Meant to get this post out last week, but I was sick and work got really busy. So lets jump in - NAB is now long behind us, and as usual I jumped right into something new as soon as I was back in town. This year, it was the teaser trailer for Clear Creek Community Theatre's production of Beauty and the Beast. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out before we go any further: So I made this teaser entirely in Adobe After Effects using Video Copilot's Element 3D plugin (along with some other plug-ins), lets start by breaking down the pieces at play here:
So last week I went into some detail about the gear I got to see and play with at National Association of Broadcasters Convention last month in Las Vegas - if you missed that post, check it out here.
The other thing that's really fantastic about NAB is the knowledge you can pick up. Like last year, I participated in Post|Production World (P|PW) this year too and the sessions were just as interesting - and then there's "all badge" access sessions like the Star Wars talk where they went into detail about the character design of those crystal fox things from The Last Jedi (I'm guessing they talked about some more than that, but I came in late - if someone can remember what those cool creatures are called, let me know in the comments below). Of course the tough question - where to start? Last week I told you I'd go into some detail on DaVinci Resolve 15 - so lets start there:
Okay - the teaser's out now, and since I promised we would, this week we're going to take a look behind the curtain at this one:
It turned out better than I expected. My mother, the director of CCCT's production of Black Coffee, came up with the concept and I shot this with only about half of a plan and no idea of how the pieces were going to come together. Not to say the concept was bad - but while I was shooting it I was having a little trouble seeing the final edit - unlike the Christmas Carol or the Titus teasers where Robert and I had some pretty detailed discussions far in advance (we even storyboarded Titus to the music track we ended up using) or even compared to the last Agatha Christie Trailer I shot, Towards Zero, which I also planned out and scripted in advance, this one was very much "shot from the hip".
Okay, so it’s been a little while - Christmas was crazy and I gave myself a bit of a break where I could, but now we’re into 2018 and it’s time to buckle down again. I've got a lot to cover, so let’s just jump in. My original plan for this post was to have a new vlog ready to accompany it and talk about some of the newer projects I've got in mind and the new progress on the old ones. However, between helping Robert on Christmas Carol and then helping my mother with her show, Black Coffee, I've had little time to work on my own projects. (Let alone get my office cleaned up enough to be "camera ready") That said, working promotional for both shows has given me some new little projects to work on - you’ve all seen the Christmas Carol teaser I shot, and now I’ve got a teaser for Black Coffee that I’m editing (and hope to have out in the next couple days) I'll probably go into more detail on the behind-the-scenes for that trailer next week.
A little over a month ago, I wrote a blog post about the simple, yet effective Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde teaser trailer that I threw together completely within After Effects. I needed some video and had nothing to work with - set wasn't ready, there was no footage of actors in costume, and of course, even though the original work is public domain, the version we were performing is not, and video rights are tightly held.
Earlier this week I took another "simple" approach to making a teaser, except this one we have the nearly completed set and costume, so we shot some real video for it - check out the teaser trailer for A Christmas Carol below:
Since Tuesday is Halloween, lets talk about this creepy trailer I shot for The Haunting of Hill House in 2015:
I really liked the way this one turned out - my brother, Robert, was directing this show and everything fell into place just so that he had the set finished when it was time to shoot the video content.
This being before I had my Ronin-M, I borrowed Jose's slider to shoot this piece. The thing that's really cool about this one is that everything in this video is an "in camera" practical effect. Everything from the rocking chair, to the slamming doors to the creepy reflection in the picture that doesn't show up anywhere else (did you catch it? Go ahead and rewatch - look around 6 or 7 seconds) is all done in the room on camera. There are no post/computer visual effects in this piece. The reasoning there was that while we could have added some spooky things in post, as an advert for a spooky show, it made sense to show the audience things that that they could or would see in the space, rather than just trying to scare them especially because the set was done enough in the time to shoot. Sometimes simple is better than complex or even "over-produced", in today's blog post I'm going to break down what went into teaser trailer I made for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So if you haven't seen it yet - check it out: Pretty cool right? Sure its not "amazing" by any means, but its eye catching, and it gets your attention. And I made the whole thing in Adobe After Effects in about an hour - it was pretty simple - let me show you:
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AuthorThomas Meek is an independent filmmaker living and working in Houston, TX Archives
April 2024
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