portfolioandprogress

[portfolioandprogress]

CIN312 Final

I compiled my clips and put them together in a quick video.

I know it's not any good. I'm just happy to have something to turn in.

Every time I do something for school I feel like a failure and spiral and give up any time I start any portion. I still don't feel great, but I'm just happy to be done and I look forward to practicing these skills without the anxiety of wanting to be good enough to be graded. :P

14 May 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

Project V: Advancing on Project III

Starting with the added gain and glow that I put on the clip in Project III, I then wondered what it would look like if I added the dithering and tint effects as well.

It turned out well but was missing something, so I added some text. I didn't know what to say and the spooky elements made me think of the Slender: The Eight Pages so I borrowed ideas from that.

The text wasn't enough. It was plain and didn't match. I thought it would work well to further implement the flashlight element, so I added the gradient ramp thinking it could look like a flashlight looking over it and it worked!

I don't completely hate this. I think I could definitely implement it into a video in the future.

13 May 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

Project IV: Text Motion Effects

Using this tutorial was rough. It took me hours, tears and patience. It should have been simple, but I am not good at After Effects or following directions.

Once I did figure it out, it was cool though!!

You start off with text that you pre-compose and then duplicate to the top being your text and the bottom one being the trail.

Then I added the Echo effect to the "trail" and messed around with the settings. The tutorial gives suggestions and I roughly listened to them. From there I added the color effect, Colorama, and worked with the color wheel to make the trail look like how I wanted.

After that, the video suggests adding glow, grain and scratches.

Here's what I came up with:

13 May 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

Project III: Grain and Glow

Thinking on what I could do next, I remembered this footage from a final project last semester.

In this clip, there is a tree with the beam of a flashlight aimed at the center of it. I decided to use the glow effect to enhance the contrast and then added keyframes to increase/decrease the glow.

Taking from that, I then added grain and put in keyframes to make it more intense whenever the glow was brighter.

12 May 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

Project II: Dithering

Using this video as a guide, I made a dithering template. I imported an 8x8 texture into my composition, changed the blending mode to overlay and then added an adjustment layer. On the adjustment layer I added a mosaic effect and then linked it and the dithering scale to a slider. By writing expressions and using the pick-whip to connect it to the slider, I created a template where I can insert any video underneath and then use the slider to adjust.

From there, I added some footage. It sucked...

But then I added this from a couple months ago and then put the Threshold and Tint effects on and this one was much better.

12 May 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

Project I: Intro

I started with printing the pages out, and then used double sided tape + paper to make out the reveal. From there I doodled on the next two pages so that the words would move around. I also crumpled/ripped one of the pages for added texture, though it isn't as obvious as I'd like it.

I scanned the images in. Then I didn't know what to do. It's probably a very inconvenient way and also didn't turn out great but what I did was go into Photoshop, cut out all of the boxes into layers and then sized them into a 1080x1920 box. From there I cropped the project to 1080x1920 and then selected all of the layers -> window -> timeline. From there, I reversed the timeline and adjusted the delay.

It took me more time than it should have and the quality is shit and I'm a little peeved but I'm a little proud too.

6 May 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

Research on Project I

For my Animation and Visual Effects class I will be making different projects over the next couple weeks to compile into a reel in order to learn more about effects and to complete class' coursework. One half of the work is a final show reel, and the other haf is this blog.

In the process of looking for ideas on what to create, I found this video,

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Minna (@meenoush_)

^Credit to @meenoush_

I plan on recreating this with some tweaks of my own. I started with making the templet on photoshop.

22 April 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

British Independent Cinema

For a class I am taking this semester, Independent Filmmaking, we were assigned our first project; a video essay on a specific country’s independent film culture. Me and my assigned partner were placed with Britain, a choice we were not the happiest with but made do.

I made the mistake of becoming too involved and excited about the research and ended up putting off the actual editing. That lead me to sitting at my desk for 15 hours straight (with a couple small breaks) to make the video.

Through our research I was shown that British, especially English film content is highly lacking. There are a lot of crossovers between Britain and Hollywood due to tax reasons, but when it comes to the actual film culture and content, it is incredibly hard to have resources to create good stories or distribute them.

In our video I realize I could have done better with sound, the audio is balanced fine enough but the music isn’t incorporated well. I found some minor keyframe issues that I was too tired to notice before I turned it in. I am happy with our content but I think I could have done better with the visual component if I had given myself any time to plan what would work well. I will try to learn from that, but I do struggle immensely with getting frustrated with preproduction and only really coming up with ideas on the go.

I read texts such as:

Independent Filmmaking Around the Globe (2015), specifically the chapter “Dependency and Independence in British Independent Film.” An important line read, “in the British context, the meaning of independence must include not only a sense of independence from the mainstream form, content, and production process but also independence from policy-driven agendas articulated through quasi-governmental funding bodies.” In light of the lacking independent scene, looking for smaller pieces of media to bring light to became a main part in my research.

The Routledge Companion to British Cinema History (2017), was a great source for learning the general history of filmmaking in the UK. I read the majority of this book.

British National Cinema (1997), was an informational text that allowed me to dig deeper in finding much smaller and diverse independent films and filmmakers.

I watched (and skimmed through many) movies such as:

Helen of Four Gates (1920)

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

Riddles of the Sphinx (1977)

Young Soul Rebels (1991)

Britannia (1993)

Trainspotting (1996)

5 March 2025 | Leon McArdle

[portfolioandprogress]

Day Trip to Belfast

As early in the morning as I could muster, I woke up, cleaned up ate breakfast and set off to the train station. It was my first proper time walking there, and as such, I didn’t prepare for how long it was going to take. 5 minutes before the train was to depart, I was walking the long stretch to the station, I realized I wasn’t going to make it. I sprinted and managed to be the last person on, with a minute to spare.

I took this as an opportunity to practice my camera settings, as well as my comfort with street photography. Here are some results!

27 February 2025 | Leon McArdle