VSP FINAL PROJECT

17.11.2025 - 21.12.2025 / Week 9 - Week 14

Dave Christian Moniaga / 0385630

Video and Sound Production / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Final Project

Instructions

Final Project: VFX 1 minute

For our final project, we are tasked to create a short video that utilizes VFX as part of storytelling element. Each student was tasked to group up into two and we would need to create a proposal of the story and VFX technique that we will use in our short video.

The group mate I teamed up with is Lin Zhi Yi 0372754, and we swiftly made a proposal for our story idea and the VFX techniques we chose from the internet:

Final Project Proposal: VFX 1 minute by Dave Moniaga

In our proposal, the apple transformation idea was pitched by Lin Zhi Yi and the object morph was pitched by myself. This would also indicate which part we would work on for the video.

The proposal also features the storyboard which I had drawn previously in Photoshop, each one matching to the Shot List that I had written previously.

Fig 1.1 Full storyboard without captions

As we got confirmation of our proposal, we moved on to do the filming. We set out a day to film all of the scenes as shown in the storyboard. The scene itself was mostly shot at my apartment's rooftop balcony for convenience, availability, and outdoor look.

Following the recording day, I selected the best footage based on the composition and storyboard as well as extra scenes that would help with the flow of the story.

Fig 1.2 List of selected footages, alternate shots, and bts

Some of the behind the scenes footages are placed in this Google drive folder for your viewing pleasure.

Fig 1.3 Some of the BTS shots

When arranging all of the chosen footages, the short video spans at 1:13 in total time without the edits.

Fig 1.4 All chosen footage trimmed and arranged in Premiere Pro

VFX Morphing in After Effects

Before editing further on the full video, I then focus on creating my part of the VFX which is the morphing of my character into a soda can that gets thrown into the trash.

I specifically filmed all of the shots I needed in one take, making sure I have a clean plate, my action pose, the object the character will be morphing into, as well as the rest of the shots needed for the scene

Fig 2.1 Clean plate, action pose, and object shot

I imported the scene into After Effects and arranged them to start with the intro into the action pose, then the can hitting the trashcan, to the continuation of the scene. The clean plate is also put below the morph.

Fig 2.2 intro, clean plate, action pose, object shot, and ending in timeline

After arranging the shots properly, I created pre-comp of my jumping pose and started using the Roto Brush Tool to isolate the pose that I wanted the transformation to happen at.

Fig 1.7 Roto Brush Tool

Fig 2.3 Roto Brush Tool on the jumping pose

A major mistake that I realized during editing was that I forgot during filming how my white clothes would blend into the background of the white walls. This in turn with the low quality footage, resulted in a little bit of difficulty during rotoscoping.

Fig 2.4 Lost details and issues during rotoscoping

To refine the rotoscope that I have done, I tweaked the setting for feathering, shift edge, alongside enabling motion blur and decontaminate colors to make sure everything is clean and sharp enough.

Fig 2.5 Tweaking settings for the rotoscope

Following that, I also needed to use the roto brush tool to isolate the soda can. As mentioned before, my mistake of making both the subject and object have the same color as my background became an issue during my editing, having to be more careful during rotoscoping.

Fig 2.6 Issues of roto brush leaking during editing

After having the subject and object isolated from the background, now is the time to morph them together. I overlay the can in a lower opacity and dragged the subject during the apex of the jump to transform the size, position, and rotation to match the position of the soda can.

Fig 2.7 Transforming subject into the same size, position, and rotation as soda can

To further match the transformation, I used the Puppet Tool to put pins all around my subject in order to warp the shape to match the soda can. The shape of the body might look unnatural, but the transformation change so fast that it looks natural enough.

Fig 2.8 Puppet Position Pin Tool

Fig 2.9 Morphing the shape of the subject to match the soda can by moving the points

Aside the subject, I also puppet warped the can to match the subject's pose more closely before it warps to its original can shape for better transformation smoothness.

Fig 2.10 Soda can puppet warp to match subject overall pose

Another small adjustment I made to make sure the transition was smoother was also to make a slight lightness and saturation change to match the subject's colors, especially the dark pants, into a more similar white to the soda can.

Fig 2.11 Subject saturation and lightness is tweaked to match soda can

Based on the feedback I've gotten from the lecturer, I was also advised to implement some directional blur in between the transformation from subject to object.

Fig 2.12 Directional blur added in between the transition from subject to object

Part of the finishing touches into this VFX, I also extended the intro, the clean plate, and the end into each other to create a more smoother transition. I tuned the opacity from 0-100% as the background of the shots didn't exactly match the clean plate.

Fig 2.13 Opacity change between shots and the clean plate to make a smooth background transition

After the feedback from my lecturer, He noticed that there is a discrepancy in the way the character moves as he jumps which breaks the illusion.

Following his advice I tried to move the trash bin more to the right of the screen. This way, I can make the character jump straight up into the trash bin. I first made a clean plate where the trash bin is removed.

Fig 2.14 Clean plate without trash bin made in Photoshop

Though after rotoscoping the trash bin and moving it aside, the scene looks more odd due to the fact that the trash bin itself still has a shadow on its left side.

Fig 2.15 Trash bin moved to the right on top of the new clean plate

Instead, I came back to my original VFX file and adjusted the soda can to match more closely to the character's jumping position instead. Since I had already rotoscoped the soda can, It wasn't difficult to do.

Fig 2.16 Soda can position starts closer to the character's jump trajectory

The can is now placed more closely to the original jump's trajectory which reduced the illogical physics of the jump

At the same time, based on the feedback, I also created a smoother transition between character to object by reducing their opacity as they line up with each other. This way, the green color of the can can come in much more gradually than having it appear suddenly

Fig 2.17 Opacity transition between character and object

After the amendments, in my opinion the morphing VFX has considerably improved.

Final Editing in Premiere Pro

As I finalized the VFX section, I come back to edit the short video. I started by taking a lot of sound effects and music through Youtube, freesound & pixabay. For youtube videos, I am using this website to convert it into mp3.

Fig 3.1 List of audio; background music, ambient, and sound effects

I specifically took several sounds of the same category to make sure I options that match more closely to the scene in hand once I start editing.

Fig 3.2 Using Mark In & Out to extract sound effects section

As some of the audio have multiple snippets of sound effects, I used the Mark In & Out feature to extract specific sections.

Part of the feedback that I've gotten with my first attempt is that the music used for Act 2; the chase scene, doesn't really match with video. With that I turn to taking music from the Lupin III series.

After listening to a lot of the music, I chose two; one called "M6" to start playing during the rising action into Act 2, and the other called "Playback '80" to play during Act 2 itself.

Fig 3.3 Music chosen "M6" and "Playback '80"

I tried to combine it as smoothly as I can, and at the same time, shorten "Playback '80" so the rising note at the end reaches to the character's morphing animation.

Fig 3.4 Combination of "M6" and "Playback '80" from Lupin III

Once I have all the audio placed in, I started rechecking the volume for each background music, ambience, sound effects to make sure they all stayed within range.

Human sounds / Dialogue: -18 to -12
Sound effects: -24 to -16 dB
Background music: -18 to -12 dB
Ambience: -35 to -30 dB

Fig 3.5 Checking each audio track separately

Though of course, this rule doesn't need to be followed all the time. I just try to make sure they don't go above -6 dB. I do this by placing a Dynamics effect and setting a limited to -6 dB as the threshold.

Fig 3.6 Dynamics effect limiting audio to -6 dB

Once all of the audio and video is done, I went back to color correct each scene by displaying the RGB and Luminosity waveforms with the comparison view to make sure previous scenes had the same color with each other.

Fig 3.7 Color correction procedures

To make sure each scene is also correct in their white balance, I tried masking just the skin of characters in the scene and matching it to the YUV vectorscope.

Fig 3.8 Color correcting matching skin color with YUV

Lastly, I added a bright and appealing title card that fades into the first scene, making sure the font itself matches the fun and jazzy music used in Act 2. At the same time, I also added a scrolling credits scene that lists all of the actors and VFX artists.

Fig 3.9 Title card placed before the first scene

Fig 3.10 Scrolling credit scene

After exporting it in 1080p HD, I uploaded the final VFX video on Youtube linked below.

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Dave Christian Moniaga (0385630)