Here's what I'm taking, hell of a deal for $330 if you ask me...
AFX301 - A Guerrilla Filmmakers Guide to After Effects
One of the most popular articles in recent months over at fxguide was our story about Gareth Edward's work on Atilla the Hun. Edwards was one of the first traditional film students to combine live-action drama with digital effects. After graduating, he went on to work at many of the UK's leading post-production facilities as a freelance visual effects artist. Eventually becoming frustrated with the "factory approach" to every project, he soon branched out on his own creating many high-end computer graphics for television clients including BBC and Discovery, all of which were completed entirely on own "from his bedroom". Some of his work went on to win various accolades, including a British Academy Award and Emmy nomination.
He has since returned to his filmmaking roots directing the BBC drama "Attila the Hun", which contained over 250 HD visual effects shots, all of which were created by himself in less than five months. The post used After Effects, Premiere, Photoshop, Mocha, and 3dsMax -- all easily accessible tools for visual effects artists. Needless to say, we thought this whole experience would make a great "real-world" fxphd course and are excited to be adding this new course to the mix at the site. The course will cover a ton of techniques and approaches Edwards uses on the job, focusing on the art, the artist's eye, and the craft. If you're a compositor who doesn't use After Effects you'll still pick up a ton of useful information from the course.
Edward's course will begin by breaking down shots, techniques, and workflow used in the actual production of Atilla the Hun. This in-depth coverage of the real world project will then shift gears into producing a complex visual effects shot with footage shot specifically for the course. Members will recreate the techniques used in one of the signature shots of the project -- that of 30,000 Huns storming across an open field in an aerial shot.
Professor: Gareth Edwards (GarethEdwards)
Class 1: An introduction to the course workflow, using the Adobe suite, Premiere and Excel. Initial set up for an effects shot in After Effects. Tracking in AE using nulls for multiple track points and exporting a time-remapped frame for a clean background plate in Photoshop. Illustrating the power of the Adobe suite in creating a quick proof of concept.
Class 2: Creating a matte painting. Follows a breakdown from initial sketch to importation of photographic elements and eventual rendering into a completed matte. Multiple examples using pre-rendered 3D and ways to add realistic details with photos and video to nest them further into a realistic matte.
Class 3: Tricks within After Effects focused on crowd duplication recycling elements to create variation. Tips for rotoscoping quickly, and using other programs such as Mocha and Boujou. Faking 3D space with a 2D image in After Effects using created or imported layers.
Class 4: Issues with parallax when creating drag and drop armies. Keying tips. Using a plug-in for 3DSmax to export camera data directly into After Effects.
Class 5: The "poor man's" Massive shot. Detailed example into using particle systems to animate huge crowds using avatar loops and tracking with multiple layers in both 3D and After Effects.
Class 6: Creation of another massive crowd charge, but using primarily After Effects instead of 3D particle clouds. 3D tracking in Boujou to provide tracking for a helicopter pass. Step by step process of constructing a proof of concept trial for the scene with provided footage.
Class 7: Making changes to the previs shot before committing to a finalized look. Randomizing the group of tourists further with additional avatars.
Class 8: A trick for grouping layers to simplify randomizing of avatars. Preparation of individual avatar passes for final composite.
Class 9: Additional passes are added to the composition to add further effects and grounding, including dust, bush intersection, color correction, light grading and glints.
Class 10: Reconsidering aspects of the shot for possible correction or tweaks. Correcting shadows and motion blur. Further example of a "poor man's" Massive with a different background plate, and class conclusion.
DRK301 - VFX and Indie Films
In this course, veteran no-budget filmmakers Michael Scott and Ryan Wieber discuss how to make a high-quality film with little to no money, but with few to no compromises. This course will run the gamut from theory to tech, prep to post, exploring the crucial, yet oft-neglected interrelationship between production and post. This course will also cover some fundamental principles of digital filmmaking that everybody ought to know, utilizing examples from Scott and Wieber's prior work as well as new material created for the course.
Professor: Michael Scott (DorkmanScott)
Class 1: Discussion of the two meanings of "Get it in camera.", and our opinion that sometimes the "why" of an effect -- the way in which it serves the story -- can be a more important question than "how". And, using the "severed arm" sequence from our film RvD2 to demonstrate how we attempted to get the most realism possible out of an unreal moment.
Class 2: This class, the first of two classes focused on shooting fight scenes, begins with a conversation with fight choreographer Anthony Alba regarding his background and his process when creating a fight scene for a movie. Then we jump to the actual shoot of a fight scene that he created expressly for this class. The class is a "fly on the wall" view of the process, with tips and tricks shared throughout, all in preparation for next week's class, when we will edit the footage.
Class 3: In this week's class, we talk through the editing process of the fight scene we shot in last week's class. We discuss organizing the project, picking the best takes, and then making the tough decisions of what to show, and what's gotta go. We start with the raw takes and have a full cut by the end of the class.
Class 4: "Speed Compositing" Tips, tricks, and techniques for turning around a large number of shots in a small amount of time, organization, workflow recommendations, and high-volume batch compositing.
Class 5: In our last class before the midterm break, we go back to concrete examples from our film Ryan vs Dorkman 2, and break down some of the other visual effects challenges we faced in the film, including a discussion of the popular wall sequence.
Class 6: VFX Supervising What you really need to know on-set
Class 7: Indie Digital Post Technical issues for low-to-no budget post
Class 8: This week we get back to hands-on, real-world applications of concepts with a short driving-on-greenscreen sequence, showing the production and post-production concerns of a very common VFX scenario.
Class 9: Cloning sequence, Part 1 Planning, shooting, and rough edit to pre-visualize the effects.
Class 10: Cloning sequence, Part 2 A closer look at editing for vfx, and various techniques are used to finish a few shots in the sequence.
RTO210 - Secrets of Paint and Roto
"We'll fix it in post." No doubt you've heard the phrase before. And while it may get thrown around more than it should, the challenge of 'the fix' often falls to the paint and roto artist. From removing pesky crew members or production rigging in frame, to altering background environments or clothing on actors, we're going to focus on the approaches and techniques of this invisible art using standard tools like After Effects, Photoshop along with supporting apps like Mocha AE and software from The Pixel Farm.
Professor Wes Ball will be examining real-world production shots from recent TV shows as well as newly acquired RED footage. As we walk through the completion of full shots, you will gain a solid grasp on the fundamental concepts of paint and roto and hopefully learn a few hard-won tips and tricks along the way. Ball will be using After Effects as his finishing tool of choice, but the techniques he'll be showing are applicable across many different applications.
Ball's freelance operation, OddBall Digital, works in a variety of areas in film and TV, one facet being paint and roto for prime-time television.
Professor: Wes Ball (wesball)
Class 1: We'll get an overview of the kinds of paint shots that often come up in a production situation. Many of the shots we look at in this class we will come back to in detail later in the course. We'll start looking into approaches and how to think about removing unwanted elements in the frame.
Class 2: Balloons We'll remove a distracting crew member from shot using cloned patches and simple frame grabs. We'll also briefly touch masks and tracking inside of after effects.
Class 3: Stairs Another crew member gets in the way. We'll go about removing him by replacing the entire half of the frame. We'll look at creating the patch in photoshop as well as simple tracking in after effects with hand tweaks using null parents.
Class 4: Helicopter Using RED footage shot by fxphd, we'll look at a simple method for removing rigging cables supporting a model helicopter until its explosive demise. Specifically we'll show how simple roto shapes, still frames, and color keys can get the job done.
Class 5: Mic Wire Sometimes you can get away with using blurs and different blending filters inside of after effects to remove unwanted elements. In this case, a mic wire is taped across a guy's bare chest and we'll wipe it away with a few filters and a quick mask track.
Class 6: Go Kart Part 1 of 2 We'll start upping the ante with a fairly difficult shot of another crew member walking straight through the middle of the scene. We'll look into some serious tracking with a zoom and handheld camera.
Class 7: Go Kart Part 2 of 2 We'll finish out the shot with an in depth look at roto. I personally do all my own roto, and strangely find the process relaxing (usually). Roto is what it is, but hopefully I can give a few tips and tricks to help you stay efficient and stress-free.
Class 8: Shoreline In this class, we'll take a fast-moving handheld shot out on the ocean and clean the distant shoreline of any distracting buildings, ships, or evidence of civilization. We'll look at stitching several stills from different times in the frame into one giant patch. We'll track it into the shot, and then briefly look at the roto involved with finishing the shot.
Class 9: To Be Determined.
Class 10: Grass canons In the last shot of the course, we'll look into some advanced concepts. We'll remove an entire crew on a grassy hillside. Sounds easy, but trust me it wasn't. We'll look into 3D tracking and ways to rebuild elements of the grassy hillside in 3D and merge them back into the shot.
