After Effects Pixel Matrix

For the projects background, I wanted to try and recreate a pixel matrix that are used on a lot of the time when broadcasting from a television studio

As the track is very repetitive, I wanted this to be reflected with a simple repeating pattern in the background. 

I started by making a composition that was 140x80 pixels which will hold all my shape animations. I then embedded a scaled version of this inside a larger composition over which I used a line array to create an 'outline' for each of the pixels. 

Rather than keyframe all the shaped to move with the music, I used the keyframe assistant within after effects  to convert the waveform to usable values. Then using the code and pickwhip tools I attached this drive the scale and intensity values on the shape layers. This sequence was then rendered out and import into my Nuke composition.

 

Nuke Keying + Compositing

Having spent a day or too getting used to the nuke interface...I am NEVER comping in AfterEffects again. The plan is to get the hula hoop and dancer comped together then do a Sound control pixel matrix in the background. I started the pipeline by trying out different keyers to see which worked best with the footage. I found, for the majority of shots, keylight worked the best, although i am still not completely happy with the results in places. This may be a case for roto work later on.
I then garbaged out and rescaled to frame the dancer.
After rendering out the maya animation I imported it and merged two copys onto the main pipeline. This allowed me to rotoscope parts of the hoop to appear in front of the dancer to give the illusion of depth. (I'm sure there is an easier way to do this using z depth but i couldn't find it.)
I then added a light wrap effect to give a tint from the background as it will be a light desplay and will therefore act as a backlight.

I'm now going to hop over to after effects to do some motion graphics for the display.

Hula Hoop

I originally planned to use a particle emitter to have the main the guy 'Draw' the hula hoop. After a few tests within maya and nuke i could not get the look I wanted largely down to the particles not holding a shape. I thenmoved on to designing the hula hoop as an actual object. However, I didn't want the hoop to be a solid colour, so designed a rig with glowing balls inside the hoop that move in the oppsite direction, changing the viewers perspective of the speed of the hoop. As the edited sequence includes a swap of hoops I've designed it in two different colours do show a differential between them. I am rendering out using motion blur within maya mental ray renderer.

 

Maya Animation

As I had chosen to use keyframed animation I set up a rig using a locater to make animating it easier. Based on my research and referneces the far side of the hula hoop is normally tilted downwards. The rig allowed me to set a tilt on the hula hoop itself so that i could just rotate the locator and the tilt would always stay correct. I'd already done a rough key of the footage and exported an image  sequence so i was able to set this up as a background plane to use as reference while animating. However, this proved annoying as on several occasions I started rendering and forgot to remove it.

Filming update

Unfortunatly,down to the tight turn around on this project and Charlies tight schedule; I have been unable to arrange a filming session with her. I did however set up a portable greenscreen and film a guy I have used in some of my videos before. The 'invisible hula hoop' was a lot harder to direct than I had origionally though it would be. This was not helped by the size of the greenscreen. I did try several different styles of hula movement, until we found one that seamed to work.
Overall, I am fairly happy with the rushes from the camera; however, i fear the intense hot spot caused bybacklight, mixed with the dirtiness of the greenscreen will cause some problems when it comes to keying.

Idea Development

Having mulled over the track for a few days, I still haven't decided upon an idea that I am completely. Unfortunately, due to the tight turnaround on this project I'm going to have to run with my 'dancer in front of green screen' idea.
The main concept of the idea was to have someone dancing on a stage (green screen) with a pixel grid behind. The pixel grid will be fairly easy to get to time with the music using the key-frame assistant in Adobe After Effects  I will then map this onto a card in nuke for the final comp.
I recently also helped provide technical services for a circus performance, within which there were several hula hoopists. This has inspired me to change the dancing to hula hooping. One of the girls doing the hula hooping at the circus event was Charlie Ledger, who intend to contact to try and organise a filming session.
I am thinking of trying to get Charlie to dance WITHOUT a hoop in order to allow me more flexibility when it comes to creating a CG hula hoop.

Initial Response

Well, the brief for the second project has been released. We have to produce a music video for a audio track. We were encouraged to use the node based composition software. I was excited about this project as I have already produced a couple of music videos for real clients. Unfortunately, upon listening to the track I drew a blank. In my opinion, the track isn't great... and is defiantly not the type of track I would have taken on if they had approached me. The track had no narrative, no lyrics and because we hadn't been introduced to the client, I wasn't able to ask them about the track and try and discover a hidden message to work around. I am going to mull it over for a few days but at the moment my only though is 'IPOD ADVERT'