Studio Production: Photoshop Practices

After doing further research into what can be done to people on Photoshop, I decided to start practicing as I could then develop further and allow my self to get better at what I've learnt. 

First I decided to find a photo of a plus size model online and make her thinner. I used the Liquifier tool on photoshop. I used the freeze tool to freeze parts I didn't want moving around so they wouldn't become distorted. I made her hips thinner, her legs thinner, her arms thinner and her head more in proportion with her body. I also made her jaw line stronger which made her face look smaller. I found the stomach quite hard to do as I've not yet found out how to add shading properly to make it look less 'flat' and more realistic. I also made her breasts a little bigger and the bottom of her bra less saggy. Overall, i'm happy with the outcome however there is a LOT of work that still needs to be added on. I took away too many of the wrinkles around her belly button which made the stomach look very fake and overdone. I could of also made her right leg a little thinner as it doesn't look as curved as the other. 

Here is the finished picture and the before on the right.

Next I decided to work on changing eye colour, this is something i've only done once therefore needed to practice it a lot more. I used the Elliptical Marquee tool on Photoshop to create a circle selection around the eye. I then used the curves and hue and saturation to find the right colour I wanted. This literally could be anything from green to purple. I decided to try turn the eye colour green first, and I actually found this quite easy to do. I had to change the different settings round a little to make it more accurate and realistic however the process was quite quick. I then used the blur tool to blur around the edges of the colour as it looked like it was just stuck on the original photo. This really helped and i'm very pleased with the final outcome. Here is the before and after photos.

Before: Brown.

After: Green.

I then gave feedback to my team and Roxanne and Sophie said I should try the full face. I've decided to practice on a few faces to see what I can do on each. 

On my first practice I was happy with the work until half way through, this is when I tried to change the womens hair root colour too much and I could no longer use the undo tool on Photoshop as you can only go back a certain amount. This meant I had to try fix what I'd done but I don't like the final outcome as her hair looks too fake and over the top.

I also made her forehead a little smaller and her lips a little bigger. I evened out her skin tone, slightly whitened her teeth and added makeup to her including - lipstick, blusher, eyeliner and filled in her eyebrows. I'm happy with this as I think it looks quite natural. I also changed her eye colour to blue which i'm happy with as it turned out well. The last thing I did was try to make her nose a little slimmer however i'm not happy with this and think it looked fine anyway. Overall, i'm happy with the outcome and when looking at the before and after think she does look very different. 

I've learnt that I need to make sure I save before changing something dramatic as I can't go back too much, and also learnt much more about the tools I can use and what each of them do.

Studio Production: T- Shirt Tests!

As i'm the editor and my role is very post production, I wanted something else to do to be more involved in the project and helpful. Helen mentioned she wanted some shirts created for the camera crew so that the directors and floor managers could easily talk to each other and see the camera + it's number. I mentioned I studied textiles at college and knew how to do it with some 'Image Maker' I had, so offered to help (It would also help keep the cost down). Helen agreed and I began testing out the design. I had an old white top that I thought I'd use just to test out the logo.

1. First I began by ironing the top making sure I placed some paper underneath to stop it from seeping through.
2. Then I measured how big the logo should be and made the accurate size on my laptop.
3. I then flipped the photo (as it comes out reversed) and printed it out. I then cut around the excess which I didn't need.
4. I then began to paint the paste onto the image making sure it had an evenly thick layer.
5. I turned it over and placed it onto the top and flattened out any creased so it wouldn't be messy.
6. Next is the waiting game. As it's paste and not emulsion I have to let it dry for around 4 hours!

Here is some photos of the process!

Here is the finished product:

Studio Production: Chosen to Photoshop

Today Helen came up to me and asked if I would be interested in being the Photoshop editor for the Beauty VT. This would include me changing the colour of peoples eyes, smoothing out their skins, removing blemishes and making people thinner/muscly. I was really happy she came to me as I felt I had more responsibility as I mentioned previously as most my work is post production and all I've been able to do right now is research.

I was also quite confident I could do the job as I already know how to do a few things on Photoshop such as:
-Removing blemishes
-Making people thinner
-Changing hair colour.

I accepted and told Helen I will research more into Photoshop and learn more things so that I have a varied amount of knowledge. This will allow me to do whatever the producers want and create a perfect image. (Hopefully..!)

I decided I am going to research how to:
-Change eye colour
-Whiten Teeth
And any other things I didn't know you could do...

Studio Production: VT Workshop

Today we was given the task of getting into our production teams and creating a practice VT so we would be able to learn what we need to do on the actual production. We was also given the task for the editors (Vic and I) to edit each others VT's so that we get used to editing something we wasn't there for during the production, this will allow us to see if we can follow the script and edit the VT correctly. It will also enable us to give feedback to the groups to tell them what they need to change so it's more helpful for the editors.

As our VT group is quite large (around 10 of us) we decided to split into 2 groups and film two VT's. Danny, Illy, Hannah and I decided to practice filming the reaction video. As Danny and I hadn't seen the new music video 'Sia - Elastic Heart' we decided to react to that as we was told it was weird and unique. After discussing with our group for a while we decided to use a green screen and put the video behind us so the audience could see what we was watching. It took us a while to set up the lighting and green screen as we tried to create a spot light but this made too much shadows. So we decided to just do a simple green screen lighting. Danny was the director, I did camera, Hannah did sound and Illy helped with the lighting and was the production assistant.

The actual filming was pretty straight forward, we had questions set out for after each of us finished reacting. Vic and Illy also decided to react too so we had a mixture.

Me personally found that reacting to a music video was quite straining and fake. The video was very over rated and I found it hard to do a fake reaction when nothing was happening and it was the same thing throughout. I think we should of reacted to a scary game instead as the reactions can become boring. However the whole process was easy to film and we didn't have too many problems. However I think it would of been more efficient if we filmed everything straight away as people wanted to keep having breaks and it wasted time.

The next mini project we had was to edit each others VT's. I edited the Graffiti VT which the other half of my team filmed.
To be honest, I really struggled with this as a lot of the shots were too shaky/ moving between people every second and not letting the shot 'hold' and kept zooming in and out which meant the focus was always bad. However I really pushed forward to make the best I could out of it. Fairly, the group did well on the script and I had that to guide me throughout, they also used sequencing and a few different shots which meant I could easily pick out parts of the sequence to put together.
I was a little disappointed as I'm worried that the same thing will happen with the real VT's and I don't want to be struggling to edit something, but we all gave feedback to each other and it allowed us all to learn what we did well and what we could of changed.

For my group as our shot was one shot and a reaction video, we didn't have much variety and the video itself was very boring as the video to react to was boring and didn't have anything that could make us really react properly. We also should of used a third light behind us as we looked a little flat compared to the background.

Overall, I liked the workshop and enjoyed editing something which I wasn't part of as it allowed me to really try work out the story, and know how it feels to know nothing about the filming but still be able to edit it together. I felt like we worked well in our small groups and hopefully when we film the real things it will all go smoothly!