Close to the end of the script, there is a scene in which the lead character is drawn away from path by a temptress. The scene is supposed to be dim, early morning and foggy - so of course it was shot it in the late afternoon in a place that has probably never had fog. Actually, the lighting wasn't half bad for the task, the biggest problem was trying to soften everything - color being only one part of it. The camera is supposed to float continually and smoothly throughout the temptress scene, especially when the temptress is in the view. Peter tried to float the camera as best as possible, but sandals on rocks just don't make for a steady image. So the smooth camera, like so many things, was passed off to post-production.

Another catch is that this shot is a disappearing effect. It was shot twice, once with Jess (the temptress) and once without. The idea is to do a fade between the two that lines up perfectly enough that nobody will notice it happens (aside from hopefully noticing that the temptress disappears).

The first step in compositing is to stabilize the shot using track points. The idea of stabilizing the shot is basically to find the motion of the camera and then make the clip move exactly the opposite. An accurate stabilization will make the ground appear to stay still while the clip moves around it. Clips and images can then be tossed into the shot and the camera view can be controlled however is desired.

It this case, the camera view is going to be animated to be very smooth, so the track has to be practically perfect. One jump of a tracker and the whole shot will appear to bounce. At first DFX was tried for the task, but it was found that its default deinterlacing ability wasn't sufficient, which resulted in a vibrating track, which in turn resulted in the appearance that the camera was vibrating. Obviously that's a bummer, so AE was fired-up and worked perfectly for the composite.

Two trackers are being used in the above screenshot, because rotation is also being tracked.

The next step was to create the "look" of the temptress scene. It needed to be soft but also strong on the highlights, and the temptress had to stand out. This was done by making a duplicate of the clip (or, actually, a composition containing the clip), blurring the duplicate and using Overlay to blow-out the highlights on the clip underneath it. It's hard to explain, but hopefully this shot of the two clips pulled apart will help show you what I mean. Notice the Blur and Overlay setting on the upper layer.

The next step would normally be to layer Jess over the empty background shot and work on the fade. But, unfortunately, the background clip wasn't actually clean - it contained a sign, a piece of road and Jess. She was included in "clean take" because the Director didn't bother to have her totally leave the shot (something he regrets). So that part of the clip couldn't be used. Instead, a still was taken of that part of the frame that didn't have her, the sign and road were erased in Photoshop, and the still was added to the side of the clip to extend it. Since the clip was stabilized, only a slight amount of animation was needed on the still (having to do with perspective shift since the camera moved several feet).

The clips are separate in this shot because the shot isn't far enough along to see that area.

The big composite! This is where the final coloring, the fog (a gradient), and the temptress' personal glow (an oval glow filter animated to match her movement) is done. This is also where the Jess clip is faded into the background clip to give the appearance that she disappears. The two clips obviously don't line up perfectly, which results in one final step - cropping. The clip seen above is inserted into another composition, cropped and animated to create fake camera motion. This has two advantages - first, the smooth, floating appearance can be achieved, and secondly, the messy edges of the composite can be chopped off.

The final look compared to the starting footage, pretty cool, huh? Notice that Jess is slightly transparent - she's just starting to disappear.

Take a look at the Preview to see the completed effect in motion!