For the end of the film we decided to transition to the Trust’s logo from the previous scene’s frame arrangement.
We decided to stay in keeping with the paper aesthetic of the film so I recreated the logo using the digital paper effects applied previously to the page layouts.
I took on the job of overall compositing of the different elements of the film. The challenge here lies in merging the live action material with the digital assets to create the impression that they both exist in the same space.
As well as the practical integration I also wanted to create a nostalgic feeling through the lighting and tone. I imagined Dwayne would be looking through this book in the corner of his room under soft lamplight. It is a treasured book, an heirloom.
I attempted to achieve this look through a combination of blending modes and shadow maps on the digital pages. On moving into after effects I experimented with the match grain effect, the tint and the fast blur effect. Through a combination of these effects the digital assets began to feel grounded with the live action.
One of the decisions we came to as a group was to create the final scene entirely in cut out with minimal digital elements. Emotionally and aesthetically this felt like a strong tone to end on. Stop motion animation of Dwayne’s real paper hands picking up a real image of his daughter and it being placed on a real background depicting a wall of pictures in his new home. It felt more authentic to portray this in a tangible way. I used the wallpaper from the autumn scene internal frame and cut a series of frames to overall depict a house silhouette which would transition into the Peter McVerry Trust house logo. I added a small oval frame above the door with a photo of the key from the front of the album. The images in the other frames are the only digital element in the scene.
It was important to choose a neutral background which wouldn’t distract from the action taking place in the book. So white was the natural choice but it was also important to retain a sense of connection stylistically with the rest of the look of the elements. So I chose one of the patterned papers we had found. I feel that this supports the action while also bearing a good relationship with an underlying nature theme that has emerged due to the elegant fibres in the paper.
In order to maintain the lighting from the book footage I used a difference blending option on a light blue layer over the background. I then placed an image of the scanned textured paper over that in a dependent layer.
One of my animation tasks on this project was to animate the snow effect on the winter page. For this I created a snowball PNG file with paper texture and drop shadow added and brought this along with the page background into Adobe After Effects. I used the CC Snowfall particle effect in this program and generated a simulation of snowfall, remembering to place the photo frame and Dwayne on a higher level so that the effect would pass behind the picture.
We shot the book before the Christmas break and I’m happy to say that the wire technique worked out. We were able to manipulate the pages into position and they held without any need for outside support. Due to the book not being traditionally bound some pages went a bit off-centre while lying flat. This has the advantage though of communicating age and that sense of Dwayne carrying the book with him through his life. I added corner registration marks to aid the compositing of the digital elements onto the footage.
The pages of the album follow a seasonal theme, there are four pages for the four seasons and the four stages of the journey that Dwayne describes. The album begins in summer with the first page illustrating Dwayne leaving the hostel. The animation will be occurring inside the frame so I was free to fill the outside with decorative features, bearing in mind that I would have to be prepared to let some of the details go if they took away from the animation.
We have decided to make a real book and shoot a stop motion animation of it to act as the stage for our pages. Further down the line this will require compositing with the digital pages. But first to make the book. Fortunately I have just recently completed a book binding course and while most of the binding techniques won’t be applicable, it has given me a grounding in the principles.
I decided to make the book A4 size as this would be the most manageable to deal with physically. Testing the page dimensions against a 16:9 ratio beforehand also let me know that it could work within a film context.
What I decided to do was to use quite a heavy grade card and sandwich wire loops between two sheets. I then glued these two sheets together to create essentially one page. I made the wire lengths long enough to be sandwiched between two of these ‘sheets’. This meant that when we went to turn the pages that half the wire would be embedded in the book which would enable the other half to have a solid foundation. This foundation would enable us to manipulate the wire.
I am creating the photo album page backgrounds digitally using layer styles; pattern overlay techniques, this involves using scanned textures in imaging software and managing the noise levels, blending modes and opacity levels to create as realistic a paper look as possible; drop shadows, enabling the illusion of depth and a gap between ‘paper’ levels, again using blending modes, opacity and also distance and softness levels; inner shadows, using a screen blending mode instead of a multiply mode to help create the illusion of the edge of paper standing out, augmented again using opacity, distance and softness levels.
Gary Gowran 