SANM-560
Updated: Jul 18
(SCAD x Harbor x ETC)
Winter quarter of 2026 I was given the opportunity to join a class in collaboration with Harbor Picture Company and Electric Theatre Collective (ETC) and Calling All Talent (CAT), a talent acquisition company. Working in small groups with set roles, our task was to create a short advertisement with a set theme under the watchful eye of industry professionals.
I was selected to be the sole compositor for my team, working with four other talented students: Gracie Szymanski (FX), Max Jokinen (FX), Cae Parkhill (FX), and Noelle Robertson (LookDev/Lighting). The announced theme was "High-Tech" with an added requirement that students must each individually use AI to assist their project.
(growth made through the quarter, learning most on the fly by myself, working in teams, fast turn arounds, etcetera)
My team got together and, after some brainstorming, we decided to create an advertisement inspired by smart rings— specifically the brand OURA. By the first class of Week 2, we had created a pitch deck and presented to the mentors. A lot of AI (mostly Gemini) was used in the concepting phase, as it was great at getting the point across quickly.
We got our idea approved! We decided for convenience and some extra safety to use the name "OMNI" instead of OURA's actual brand name. That next week (week 2) was spent making a fully CG preVis, developing the FX some, and working on the lookDev of everything.
Since we were in the very early stages, I didn't have any compositing work to do, so for these first few weeks I took up a lot of the project organization, editing of all videos, and getting things ready for when comp work does start to trickle in. This was a lot of fun, as I love organizing and making guides and researching! I also helped out lookDev by creating the preVis/setting up Shot 1, animating the cameras (they eventually all got replaced, but were used for roughly the first half of the quarter), and in later weeks modeling and texturing the pedestal (which was also not used in the final).
Week 4 I researched and made a guide to render out cryptomattes and AOVs in Karma, generated initial backgrounds for each shot, and mainly filled in any gaps that the team might need filled. I had researched using an ACES color pipeline, however when Week 5 hit, the pipeline that I had tested broke, so our shots were all in the wrong color space! Definitely sucked, but all you can do is keep moving forward, fix the pipeline, and don't make the same mistake again! A learning moment, for sure!
Beyond that, I asked my team to render out a still exr for every shot early on with way too many AOVs included. I then used those stills to build my node trees, using a combination of methods, while I waited for the full sequences. This was an awesome workflow, as I could work in parallel with the 3D team, and make a lot of progress!
Week 5 was a full overhaul of color; Fixing the pipeline, yes, but also looking back at our original designs for the color palette, as well as OURA's color branding. With this note from the mentors, it was clear that our color had strayed very far without our realizing! We looked back and made a ton of changes.
Week 6 I really got into the 'technical weeds' of compositing for CG and with different types of AOV rebuilds. We had figured out an issue that we were having with a specific shot, which prompted a new type of AOV rebuild that I eventually would use for the two most complicated shots. This new method allowed me to mix and match material AOVs and Light Group render layers without creating separate additive rebuilds for both of them, greatly increasing optimization.
Week 7 was a huge push week for compositing. FX and Animation was mostly locked off at this point, with only slight alterations to the lookDev, and a decent amount of work with lighting. The team decided to push and pull a lot of the lighting in comp, particularly for the shot with the flower. I was really proud of the transformation for the flower shot! This was also the week I added depth of field to all the shots, which really helped the look.
Week 8 had the mentors visiting in person! This was super exciting, as they went through the shot scripts and I got some fantastic advise. The general consensus was that the flower shot looked great, but now the other shots needed to be elevated to the same level. The mentors' guidance really helped me out this week, as I made those final changes and added finishing touches like grain and chromatic aberration.
(week 9 video here)