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watch New Teleporting Effects

Which one of these two versions put together back to back looks better and why?

https://vimeo.com/101051210

PW is mdmpllc

I am reworking special effects. Feedback will help me determine if I am on the right track.

The second version is a newer version. I was inspired to change it to the newer version after watching the pilot for the TV series Weird Science and Star Trek Voyager.

I am planning to re-shoot the model spaceship next year with my crew in a makeshift greenscreen room. We will not be using silver fishing wire ever again. I am planning we use a greenscreen colored stand or wiring to make it look better than before.

So, right now, I am primarily interested in the teleporting effects with the cyborgs. Any suggestions to make it better?

Thanks in advance for help.
 
We need a password.

AM... vvvv

PW is mdmpllc.

Hmm... well the second one looked better slightly. Although for both, I feel the teleportation needs to be quicker, and the editing needs to be tighter. It doesn't flow that smoothly and it feels a bit clunky, IMO. Unless you're going for that campy B-movie-ish feel, I'd try going other route or building upon what you currently have w/ better sound and perhaps flashes of light, more transportation effects, an explosion, etc.
 
They looked pretty similar to me, the second is slightly cleaner.

The camera movement on the people doesn't work though, it makes them look like they're floating over the background. Also, the scale on the ship is way off in the shot where it's in front of the trees - looks like the whole ship is about 6 feet long, and not nearly big enough to contain people.
 
AM, the password is provided in the first post and simply abbreviated as PW is _______.

Read the line like the rest of the people are.

ChimpPhobiaFilms and ItDonnedOnMe thank you for the input. There are too many frames of animation for the teleporter effect, actually. I need to simplify it and slow down the frame rate. I agree the second one is better and a little smoother. I can change the zoom on the ship to make it look bigger.

I am use to the old 30fps animation. There are effects of the cyborgs materializing that are not shwing up at 25fps. There is too much going on for the 25fps I am editing it into at 1280 X 720 at 25fps. I will simplify it and cut down on the initial energy burst the cyborgs materialize out of.

I'll see what I can do with the sound effects.

Thank you.
 
BTW, it's hard to avoid a B-Movie look and feel with the budget the film was made with. But, I am hoping it make improvements to the weakest areas of the film for the new extended version coming out in a couple of years or so.
 
Honestly, I would recommend just copying something from videocopilot. And I definitely agree with IDOM that the camera movement makes the shot feel blaringly unnatural, when the plate is stationary.
 
If you are referring to the spaceship shake, that is another problem with a model spaceship on wires instead of a stand I hope to fix on the spaceship re-shoot.

The actors are materializing from photons, so some animation would be more natural.

Thank you for your suggestions, CF.
 
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They looked pretty similar to me, the second is slightly cleaner.

The camera movement on the people doesn't work though, it makes them look like they're floating over the background. Also, the scale on the ship is way off in the shot where it's in front of the trees - looks like the whole ship is about 6 feet long, and not nearly big enough to contain people.

In the last shot it looks like the ship is 1 foot only.
My own foot is bigger if you look at the grass.

The effect doesn't make me even think it's teleporting.
I see a weird effect and suddenly people appear who float around. There seems to be no relation to these 2 effects accept that they share the shot.

Besides that I see something really strange in your edit:
a ship hovering in the sky (with strange blurry things going on).
Next shot: the same ship is at tree height, looking small and moves upward to the sky.
Next shot: the same ship looks even smaller AND is closer to the ground moving up. It's almost out of the frame and suddenly it is larger again within the same shot of grass: it's not even a cut to a next shot.
(The weird ball appears.)

This scene makes NO sense (at least to me), no matter what you do with the effects.
The ship is getting closer to the ground while it moves up???
(I love Porcupine Tree's 'Up the Downstairs' album, but that phrase refers to a bad acid trip, not to a space ship moving up while decending ;) )

However, when it comes to teleporting I'd use something like in Star Trek so people understand it better.

I'd cut the shots with the trees and the grass.
Use a wider forest shot.
Then let some beam move down from the ship in the first shotin the sky.
Make it taper a bit.
In the forest shot the wider beam reaches the floor: the people appear.

Would make a lot more sense (at least to me).
 
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The teleport looks better, and the scale of the ship in front of the trees is certainly better - but it still doesn't look nearly big enough to hold more than one person. And the ship still looks tiny in the last shot - there are literally blades of grass taller than the ship itself.

The rest of the last shot is worse though - why are you zooming and panning around the grass shot behind them? It makes them look even less connected to the background - the background should be moving with them, not in a completely different way. At least when it was static it just looked like they were floating. Track the camera motion of the foreground shot, then apply that motion to the background to tie the two together.
 
Well, it actually is a problem with no elbow room with the background being the same size as the foreground. Moving around the background the same size will reveal the blackness of nothing behind the background when the edges max out.

I can play with the scale of the ship some more to make it look bigger.

Maybe, what I need is a new background for the last shot.
 
I'd agree - get a background plate that is at the appropriate angle and perspective for the shot you're creating. It should be shot from eye-level, and wider than you need so you have room for it to move with the foreground shot without revealing the edges. Just use a still shot, as it will be much higher res-than the video and better for panning around. The ship also needs to be bigger, or... consider not having the ship in the final shot at all. If you're teleporting out of the ship, why would it land?
 
.................... The ship also needs to be bigger, or... consider not having the ship in the final shot at all. If you're teleporting out of the ship, why would it land?

This!

One of the reasns I wrote:

I'd cut the shots with the trees and the grass. (I mean REMOVING from the edit.)
Use a wider forest shot.
Then let some beam move down from the ship in the first shotin the sky.
Make it taper a bit.
In the forest shot the wider beam reaches the floor: the people appear.

Would make a lot more sense (at least to me).

You don't need the strange ball effect.

And what IDOM says: get a high res background plate.
Plus make it almost static and make the characters follow that movement instead of trying to follow a movement that doesn't add anything to the story. The floating peopel are actuallt quit distracting.
 
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