So, this is the final project in the course. Even though I’ve got other courses lined up and waiting, I’ll admit I’m a little bummed out it’s over already 🙁

For this one, I’ll stick close to home with the project outline, and use the VR girl footage, and try to apply some flair to her ‘hologram’.

I decided to try a couple of things. First, I wanted to pixelate her a little, and then try the glitchy channel separation effect to coincide with the action.

For the pixels, I created a solid, added a fractal noise set to blocks, and reduced the complexity and sub influence to zero. To make it as pixel-like as possible, I jacked up the contrast, and played with the brightness until I had the right pixel density. I also took care to match the Venetian blind width to the fractal’s pixel width. Finally, I motion tracked the model’s neckline and created a null to target, so I could make the pixels follow the model, which looked much better than un-tracked IMO.

Ok, so I feel like that all looks good. I had issues getting the Venetian blind effect to track, but it is what it is… onward!

I used my fave ​free plugin Saber again for the turret lasers, and I found a ​free fireworks clip on Videvo that I used for the explosion at the end.

A note for those interested in my laser blasts. The Saber plugin is basically a light saber that’s really easy to keyframe and adjust with near endless presets. To make them laser blasts, I simply drew a path, then applied Saber to it. By messing with the Start/End Offset, I could animate the blasts. I also duplicated the Saber layer and offset it by a few frames to give more action to the turret.

And of course, then there’s the deafening sound of silence of this clip. I just can’t render this without some audio love, so I went back to Videvo and rounded up a laser blast, an explosion, air raid sirens, The Flight of the Bumblebee, and a rusty Merry-Go-Round clip I time stretched for some extra weirdness.

I also time-reversed the sky footage and flipped it horizontally to better match the sunlight on the cityscape. Now on to the render!

And now for something completely different…

I hope you enjoyed the fruits of my labor! It’s mind boggling what kind of effort can go into making an 8 second clip! I’m sure my classmates would agree 😉