During my third year at De Montfort I continued to develop my skills with After effects and Photoshop, but in addition I began to use Adobe Encore for more than just a basic menu with one button. I also had my first experience with the AVID Media Composer.
Alongside my modules in film making and digital effects I took a module in Advanced Imaging Techniques. This module focused on raw Photography, with no editing. Through this I gained a better understanding of composition and lighting.
I had 3 main projects involving Adobe this year and one using AVID.
My first introduction to AVID was to create a short piece of film that could fit into a news magazine show. For example the One Show, or a Local News show.
For my Piece I decided to create a short film that looked factual, but in reality was fiction with the use of actors.
The piece centred around an idea that cooking can be used as stress relief after a days work.
Through this I gained a basic knowledge of how AVID works. I found it very different at first, in comparison to Premiere Pro. But after some time I began to see some of the benefits of this system, and I then began to see how I can use Premiere in a similar way.
This in turn has helped speed up my editing technique.
Along with this my trip to BBC Wood Norton focused on post production. In this case the use of AVID and a meta data based system called Cinegy.
I learnt a lot from the expertise of the staff from Wood Norton that aided me through the rest of the year.
My first piece of coursework of the year on After Effects was an evolution of my skills I learnt from the second year.
The first major change was my move to HD. I had just received a Sony HD Handycam. So I decided to film my piece in full HD but composite and finish in 720p.
I again looked to Video Copliot for inspiration and knowledge, but I also used my own skills and imagination to create things unique to my work.
But along side this I had some new tools in my arsenal. I brought, with the help of my student discount, the Trapcode Suite from Red Giant Software.
This gave me some great tools.
A very powerful particle generator in Particular, a powerful static particle generator in Form, a light emitter in Lux, a very nice glow generator in Star Glow, an interesting audio controlling device called Sound Keys, a fantastic light generator called Shine, the ability to manipulate multiple instances of a layer with Echospace, the ability to create 3D strokes with 3D Stroke and finally a great tool to create back drops for 3D space with Horizon.
With these tools and the ability to work in HD I filmed a trailer for a fictional Sci-fi film.
Set in a post apocalyptic future the human race fight to stay alive against the alien race that almost drove them to extinction.
My main concentration for this piece was on the ending motion graphics and on adding action effects.
I composited muzzle flares on to battle scenes, and added mist. I composited two moons into some scenes.
I also used my new skills on Blender to create a battle in space and a crashed ship, which I composited along with fire on the ground.
I also filmed myself falling backward in front of a green screen. I then put myself in a room I created on Blender. This contained a reactor that explodes and blows my character up.
This containes plug-ins for working on footage such as, steading motion, effecting footage to make it look older, or improving older footage by removing artifacts and noise.
But the main attraction was Magic Bullet Looks.
This is a fantastic stand alone colour correction package. It allows you to effect and manipulate the colour and look of footage with lots of parameters. These can be saved as presets for later use. There are also plenty of presets already loaded in.
I achieved and learnt a lot in this piece of coursework. The quality of my work took a huge leap compared to Mega Team, from the year before.
I handed the final product in on Blu-ray with a full motion menu, as well as a case and disc label.
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