Here is the wedding video I filmed and edited for Justin and Gina, who were married on November 23, 2011 at the Timpanogos temple.

This is an engagement video I shot for Justin and Gina where they tell the story of how they met and fell in love.

 
While normally I would love to be able to get everything right during the shoot, sometimes a little post-production work is called for. For this video I did some work in post to get a few of the shots exactly how I wanted. Here’s an example:

 
The difference is subtle, but you can probably see that I raised the exposure on Gina’s face in the second image. I loved the composition for her interview with the tree and rock wall in the background, and I needed her in the shade for even lighting…but her face ended up being a little too underexposed. My reflector would have been a nice solution during the shoot, but luckily adding a little more light after the fact wasn’t too difficult. Here’s how I did it.

If this was a still image / photograph that I was correcting all I would have to do is just put a mask around her face using an ellipse shape, give it a feathered edge, and raise the exposure inside of the mask. But since it’s a video that won’t quite do it. Even though she was sitting fairly still during the interview, every now and then she moved around. So if I used a static mask over the top of her face she’d just be moving in and out from behind it. So to do this in a video you just have to add one more step…a motion track. In After Effects I did a motion track of her face. That way I could link the mask to her movement so that every time she moved around the mask stayed right on her face.

 
And Voila! Subtle, but I think it makes a difference. Now next time just use your reflector…

I did this graphic a long time ago when I was first getting into Cinema 4D, and I was able to learn a lot on the project. This is a good example of taking what you learn from tutorials and putting them together into your own work. You can pretty much learn how to do all of the different parts of this animation just by using the following tutorials.

STEP 1: EXTRUDE SPLINE (LOGO)
The first thing I did was take a logo from Illustrator into Cinema 4D and extrude it. This is a very basic thing to know how to do, but it’s something I use all the time. This tutorial will show you how to extrude a logo (or any vector) and then do some basic texture, lighting, and camera animation with it:

Vector Logo to 3D Tutorial

STEP 2: MOGRAPH
In order to get the logo to fall, shatter, and bounce I needed to use Cinema’s physics engine, Mograph. Here’s a good tutorial:

Mograph/Dynamics Tutorial

STEP 3: SHATTER
Once mograph is set up you can shatter your object. Here’s a tutorial that uses the destruction plugin:

Shatter with Mograph Tutorial

STEP 4: TIME FREEZE
This effect is hard to do in a production environment, but in Cinema it’s pretty easy. Once again from Nick on Greyscale Gorilla:

Time Freeze Tutorial

Just a quick note about the falling shatter…if I remember correctly I couldn’t get the object to fall and shatter quite how I wanted. Getting it to fall was fine and getting it to shatter from a static position was fine, but getting it to fall and shatter on impact didn’t work for me. So what I did instead was splice two renders together into one. In the first render I had the logo falling and bouncing on the floor. And in the second render I had the logo shatter from the exact spot that the logo hit the ground in the first render. Then I put the two together.

Although I enjoy working in 3D I have never really liked modeling that much. So whenever I need anything more than a simple model I check some of the following sites. I have them listed out in the order I use them the most, and I also explain how I get different file types into Cinema 4D (the main 3D program I use).
 

TURBOSQUID

Turbosquid requires that you have an account, but it’s free to sign up. They have a ton of good models and a nice selection of free models as well. The files that open right up in C4D are .c4d, .obj, .3ds, and .fbx. If I need any that are in .max (3ds max) or .mb (maya) I just open them in their respective programs and re-save them as .obj, .fbx, or .3ds files.

 
GOOGLE 3D WAREHOUSE

Lots of free models to choose from, but sometimes the quality isn’t that great and you’ll need to convert some of the files. They come in either sketchup or collada file formats. The collada ones open right up in C4D, but the sketchup files you can open in sketchup (free) and then save as collada (.dae) files.

 
3DXTRAS.COM

Good models to choose from, especially furniture/architectural models. The cons are that sometimes they have popups and sometimes it says you’ve used all your daily download credits when you really haven’t.

 
GRABCAD.COM

A lot of good models, but you’ll probably have to convert them in order to use them. One good way to convert from SolidWorks (.stp or .igs) is to get moi3D (has a 30 day trial) and use that to convert them to .obj, .3ds, or .fbx files. If the file is in .sldprt format you’ll have to find a way to convert it to a useable format. I open them up in Autodesk Inventor and re-save them.

 
C4D EXCHANGE

C4D Exchange has only models for Cinema 4D (per the name) so they’re always in the right format and work just fine. Not a very big selection of free models, but sometimes you can find good ones.

 
FREE 3D MODELS

Not a great selection, but some of their free models are really nice.

A great thing to know in any of the fields of motion graphics, film, or visual effects is how to use a green screen. How to set one up, how to film on it, and how to key it out in post. This video is from a green screen shoot I did with Real Salt Lake, where we had a pretty good setup. But I’ll also go through some budget and DIY setups as well.

When I did my first green screen setup years ago I was a poor student in college and didn’t have anything in the way of a budget. I had to get pretty creative in what I used for my setup. Here’s what I used:

• Green Screen Frame – $10 portable clothes rack from walmart
• Green Screen Fabric – $1 plastic table cloth from the dollar store
• Tripod – barstool with books stacked on top
• Camera – Digital point and shoot that had a video setting
• Audio – built-in camera audio synced with computer microphone audio in post
• Lighting: living room window light as key, desk lamp as fill, and overhead flourescent light as rim
• Keying Software – Adobe Premiere 30-day trial

This setup is obviously very makeshift, but it worked! I was still able to key out the screen in Adobe Premiere…it didn’t look totally professional, but it didn’t look horrible either.

If you want to go a step up, lose the crappy frame and table cloth for something a bit better. A DIY PVC frame is cheap and works great. And for the screen you can just go to the fabric section in walmart and get some green fabric. Then use some plastic clamps to hold it onto the PVC frame. As for lighting, you can go get some work lights from walmart and then diffuse them with a white bedsheet or wax paper or something like that.

So that’s a step up from the first makeshift green screen, but still not that great. For me the PVC was a pain to set up and transport, and it doesn’t look very professional. And the fabric that I got from walmart wasn’t wide enough, so I had a seam in the middle of my screen. Not ideal.

So now let me get into more of an ideal setup using the Real Salt Lake shoot as an example. If you don’t know, Real Salt Lake is a major league soccer team in Utah. It was pre-season and we were getting green screen footage of the players at training camp in Arizona for a game-opener video. We had a decent budget for the shoot, and we already had some of the video equipment we needed…and what we didn’t own or couldn’t transport to Arizona we just ended up filling in with rental equipment. Here’s what we used:

• Frame – 2x  backdrop frame
• Fabric – 2x  green muslin
• Camera – JVC GY-HM700U
• Tripod – Manfrotto 546B with 501 Head
• Audio – Wireless Lavalier Mic
• Lighting: (Rental) 2x Kino Flos, Arri 4 light kit, extra Arri 1k with softbox
• Keying Software – Keylight in After Effects

So obviously this is better than any of my previously listed setups, but it’s more expensive too. But if you were to substitute the lights, camera, and tripod listed above with cheaper versions, then you’re not looking at quite as much money. For example, you switch out the JVC camera with a DSLR like the Canon T3i or 7D, switch the tripod with a cheaper one like the ePhoto Heavy Duty Tripod, and change the lights with some cheap tungsten or flourescent lights and you’re looking at a setup that’s somewhat achievable for someone on a tight budget.

Here’s a finished version of the video from the shoot:

So there you go. Hopefully this puts some ideas out there for any type of green screen budget. Now get filming!

*UPDATE* Our RSL Fortress Video (above) recently won two Pixie Awards, one for motion graphics and the other for visual effects. Congratulations everyone else who worked on the video.