to 1500 and quickly discovered that I was not going to get enough of the milky way for my star trails (the other purpose of this shoot). As a 'by the by' I use an app on my phone, called 'Sky Safari Plus' (there are free versions available for the beginner) to help me pinpoint stars, constellations, and all manner of celestial movement in the past, present and future so that I know where to point my camera and at what time I can expect events to occur. If one is going to shoot the stars one needs to be as far from light pollution as possible and one should be fully aware of one's bearings so these apps are invaluable. Thank goodness for smart phones.

Anyway getting back on topic, I decided to change camera orientation to portrait and all seemed to be progressing relatively well but this transition from Dusk to Starlight was just too huge a light difference for this process and I wound up with two short salvageable clips. This is the first:

As you can see the orientation is a major issue, also the changes in shutter speed required much editing in post processing in Lightroom and in my opinion whilst this shoot was a complete failure, the exercise was a huge success since I know what not to do. 

The final attempt managed to capture the stars nicely but the orientation just left me feeling flat so I'll try this again but with a wide angle lens (I don't like the one I have as it's a little too soft and distorted (Light's stars etc.) but it may do well for this type of photography- just won't know till I give it a go.

The flashes of light on the old dead tree are from passing vehicles, which I thought were quite cool as it added to the effect. you can see the star trails composition here.

Stay tuned for bigger and better things. Till next time take care and stay safe.

Time Lapse

I'm quite happy with the way my photography is progressing, although obviously there is still a lot of room for improvement and I must say that confidence in my creative ability is increasing with the completion of each new project.

I've always been impressed with time lapse photography and have been looking into this as I learn a little about Adobe Premier Pro, Audition, Encore and After Effects. At present I'm teaching myself the basics of these applications in order to produce some short film's in the form of documentary's but that is still a long way off.

In the meantime I'm experimenting with some home video's, some old standard and super 8 reel to reel movies as I put together some stuff for family and friends. I've just completed a project for a terminally ill friend where I have combined this person's music and singing (audio from some old cassette tapes) with some old (rather poor quality) family video footage. This turned out rather well considering the quality we had to work with.

Whilst some of these techniques are still fresh in my mind I thought I would have a crack at this time lapse photography so yesterday I set-up the 'Nero Trigger' for 10 second interval shots on the 'Sony a99' with the 18/250 kit lens mounted on the 'Oben Tripod'. It was a bright sunny day so I used ISO50,  f16 1/200 sec and fired away. I took about 170 RAW shots and processed them with 'Lightroom' and 'Premier Pro', the result was great so I thought okay lets try this with a sunset or sunrise. 

It was my youngest grandson's birthday and I got so caught up playing with him and the other grandkids that I missed the sunset opportunity but not to worry there will be far more of them than opportunities to interact with my grandkids. Instead I got up early to catch the sunrise but there was no springing out of bed this morning as yesterdays antics (footy and other physical exertions that the grandkids love) took their toll - haha!

I managed to limp to the driveway and thought, "This will do - no need to go anywhere spectacular until I've got a bit of a handle on this time lapse lark." So I setup in the driveway, in the dark and spotted the moon over my shoulder so I moved to the back yard instead. 

Now I wasn't sure just where to start as exposure was going to be the main issue so instead of trying to get fancy I thought I would start with the same hardware but instead of manual settings which would require constant tweaking I set the Sony a99 to fully automatic. I figured that by doing this I could check the metadata in 'Lightroom' to determine the most appropriate starting point in future shoots. I took about 150 shots but there wasn't much to shoot really, especially with the moon waxing crescent so I packed up and moved back to the driveway and angled south-west for another 150 shots.

I then processed the shots in 'Lightroom', exported to jpg screen resolution, imported everything to 'Premier Pro' and put together a 20 second clip with a little nature music. 

Tell me what you think :)

Till next time, take care and stay safe.