LB: Roto Brush on After Effects

After receiving feedback from our rough cut, a problem brought up was that Chris in the woodland location was not smiling and did not seem happy. From this we needed to address the issue, however I put forward an Idea of reinforcing the problem and giving the narrative a different connotation. The idea I had involved making Chris Black & White like we have done in one of our studio shots.
This creative Idea would not be possible to do on Premiere unless we were to make the whole shot Black & White. So to do this I had to use After Effects. The program has a tool called "Roto Brush' which gives you the ability to track and select a certain frame (Custom frame) and apply default settings or pre-settings on the chosen Image.




Roughly creating custom frame

First I chose the footage I wanted to try the effect on. This was just a simple shot of Chris standing still holding a red and blue balloon. This shot had both positives and negatives, I thought that because of the minimal movement, tracking Chris would be much easier, which was correct to some stage. However because of the contrast and how Chris's hair and background 'noise' is very similar, the tool struggled to tell the difference between some of him and the background. This just meant having to go frame by frame and altering any problems.

Editing tracking around Chris

 Once I chose the footage, I duplicated the file so I could make changes to both the background and the separate Image of Chris. Once I did this I selected the 'Roto Brush' tool, from this I get a mini green brush which I roughly draw where I want to create my frame. I can also use a red brush which gets rid of where the tool may have picked up. From this I was able to create the frame of Chris.

This must be checked frame by frame

I then watched the footage through frame by frame, the tool tries to track your chosen Image by colour and contrast to the pre sets you have already given it. However some times you have to alter it and teach the tool more which gives you an opportunity of roughly cutting out the image for the whole clip.

After this I successfully had a cut out Image of just Chris frame by frame. I then had to alter this layer just so the edges were not as harsh and did not look out of place in the clip. To do this I had to alter the contrast and 'Reduce Chatter'. After this I applied the Black & White Effect, and applied the curves effect to increase the contrast and reduce the brightness. This is how I ended up with the final Clip.

Applying Black and White to Layer

I am very pleased with the outcome of the footage, and will try this with some other shots. I need to show the rest of the group what they think about the Idea, however I am certain they will be pleased with the outcome. Unfortunately there was some problems with the exporting and rendering of the final clip which needs to be addressed.

Photos come from edit at home (Not clip talked about)