VFX work for student film 'Dear No-one'

Falmouth University third year film 'Dear No One' VFX

Directed by Sara Hussein 

Dear No One follows Valerie, a young woman who has lost herself in life and is struggling with the recent loss of her mum. She comes across a mysterious diary which she confides in. Until the diary begins to write back... The story unfolds to illustrate the relationship between the lonely protagonist who seeks comfort in the words of the diary. Her grief is highlighted throughout the story as she tries to come to terms with her loneliness. It will explore themes of loss, sadness and the difficulties of a young adult who doesn't know what she wants from life anymore  

 My job was to make the diary write back. This was accomplished by photo shopping photos of the writing needed for each scene, so that the writing had a transparent background.

Then I used After effects, to do a reveal mask over the writing, so it would reveal along the path I created.

Then the task was to transform it to fit onto however the book was positioned. There was some problems with the book moving and the page flapping, which proved quite difficult, and some scenes were re-shot. This involved using tracking points. Some parts of the page moved more than others which made it difficult to track. 

This also required rotoscoping the hand in some scenes, to pass back over the writing I had composited.

After Effects creating a path to mask tracing over the writing.

After Effects tracking text to the existing writing on the book
to try and compensate for the moving page

Break down of the process

One finished shot

One finished shot, showing tracking and rotoscoping

Title animation for film