Compositing

All of Star Wars Downunder was composited using Adobe after effects. Initially Shake was the intended software of choice. But when Apple purchased it, and as a first order of business dumped the PC version, After Effects became a no brainer.

As mentioned earlier in the editing section, the decision to rebuild the project in HD was far reaching. All 3D elements had to be re-rendered in HD. Finally, all the shots previously thought to have been completed, had to be majorly reworked in the compositing stage. Blue screens were now different shades in the new transfer, so any shots involving Blue Screen had to be re-keyed. More unexpected was the slightly different framing of the picture itself. The new HD transfer was showing more of what was shot in the frame than the standard def transfer. This meant all the rotoscoping had to be re-positioned to accommodate this new framing. In the words of Merve Bushwacker, was it all worth it?