GPx Color Correction + VFX Breakdown: Death in C Minor
A Color Correction and VFX breakdown of our short horror film, “Death in C Minor”. A step-by-step look at our workflow from stabilizing, color correcting, color grading, motion tracking, and applying VFX to the original video footage.
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This low budget film was filmed with the Sony A7s and Rokinon Cine DS 35mm and 50mm Lenses. Even though the Sony A7s performs well in low light conditions, we made some mistakes with ISO exposure, white balance, and (lack of) proper lighting. Much of the footage turned out dark, grainy, and much too yellow. Several scenes also turned out shaky -- almost to the point of being unusable.
This video breaks down our process of stabilizing, removing the noise, and color correcting the footage. We stabilized the video by using a stabilization plugin called Mercalli V2 by Prodad. It’s a 3D video stabilizer that independently stabilizes the X, Y, and Z camera axis. It has rolling-shutter correction and a Smartborder option that reduces the need to zoom in during the stabilization process This helps to keep more of your original video intact. This plugin is available as a stand alone application (SAL), or as a plugin for Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects. You can purchase the product here:
http://www.prodad.com/home,l-us.html
We also break down a VFX-intensive scene in which we had to remove the fingers from a creature’s hand. We had to manually add tracking markers on the creature’s hand in post production and using these markers to mask out the actress’s real fingers. Once that was done, we used 3D modeling to add mangled fingers, and later, finger stumps to the hand. As you’ll see, getting the hand to look and realistic took a great deal of time and many different iterations.
If you have any questions or comments, be sure to write them in the comments section. We’ll be happy to try to help. Also, if you like our work, please like and subscribe to our YouTube channel and like us on Facebook:
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http://www.glasspixelstudios.net
“Death in C Minor” Credits:
Starring Cindy Pham & Ellen Davis
Makeup by Maureen Lai
Directed and Edited by Jimmy Ren and Jack Vang
VFX by Jack Vang
Produced by Crystal Chen
Filmed with Sony A7s
Rokinon Cine DS Lenses
Edited on Premiere Pro CS5
Happy Filming!