[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

First issue comes from lighting and the lens flares/bright stars from the background. If you wanted a big source of light in the bk you should’ve matched that in the shoot. As is, you need to dim the bright stars in the bk since the main source is from the right.
You can try downloading Colorista from Red Giant- they have a free version. You get three color wheels, one for highlights, one for mid tones and a third for the blacks. You can push the blacks and mid tones to blue to better match the background. Also your compositing could use some light wrapping.
For a quick fix you may try applying the Photo Filter with a “cool” preset, 30- 40%.
That’s the quick and dirty way of it, for in depth grading I would recommend spending time with a colorist and “stealing” the art.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Or text animated on a path with an adjustment layer on top that has Mesh Warp setup to distort the text as it moves in. You could also precomp the animated text on a path and apply the distortion on that precomp- this way you do not need to render the text separately and then comp it on the person, but it’s less easy to animate and distort.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

CS4 or CS5?
For CS4 get the latest update- the one that came after CS5 came out. Then I’m afraid you may have to transcode the footage.
If you have CS5 you should not have any issues, just make sure you’re updated.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Since you have a LED HD tv and you are playing a standard definition (SD) DVD your playback is at a lower resolution. So the pixelation you see comes from enlarging a smaller image. See if the DVD player is able to upscale the signal. Ideally you should work at HD resolution and use a BlueRay or HDD player that can output HD – 1080p.
On the HD tvs, there’s really no need for interlacing. Progressive looks better on a LED/LCD/Plasma.
That being said, usually a Fast Blur on any sharp graphic/text, anywhere from .3 to .7 should help

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Just had another idea- you can use layers of different color like Kevin suggested but transition with a wipe in between, from the tip of the arrow to the end. This way you may still get a bit of mix ot the transition edge but if you do not feather it too much that should be acceptable.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can use Change Color, but the cycle has to go through green as well, since you have to mix at one point cyan with yellow. So the cycle is cyan, to green, to yellow to red.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

No- CS5 is not terrible and it is not worse than CS4. I’ve been using CS5 since it came out on 2 different machines (one mac one pc) with no problems. All you need to do is do a bit of reading and set your software preferences as recommended for your system specs.
https://help.adobe.com/en_US/aftereffects/cs/using/WS9F936D13-E76A-41e4-BF8F-577132AB4723a.html

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Like Walter, I think that a dedicated app is the best choice. However, for limited budgets, AE can provide very good results. I have used the standard AE color correction tools (Levels, Curves…) combined with masking and got great results, but once I discovered Colorista I do most grading in it.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I do not think that there is an “effect” involved in the sense of one plugin that does that. The woman separates in color shapes that shrink and the couch morphs into the logo/title. You can attempt this by doing a classic frame by frame animation (which I think it’s the case in the clip you posted) or you may try morphing the woman to nothing and the couch to the title. I do not think Puppet tool will work. A distortion tool like Mesh Warp or Bezier Warp will be most useful.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I would create a force field texture first. Once I am happy with the result I would draw a shape around the man and create my depth map for displacement. Using the same shape I would mask out the force field texture layer. I would then create a second mask (intersect with the first mask) that animates from the point where the ray hits the man to the outside with a feathered edge. This way you will get a 3d shape with a texture that “fills” it so to speak.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist