This is behind the scenes of hack fakes real bakes
First up is the tan my banana app scene.
I first had to track the motion of the phone, banana and fingers.
Now I can replace the screen.
But I had to rotoscope the thumb to place it back on top.
But I had to rotoscope the thumb to place it back on top.
As for the banana morphing
it essentially uses the same technique,
but instead blending an image of a ripe banana.
To help sell the scene I designed a logo for this app,
as well as a User Interface which animates in time to the footage.
For the hammer time scene
the bananas were shot whole then again mashed.
Bananas were cut out so they can be
Bananas were cut out so they can be
animated using mesh a warp.
Various shots of the mushed banana were masked out.
Then layered up to help create the final effect.
No post production here for the eggplant.
But I had to empty out the contents of the egg through
a small hole so it was light enough 
for it to be stuck to the bottom of the plant.
Next is the pear drops scene.
This is probably the oddest setup I’ve had in my livingroom.
But as a one man band in lockdown 
it definitely gets your creativity going 
with the tools or furniture you have!
These clamps were super useful though.
Two shots were taken.
One with me catching the pears.
Then another with me dropping the pear cubes.
I then had to insert an image of an empty plate 
before the pears have landed.
Next I took an empty shot without the pear rigs
and overlayed them on top.
Frame by frame I masked out the hands and arms.
Now I can overlay them back on top.
All that’s missing is to then animate the pears
and pear shadows to complete the shot.
I later added some zoom to help create visual impact
as well as help the two scenes to blend together.
For the flour hunt.
I wanted to create a visual that mimics
a first person computer game. 
Therefore this involved designing a graphical user interface.
After Effects Expressions coding allow for
multiple graphics to be linked together.
Meaning one keyframe can drive numerous animations.
The beats per minute visual pulses were driven
by an audio recording of a heartbeat, 
allowing for more organic movement.
This is essentially an audio visualiser.
The blood pressure readings had extra coding.
This allowed the lines to have a trailing effect.
The lines also changed colours as it enters 
different blood pressure ranges.
A bit of artistic license was used
as blood pressure is supposed to be taken seated
not whilst hunting for flour!
3D models were created of the navigational graphic,
spatula,
flour tin,
vacuum
 and vacuum nozzle using Cinema 4D.
After Effects’ in built camera tracker
obtained the 3D spatial data.
I then used Video Copilot’s Element3D to composite
the 3D models into the scene.
Finishing touches included a layer of dust.
As well as highlighting an actual book and 3D elements 
to help sell the 3D video game experience.
To turn vacuum dust into flour
three shots were taken. 
One with me placing the clean sieve onto the empty bowl,
secondly a close up of the contents of the vacuum vessel
and finally me shaking actual flour.
The second shot acts like a magician’s sleight of hand.
Concealing me swapping out the empty sieve with the full sieve.
The second shot once rotoscoped
also means that the dust and debris
never actually gets mixed with the real flour.
Now I added some dust particles
and composited an animation of some dust debris
into the sieve.
The remaining effects scenes utilise
similar techniques as the others.
Where possible I’d get Mocha to track the movement,
otherwise lots more frame by frame
masking and blending was involved.
As shown in the teaser trailer
I used a swivel chair in the absence of a lazy Susan
for the final beauty shot.
The sunlight was too strong so the shower curtain was
perfect for diffusing the light.
I captured the video at 240 frames per second
which is great for slow motion,
but I also used the plugin Twixtor
to further slower it down by another 30%
to create an even more dramatic visual for the cream.
The motion was exactly what I was after,
but unfortunately, the sunlight was intermittent when filming
which resulted in this bread not looking as great
as other shots that day.
In order to make the bread in this scene
match the look of the others
I composited new textures on top.
As well as removing some rouge crumbs.
And that is a brief summary of the visual effects of
Hack Fakes Real Bakes.
