MM: Visual Effects

I handled the visual effects for the opening as I have the most experience in After Effects. The first problem that we had to solve on shooting was getting the mug to fall down and the coffee to fall out. We were worried that it might stain the carpet and would be overall a very big hassle to re-shoot, as well as protecting the camera. So we settled with adding in steam for the wider shot showing the mugs and Ollie behind them, as you couldn't see inside the mug, we thought that this would work. The other shot we had to worry about was the mug falling from a low angle to the right of the camera. I decided to add the liquid in post as I thought that with the shot being so short and with motion blur, I could make it convincing. 

The next major visual effect shot was at the end, with Ollie getting hit with the hammer. For this we decided to combine practical and visual effects to get the best result. We planned to shoot it from a certain angle so that you couldn't see the distance between the hammer and Ollie's face, and so it made them appear close together. This was shot with no practical blood as we needed him to not be bloody before the hit and his face would be obscured after the hit. Firstly I made the actual hit appear more impactful, by putting the hammer closer to his face at the single frame of impact. This greatly increased the effect of the hit. Next I added the blood vfx. The main difficulty was the tracking of the footage as it was so shaky, but it turned out well. I didn't want to overly emphasize the blood, and have it be more realistic, as it fit the tone that we were going for. I put the effects in a blending mode, so that they would adapt to the changing colours of the footage and be more realistic. 

The rest of the shots were really simple like stabilizing the tracking shots with the dolly to make them completely smooth, and removing myself from a few frames in which I could be seen in the mirror.