Shot and VFX Breakdown - Introduction

Here is a description of each shot (except for some text) that I used in my take on the idea of a fake trailer. Each shot contains a note about the source and if any effects tricks were applied. The most common tricks I employed were flipping a shot horizontally (and occasionally vertically) as well as "masking" the top and bottom of a pan and scan image so that it looked like a widescreen image.

The major effects shots also contain a link to a breakdown which details on how I accomplished the shot, pointing out the layers and techniques I employed.

Common terms used in this breakdown:

Masked Shot - The top and bottom of the images have been masked off to make them appear as a widescreen image

Composite Shot - a shot made by combining two or more layers to create one new shot.

Rotoscope - Whilst not an exact definition, it basically refers to isolating part of the image and discarding the rest. For video, this has to be done for every frame in a sequence, and there are 25 frames to every second of video (note, as I am from Australia, our video runs at 25 frames per second (fps), where as in the USA it is 30fps and on film it is 24fps)

Colour Correction - The colour of a particular element that is modified so that it matches the rest of the shot.

Motion Tracking/Stabilisation - tracking how a particular spot in an image moves, and then using that data to either stabilise a shot (such as removing movement introduced by a shaking hand holding a camera) or move another layer/image (ie make image one move in the same way as image two)

Remember, in Australia we spell things slightly differently to what you may be used to (in Australia, 'color' is spelt 'colour' and we often use 's' rather than 'z').

Enjoy.

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This trailer is dedicated to those unsung heroes of the visual effects world. Firstly, to the artists who do all the unnoticed things (wire/rig removal, matte clean up, body part replacement, etc...). They put in a lot of work and are rarely acknowledged, usually because they do their jobs so well and nobody notices what they have done... which is kind of the point really.

Secondly, to those network and computer technicians that look after the computers that generate all those fantastic images. Without them there to look after and manage the computer resources, there would be no big effects movies. Way to go guys.