Crit and Changes

Yesterday I presented my finished video to the class, overall the feedback was good and I came away from it needing to made a few changes. The comments that were made were:

• The start of the film needs to be faded up from black to bring it in gradually and beep made quieter
• Some of the text could do with being in a different font face to make it stand out
• The "ask not what" section could do with staying on the screen longer as it is the main part of the speech.

Changes

To make the first change of making the countdown fade up from black, I opened my final cut version of the video and using the pen tool dragged the opacity line down to 0 at the start and 100 at the end of the clip so it gradually fades in and to change the beep level I simply dropped the level down to -12 for the whole beep sound clip.

Because of the time scale I have, I wont be able to change how the text looks as it would be too time consuming and with it I risk putting my whole video out of time. 

Full Video

After adding the scratched effect to the whole of my film, I have now completed it and it is ready for crit on Tuesday.


Here is a complete storyboard of my film

And here is my fully edited video.

Creating the effect- Final cut

After making all of the elements I needed to create my video, all I needed to do was add my countdown timer to the start of my clips in final cut and add an old effect to make the video look like it had grain and scratches on the film.
This is a still from my film before I put the scratched effect on

I downloaded a scratched film clip which was 5 seconds long, to add this over top of my clip I put it in final cut over the top of my clips and text in the timeline as you can see below, however the clip has a grey background so covered the whole of my clip as shown below.

To sort this problem I changed the blending mode by right clicking on the overlaying clip and changing its composite mode to multiply as shown below, this made my scratched layer play over the top of my clips without blocking the clips out, this effect has given my clips the full old cinema effect I was looking for, I think they now look like they could be projections from an old camera. 

Making the countdown- Motion

I wanted a countdown timer to go at the start of my film so I started by drawing up the basic shape in Photoshop and saved it out as a PNG. 

I then dropped this into motion and added the number three in the centre, I also added another PNG of just a line to act as the hand going round.

In the time line I cut the number three length right down and added a two and a one to go after it. While the numbers counted down I needed my line to move around like a hand on a clock, to do this I changed its anchor point down to the bottom of it which was in the centre of the larger cross, I then used the record button to make it swoop round the screen creating a proper cinema countdown. 

Making the video- Final cut

After I had completed my text, I opened final cut pro and created a new project. The first thing I did was to import my text and sound elements. To make sure that I could get everything lined up right I decided to delete the sound off of my text movie and add the speech over the top again in final cut. 

Before i could make a start on editing my clips I needed to change them into prores files. To do this I opened compressor, selected all of my files and changed them to Apple ProRes 442 (HQ) by dragging that setting onto my clips. Once done I submitted all of my clips and opened batch monitor to see what was processing, here are some screen grabs from that process.

Once that was completed I then started filtering through my clips on final cut and picking out sections I liked using the in and out points (I and O on the keyboard) to extract the selected sections into their own clips I used cmd+U on the keyboard. This helped me filter through the clips and have a clearer idea of what I could do with my clips. 

Once I had all the clips I though I would need it was on to editing them so they looked more abstract. For most of the clips that meant zooming in on them. To do this I double clicked the clip to make sure it was selected in the viewer window, I then went to the motion tab and changed the scale, below you can see screen grabs of this.

This is the technique that I used on most if not all of my clips to make them more visually interesting and abstract. 

After I had edited the clips in this way and had arranged them on the time line in the order I felt they looked best, I then went about getting the "old" feel. To do this I first changed the colour of all of my clips so they were all sepia, to do this I double clicked on a clip to make sure it was selected, went to effects/video filters/quicktime/colour tint

Once I had done this I went back to the viewer window and selected the "filters" tab, in here I could change quite a few things but the one that was most important was changing the tint to sepia.

Once I had changed the tint to sepia, I saw my clip go from bright orange to a dark, tonal clip which looked much more like something you would see in 1961.

The other thing I decided would make these clips look older would be to make them flickery and jump around, to do this I used the Razor blade tool and cut up each clip a lot of times. 

Once I had done this it was a case of using the arrow tool to select parts and delete them, I then cut up the remaining clips and swapped them around to make it look as if the film had got stuck in the projector and jumped back a frame, I also added a Gaussian blur to some of the sections of clip to make them seem less in focus. I feel this effect gave my clips the feel that they were old jumpy projections and gave them a slight Charlie Chaplin look. 

Making the video- Motion

After having shot all of my clips, I decided the best way to do this would be to do the text first and to add the clips underneath later as the text is what is going to be most important in my video. 
To do my text I started by opening motion and making a new project at Pal DV size.

After this I then imported my 1 minute sound clip that I previously cut to be the right length. To do this I simply used the file browser on the left hand side and when I had the right sound clip highlighted I clicked "Import". By doing that I could instantly see my audio on the time line and I could see the levels when I click into the Audio Editor on the main timeline.

All that was left to do was add my text, to do this I simply used the Text tool, typed the word that was going to be spoken, made sure the size was right to its importance and placed it where I wanted it to go. 

The hardest challenge with this was getting the text to appear and disappear at the right time to when it was spoken, cutting the actual clips so they appear and disappear for the right length of time was the easy part, by just clicking on a clip and dragging the ends in or out, the hard part is getting the timing right with the speech, this took a lot of time and countless amounts of playbacks! Here is what the timeline was starting to look like.

I did the whole thing bit by bit, constantly replaying what I had already done to make sure it was all in time. Here you can see the finished text with the speech.

Filming

I had difficulties coming up with what to film in advance as I needed my shots to be very abstract and hardly recognisable. I decided the best thing to do would be to go out and film various things and see how they work when they have been zoomed in on and cropped in final cut.
I started filming my cactus plant as it had many textures and shapes, I did a few different shots, panning up and down the plant, side to side, the small pebbles being pushed across the screen and I also filmed water running down the side of the plant as well as zooming in to look at the sand absorbing the water, this last idea of the sand absorbing the water came from one of the clips in the Dexter video I previously posted where he had a piece of tissue that was absorbing blood as you can see below. 

The next thing I filmed was me cutting into foods like tomatoes and an egg, again for this the idea came from the general theme of Dexter's opening titles as he shows a lot of foods being cut and made to look different as we see them everyday, also in keeping with this idea I filmed a pan of boiling baked beans as this gave a nice bubbly, boiling look which I can use.

Another thing I filmed was a shot glass of vinegar and to this I added  bicarbonate of soda to make it fizz and bubble over, this so far is my favourite clip as it has a lot of texture I can use. 

Coming away from the food theme I have also shot some close ups of some ribbon, a head massager and the light shining from a magnifying glass to give an interesting pattern which can be used under my text. 

Here are some stills of my clips,

Music and font

Before I decided to use text to write every word in the speech I chose a song which fitted well with the speech and started editing some test clips to it, although I didn't like how my work looked I felt the song was a good choice and decided to stay with it. I found the song on Youtube named "Orchestral Guitar Epic Instrumental Music - Haunting Memory" which you can see here- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ep7w3rTcApo


Here is the version of it over my selected part of my speech.

After having decided to use the text to emphasise every word of the speech I am considering not having additional sound as I dont want it to take away from the speech itself, I am planning on making my video without a song or music over it and possibly adding one if it needs it at the end.


As for fonts, I have been looking at a few from 1961 and have found quite a mixed selection, here are four from 1961 adverts and new channels. 

For my video, I would like to use a font that looks strong and bold while still being sleek and elegant, but above all else is easy to read and doesn't take away from the actual words used, because of these reasons I feel a simple font like Helvetica would be best for my video, I am planning on using different sizes and possibly weights to emphasise the important words while keeping the smaller words such as "so" and "in" smaller and thinner to show they are not focus points. 

I will be adding my text to the speech in Motion, then exporting this out to final cut pro to add my video clips behind it. 

Storyboard

Here is a rough storyboard I drew in my book to show how I want my film to flow, starting with a countdown and having the words appear as they are spoken.

Sketches and images

To build on my idea I put together a moodboard of images that related to my new idea, from this I then drew sketches and made a rough mock up of what I want my text to look like on my film.

Here are a few images that help me picture the sort of theme my film will have, I want to make it look very "old cinema" like these images.

Here are some sketches of what I am planning on doing, as you can see my idea started with having the projector in the film but I then decided to go more towards the viewer actually watching the film but to keep that old cinema feel I would still like to start with a countdown.

Here is a mock up of what my words might look like in my speech video, as you can see here I want to make the words that are more important stand out more while words like "of" and "the" are smaller.

This is a video showing the countdown timer which I would like to feature in the start of my video, this clip also shows the aged feel I would like to add to my video with the colours, scratches and noise. 

Old school cinema

After days of not being able to come up with anything I finally had an idea last night, it literally came to me in my sleep resulting in me jumping out of bed and frantically typing away at two in the morning in fear of losing the thought! It may not have been the best nights sleep, but its made me feel one-hundred times better about this project. 
My idea is to have an old fashioned countdown timer counting in the start of the video like they did on the news and in the cinema back in 1961 when the speech was made. This is to then be followed by the whole video being projected like it was in an old cinema, to get this feel I am planning on making the whole thing either black and white or sepia, to give the whole thing a very grainy, noisy effect and to have the clips flickering and julting. I have decided to make the whole speech appear in text as it is spoken and use the clips in the background as more of a texture to accompany the text rather than over power it. To keep the text strong, I am planning on using clips that are very close up and abstract so that they can not be recognised, keeping them from adding a different meaning to the speech. 

Stuck!

After deciding to move on from my water idea I am stuck on where to go next. I am really struggling with the idea of not being literal. It seems that there are two sides to this stick, one side being literal and the other being completely random, I have to somehow place myself in the middle of this, what seems like a tiny gap. I think the key to this project will be in picking a theme or a base, I seem to be struggling with this blank canvas idea and think finding a focus, theme or direction to take this in will be the blob of paint I need to kick start me into getting this right. I know it will come to me, its just a matter of trying to speed it up so I still have time to make a successful piece of work. 


To help me find an idea, I looked at this opening for a TV programe called "Dexter" in hope that it would help me understand how to find a middle ground between being too literal and my video not making sense.  

The programe Dexter is about a police man who is also a secret serial killer, this introduction is very clever as it makes something so normal as waking up and having breakfast look so blood thirsty. The music with this piece is eerily happy for what is going on in the video, this teamed with the theme of the programe gives the whole thing a bit of a creepy feel, it makes the viewer like Dexter even though he is a deadly killer, it confuses the viewer into not knowing if killing is good or bad which in turn gives the feel of excitement and unknown. I like this idea of cutting up foods and having things that are very normal shown in a different light and making them have a completely different meaning. This title sequence is very successful and for its theme fits perfectly, it is a bit strange and abstract but still makes sense to what happens in the programe, this is something I need to do with my video and I feel that the clips I have seen in this will be a great help to filming clips of my own.

Water

I have been working on my idea of filming water and decided that to see whether it would work or not I needed to see it in action, so yesterday I went out with my Iphone and filmed water. The first shots I got were of water running down and across window panes and then I followed this up with various drip shots. I then threw my clips into Final cut and cut them into a video to show the class where I was heading with my ideas.

After showing the class my clips I received good feedback however the point was raised that it needs to have more to it to be interesting for a whole minute, this is when I started thinking about what other sorts of water movements and patterns I could think of. The more I thought about this idea, the more I realised that it would be difficult to get it off the ground. I am now planning on going back to the drawing board and trying to come up with an idea that can go further that just this one thing. Hopefully I will be able to use some of my water clips in my next idea because they are quite abstract and interesting. 

Idea

While I was sitting on the train a few days ago I was watching the rain dripping down the window, I sat for the majority of the journey just watching the patterns and movements the rain drops made, this is what has inspired my idea of filming abstract water movements for my film. I aim to film water, possibly of different colours from different angles to make them almost dance along to the speech along with this I like the idea of having a clock ticking, starting off going clockwise at a normal speed, then speeding up to half way through the speech were it stops completely. At this point the hands start going anti clockwise slowly and speeding up to come to another complete stop at the end of the video. I have drawn up some sketches demonstrate what I mean.