Girl Anachronism: The Effects

[lierdumoa]

I had effects on virtually every clip in this vid, except for a few at the very beginning. My source was very dim looking, so I had brightness/contrast filters covering most of the vid.

I played around in premiere for the first 37 seconds of the vid, then tried my best to organize what I'd done stylistically in those first 37 seconds to work throughout the rest of the vid.

I used the following types of footage:

1) unmodified color footage -- used in intro only
2) partially desaturated color footage, with upped brightness/contrast
3) fuschia tinted colored footage with upped brightness/contrast
4) hard black and white footage (this is black and white footage from the movie that I upped the brightness/contrast on)
5) soft black and white footage (this is color footage from the movie that I grayscaled and upped the brightness/contrast on -- for reasons I'm not sure of it had a softer look than the black and white footage from the movie)
6) grainy black and white footage (this is color footage from the movie that I grayscaled, then put two brightness/contrast filters on, the first one lowered to reduce image quality, the second raised to get my brightness/contrast at the levels I wanted) -- used in intro only
7) monochrome footage (color footage that I grayscaled, then tinted lavender) -- used in finale only

These footage types were organized as best I could to not appear too random in the vid.

I alternated between two types of fade to color dissolves:

1) fade to whites
2) fade to fuschias

At one point in the vid I exchanged a fade to white for a fade to gray.

I used three types of cutting

1) straight cuts
2) jump cuts
3) crossfades -- used in the finale only

There was no fixed cutting pattern in the vid except for in two of the instrumental sections, the first of which revolved around Gia (Angelina Jolie) meeting Linda (Elizabeth Mitchell) -- 0:22 to 0:27, and the second of which revolved around the reunification of Gia and Linda following Linda's breakup with her boyfriend and Gia's initial experimentation with heroin -- 1:37 to 1:41.

In addition, there were a lot of speed changes made mostly for the sake of timing internal motion to the beat, as well as a few sections at the beginning and the end which were sped up to give the vid a more frantic feel.



Adventures in Color Tinting

The following describes what I did to the clip at 1:24 on the timeline.

I started out with my source looking like this:
[1.0]

As I mentioned earlier, nearly the entire movie was very dim looking, so I added on a brightness/contrast filter. The clip then looked like this:
[1.1]

The real problem in this particular scene was the dress. It was really, really red. Red is my favorite color. Unfortunately, red just wasn't in the color palette of this vid. I didn't like how it clashed with the rest of the vid. I desaturated the clip until the dress was the right hue:
[1.2]

Now that I'd gotten the dress the right color, The skin looked just slightly too grayed out. I liked the way the skin looked in version [1.1] of the shot, so I took version [1.1] and put it on top of version [1.2], then put a chroma key on version [1.1] to mask out the red of the dress, so that the color of the dress in version [1.2] would show through underneath:
[1.1b]; top layer
[1.2]; bottom layer

The final image looked like this:


The difference between version [1.2] and the final version is really very subtle but, well, I'm nitpicky.

Here is what the effects like on each clip:
[1.1b]; top layer
[1.2]; bottom layer



I went through this process again in one of the sections of my vid where everything was tinted fuschia. The process was identical, except that I added a color balance filter on the top and bottom clip to get that fuschia tint to cover the scene.

The following describes what I did to the clip at 1:29.6 on the timeline.

I started out with my source looking like this:
[2.0]

I added brightness/contrast and color balance filters:
[2.1]

I made a desaturated version of the clip, getting the color on the dress right:
[2.2]

I put a chroma keyed version [2.1] on top of version [2.2].
[2.1b]; top layer
[2.2]; bottom layer

The final image:


The effects:
[2.1b]; top layer
[2.2]; bottom layer



I used this same effect on the scene used at 0:54 and 2:37 where Gia is standing on the bridge to get the red out of Gia's lips.

Comments

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

::helps you back up::

The chroma key basically lets you mask out a color. First you use the eyedropper, which is the first parameter of the effect to select the color you want to mask out. The similarity parameter after that lets you define the color you want to mask out, if it's say just that one particular hue of red or reds in general. Similarity = 0 means your masking out only the exact color that you selected. Similarity = 100 means you're masking out pretty much the entire image. I wanted to mask out all the different shades of red in her dress, so I had it at similarity = 30.7. The blend parameter lets you blur the edges around the area you just masked out so it doesn't stand out strangely against the rest of the image. You can select mask only if you want to get rid of everything but the color you just selected. I'm not really sure what the rest of the parameters do, so I left them at their default settings.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

This is totally fascinating. I'm loving all your making-of posts and I hope to direct people to them when I get to my premiere show report (going to a con is so much work! *g*).

I really like how you explained the POV change between the movie and your vid -- that's exactly what I was talking about. Oh, how I heart this vid. ::beam::

[lierdumoa.livejournal.com]

I loved your comments that you made in the vid review. They really helped me figure out what it was I'd just done with this vid.

Also -- ack! You made me realize I forgot to go into the narrative of my vid. I added in two more paragraphs.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

::goes to see::