Latest Work: Superhero Diaries TVC

If you could, watch it on High Quality on YouTube itself :D

Had the TVC up on YouTube for 2 weeks now - but didn't want to dilute the traffic to our company blog [http://intuitive-films.blogspot.com] - so posting it here only now.

Had quite some fun cutting this one. I was on the set when it was shot [on a soundstage] since I helped in the producing. Also helped to make sure the fireball compositing shot [the frame in the video thumbnail] had enough good takes to work with.

It turned out to be my favorite shot for 2 reasons:

1) The fireball came out really nicely [the cinematographer made a very nifty suggestion to use a dimmer on the key light when he shot so that the fireball > full explosion gives more impact].

2) The actress [for those bopping to the tunes of the 80s, that's Debbie Gibson] held on to her 'look' long enough and with enough intensity, the shot was a good one to hold, with the fireball on a translucent 'add' composite mode.

2b) Extra: the fireball scene then dissolves into a snow scene... ooh, thematic contrast - I likey!

Though I am not entirely happy with the masking on the reveal... still a little rough. And that shot alone probably had 3-4 layers of nesting - ow.

Did quite extensive color grading on this one - using Magic Bullet Editors. Helps that the costumes and make-up were very dramatic and the style was to have rich, saturated colors. Mmm, colors, yes, I likey that, too. Apart from color grading, also slapped on a few filters to get a little bit of the glow and vignetting going. Not to forget the ballistics [and SFX] and a very subtle sound texture which bridged the fireball scene and the snow scene.

Entire TVC was cut, composited and graded in FCP :] Well, the end logos were done up in Photoshop and the music track came from the client's music guy.

Delivered a DigiBeta with 2 x :30 version to the TV station last week... hope to see it on the air soon - all that tweaking is wasted when you only get to see it either as a tiny streaming .flv on the official website or a highly compressed YouTube video!