Friday Update: Wufei Handcheck
Added 2023-05-19 18:31:21 +0000 UTCThis is another example of me making things harder on myself because of the script not matching the visuals. Whoops.
In the original show, this shot of Heero sitting across from Wufei is introduced by a pan from right to left, with Wufei holding up his handcuffs and lowering them as Heero comes into view. It's all in motion, with dramatic shading staying stationary in the corners. The problem is... that slow panning shot doesn't fit the quick script we'd written here, but, I still needed Wufei to show his handcuffs to make it clear to the viewer that they're captured.
What to do?
It's simple in concept but long in process. I took screenshots of each frame with Wufei lowering his hands, then aligned them all with the static shot of Wufei across from Heero. I then erased everything except for Wufei, and smudge-tooled the background to make it a bit more consistent since it bounced around in the original pan. There was still the problem of the dramatic shading in the corners, though, so I had to erase bits of Wufei's chair, refill them with a consistent color, then apply my own gradient to mimic the one on the other side, applying it over every frame.
Once I was happy with that, I edited Heero's eyes to blink and squint. I edit eyes so often now that that's become a surprisingly speedy process.
What do you think the two are saying to each other in this shot? 🤔
- Grey
