Live Brief 2 - Visual Effects for Guerrilla Filmmakers (Week 4)

Week 4 of the course starts 29th February and is the final week of the course they have to offer. This weeks focus is on 3D compositing and how it can be used to benefit your film and adds more to your surroundings. As we live and work in 3D why shouldn't 3D play a part in the film industry. The week starts off with articles and videos discussing what 3D compositing is about and a little history about the subject before introducing you to the HitFilm task this week.

The task is to actually do some 3D compositing of your own with the provided stock footage, the shot to work on is like an establishing shot, and will be built up of different 3D layers to achieve the end final shot. Theres a layer of a background of an industrial park, which will be the bottom layer, and then layers to be overlayed such as the actor, the sky and some fire and damaged cars to add atmosphere to the scene. They're all been added using 3D compositing so they're not just flat additions to the scene, but fit in to the scene and the 3D world it's building.

Of course the week continues on with articles from The Blaine Brothers and Haz discussing why and when they use this technique but there is also a video of Haz discussing the power of archive footage and how important it is to keep them if you use them on a previous production. Archive footage has the power to be used multiple times in multiple ways so it's best to to just toss it out. The week is slightly longer with it been the final week and further on discusses Matte Painting and it's uses digitally. With 3D compositing Matte Paintings can bring scenes together and are not just flat backgrounds anymore.

A very interesting and helpful video included in this weeks selection is Haz on marketing your film. As Haz is an independent filmmaker, he has quite some experience in marketing films and he discusses the best ways and why some ways maybe better than others, to get your film out there. Haz recently used a Vimeo account to premiere his latest film, and choose this over a YouTube release and he chose this platform because he wanted film executives to see it and didn't want adverts popping up all the time. Theres a professionalism to marketing and getting across your style and your film, in the manner that you wanna project yourself to be. The course comes to an end with some thoughts of inspiration and a lesson of never stop making films.