Macronificent!


Short test of free-standing magnifier lens effect to get a macro close up of the Time Frog's clock eyeverks.

Christine and I made this brief test to see what the lens could do during animation. It enabled us to get an extreme close-up of the eye that my FZ-50's 50mm lens could not on its own.

I mistakenly left the eye flap open on the side for a few frames and decided to try editing out the mistake with PS in post rather than delete the frames. I used the rubber stamp tool on the offending frames and the edits show badly. If/when I need to fix something again, I'll use a clean plate erase technique, like in rig removal, instead. The rubber stamping looks as though it's animated because each frame was cleaned-up differently.

I plan to hang a black curtain between myself and the set so that my reflection won't be seen in the Frog's other eye.




This clip was action batched:
  1. resized to 1280
  2. worn texture added as a soft light blend mode
  3. color shifted in green and cyan (hue (-) and saturation (+))

Comments

  1. Frogtastic work!!

    jriggity

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  2. Thanks, Justiggity! xoxo

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  3. Awesome idea, filming through a freestanding lens!

    I'm a little surprised the framegrabber didn't let you catch the mistake right away and fix it before snapping the frame each time. Are you toggling back and forth rapidly to check for things like that before committing to shooting each frame?

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  4. Yeah, it's potentially very cool, Mikeee! What got me excited most was the Parallax effect when the lens is place off axis to the camera's lens.

    The obviously analog distortion rocks me Amadeus.

    Oh, Dick's Lunchbox loan of a grabber sure would have shown me the offending flappage--IF I WERE GOOD AT SEEING EVERYTHING!!

    It got pas me due to insufficient attention. Will learn.

    xoxo

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  5. Huh - when I'm flipping back and forth 4 or 5 frames again and again a big sudden change like that jumps out and smacks me on the ass and calls me Sally. And makes me like it!

    Maybe it was hard to notice because the cover is transparent? I'd think it would still look noticeably different for one frame though. Maybe you tend to fixate on only looking at the part you're animating? Unfocus and let yourself see any big changes peripherally. Well - your experience with trying to erase it will definitely make you pay more attention to this type of thing in the future.

    Anyway, sorry to just fixate on technique - it really all does look amazing!! I'm more excited about Halfland than any other film I know of in production.

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  6. OK-- that last line is the second nicest thing you've ever said to me. -sniff sniff-- THANKS, Mikeeeeee xooxox

    You are fully correct, the reason I didn't catch the flappage was that I was only concentrating on the clock hands--plus we were trying to go super fast as Christine was leaving for the day and I wanted to just do a quick check on whether the huge free range lens was really capturing the detail. Was!

    So, yes, in the future, I'll expect to pay much more attention.

    The eye flap matches the frog's skin as it's just a flap sliced in the outside eye edge, just behind his flat, left eye lens. Maybe I should paint it red. But really, I think now I'll be able to look more closely.

    Other mistakes are, I'm sure, forthcoming!

    I radically appreciate the excellent mentorship.

    xoxo

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