For our final project, we had to create a moving composition

At first I wanted to make a composition based on forced perspective, something like the images above (Left: Maarten Jannsen, Middle: Jameel Khan, Right: Chris Feser)

What I initially wanted to go is a sort of uncanny stock image feel (Left: John Clang, Right: Frank Herfort). So I wanted to go for a neutral lighting as seen above. This changed dramatically as throughout the process as I gained feedback to refine my idea

I made this mockup above, the idea was to put the subject (me in a wizard costume) into a glass bottle with a two point lighting set up. However as I developed and took shots for the composition, I developed another idea in response to the feedback that would better showcase the general theme I wanted. 

I came up with this idea instead, where I would hold a smaller version of myself. It was rudimentary but I wanted to further develop the idea. After getting feedback I had my final version.

This version was suggested, where I would tilt the composition, zooming it in and pushing elements like the hands to fill the composition more and bringing more life to it

For the lighting and overall color scheme, I wanted to go with a slightly yellowish tone for the composition. I was inspired by old photos and album covers that heavily use the color yellow. To me it represented something lighthearted and whimsical which this composition is aiming to achieve

I set up lighting in a random office space and (tried) to set up a green backdrop for easier masking. I messed around with some lighting and different poses, enough so that I could pick and choose what I wanted later (or even mix and matching different parts of different poses).

The costume I used (which I bought for Halloween) was this wizard costume that I used for project 7. I'm glad that I got to use it again. 

After receiving feedback, it was suggested that I push the perspective in and make it more dynamic by tilting it. So I did and it was much for the state of the composition

I then took my hand deconstruct it, then reconstruct the hand with the index and thumb  put onto separate layers. This is so I can push the index and thumb towards the camera later in aftereffects. I also detached the raised hand as well to move later.

Then I put the smaller version of myself on to the hand.

For the background I used this photo of a cave I took when I was in Slovenia and comped it in behind the wizard.

From there I lightened the right side of the smaller wizard (this will make sense later) and darkened the shadows underneath the hat and the sleeve of the raised hand. Overall of this I added a color balance layer to make everything yellow to.

I then made a smoke effect onto the right side of the bigger wizard. I did this by taking the duplicate of the big wizard, adding a gaussian blur, and masking to through a smoke mask I made with a smoke brush I found online (Source: https://www.bluelightningtv.com/). 

I created another smoke effect on the left side through the same process

Next I added lighting to the microphone of the smaller wizard. I first drew a bolt of lighting using a solid white hard brush with dynamic pressure on, drawing the main arc, a secondary arc, and smaller arcs coming off from that. I then selected the outline of bolt and put a color fill layer with it. After that I put a gaussian blur on the color fill layer and duplicated to amplify the strength of the glow. After that I put over a hard light layer and highlighted some parts of the bolt. I did this three times creating three bolts in total on the mic.

From there I added the residual glow onto elements of the composition, added a glow to the hand the smaller wizard was standing on, and added light in the reflection of the glasses of the bigger wizard. I chose cyan for the lightning and glow to contrast with the yellow of the overall image. 

After setting everything up in Aftereffect (Camera, 3D, pushing layers to where they fit best). The first thing I sought to do was to animate the lightning, the reason I had the blurs on separate layers from the actual bolt is so I could simulate the effect of residual glow.

As seen above, I made so that the 100% and 0% keys for the opacity of the bolt were close together making it appear and disappear quickly. However for every glow effect corresponding to that bolt, it would appear with bolt disappear slowly instead of quickly.

I then did this for the two other bolts, creating a static electricity type of effect.

Next I keyed the opacity of the reflection of the glasses to the lighting giving the some life to the comp

For added life, I gave movement to the detached raised hand by simply moving the anchor point to the bottom of the elbow, and the rotating it orientation back and forth. I also keyed the hand glow's opacity so that it would fade in and out for added dynamic movement in the composition. 

For the first camera movement I did a simple pan towards the smaller wizard. I then pre-comp the whole composition and added another camera for added movement and ease of use.

After doing this, I made sure to have the camera move closer and zoom in on the smaller wizard. This is to bring the attention of the viewer from the big wizard to the smaller one getting the two main points of the composition.

I then added two lightning effects from Aftereffects effect library to sell the lightning. I attached to to solids and set their origin point to the thumb and index respectively. I then set it to the strike lightning type and put the end destination to the microphone. Thus finishing the compositon.