Bits & Extra Bobs

The following is a collection of video projects that don't warrant their own full case study, but contain individual techniques and shots I'm particularly proud of and wanted to showcase.

There are often fun little challenges and creative solutions that pop up in smaller projects, from 3D product integration and supernatural compositing tricks to perspective corrections and cat cameos. Each example represents a moment where I got to flex different creative muscles or solve an interesting technical problem, even when the overall project was more modest in scope.

Echt Vom Feld - Giveaway Promotional Reel

Freya & Eldi - Book Title Design

The Doll House Murders - Announcement Reel

How To Design Monsters

Year
2024-2025

Role
3D, Animation, Modeling, Colour Grading, Compositing

Agency
Personal, Digital Masters GmbH

Echt Vom Feld - Giveaway Promotional Reel

Quick BTS look

Final Video

For Echt vom Feld, we needed to create a short promotional giveaway video. Working with copywriters, we put together a rough script and I started hunting for video material that would nail the emotion we were going for. Since there wasn't really a budget to shoot new footage, I decided to integrate the product into one of the existing shots using some 3D magic.

I had already created 3D mockups of the products for previous renders, so I tracked the scene in After Effects and brought that camera data into Blender using Blender2AE. Once I had the 3D model in there, I made sure to create a ground plane that matched the folds of the table in the original footage. I exported everything as a linear EXR sequence and brought it back into After Effects, where I composited the 3D render with the live footage and applied a final color grade to match those warm tones running through the other clips.

I also wanted the text to feel more naturally integrated into the scenes, so I did some simple rotoscoping and layering work in AE – you can see the breakdown in the behind-the-scenes shots.

For the voiceover, we initially tried AI voices but they just couldn't deliver the right cadence we were after. So we pivoted and recorded quickly on an iPhone with one of our native German team members. We ended up needing two takes when we realized a line had to be changed after recording. I cleaned up the audio, married the two sections together, and blended everything with the music track.

Freya & Eldi - Book Title Design

For Mari Luoma's new comic book, I helped design the title logo for the cover. We were going for a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe – specifically that maritime aesthetic you'd see on the coins from the Black Pearl.

Working with the publisher's in-house designer, we created the flat logo in Illustrator, then I brought the vector into After Effects. It is not exactly the go-to tool for logo work, but I found it way faster for what I needed to do – sometimes it's just about using whatever tool gets the job done! I built up the layer stack and rendered everything out in 4K.

From there, I took the export into Photoshop to upscale to 300dpi, converted it to CMYK, and tweaked the colors before handing it back to the publisher's in-house designer for final implementation.

Finnish Publisher: WSOY

The Doll House Murders - Announcement Reel

Quick BTS look

Final Video

I put this video together for the release of Mari Luoma's book "The Doll House Murders".

It was Mari's idea to turn her book cover into a puzzle that she could assemble on camera – which is actually a fun easter egg that ties into the story itself. We recorded a timelapse of the whole puzzle assembly, which took about 5 hours total. Since we had to set up quickly, I couldn't get a proper top-down angle with the camera, so I corrected the perspective in post to make it look like a true overhead shot and extended the edges to fill the frame.

The best part was when our cat decided to walk right over everything mid-shoot. I kept that moment at normal speed while the timelapse continued underneath – made for a nice little rotoscoping challenge that added some extra character to the video.

For the final touch, I created a 3D mockup of the book in Blender for both the intro and outro since the physical copies didn't arrive in time for the shoot day. It was relatively simple to find a base mesh of the book to apply the cover to and then animate to match the shots we needed.

Finnish Publisher: WSOY

How To Design Monsters

Quick BTS look

Intro/Outro of Final Video

Bat!

How to make a scary or funny monster character? Illustrator and author Mari Luoma reveals how different monsters are created in stories and how you can learn to draw them yourself. The video is part of the LANU! virtual festival's Freestyle program 2024.

At the time of making the video, we were watching "What We Do in the Shadows" and wanted to add a little spice to the intro and outro of this video by having Mari appear from nowhere like a witch materializing, then disappear like a vampire would!

For the intro, I kept it simple – just a composite between a clean plate, some smoke assets, and footage of Mari appearing through the haze.

For the outro I was able to spend some more time and a little more fun. I found a bat model online and brought it into Blender to rig it up. I grabbed a clean plate of our set from the footage, and since it was a static shot, I didn't need to worry about any tracking – just had to get the scale somewhat right so the bat's flight path actually made sense in the scene. I did the final composite in After Effects before bringing everything into Premiere Pro for the final edit.

Finnish Publisher: WSOY

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