This is the final tracking scenes that I’ve made for my project. I have had a long struggle with getting it to look as believable as I can with the resources I have. Originally I had used tweening in animate. I had been animating over the top of a PNG sequence and would try and follow the movement of the camera with the tween. When I the exported it and added it over the footage, I released there was so much dissonance with the camera. The cup and shaker looked extremely as though it were gliding across the table. I then decided to place it frame by frame and follow where the cup would need to be each and every frame. This made it even more jittery. I almost thought I should scrap the panning scenes because they would just not work well enough with the 2D animation. 

 

This is when I sat down in a lesson with a teacher and we spent a lot of time messing with the tracking in After Effects. Previously I tried to motion track and assumed it was only for camera shaking and would be fundamentally useless for camera pans. I was quite wrong. Tracking just the position with the motion tracker allowed for me to track the exact place where the characters will be sitting, meaning it could smoothly track where they needed to be and this came out with a great result which at the time of writing this, has the most “realism” to the movement.

 

I now use After Effects compositions in my Premier Pro file for the tracking sequences. However, on basic still animation scenes I have decided just exporting the animation as a PNG sequence and layering it over the top in Pro works just fine because it wont need to be tracked.

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When it came to actually filming my live action background portion of my FMP, I encountered multiple hurdles that I had to work with before I could film the final shoots. The first problem I had which actually meant I couldn't film at all, was location and props. I struggled to find a suitable place for a long while to film. I first contacted someone within the college that had access to props from the music theater area. This didn't work because they had all been packed away into a container. This is when I came up with a list of things I wanted and needed so I could ask people if they had anything similar:

Prop List

For my live action filming, the main feature will be an old fashioned table preferably mirroring the era of animation I’m using; The 1930′s.
I have found a picture of a “Perfect Set-Up” however I’m very aware it will not be possible to get the exact props.
 

As you can see the main props are: 

• Wooden Embossed table and Chairs

• Flowers or fruit bowl center piece

• Table mats / Table Cloth

• Wine Glasses / Wine bottle

Luckily with After Effects, even if the table is very shiny and reflective, I can use this to my advantage and create a reflected version of my drawings.

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I eventually came to an agreement with one of my friends that I could record in one of the rooms in their house. I had visited there recently and it was nearly perfect to the description of what I had written down. I then got the camera equipment booked and took it back home. I then realized I wouldn't be able to take all the equipment to his home. However, from where I had moved house recently, I realized that the living room, if arranged properly could look a lot like what I wanted. I then spent the next three hours moving furniture and filming.

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While I was searching for the correct filming location however, I spent the meantime figuring out the camera I would be using and what settings I will use to get the look that I wanted.

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I booked out two LED lights and a camera to use in class to practice and experiment with lighting and how it interacts with the camera. We put lights either side, focused on two objects. One was reflective and the other was a matte white and green. The most useful thing I found was playing with the ISO and White Balance on the camera. The ISO can help bring light into even dull lit areas. With the strong light that is coming off the LED lights, I found that the ISO was best set at 200. The Aperture was also important but I found it mostly was best set at the same in most lighting areas unless you’re filming outside which I wasn’t. The white balance changed the contrast of the footage entirely. There was about six different settings for different kinds of light. There was an LED setting on white balance that gave it a natural look, but if it was under a light such as the sun the contrast would be completely different and appear too strong. At home I imagine I will be using the tungsten light setting because the lighting in my living room is as such. However, the white balance is slightly irrelevant when using a monochrome filter over coloured footage. Almost no difference. This is why I think I will be recording in colour as apposed to in black and white so that I have a lot more control in post production over the black and white appearance of the live action footage.