After finishing the character animation for the park scene, I was tasked with compositing all of the shots (which the other members of my group had posted as PSDs on our shared Google Drive Folder) in After Effects in order to make them look more like a documentary. This mostly involved creating a 3D camera layer in After Effects and shaking it about to simulate a documentary style of shaky cam. I was conscious of not just shaking the camera randomly using some sort of plugin, as I feel each movement, every pan and every zoom, should be motivated and the audience should have some feel for what kind of character the cameraman is.
I looked to shows such as the Office for inspiration and noted that the cameraman in those shows is always reacting to a situation slightly after it happens, meaning an event or action happens and the camera lags behind as the cameraman adjusts to film it. This is where a great deal of the visual comedy from these shows comes from; classic moments such as Martin Freeman looking awkwardly at the camera in the office, which I hoped to emulate in my animation. By moving the focus of the camera, this did wonders for the staging in our animation. For example, in the park scene, when the entire scene plays out in master, it can be a little confusing as to what is supposed to be funny about it, however by panning and whip-zooming on certain visual cues such as eye movement, this diverts the audiences attention from one element of a scene to another and emphasizes the comedic element in a subtle way which would have been lost had it just played out in a static master shot.
In order to simulate this camera movement in After Effects I converted the composition into a 3D workspace and erected a sort of diorama, with the characters at the front against a backdrop which I could then zoom in and our and move around as if it were a 3D space. By limiting myself to certain axis and not pointing the POV beyond the boundaries of the composition, it maintains an illusion of camera movement in which I can zoom, pan, tilt, realistically as if it were a camera in 3D space. I can also apply a depth of field effect to the camera lens to simulate focus pulls
First Scene (Stage)
Camera starts off with its POV focused on the homeless person sitting in the doorway of the derelict shop.
As Keith emerges from the right of the frame, the camera adjust to focus on him.
The camera zooms in, but not in synch with it lining up to focus on Keith. This is something I've noticed a lot in Fly on the Wall documentaries, the cameraman is always slow to focus on an event or action, so I tried to reflect this in the animation.
Focus pull, character in foreground is slowly brought out of focus...
... as the reflection is brought into focus; the bird poop on the window aligning to form a tear under Keith's eye.
Editing the Final Animation for Submission
After compositing each of the shots in After Effects I uploaded them to the shared Google Drive Folder for Tess to put together in Premier with the sound she had been collecting. I trusted Tess with the final edit, as I had seen she had proven herself in taking the lead with the voice direction and script writing; she knew what she wanted out of the animation more than anyone, so I let her take the lead and have the final say in the editing stage, something I usually like to have control over. The final edit I am incredibly happy with and feel works really well on a comedic as well as a storytelling level, despite the feedback we received from some of our peers regarding the clarity of the inciting incident which induces Keith's rant at the end. This is something we hope to address and clear up in the future after submission.
Press Kit
For module submission I created a Press Kit to promote 'Gentlemen Of The Road' at potential film festivals and events. I worked closely with Brogan who was developing the DVD cover and sleeve to ensure that both products followed similar stylistic conventions, using the same fonts (Germanika) and synopsis which appears on the back of the DVD cover.
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