Sophia Westrop portfolio - Project page

For the print ads, I sketched out the ideas I had for them first and brainstormed some taglines. Then, I generated the very specific food imagery I needed using Adobe Firefly (If you know a site to find photos of antifreeze snow cones or paint covered donuts, let me know, but also I have questions?) which was also very helpful in setting up a general "scene", with a nice gradient background. I expanded the scene using content aware fill. For the chemical substances, I found royalty free images of blank containers for said substances. I then Photoshopped them into the scene, trying my best to make it look like these were genuine photographs. Then I added my finalized tagline and a little blurb about the potentially dangerous chemicals in vape.

For the video, I was pretty stumped on how I was going to create a video that fit with the ads I had made. One of my profs even cautioned me that it would be a difficult theme to follow. But, I was determined to do my best because I was so thrilled with how the print ads had turned out! One of the original ideas I had for the print ad was a cinnamon bun covered in bleach, until I quickly realized that bleach itself is clear, not white like icing, and only makes things white... so I scrapped it. I revisited the idea and tried to think of something that could resemble cinnamon bun icing, and thought of my laundry detergent. I use unscented dye free detergent, and it's kind of off-white but its still very transparent. I figured if I heated up the icing, it might turn a little clear and become runny, and I was right! It didn't look exactly like the detergent but it was close, and by not pouring actual detergent on the bun, nothing would be wasted. So I baked cinnamon buns, set up my homemade photo box and lights, filmed the video, recorded the narration, AND then got to enjoy a tasty cinnamon bun after!

Aside from struggling to come up with something that would work for the video, the most frustrating issue I had with this project was trying to create visual similarity between the print ads and the video. The print ads had that gorgeous seamless gradient background, which I couldn't replicate at home with the materials I had. So, I thought, what if I just blur the background and floor of the photo box together? I needed to find a way to extract the subject matter away from the background, and I went with rotoscoping. I then copied the video, applied a gaussian blur, and put it in the background.

The rotoscoping was incredibly tedious as the thin stream of icing pouring was very difficult for After Effects to pick out, and I had to manually go frame by frame with the rotobrush. It took forever, and the end result was not necessarily up to my standards. It turned out fine overall, but the part where I set the plate down... Rough. At the end of the day, I did the best I could do with the time I had to complete the project.

Overall, I am really happy with how these ads turned out. Even if the video isn't perfect, I feel like these might be some of my best Photoshop work! I'm also very happy that I was able to successfully and effectively execute the idea I had.