Aetuts+ Weekend Workshop #4 – “Abandoned Places Trailer v1.0″
tuts workshop

Aetuts+ Weekend Workshop #4 – “Abandoned Places Trailer v1.0″

on Mar 3rd 2012 with 48 comments

We’ve recently started a new weekly community project where we’ll be posting a video created by one of our wonderful readers, then ask you all to offer constructive feedback on the work. It’s a great way to learn more about video, express your viewpoint, and have your own content critiqued! Submit your own videos at the bottom.

Quick Ground Rules

  1. Play nice! We’ve deliberately chosen videos that aren’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
  2. Feel free to offer any type of advice – movement, lighting, color, pacing, etc.
  3. You can also link to videos that you feel offer a great example of this type of content done exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here is this week’s candidate for critique!

“Abandoned Places Trailer v1.0″

Story Behind the Project

Last year I decided to start the development for a personal project: a one hour documentary about abandoned places in Europe and photographer-urban explorers. Even if I love the imagery that you can get in these locations, I was a newbie with no experience about how to search these places and get there. People involved in URBEX (Urban Exploration) are very suspicious and cautious about the people from the media trying to approach them. They will not reveal exact locations online, because there are a lot of vandals out there, who will possibly ruin the places. As their slogan says..

Take only photographs. Leave only your footprints.

I surfed through some forums in Spain and joined one group. Fortunately, they were planning a trip to Germany for 10 days. Just to take pictures of some ‘forgotten places’. Factories, ateliers, train stations, mines…

Entering these places is usually considered ‘breaking and entering’ (even if we were not breaking anything to enter), illegal… and it can be dangerous. Rotten wooden floors, rusty stairs, etc. In a cookies factory in Germany we had to run through a maze of corridors in the darkness to escape police. Lots of anecdotes. :)

So I realized that it was impossible to handle a production like this in the usual way, with a big crew, asking for permissions, etc. You will not get them.

Most people were just taking pictures, each of them carrying a light tripod (basic in dark situations) and a camera. Then taking 3 different expositions to do HDR and tonemap them later in applications like Photomatix.

But I had different needs. I wanted to do HD video, with slow movements of the camera. Each one is responsible of his own gear, so I had to carry a bigger tripod, a Slider (Pocket Dolly) and sometimes, a SteadyCam Merlin. And it’s hard when you have to climb to a open window and such things. When we entered a place, people usually spread around, so I was often alone by myself, doing my shots. A bit scary sometimes. It’s a weird feeling moving around for hours in a 5 floors factory, just hearing the sound of cracked glass under your boots.

After that time, I had gathered some interesting footage and photos. And since then I’ve been working on the project in my spare time. Recently, I decided to edit this ‘kind of intro-sequence’ for the program. As a showcase, and perhaps to help me raise some funds for the documentary. The concept was to set a special atmosphere with the music and camera movements.

I first selected some of the traveling shots to work on them. Like the one that look like bird cages (actually hangers for the workers of a coal mine), or the bed in a hospital room in Valencia, or the fireplace in an orphanage in Holland.

I edited a raw sequence in FCP, I did some intense color correction in AE, then tracked some of these shots in Syntheyes, imported the camera data in AE and added the titles, graphics and some Particular dust. Even if it is widely known and used, I decided that the ‘text to sand’ effect was very adequate for the end. I am pleased with the look overall… especially the hospital room with the writings on the walls. What do you think?

Please let us know what you think in the comments – how would you have approached this project or done things differently?

Interested in submitting your own video? You can do so here!

Adam Everett Miller is everettoptions on Videohive
 
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I am the editor of Aetuts+. I also run Hello Studios as my 9-5 job. I'd love any feedback about Aetuts+ so don't hesitate to drop me a line. ae@tutsplus.com  

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  • Mark Rudder

    The writing on the walls is fantastic.
    Excellent job.

  • Luke L.

    Wow. That was really beautiful; I agree, the writing on the walls looked fantastic, and you did some nice roto work with the bed rails.

    While I really like the sand effect at the end, it seemed a little shiny or bright for the general mood that you were creating. It would be cool to see something a bit grungy; may go into a 3D program and create a piece of heavily textured text that you could have crumbling into pieces.

    The only other comment I have is the music; there’s one element in it – the “atmospheric” tones, which I think are great, but the techo-scratching-blippity sounds really took me out of the scene.

    But man, that pocket dolly was rocking.

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Hi Luke. You’re probably right about the final title. It’s too white as it disintegrates.
      But I din’t want to texture it too much to keep it clear and avoid the title to be hardly readable against the background (it already is a bit).
      But I could have tried to put that layer in a different mode, like Color Dogde or similar.

      Or doubling that text layer, use a different blending mode and play a bit with transparency… I’ll consider that.
      About doing it 3D heavily textured crumbling, it’s was not the style I had in mind. I wanted to keep things simple here.

      Chosing the music was not an easy decision. I did like the beginning more than the ‘techo-scratching-blippity sounds’. But I needed the music to develop, add rythmn and end. And I think it works for this opening sequence.

  • John Wise

    I love what I’m seeing in the trailer, but then again, I too have a fascination with abandoned places. I see nothing wrong with your presentation and don’t feel you need to apologize for the particle dust, it fits the environment and ambience. I’m looking forward to see where you take this, good luck in delivering a longer piece – much longer!

  • Hugo

    Wow! I love the idea of urbex! And also your idea with the video! Great, I’m really looking forward to see more of this :) Please keep us updated!

  • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

    Thnx Hugo. To be the first comment, it’s very encouraging.
    (BTW I am the author of this piece.)

  • Lou

    Wonderful job in my opinion!

    I love the way you incorporated the text into each scene.

    The only thing I wasn’t crazy about were the particles you added.

    In my opinion, they were unnecessary, but that’s a purely subjective thing and you must make the artistic decision.

    What a cool subject!

  • http://www.v3sys.com Dan

    How did you get the text to emulate that light is reflecting on it?

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Hi Dan,
      the texts look like this because even if they were originally white, I chose a mix of Normal and Color Dogde as the blending mode for the layer in AE, depending on the background.

  • Ada

    Splendid work :) Good ideas and implementation.

  • Curtis

    You’ve chosen video’s that aren’t perfect? I for one Loved this! My only comments would be seen as a preference choice. I wouldn’t have used the pan around the room shot. Love the low angle slider shots the best. It gives the viewer a different view (perspective) as opposed to what you would see if you just walked into the space and looked around. Ok maybe I didn’t “love the music” but its not bad either. particles were nice, (kind of reminded me of dust) only stylized. Tracking seemed to be on. Like I said. I loved this idea. In fact I think I’m gonna go out and try and capture the same thing just to see what I come up with.

  • martin

    Realy nice work. After few shots I was just searching all over the video and finding some added graphics. Looks amazing.

  • http://aayush.co.cc Aayush

    This Project is Simply Awesome.! can you tell me about the music please.!

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      The music? All the credit for edIT, the song is ‘Twenty Minutes’.

      • http://aayush.co.cc Aayush

        Well Thanks alot.! Yeah Edit is superb but I wanted to know the source for more musics

  • Steve

    A very interesting and creative video. Great job!

  • Ezra

    Very inspiring! thank you for sharing, if you’re posting on Kickstarter to raise funds please share the link,
    I would love to support this film.

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Thanks Ezra!
      I’d love to post my project in Kickstarter. The only problem is that I am a Spaniard living in Spain,
      and Kickstarter does not support other than projects developed by US residents. I have to find other way… or wait until Kickstarter becomes global…

  • Lyndon Alvarez

    This was absolutely beautiful, I especially loved what looked like bird cages and the text from the first shot which appeared as if the light from the windows was shinning through it. very well paced, all shot seemed to have the same speed pan, excellent scenery and great composting of all the shots in sequence w/ a specific look. I hope you get funding for this documentary idea, would be very interesting to see.

    The only thing I would point out that threw me off were the particles, they seemed a little big but not distracting enough for it to really even matter.

    I feel the text to sand effect worked very well at the end because it was almost hard to read what it said which brought me into the art of your message, getting out there really trying to look for these places. Great job, makes me wanna take action versus staying glued to my chair :)

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Hi Lyndon!
      that’s true, sometimes we stick too much to our computers…
      A good balance for me is spending sometime shooting and looking for things out there.
      In the city, in the countryside… now the almond trees are flourishing, and the sunlight is changing…
      Move around with a curious eye. We’ll find plenty of inspiring subjects out there…

      Then go back to your computer seat and stay glued to it for a while :-)

  • alp

    Does anyone know music name?

    • http://perfectfx.wordpress.com PerfectFX

      Read above :)

  • http://www.esoweb.eu Philippe

    This sequence gives way to the thought of a forgotten world. The feeling of the presence on an another time is so real. Remarkable work. A talent that few director have.

  • Steve

    Really nice production! I noticed the particles have some layering issues during the fireplace shot about 0:15 in, particles closest to the camera appeared to be moving behind objects that spatially should have been further away to the camera. Other than that I think it looks excellent. Good luck with the rest of the production.

  • Kevin

    Awesome work!

    Sorry for offtopic but i hope you can help me:
    Can you or somebody else link me a tutorial for textplacing like in the beginning of this video? it looks damn cool and i wonder me a long time how i can do that with standard AE CS5.

    • http://perfectfx.wordpress.com PerfectFX

      There are 3 good ways:

      1. Using built-in in AE tracker.
      2. Using Mocha for AE.
      3. Or, for another example, using a plug-in called “Camera tracker”. (I bet this video was made using this way.)

      Just Google the appropriate keywords. There are tons of tuts on these topics out there.

      • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

        I was using Syntheyes to do it, Perfect, a 3D point tracker.

    • http://www.mattrunks.com/ Nas

      check this (www.mattrunks.com)
      it might help you with it

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Even if Mattrunks has a couple of tuts about this, they are in French…
      As an advance, the proccess is as follows.
      First you need to track the part of the footage where the text is going to be integrated. You can do this with the Camera Tracker plugin by The Foundry (http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/products/cameratracker/) or any other tracking application.
      My favourite one is Syntheyes (http://ssontech.com/synovu.htm). It’s fast, not so expensive compared with Boujou and others, and it delivers pretty good results even in automatic mode.
      Then, you get a camera solving with lots of 3D trackers (null objects) that can be exported as an AE project.
      Build your text inAE and place it in the same position of the 3D tracker of your liking. The camera movement will do the rest.

      • Kevin

        Thanks all for you´re help!

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/NasibahAlhussain?feature=mhee Nas

    simply its WOW!
    since its a trailer you had to make shots and texts interact more with music, that’s it.
    Loved everything about it, keep it up

    cheers,
    Nas

  • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

    First of all, thanks for your comments. They are all very encouraging and really help me to go on with this project. I also feel thankful for all the constructive critics. Make me think again of some creative decisions that I made. The right and the wrong ones.

    Lou, Curtis, Lyndon,
    I added the particles for several reasons. One of them was to help with the general ambience. The other was to help with the perspective changing and sense of depth. The slider I use is quite short (1m or so), and the movement, depending on the foreground, was not that obvious. It is true, however, that sometimes they are a bit big, and the integration should be better.
    Steve, you detect that some particles are not behaving as they should. There’s a lack of masking, or definig better the depth of these particles in Particular. Very good observation.
    Next time i’ll think of throwing some flour in the air just before shooting…
    Not everything has to be done in AE !!

    • Lyndon Alvarez

      Right on, if you can get it done right, in front of the camera then why try to fix it in post. Would be cool to throw some powder around before the shot since those shots seem very still. nice idea!

  • http://www.doublestrum.com Chris

    Beautifully shot video and great concept.

    Some feed back:

    - This could totally be a subjective thing but in regards to the text, it definitely looks great and the tracking is well done, I just feel that it could’ve been a lot more simple. Because the shots are so busy – meaning that there’s a lot of detail, lot’s of textures, many things for the eyes to absorb – having to read the text while it’s floating around takes away from the beauty of the shot. Simplicity goes a long way. Anther option is to maybe have the text just be there already without having it animate on.

    - I find the music a little distracting, specifically the computer-y, glitchy sounds. Again, this could be subjective, but the music needs to serve the video. I rewatched it with the sound off and I just get this erie, unnerving feeling from it, which i feel the music does not convey.

    Those are some of my comments. I’m definitely not trashing your work. I honestly think it’s really good, but hey, we all strive for better no? The cinematography is great, the dolly work is great, the color correction is great. All around great stuff! Cheers!

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Hi Chris,
      thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.
      About the titles, without the animate on effect, I understand your POV, but not totally agree.
      It´s true that you have to be careful about not distracting or confusing the audience with an overload of information in the shots, but, look at us. We’re able to see commercials with 20 shots of less than a second and get the message. Or look at Tarantino’s films. Who said that to understand a story it has to be told chronologically, rather than in bits that go back and forth in time…
      In the end, it’s a personal creative decision, based on your perception, intuition and aesthetics. Some will love it, some will hate it…

      I have already heard here that the music is perhaps not too adequate for the pace and atmosphere I tried to create. That was my own doubt, and I am happy that I shared it.
      Even if creativity is never democratic, I have to review the music that I’ll be using in the documentary, so that it better conveys with the story.
      Thanks so much for the feedback.

      • SpencerT

        I absolutely loved the music and think it is perfectly fitting! You could argue that the motif is all wrong because you are trying to show some old, creepy places and the music doesn’t reflect this – but I think 2 points save you. 1, the atmosphere of the music in the beginning is fantastic (as I saw you mention in an earlier comment). And 2, part of your motif is that this has a sort of “graphic design” feel (for lack of a better word), meaning that this video has a bit of style and design put into it and feels like it was put together by a cool young designer, it’s not just about ancient places – and I think that your music fits in and forwards that message perfectly.

        - Spencer

  • http://. Florian

    ahhh.. the kinderkrankenhaus neukölln. man, I know some of the German places. fantastic job. but I agree the music doesn’t work very well. it took me out of scene as well.

  • http://www.bretthardin.com Brett

    Looks great! I feel the pacing is a little slow and the extra computer text under the credits is a little distracting.

  • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Chris

    Well done. Bravo!

    Cheers,
    Chris
    mettle.com

  • Sierk

    Very nice project! Congratulations. The only thing I would like to mention is that the tracking is not perfect in the writing on the walls shot. If you look at the right of the window, the text is ‘floating’ in front of it.
    But this is only noticable for the pro’s, don’t worry about it. I love it!
    And I would also say that the dust particles are a little bit too big.

  • http://www.prolificvfx.com Nnamdee

    Splendid job Gustavo! Just wondering….did you use footage through out this piece? As in…was there any place you used a photo?

    Secondly…which of these shots were steady-cam shots? I’ll really love to know

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Hi Nnamdee!
      All the shots are footage I shot myself. With a slider (Pocket Dolly) and a tripod. No steady cam shots here.
      Except for one. The last shot with the title. This was a photo. I took that one to AE and animated it with camera mapping technique.
      And I am considering doing that again, specially in places with very low light, where I can shoot in ‘bracketing’ mode (3 different exposures), to get the best possible look.

  • Phil

    Very nice work. I really like the color correction and typography. The witings on the wall look great but maybe would look even better if the words were written while the camera was sliding, you know, instead of all of the text turning up att the same time.

    If you guys are interested in abandoned places around the world you have to check this photographer out. He has, i think, two maybe three books about the subject and a homepage where he shows and lists all the locations that he has been to around the world. Just scrool down on the page.

    http://jornmark.se/default.aspx

    • http://www.gustavomartinezschmidt.com Gustavo Martínez-Schmidt

      Thnx, Phil. It’s a good idea thats lines appear as they are writen. I was doing some early testings with wipes and animated masks and I gave up cause the feeling was a bit nervious, considering the slow pace of the camera movements.
      However, I could find a way to make it a bit more interesting, perhaps just the last lines animated this way you mention.
      And thnx for the link. Looks very interesting. There are a lot of fascinating places out there, and so far, I visited just a few.

  • http://www.youtube.com/moritzkrist Moritz Krist

    Great Job! I’d love to know where to find such a creepy location! Can you post a google maps link or something? Best regards, M.

  • Spencer T

    Hey Gustavo,

    Fantastic work, and quite literally inspiring! (I want to make a similar video, showcasing one of our buildings soon.) If you’ve read my earlier comment replys you know that I love the music and design that you’ve put into this video. The matchmoving is spot-on (as Syntheyes always seems to deliver) and the blue-print titles are genius.

    The real thing that I’m interested in, though, is the color correction. The rest is fairly simple – very well done, but in all it’s pretty straight forward. But I’d love to hear more about how you color corrected these shots, what tools you used, what theory you went with as well as some before/afters! I have quite a passion for color correction, and I think you did some really great stuff here! Please share some of your techniques ;)

    - Spencer

  • http://www.estellef.com Estelle

    Hi dude!
    Amazing work! you have some great shots there! An outstanding project in every way!!!
    Talking about the effects, althought it’s very well done, I’m not a big fan of the letterings. Specially that huge part on tiny lettering that is impossible to read. I think in this kind of video, the function of each element must be very clear, and that is only an aesthetic element.
    The letterings are also very….. cold…. if you know what I mean. The footage is so full of feeling but the letterings are kinda clinical. For me, I think it takes a little bit of the magic in the image.
    Also, the music… could work more for the feeling.
    In general, I think the public interested in this kind of movie would like something soft-paced and a little more contemplative.
    I think the movie could attempt the feeling of the actual experience of being in those places, that can be, as you said, sometimes quiet and scary and sometimes full of excitement and rush. But never forgetting that people who want to see an one hour movie of abandoned places are people who enjoy forgotten beauty and details that take time to notice. I think your target would go to a slow food restaurant rather than a fast-food, if you know what I mean.
    I saw a movie once called The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, it’s about a fantastic cave in france, I think that could work well as an example of what I’m talking about.
    I don’t mean you should put some classical music there and put shots of 1 minutes of the same thing, you should keep your personality there, but just remember every element in the composition of your trailer clip is working as a representative of the feeling of the full movie, and I think now you should pay more attention to the feeling and the artistic aspects in general. After all you had all this work and to take the best of it you need to focus on how you are going to bring all this material together, how do you want the message to be delivered. And then you think about the effects that best suit the general direction the movie is taking.

    It sounds like it’s going to be HUGE, thought. How can I know when it’s released? I want to see it done :)
    Sorry about the nasty english
    and hope everything turns out the best possible!!!!
    Cheers!!

  • http://www.prolificvfx.com Nnamdee

    Hey Gustavo

    I love the shots you too here. I really wanna get a slider (a pocket dolly). Hope you dont mind if i get the exact one you used….please whats the name/make