A Colorful Life – Short Film

Lighting, Compositing, Story, Layout, Camera Animation, Animation Refinement

Lighting and Compositing Breakdown

(Unreal Engine 5.5, After Effects 2025, 57 seconds, March 2025-May2025)

The primary effect I wanted to create in this film was the transition from black and white to color. I was heavily inspired by classic films such as The Wizard of Oz. To achieve this effect, I used the Post Process Volume in Unreal Engine. I had two Post Process Volumes. One surrounded the office area of the film and the other was only in the elevator located in the fantasy world set. This way the black and white coloration was done real time in the office set of the Unreal level. To animate the color switch I animated the saturation over time utilizing the Post Process Volume in the fantasy elevator so the effect occurred in real time.

The film required a stark contrast between the colored world and black and white world. I utilized Unreal Engine’s Lumen for all of the lighting in the film, making sure the office was only lit in a fluorescent white light while the fantasy world utilized a variety of colors to convey the sunset scene. I animated the lights to flicker in the elevator using the intensity value over time. I also utilized the Camera effects native in Unreal Engine to add lens flare, motion blur, and depth of field.

Using Adobe After Effects, I added a vignette and a grain over the first half of the film to push the vintage aesthetic I desired. I then used Lumetri Color to color correct the entire film, using classic film as reference for the first half and pushing the saturation and colors in the second half to create a stark difference between the office space and fantasy world. I also utilized Adobe After Effects for sound mixing and additional camera effects.

Cinematography and Execution

To decide on the initial story and shots, I created a simple storyboard to pitch my film.

I sought out critique on my storyboards and created a 3D animatic. Early iterations of the Post Process Volume effect can also be seen in the 3D animatic. The video below is the initial 3D animatic.

I received another round of critique on my shots and made the changes necessary. After, I added animation, lighting, and camera effects. I animated the facial expressions and added another layer of animation to the initial premade animations to make the transitions between animations seamless and closer to the intentions of the film. The render below is the film directly from Unreal Engine with no sound or color correction.