Rough Cut Video!

thursday 22th october

today we are continuing editing our video in finalcut express putting all the animation in the right place and making sure the video is sync with track.

Two Animation Styles

When creating our animation we tried several different styles. Our final two styles were a charcoal effect and a pencil effect. We decided that the pencil effect was the effect that we were looking for but we decided to create the shortest animation in both styles.

Here is the Charcoal effect:

Here is the pencil effect:

As you can see the pencil effect is the most like a sketchbook

Monday 19th october

Since we have completed animation in photoshop, today we are putting our footage and animation into finalcut.
We needed to research how to make stars into our animation therefore Jack N researched it into the internet how to make stars in photoshop he found this website http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/starry-sky/ . He followed the steps and this is his final picture.

Finished converting the images

I have finished converting the images for a second time after amending the action to allow it to work in final cut easily. It took best part of 30 mins to convert all 810 photos to the style and flatten each one. The size has also decreased which is a bonus, as it means that it is easier for us to transfer without wasting lots of time waiting for 8GB to move from the two computers that we are using.

Thursday 15th October

Since yesterday we have converted all of our animation images into the pencil style drawing by using the technique we mentioned previously. From our original idea of projecting the shots and then making them animated by drawing round them, we are glad that we were able to find this alternative technique as to draw best part of 800 frames would have taken a long time.

One thing that we did find with the images was that it required around 8GB of storage space.

Here you can see the two folders that we store the images in and there sizes

This is the folder containing all 800 frames once they had been flattened. As you can see the size is much less.

We then imported the images into final cut and found that final cut struggled to cope with the image adjustments and multiple layers that we had created in photoshop. So because of this, we had a look into the problem and found that by amending the action that we had recorded to convert the image into a flattened image this preserved the effects so that we could add this into the animation. Unfortunately we didn't get enough images converted so we will aim to get it finished and edited on Monday.

Inspiration to Application

Our ideas from various places have all been inspired by something.

Originally we thought that doing an animation was a good idea. This idea changed as we realized our track had a bit of a storyline, so we added performance and a storyboard to the animation idea suggested by Jack N. Jack then suggested we should do pencil drawings for the animation, this idea was skeptical because we had to think about how long it would take, but Jack said he had many friends in the art department who could give a hand, so this made it more appealing.

In one of the next lessons Rob looked on youtube for more inspiration as he came across an old classic, take on me by A-ha. Rob then looked into how it was done in which we found out that they did the shots and then traced them. Jon took a light to this and decided on the night at home, to use his projector and trace himself in pencil.

We realised that this could take a very long time, after doing our filming, Rob looked into a pencil effect for final cut, no such luck, but came across a pencil effect for photoshop, with both Rob and Jon tried on different versions of photoshop. We found that the newer version initially was completely different due to a different technique to design the colour dodge, so this made the older version which Rob was using look better for the style we wanted. Jon then played with the image adjustments on the newer version and found that this new technique combined with the image colour adjustments seemed to make it look slightly better than the older version.

Our final problem to overcome was the amount of photos that we had to convert, which wouldn't be possible for us to recreate the same effect over an 800 image spread. So we took the idea of Macro's on Microsoft office and created a similar recreation in photoshop called actions. Jon had to adjust these settings many times to recreate the style correctly. Jon then played with the Batch Automation settings on photoshop while Rob, Jack and Jack N were splitting up the animation sections from Final Cut. The Batch Automation allowed us to allow Photoshop to executed an action on a batch of photos, so in our case our batch of 800 photos were able to be converted.

Our Animation Technique

Our initial idea of the animation was to draw individual frames of the animation and then use istopmotion to piece together the animation. Our biggest enemy for this style was time, as it would have taken around 30 mins for each photo to be sketched and with probably 12 frames a second for best part of a minute to sketch this would have taken a long time. The next idea was to use Photoshop to allow us to create the style of the sketchbook, as described below.

We began to test the idea by using some random images and seeing if we could import them into istopmotion for our animation. One problem that we found was that our images were 1920x1080 pixels and istopmotion could only handle 720x576 pixels, so this would make the animation a lower quality. We then decided to just import the images straight into photoshop.


Steps to editing our photo into animation in photoshop
1.Duplicate background layer
2.Then you invert mode grey scale
3.Filters - Blur - Gaussian Blur numbers 1-5
4.For tweaks you can use curves to change the particular areas' of intensity

We then used photoshop's inbuilt ability to record actions similar to macro's in office programmes. This automated the procedure above.





To apply this to multiple photos' we used the batch automation.

monday 12th oct

Today we are importing our video and preparing to do our animation using the istopmotion programme. We are comparing two techniques for our animation using photoshop the first one uses the charcoal filter using colour dodge as well and the second technique is a pencil sketch using blurs and colour adjustments.

Pencil Drawing Techniques

For our animation we were looking at various techniques for creating the sketchbook effect. The following effects researched by Rob, found a different technique to sketch the images through the use of photo editing software rather than hand drawn images. It was then just a case of varing amounts of filters and adjustments to create the a nice effect.

Rob's image:

Jon's image:

Test Footage

Here is some test footage that we used to check that the camera would work with final cut and to give use an idea of the locations for us to use.

Replies to the feeback made

We feel that we are pleased that our blog has received lots of good feedback however we feel that the improvements suggested are not all correct for example the feedback from t2-47 saying that we haven't included who the actors are but in fact we have and we do have the auteur research but we didn't post it in time.

Groups 45's analysis of group 44's blog.

Although the blog is very detailed and does include very useful information however the blog does slightly lack images, there are a few however they are quite simple and dull. We feel the blog would benefit from having more images and more colour.
GOOD LUCK BABE'S
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
:)

Feedback Group T2-47

• Good research on related bands/videos & how to use this in your own video/Digipack.
• Blog is up to date, and includes alot of information.
  
• Could add some information on an Auteur, a moodboard of ideas & more images to your blog.
• Do you have actors yet? & are you filming the balcony shots around college?
  

FEEDBACK

Hi we're group T2-48
There is lots of good, detailed work in this blog. There is a good balance of pictures and writing. To improve on the shot list sheet you could add more explanations to each shot to make the recording process a faster and more delightful experience. www.smouch.net/lol

ENJOY xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Feedback

Loads of information about the storyline and what it will end up like.

We particularly liked the trace of the picture. The ideas of this video are quite original in that sense, though you've found examples of animated videos before, you don't see a lot in the mainstream media scene.

Very impressed on being kept up to date on what you plan to do.

Good in depth points for each post ... posts/ progress regularly updated ....

Group T2-43

Feed Back From Q2-38

• Really like the progress updates so keeps the reader in the know.
• Good shots giving the reader an idea of what the video might be like.
• Clear, concise work up to date with story board etc.
  

Test photos part 2

Here are some various tree locations that we may use for part of the animation. We took a variety of shots so that we could use the tree(s) that appeared to fit our needs the best

Test photos part 1

These are test photos of stairways which we could trace the photos for our animation so it resembles the infamous balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.

Further DigiPack Ideas!

The album cover for Elton John's "the captain and the kid" shows a black grand piano outside in the glorious open countryside. The impact of the piano in this picture is a good use of showing what Elton John plays for his songs. It also sells the artist through him being in the cover. This cover of the album shows how to inform potential buyers or casual listeners that Elton John plays Piano, furthermore refers to who he is as the male on the horse is not looking at the camera, voyeurism which is used to show he is not too important in the shot.





The album cover for Five For Fighting's "two lights" album shows John Ondrasik with his upright piano, the shot is establishing because it presents to the audience who he is, what he plays and what nationality he is.
He presents himself to the audience via being in the shot, looking into the camera poseing sitting down in everyday clothes to give the impression he is a casual normal guy, it also goes with the piano rock format representing him in casual dress wear.
The upright piano behind him is old which might represent he has used it for a long time, this represents maybe he has been performing for a long time emphathising to the audience his experience with music.
Finally, his nationality is recognised through the use of the starry banner on top of the piano, it's folded up giving off a sign of respect for his country.

Inspiration for making

We looked into The White Stripes music video of "Fell in Love with a Girl"






The music video uses the effect of 'Pixelation' and lego blocks. Parts of this video were done in real time and recorded on camera which were then pixelated dramatically to keep with the feel.

soft rock genre

As a group we feel that our song Five for fighting song "Jainy" is a soft rock genre. The conventions of the soft rock genre normally focuses on everyday life, romance and relationships this is shown in Jainy as it's lyrics suggest that it is a love story and a man singing about his love for a woman "And she loves me more than she can tell" and "And I love her more than I can tell". Another convention of soft rock is that it relies heavily on acoustic guitars, pianos, and sometimes saxophones. Other soft rock musicians include Fleetwood mac, Elton John, Sting and James Taylor. The videos for this genre tend to include the main artist/band performing in there video here is a example of Elton John performance of "Your Song" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTa8U0Wa0q8. In this video it is simply Elton john performing the song on his piano and the use of colours is very simple to reflect the mood of the genre. Another example of a musician in the soft rock genre is Phil Collins where on his music video of Wake Up Call features a piece of animation at the beginning of the music video. It then goes into a video of the artist singing while walking around with an advert over him.

Recording Times & Pencil Software

We have asked the department responsible for the drama studio about times and have confirmed our times of recording.

Friday 9th October: 1.50 - 4.10

Monday 12th October: 12:25 - 1.50

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Also, we have explored different software pencil animation that could be useful for effect:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q26K2pYlkoI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4Xlyu9ZczY

These different types of software could help us make the pencil drawings look sharper and easier on the eye to view.

Storyboards, Timeline and Shotlist

Today we have finished our storyboards, timeline and shotlist.

Shot list:

Timeline:

Storyboards:

Progress Update

In this lesson we have managed to have completed the shot list and are just finishing thre story board at the moment! Some of our shots consist of ECU's CLs and a lot of use of animation! We hope to fill the animations with traced scenes of a story happening inside the song.

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We've confirmed our actor and actress to play the part of the artist, whilst also we have a female whom is part of the story:

Daniel Sparrow - The Artist
Jessica Barron - Actress

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Camera shots of the story board are currently being uploaded.

images of shots and props

This is a similar type of memory book that we are going to use in a narrative where we will zoom into picture that will lead into the animation of our music video showing a relationship between lyrics and visuals.

We have images of examples of shots that we are going to use within our music video.



This is a similar costume that our lead singer in our music video is going to be wearing, white unbuttoned shirt with black suit trousers.

Permission from artist

This is a screen shot of our group asking permission from five for fighting to use his song for our music video.