This is the depth map I created for the shot of Queen Elizabeth in the pandemic film. 13 days of production remain. I am now averaging 10 shots a day and I should finish with some extra time to refine some shots. In the above depth map I have not yet added detail to the mid and far depth layers.
Since I had a debilitating Premiere Pro crash in which most of the auto saves were lost, I now back up the file onto an online storage site for safety twice a day. I no longer trust Adobe products to maintain safe back ups on their own. For painting, I have abandoned Photoshop for doing my painting, and it looks like I will have to find another software for the next time I edit a film.
I didn’t bother blurring the harsh line under the queen’s chin, but in the final render with the painting, it really isn’t noticeable. I kind of wish there was a way to generate a depth map for the background and combine that with the portrait mode for the face. I could probably accomplish it with some green screens to comp together several different animated renders. I will try it on a future shot. Since the shot is less than a second long, I can get away with some imperfections as I continue to learn the nuances of creating and using depth maps.
I have managed to have two days where the files were not lost by clearing the cache and saving over the same file repeatedly. I no longer can save iterations of the file with with the date. Every morning I open the program I have some dread that the program might have erased the previous days work.