Nick Guth, compositor, motion graphics and visual effects artist was recently challenged with a particularly vexing project; 7 days to track 165 shots on a student-produced music video featuring a fast-moving, rapping alien. As in most student films, budgets and resources are tight, so the production had certain issues that could not be avoided, but the entire team pulled through it.

“To start off, I faced some major workflow issues,” said Nick Guth, VFX artist and full time student at Chapman University in Southern California. “The entire music video was shot on RED, so right off the bat, working with the massive files was a strain on After Effects. We had 165 shots, roughly 1 - 3 seconds in length, and only 7 days to complete the entire project. As part of the VFX team, I was in charge of handling all the tracking for the mouth, while the rest of the team worked on keying, backgrounds, and all the other elements needed.”  The VFX team worked day and night to complete the music video on time!

There were certain situations that could not be avoided given the timeline for the production and the team had to work with what they had. Poor quality green screens and minimal trackers were just some of the issues the production team was faced with. “We had to work with what we had and we made the best of it. In one shot, we’d only see a single tracking marker, and in another shot, we had two completely different green screens,” continued Guth. "Our team did a great job handling the task at hand."

The primary focus of the music video was an alien performing and rapping throughout the scenes. He was wearing a custom gas mask with a rectangular front, which was to be replaced by a fake screen to emulate his mouth. "I was forced to track as fast as I could with minimal human intervention for corrections. There was an index card on the mask that was used as a basis for tracking the mask corners.”

On the wide shots, the index card only filled about 3% of the screen at times - so even at the 2k resolution there wasn't a lot of information for tracking. Guth attempted the track using After Effects at first, but it failed after a few frames. “I needed to track perspective, rotation, scale, and skew; so After Effects was not cut out for the job.”

Guth then switched over to CS4 with mocha for After Effects. “I had barely used mocha before so I was intimidated. I viewed a couple online tutorials and jumped right into it. The tracks in mocha were nearly flawless. I was able to track 15-20 shots a day and get them near perfect.”

The rest of the VFX crew, featuring fellow classmates; James Brady, Ben Sposato, Omar Gonzalez, Jeff Belgum, Katlan Merrill, David Dunn, and more labored over compositing the other aspects of the shots while patiently awaiting the renders for the mouths. The entire team was able to finish the complex tasks in under 3 weeks!

Guth conlcuded, “The hardest part of my job was when the actor was facing forward, then turning sideways, constantly changing perspective. I was able to complete all 165 tracks in the allotted 7 days because of the tools Imagineer Systems provides. I would have crumbled trying to use some other program!”

Complex Issues:

• Entire video shot on RED, resulting in massive files putting a strain on After Effects
• 165 shots, 1 - 3 seconds in length, all with complex tracking requirements
• Unavoidable issues leading to harder tracks
• Multiple, fast moving head shots requiring tracking the actor’s mouth, using only a 3x5 index card in place of the actor’s mouth.
• Deadline: 7 days

Solution: mocha for After Effects from Imagineer Systems