Production Log

some of the lighting kits used for the project

 The entire short was shot over the course of one afternoon, between the hours of 10:00 and 4:00. The first scene started in my room, which is a quad on the floor. I brought in two lighting kits for the project, as lighting in the towers can be a nightmare. I shot on my own camera, a Panasonic AG-HMC40 Prosumer camera. The camera is capable of various frame rates, including 60fps at 720p. Though it can shoot 60 fps at 1080, it is interlaced footage, which would have defeated the purpose of slowing it down to 30.

motivating the actors to convey proper emotions 

The hardest part of this particular shot was making sure each actor could hold his pose extremely still. In order to sell the effect of stopped motion, the process used was fairly straightforward. I had each actor hold their pose as emotionally active as possible, but make sure not to move. Then, with very exact camera movements and the help of Andrew Kuserk and some 3D tracking programs 3D objects were added. I tried to make sure my narrative focused on objects that could easily convey frozen time.

one of the many takes we shot

As the shots continued forward, I had to be very exact about the path taken. In order to try to sell the effect of a single tracking shot, each individual take had to start and stop at corresponding points. This process proved to be quite difficult for several reasons:

• maintaining the same lighting and color from shot to shot
• making sure the angle of the camera stayed consistent
• maintaining the same placement of objects from shot to shot 

Erik's perfect reaction to the situation unfolding

As the narrative moved into the hallway, we see two friends playing hockey, and it seems something went wrong. Though the physics of the shot are not realistic (as the glass would shatter out not in from the impact of a hockey puck) this shot proved to be the most difficult in post production. 

Alyssa's addition to the scene sold the shot, however proved to
 be difficult in post

Not only were the refractions of the added glass difficult for Andrew, but also the ability for the glass particles to move in front of the actress Alyssa.

the twitch effect used to stitch individual shots together

In order to have the glass particles move in front of Alyssa (rather than pass right over her since they are just a PNG image sequence with an alpha channel) she needed to be rotoscoped out of every frame. Rotoscoping is the process of painting pixels out of a shot frame by frame. The process is often used to remove wires from actors in post production or imperfections in a shot. In this case, Alyssa had to be "removed" from each frame the glass particles had to move around her. After abut 3 hours at 60fps, a mask was used instead as the rotobrush in after effects "wobbled" too much around the actress. 

Moving down the hallway the shots begin to use an affect effects plugin called twitch, to stitch each shot together. This allowed imperfections like color and lighting differences between takes to be hidden. 

the two individual takes, one darker in color

the two individual takes, one lighter in color

one of the best shots in the short, the frozen effect was sold quite well here

The next shot features actor Ben S. and actress Sharmin frozen as the camera moves through the papers frozen in midair. This shot was on of the best in the short as the actors held incredibly still and the floating paper effect held up well. 

The last shot of the short involves actor Ben L. breaking the frozen time effect and yelling into the camera shut up. This ending seemed logical and a quick way to break the action ensuing.