SS2 : Markus Lupfer Promo Final

After Completing the final for Last Moments, I have 2 more weeks before the deadline, I have been contacted by Riz again to work with me on a fashion shoot. We worked quite well when we did the college advert so I decided to help out and since it is a live brief, it is a good opportunity to get my name out there and this could also help me improve my skills of being a film maker, though I specialise in visual effects. 

In this Project, we are collaborating with Dannie Bennett a 3rd year fashion student. The live project is from Markus Lupfer a fashion brand company. Their videos are mostly fun and quirky and each video they produced have their own different styles. Have a look at their website.

http://markuslupfer.com/video/

The Brief:

The final major project will conclude in three separate final outcomes. All three of these outcomes will be produced in collaboration with London fashion brand, Markus Lupfer. Through liaison with the Markus Lupfer brand I have defined a brief requiring me to produce an initial outcome in trend preddition, a second outcome in print design and illustration and a final outcome in marketing and branding. Through the trend prediction outcome I will liaise with the brand in order to understand and assist in the development of their conceptual trend basis for Spring/Summer 2014. Through this I will then develop my own further 4 conceptual trend ideas, which I will finalise in a trend prediction book. Further to think I will develop a range of conceptual print ideas based on Markus Lupfer’s key trend for Spring/Summer 2014. This outcome will require me to produce a fully illustrated capsule collection and a range of professional print and fabric samples in order to present to womenswear design department at Markus Lupfer. The final marketing and branding outcome will be the key focus of the final outcomes within the final major project. Through my brand research I have identified Markus Lupfer’s failure to actively market their brand. This has lead to a poor consumer brand image and also a poor level of brand awareness within consumers. Through this research I have identified three key areas to develop. The first area within the marketing and branding final outcome will be to produce a commercially relevant lookbook for the brand’s spring/summer 2013 collection. Further to this I will seek to produce a commercially relevant video advertorial campaign for the brand’spring/summer 2014 collection. The final branding and marketing outome will be to redevelop the brand’s packaging and labelling in order to be more in level with the brand’s premium price point and identity.

Before shooting Riz and I have divided our work to ourselves creating the manipulated stock footages. I have used After effects and premiere pro to manipulate it and layer other footages on top. We eventually ended up editing all same footages but with different effects. I guess it is a good thing because the more samples we have, the better.

This is my first time working in this kind of project, making a promo video for a fashion company, I am pretty excited for this project. I became in charge of the camera as usual because I take better shots than Riz :D and I know how to work it better. Riz is in charge with the lighting and staging and Dannie is working with the models, dressing them up and putting make up on. At the beginning, we planned to project images on top of the models but then later decided that it is so much better to do it in after effects and it would look so much better.

Here are some samples, we are trying to achieve  where we are using a projector to project manipulated stock footages on top of the model, but then decided to layer the footage on top of the model in after effects.

At first Dannie directed the models on how she want them to act for the shoot, but it wasn't going so well, so we had to put on some music so it will help the model do their thing. I ended up taking over and helping Dannie with directing because she is struggling. It is a good thing that I watch alot of fashion shoots in youtube because I love fashion, this gave me an advantage on how the model should act. although sometimes when I act some scenes I look very weird  (like a girl) but it had to be done. When doing this, it made the models feel very comfortable with me and they became much more loose and able to be them selves a bit more and looks much more natural in camera. Jokes had to be done too. It was fun shooting this film. 

After filming Riz and I decided to work on our own cuts because it is easier that way and Dannie can just pick out the good bits from our edit and compile it together. I have basically listened to the chosen song by Dannie and mark the beats where I think that there are potential cuts in there. It was hard deciding which footages of the models I should use, what I did is, I selected an outfit that I think matches with the other model and pair it together, so in the video it has a good alternate shots between both models (no favouritism) though one model was hard to work with and ended up having 90% bad shots, good thing the beats of the music are quite fast so its good to cut on the right time. 

This are two of my stock footages that I manipulated and combined together. 

 My Cuts

The process on how I worked is I worked on cutting the footages into place and then colour correct / graded it then overlayed stock footages ontop to give off a projection look.

After It is done and I dont think the colours works quite well, I composite it all together and add more and adjust the effects on to to blend well together.

This is a shot that I wish to include in the final piece but I dont think the projection effect might work. because in this footage, the camera moves quite alot and it will take alot of tracking and editing to make it work. I just think this is still an interesting shot.

This is the first test I have made and Dannie was very pleased with the result, she loves the cuts going to the beat and the stock footages worked quite well. She wanted the final to be 2mins max.

Here is behind the scenes video that Riz composited which I have filmed :D

Final Markus Lupfer Promo Video

Bare in mind, this isnt an advert, it is a promo video where they just show their latest clothes in their website and just basically showing how quirky they are. This video might be played on billboards which I have heard from Dannie. So far Dannie is very happy to work with us though she picked my work than Riz's because I have basically completed the whole video in 3 days with out much sleep. I really enjoyed this project and hopefully I get contacted by Markus Lupfer or any other companies.

A little improvements just had to be made later on , just changing some footages because Dannie wasnt happy with the models acting. Riz took a render of the models scene and cleaned up the markers on the floor and will be compiled later.

SS2: Last Moments Making and Final

Awath and I havent found any Actors to act in our film so we have decided that I'll be the main actor instead.  2 actresses have backed out because of their deadlines too and found an actress willing to help. On the day of the shooting she decided that she couldnt make it because of personal problems, so we have to look for some one else. I finally found Amy, she has no experience in acting but we are willing to help her out, she doesnt have that much shots to do, it should take a day to finish her scenes.

We started filming Amy and testing her in many different camera angles. After filming for the day and tried compiling all the shots together in premiere pro, we noticed that Amy couldnt walk, one of her arm was still and the other arm is in motion, it was also my mistake for not giving her anything to hold on to, so we had to retake the shots. Another problem we have encountered is the bad weather where it rains quite alot, shooting out doors is very difficult, the clouds are blocking the sun light and ended up darkening our shots. We have noticed some grains in our footage thats because our ISO was too high which makes it grainy for filming.

We finally managed to film my scene and Amy's in a good weather, I started compositing some scenes together and added in some duplicated effects especially on scene 4 after waking up from flashback, I am supposed to feel dizzy and looking at the surroundings, so I have added in like an echo effect on every turn I make to give the illusion of dizziness. 

On this scene, Awath and I were both edit it together, we are pretty pleased with the pacing of the shots. though I wasn't happy about our work speed, we focused too much on one scene and the speed of working is too slow, so we both agreed to work on our own cuts since we are both focusing in visual effects and compositing, I think it is best we do it this way. 

I have went to town and took some more footages that I think itll be useful later on to fill in the blanks for the film which could add in some dramatic effect to the audience showing that the actor is thinking and looking through his eyes in first person view.

This is a test where I have to show that the actor is lost. didnt end up using it because the camera is set too low and there are alot of people in the surroundings. We did our best not to get any other people in the shot so the audience would focus more on the 2 actors, showing that this is only about them, kinda relating it to Adam and Eve where they fell in love at some point. But didnt want to show that, I only want the audience to think that.

Here are some early tests that Riz and I took just before this project, I have edited it to make it look like a flashback, I have also played around with colour correction and grading. I made the chase scene very dark so it will look like it is a bad memory that happened and gives off the effect that viewer is in rage mode that cant see properly whats going on but anger. I think this effect works well on horror films.

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I had a play around with the camera recording a time lapse video on my window and on a bridge. I have colour corrected it in different ways. I really enjoyed colour correcting and colour grading, Instagram got me into it :D I think every effects means different thinkgs, for example the cinematic feel give off a sense of epicness, blues and greens stand out a bit more than reds. Romantic feel is more orangey look with a vignet of blur to focus the eyes on the center. Sun Warm is used to highlight the reds and yellows which shows that the atmosphere is warm, it is mostly used when filming on the beaches, sunsets. Tilt shift effect mainly used on footages that are recorded from a far distance and blurs out the foreground and the background and only highlights the middle which gives of the effect of objects looking like toys. 

colour correction and grading is used to make the footage look more like a film more than just a pocket phone recording, it makes it look much more dramatic, enhances the mood to the footage and gives emotion to it.

When editing my final video, I knew a scene was missing a scene, where I had to look like I am in a hospital. It is impossible for me to shoot in a hospital, I have created a matte painting looking in first person view from my bed. Here are some examples that I have done below, I have noticed something looks off about it, maybe it was the lights and shadows where off. It was because it is all images and I havent animated the camera. I didnt like the look of it aswell, angles are all wrong and room looks so empty

I have then took some key footages on windows instead, to make it look like I saw the nurse next to me in bed. I couldnt get in contact with Amy any more to shoot it with her so I just matte painted her instead and I think I did a better job in the 2nd matte painting. it looks so much more realistic, everyone I have shown this so far thought it was real. I am happy with the result.

Here is my 2nd Final piece, "Last Moments"

In my cut, I have timed it well according to my story board, but I think there are some footages that could have been shot better, I wasnt the camera man, but anyway I am specialising more in post production. I have added in effects that made it look cinematic which highlights the blues and make it a little dark for the real time scene, but when it reached the flash back, I made the effects quite light, making the greens and yellows stand out a bit more and lots of white to make it look like a real flash backs. I have adjusted the appatures to make the grasses glow like pearls. I have added in Fish eye and a little push and pull effect in the scene where I had the flashback to give off a sense that I am having a headache. I have added in some slow mo effect to make my walk look much more interesting and dramatic. by the end of the editing, I have added in a  music, which was really hard to sync with the footage. I couldnt have more time to ask someone to compose it for me, but I think I have done my job here, I think I have increased my skill as a visual effect artist/ Film maker.