I chose this Zenith topic because I really wanted to push myself in terms of After Effects. Editing is my passion and the area of post-production I lack the most is visual effects. I thought a music video would be a great way to creatively implement a variety of special effects rather than shooting one scene and picking just one special effect.
I used a lot of effects and tools across both Premiere Pro and After Effects. Some of them include:
- Mosaic
- Lumetri Color
- Mesh Distortion
- Hue/Saturation
- Rotobrush 2
- Keylight (1.2)
- Turbulent Displace
- Datamosh 2
- Glow
- Curves
- Tint
- Stretch
- Camera Lens Blur
- Brush Tool
- Radial Blur
- RGB
- Opacity
- CC Particle World
- Ultra Key
- Animoji
- Time Stretch Tool
- SwapFace
- Colorama
- Photoshop
- DALL-E 2
- Directional Blur
- Threshold
- Change to Color
- Fill
- Blend Modes
- Mirror
- Transform
- Graph Editor
- Motion Blur
- After Effects Expressions
- VR Chromatic Aberrations
Reflection
I researched a ton of After Effects tutorials. After Effects has endless possibilities and a huge part of the research process was just figuring out what I could do in the program. A lot of my inspiration came from just seeing these After Effects videos and either trying to replicate the effect with my own knowledge (very little) or following along with the tutorial. The vibe I was going for was just trying to make the craziest thing possible. I really wanted to do something that Freestyle has never seen before in addition to pushing my own boundaries. I wanted to make a super colorful and trippy video that just plays with your brain.
I didn’t really collaborate with anyone besides my actors. They were very cooperative with my directions but it was difficult to be my own crew. My classmates also frequently looked at my computer since I was pretty much the only one editing in class and the effects I was doing were crazy and intriguing for the class to check in on occasionally. I was editing one shot where I composited fire onto a tree and my classmate, Tai, was pretty invested in giving me feedback to make this shot look as good as possible. The few times I collaborated with other people on this project were beneficial.
I worked alone on this project because I was unsuccessful in meeting deadlines on time in all of my freestyle classes this year. For this reason, I felt like I needed a redemption project and a big task that I could commit myself to on time. Because of this, my most improved 21st-Century skill was self-direction. Collaboration was definitely my least improved skill since I worked independently.
I think not only can I use the After Effects skills I learned in my future editing, but this project gave me a lot of confidence that I really can discipline myself enough to meet all necessary deadlines, even with huge workloads.
This project was most definitely my favorite freestyle project. I think I properly displayed my full and diverse range of editing skills. When I presented my project to the class, I could tell the class didn’t expect this level of editing from me despite the editing ability I’ve shown in the past. This project ignited my own passion for editing, specifically special effects. I had never done that kind of editing before but after this project, I’m definitely interested in continuing my special effects journey.
If I could do this project again, I would evaluate the practicality of the effects I could accomplish in the amount of time I had. A lot of the shots that I planned on my shotlist I had to tweak and come up with creative solutions for since trying to achieve certain effects would take more time than I had to complete the project. A lot of this project was trial and error and I think I learned from my struggles and would be able to be more efficient and intelligent with my workload in the future.
Zenith Reflection Album Art
