Visual and Sound Production | Final Project (0373754)
Course: BDCM
June 15th - July 27, 2025Visual and Sound Production | FINAL PROJECT (Short Movie)
Melvern Owen Tjia (0373754)Module MIB
Elaboration on the assignment's overview
This assignment is meant to use what we've learned from prior tasks to apply to this final one, which is to shoot our own short film after developing our very own story board. Unlike the previous tasks we are given full liberty so in short, anything goes. But before we begin on the assignment, we are to draw one out of 6 cards from the tarot set that will determine our theme. For my group the card of choice would turn out to be the empress, which represents inner conflicts or conflicts in general though it'll often feature relationship iterations.
Main Aspects of the Assignment
- The plot of the movie is to be determined and written based off the chosen card which was The Empress tarot card.
- Background ambience and dialogue will be added
- Animated 2D scenes will be included as a means to create something unique
- Effects and layering will be applied
- Usage of the color tool, roto brush, masking and many more effects on Adobe After Effects.
Video link
Assignment Process Breakdown and BTS
This last assignment as previously mentioned, will include shots of our own using our own equipment. We've decided that thinking about the VFX should be placed last as it will be more convenient on our end to do so in case changes were made on the composition of the clips.
The location of choice for our shooting sessions will be situated at the path bridging between Sunway Tower and Sunway Pyramid, as we decided that it would be interesting to add a horror twist to the short film the subsequent shooting sessions will end up taking place at night despite the probable quality jeopardization due to low lighting level, but we went with it nonetheless. And besides the lower resolution may help to increase the horror factor as it was intended to look dated.
A third party has been invited to help us with bringing the equipment while doubling as an actor to be rotoscoped later on for the 2D animation. There are more than 21 shots taken in one night with the majority ended up being used as there was too much walking, mentioned during consultation. The walking itself was intended to establish an ambience first before the stalking phase begins. The shots consisted of mostly extreme wide shots and medium close-up shots, with one over the shoulder shot as a result of us wanting to play around with the environment a lot more.
Adobe After Effects Process
After the 2D Animation is done, the VFX itself is very simple, The actor was masked using the pen tool in some of the scenes and every time the entity reveals itself there will be some added SFX and a glitchy effect (BCC Glitch) insinuating that the main character is currently getting dragged into his own headspace of a world and the way it was put together would be to just to use an adjustment layer and slap in a program called S_Cartoonpaint from Sapphire plugin, mess around with the frequency and jitter effects to create this "other world" not only that, some Hue/Saturation effects were added to De-Saturate the background making it appear more dramatic.
Glitch Effects
As for the climax of the film the same effects and masking outputs are to be implemented once more but this time more desaturation is applied using Magic Bullet giving it some contrast and chromatic effect resulting in something visually more horrifying. Another sound effect that was used is a revealing SFX as every time the frame of the eye pops up the audio cue will play, and for obvious reasons, glass breaking sounds were added for when our protagonist breaks the barrier of this false headspace of his.
Ever Increasing Monochrome Scene
Animation Process
Me and my partner have agreed to include 2D animation into the project itself as I was fully placed in charge of doing so, and as such I will go into detail as to how this whole brainchild came to be. I first started with slowing the original clips into a crawl so that I may pick out its individual frames for tracing later on as the animation as mixing a 2D entity along with a live action sequence would prove to be troubling otherwise. The background will largely be in the standard green screen hex color so that when the time for overlaying comes it will not pose too much of an issue.
Frames Put Together
After slowing the clips down to a crawl, I will have them separated to be animated in different projects. Unfortunately, a good chunk of the content here remains unused due to the project being deemed too long in both length and filler by the lecturer. There are about 8 animated sequences in total amounting to more than 60 frames individually drawn, not all of the movements present in the frames selected will be traced as animation is best left at the standard 12/24/30 fps rule to avoid a phenomenon referred to as uncanny valley as too many frames per second may result in the animation looking unappealing.
As scene 1 only featured a static shot of the actor standing perfectly still, the way this entity is animated in an animation loop of 5 frames pieced into each other in a perfect cycle. The first 6 frames in the intro ended up being unused for implementation issues, as it was supposed to feature the entity manifesting before transitioning into the looped idle animation of 5 frames.
Scene 2 featured a fully rotoscoped walk cycle drawn in about 40 frames, each individual movement and step was traced and drawn to simulate a shadowy figure stalking our protagonist. half of the animation ended up being scrapped as per feedback, the entity is best to only cross from pillar to pillar once instead of twice allowing the scene to finish quicker.
Scene 2 Walk Cycle Frames
Frames for Scene 3
Scene 4 would feature the aftermath of Scene 3, as the world around our protagonist have been fully engulfed with pieces of geometry flying around as light struggles to get by, symbolizing the hopelessness our protagonist is experiencing. This scene featured a medium close up shot of the entity looking dead straight into the camera with the same 5 frame animation loop and an idle.
Scene 5 featured a scene that the protagonist will behold as it is a portal type sequence that will initially start from an extreme close up shot on the eye before seamlessly transitioning into the portal that will then move onto scene 6. This was done by overlaying 3 different loops of rotations with a pulsating effect given to add the feel of velocity.
Scene 6 won't have much to talk about as it is simply meant to be a flashed image as a representation of the entity peering into the soul of our protagonist.
Scene 7 of my part was a slightly alter video of glass shattering that will then be used for when the protagonist shatters his horrid reality ultimately breaking free of the entity's influence.
Scene 8, the final scene of my part. Scene 8 features the entity fading away slowly before ultimately being carried away by the wind indicating the protagonist's triumph. This was animated in the same fashion as scene 1 was when the entity faded in. However, this scene ended up being entirely unused due to the pacing of the film being demanded to be made shorter.
Here are all the clips together
Here are some sound effects used in the short film
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