Last summer I thought a lot about what I wanted to
do for my final major project this year. I wanted to produce something that
would showcase my strengths as well as challenge me in the process. I decided
quickly that my project would be heavily film and editing based. My passion in
this industry is editing, this is what I want to do when I graduate, and I also
thoroughly enjoy the production side of a project. As well as doing something I
am comfortable with, I also wanted to push myself and try and expand my
knowledge and skills in the visual effects side of things. This means there are
certain areas in my project where I will include compositing and subtle visual
effects.
I thought about what I enjoy and what influences me,
and began thinking about music and fashion. I decided that basing my project on
areas of the creative world that I am passionate about meant that the project
would be fun for me, and also made me more likely to produce something really
good. Once I had decided on these aspects, I began thinking about how I could
tie all the elements together into one piece.
After some further thought over a few days
I decided to create a motion editorial, as the main themes of this video style
are fashion and music. The inspiration for my project came from a motion
editorial I saw on the television show America’s
Next Top Model. A motion editorial is basically a fashion photo shoot but
in moving image. The girls would model and move around whilst the camera moved
around them. It enabled the producers to create a story as well as show off the
clothes and the beauty of the models.
I decided I would take the motion editorial
I had seen and twist it to fit into a different style. The style I selected for
my video is a gothic, dramatic style. This decision was inspired by the music I
featured in the video. Music is another area that I am really interested in, so
I want the music track I use in my video to be a key part. The track I used is
‘High For This’ by The Weeknd. I really
like the song and it has the dramatic and eerie feel that I wanted for my
piece, as well as lyrics that tell a story that I can work with. Instead of using
just this one song I joined it together with another, Rihanna’s ‘Mad House’. The beginning of this track
really sets the mood for my video, so I thought it would be really affective to
add onto the front of the main audio track.
I want to accompany the eerie feel of the
music with some interesting and well-executed visual effects. When looking at
imagery to create my moodboard (Figure 1), I began to see how much influence
eyes can have on the feel of visuals. I instantly thought of the enlarged eyes
that are used on Johnny Depp in ‘Alice
and Wonderland’ and on Lady Gaga in her video for ‘Bad Romance’. I knew that
with some help I would be able to recreate this enlarged eye visual effect on a
shot in my own work. I really hoped I would be able to execute the effect well
as I think it would definitely add something extra special to my project.
I feel that by creating a video that
incorporates fashion and current music I could create something that fits
easily into today’s market, be it fashion PR or music videos. There are many
music videos around at the moment that evoke the emotion and theme that my
motion editorial has. For example, ‘Disturbia’
by Rihanna is a very dark and dramatic music video that features dark costume
and make up and visual effects that create a disturbing piece overall. Lady
Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’ is another
example, as her styling is dramatic and the visual effects used to create her
enlarged eyes adds an eerie and strange twist to the visuals. A third example
is a video from Little Mix. The video for their single ‘DNA’ has a dark feel, featuring a black stormy sky and dramatic
costume and make up. I thought that by creating something current, I would give
myself an advantage when showing my showreel to prospective employers as they
will be able to easily see my visual style and will hopefully be able to see
how my work and skills will fit into the industry today.
I began my pre production work by looking
at and documenting the videos and imagery that I have previously mentioned.
Once I had a clear idea in my head of what emotions I wanted to portray I began
putting together my moodboard. I decided I wanted to do this by hand rather
than a digital photomontage because I feel like the more creative I can be in
this project the better. It also meant I could swap and change images around
until I had a moodboard I felt represents the mood and emotion I wanted to
create. While I was thinking of the dark theme for the video in the initial
stages, I was also thinking about the kind of fashion I wanted to include,
because after all, the look of the girls is the most important thing in a fashion
motion editorial. I decided it would be a nice idea to contrast the fashion
with the mood of the video. Therefore I began looking for images of clothes in
soft, floaty materials in cream, white and pinks. I also took photographs of
clothing of my own that I felt fitted the look I was going for, although I did
not want to use my own clothing in the video as at the time I was unsure as to
whether I was going to rip or muddy the clothing on set. Once I had collected
all of the clothing images together, I put them onto my moodboard as well as
creating a post for them on my blog.
The next step was to turn my attention to
the music. I knew that I had to get all the timings right before I began
thinking about my storyboard. I went through the track and noted keys points in
the song, e.g. when the first song ends and the second one begins, when each
verse and chorus starts and finishes and when important words and notes are
played that I want to highlight and play on with the visuals. Doing this meant
it was easier to plan out the shots and create my storyboard and also helped me
recognise I would need to use four actresses in the video because of how the
verses and chorus’s are broken up.
After I had broken down the song, I began
working on the storyboard (Figure 2). I made a loose breakdown of what shots I
know I want to include and when each girl is introduced. When I had more of a
clear idea in my head I drew out the storyboard, first just a rough copy so I
knew how many shots I would be doing, and then I drew up a neat, presentable
copy. After the storyboard was finished I used the frames to produce an
animatic. I have always found that creating an animatic makes things so much
easier and really helps you to envisage how your film will work. It helped me to
make sure my shots worked together and to highlight which shots would be the
most difficult to film and edit together. Having my animatic made me feel so
much more confident about going out and shooting my video, as I already knew
exactly what shots I needed to film. This definitely made the shoot more
efficient and hopefully made my actresses and myself feel more comfortable. The
animatic was also really helpful when it came to editing, as I was able to
follow it and know exactly where every shot went in relation to the music.
While I was working on the plans for the
shoot, I was also working on trying to secure my actresses. In past projects in
the first two years I have used my friends and course mates in my projects and
although we aren’t marked on the quality of the acting in our pieces, I wanted
my final piece to look as professional as possible. This includes real
actresses. Luckily a friend of mine is a lecturer in the drama department at
the university, and he was nice enough to post an advert to all of the students
on the drama courses. Within two days of the advert being posted I was
inundated with offers and had found my girls.
At this point I was ready to go out and
take some location photographs (Figure 3). From very early on I had a good idea
of where I wanted to shoot the majority of the video. I knew there was a good
area in the city centre near to where my brother lives, so I went down there
and took some photos of 3 areas in that location that I was going to use for
three of the girls shoots. Again I added these to my blog. After another week
of searching for the fourth location, I came across an area close to the other
locations that I thought would be perfect. It had the stairs that featured in
my storyboard and also had a skate park that I could film on as well. I also
needed a location to film a good shot of the city. I was aware of one place I
could shoot but many people have used it in projects over the last couple of
years and I wanted to find something a bit different if possible. However as
time went on and shoots got pushed back I realised I wasn’t going to find a
better location, so decided I would use it.
The last stage in my pre production that
needed to be worked out before I could shoot was the costume, hair and makeup
(Figures 4,5,6). How the girls looked in the video was hugely important and I
wanted to make sure everything was planned out so on filming day I would be
able to style my actresses quickly and well. I used some of the images on my
moodboard as inspiration when I started to plan the make up. I needed to create
four make up looks, one for each girl, and wanted every one to be different. I
used my own make up and used myself as the model to practice the make up looks
on. When I had completed four make up looks that I was happy with, I
photographed myself and added the photos to my blog. The majority of the makeup
looks did change during the shoots, as some looks didn’t look as good on the
models, or I was unable to recreate the look aswell. I improvised a little at
times and made them up just as nicely, but a bit different.
Next were the hairstyles. I wanted to
create something a little unusual, as this would go with the theme of the
piece, but would also look nice and ‘model like’. I found four hairstyles
online that I liked and more importantly, could recreate myself and used my
friend as the model to practice each style. Like with the make up looks, I
photographed each hairstyle from 3 different angles and added the photos to my
blog. Again some of these hairstyles changed on set, due to the style of some
of the models hair, it made it more tricky to produce the same results.
Lastly I went on a hunt to find the
costumes. I had decided I would look in charity shops for the outfits because,
even though I have a lot of clothes that fit the style I was going for, I may have
wanted to rip or dirty the clothes on set to fit in more with the theme.
Therefore charity shops seemed like the best option. There is a place near to
where I live that has a large number of charity shops so I headed there. I
found everything I needed to create 4 outfits in the sizes I needed from 2
charity shops. I was really pleased and surprised with some of the items I
managed to find for only a couple of pounds each. Once the shoot was finished
and I was satisfied that I wouldn’t need to do any reshooting, I donated them
back to the charity shops, helping them to make more money for the charities.
With almost everything planned and
completed for the shoot, there was just a couple of things left to do before
the shooting days came along. I completed a health and safety form using
Parashoot, which was moderated and signed off by my tutor. I also booked the
equipment for the first shoot using the university booking system connect2, and
I spoke with all of my girls through our Facebook group to let them know times,
places and anything they need to bring with them for the shoot, including
jumpers, coats and umbrellas, as they were told that the shoot would still go
ahead even if it was raining. Obviously if the weather was torrential the girls
wouldn’t be expected to stand out in the rain. It is important that the safety
and the health of anyone we use in any of our projects comes first.
Before the first shoot had taken place I
was let down by on the girls who had not only agreed, but asked to be a part of
my project. I was a little bit upset and panicking that I was now down an
actress. Luckily one of my friends said she would help and take the place of
the fourth girl. Although my friend isn’t an actress or a model, I was grateful
for the help. It was defiantly something I have learned from and in future will
be a little bit more guarded when it comes to working with people that I don’t
know. I will also when possibly have a backup plan if someone does drop out.
But with this problem quickly sorted I was looking ahead to the first scheduled
shoot with my course mate Rihannon.
The first filming day went really well. I
had all of my planning with me including the music track and storyboard. Having
both of these things made the shoot a lot easier for myself and for Rihannon. I
was able to refer to the shots and show them to Rihannon as examples of what I
wanted her to do. I realised that being a director is a very difficult job.
Being able to convey to another person the thoughts and the image that you have
in your head is quite a skill, and something I thought I improved on throughout
the filming of this project.
Unfortunately, this shoot was the only one
that went smoothly and as planned. From that day, each of my shoots with the
other girls were cancelled due to bad weather. The second shoot that was
planned for both Moureen and Devon was cancelled due to black ice that
seemingly covered the whole of Sheffield. This meant that the rest of the
filming was going to be pushed back to early January. I was really disappointed
because I had been following my project plan so well up until that point and
really wanted to have all of my footage shot before the Christmas holidays.
However, there was nothing I could do about the weather situation and although
I was disappointed, I was confident that I could reorganise myself and still
have plenty of time to finish my project.
In early January I had rescheduled the
cancelled shoots, but severe snow hit the country and I had to cancel again! I
was beginning to feel really disheartened, almost as if Mother Nature was
against me! I played around with test shots and editing the footage I already
had to keep up my spirits and confidence in my project. By this point we had
all returned to university classes, so I knew that trying to organise the
shoots would be more difficult, having to work around my timetable and the
girls timetables. While I was trying to organise these shoots I decided I would
film the opening scene of the video, the cityscape of Sheffield. I booked out
the Canon XF100 and wide angled lens, and tripod that I was going to use to
shoot all of the footage, and headed up to the location. Although it was only a
small quick shoot, it felt better to have a bit more useable footage under my
belt.
A couple of days later I managed to get my
second shoot done with Moureen. I was really grateful to her for sticking with
me and doing the shoot. After all she didn’t owe me anything and had been
cancelled on many times. I had been starting to wonder if it would have been
better to use friends, as I felt so guilty for all of the problems I had had
with the weather. But after seeing her performance in front of the camera I
knew I had made the right decision in looking for really actresses. She gave a
really good performance, so good infact that after looking at my timings, I
changed her section with one of the other girls so that she had longer
onscreen. I was really looking forward to editing her footage and using it in
my project.
Because I was behind schedule I decided I
would edit and colour grade as I went along rather than waiting until I had all
of the footage. I used Adobe Premiere Pro for the basic editing and then moved
all of the clips into Adobe After Effects for the colour grading. As I thought
my storyboard and animatic really helped with the editing. I knew exactly what
I was looking for when I went through the footage and managed to edit the final
clips together fairly quickly. I was pleased with myself for the work I had
done in the first semester on the pre production side, as now it was making my
life a little easier. With regards to the colour grading, I knew what look I
was going for so it was just a case of playing around with the settings until I
found the muted navy blue grade I wanted (Figure 7). I wanted the footage to be
quite dark in order to reflect the mood of the piece but I knew I wanted it to
be more than black and white. I still wanted some of the colour to come
through, so I used the vibrancy setting to turn down the colours.
With the footage I had edited and graded it
was time for another shoot. Luckily the weather seemed to have calmed down a
bit towards the end of February so the shoot with Devon was organised and the
date maintained. I shot Devon in an underpass near to where my brother lives,
as mentioned earlier. The location was exactly what I wanted, but also caused
the only problem we had on the shoot and that was the public. Although it was a
weekday morning an there weren’t a lot of people around, we still had to stop
filming a couple of times when people walked into the underpass at the opposite
end, and into the shot. This is something we’ve had to deal with since our
first year at university and isn’t really something that can be helped. I was
not willing to change a perfect location and compromise my project just to make
things a little less difficult. Luckily it was the only slight hindrance and
just like Moureen’s shoot, shooting with Devon was easy and efficient and I got
some great footage.
With three of my four girls filmed, I just
had to arrange the last shoot with my friend. However when I got in touch with
her to arrange the shoot, she said that she didn’t have the time anymore and
wasn’t going to be able to help me. I was really quite angry as this was the
second time I had been let down and time was running out to film. I asked
Moureen and Devon to ask around on their drama courses if anyone who fit the
part wanted to do it, but unfortunately they didn’t find anyone. I wasn’t
surprised about this as it was coming up to the time when people were getting
busier as we all headed towards deadlines. Therefore I decided I would fill the
role myself. I have acted before, in past university projects and as part of a
drama group, so I was fairly comfortable being in front of the camera. I also
thought that at this point it was easier for me to do it, as I knew exactly
what I was looking for in the modeling so I knew the shoot would be quick and
easy. I asked my course mate Nisha to be the camera operator for my shoot and
thankfully she agreed, so we arranged the shoot for a few days later.
The day of my shoot was dull and rainy, but
I didn’t have a problem with light rain because I thought that it would only
add to the mood of the piece. I did my hair and makeup and we set off towards
the location. I had previously decided that I wanted to change the fourth
location, and I had a general idea of the area I wanted to film in, but not an
exact spot. We headed towards an abandoned nightclub a short walk away from the
university and found an alleyway with a graffitied wall that served as a good
backdrop (Figure 8). It was freezing and raining harder so the shoot was done
as quickly as possible. However when I looked back at the footage we had shot,
I was really unhappy with it. When I was infront of the camera I thought that I
had exaggerated my movements and facial expressions quite a lot, but that did
not come across on camera. I was also unhappy with how I looked and, although
that seems vain, I didn’t want to end up disliking my final piece because of
how I looked in it and I had worked so hard on the piece that I really wanted
to be proud of the final result. Because of this I decided to reshoot my
footage.
The shoot was rearranged for the day before
we broke up for the Easter holidays, but when I came to book the equipment I
learned that the university equipment stores was closing early and I would not
be able to get any equipment out. I was really annoyed that we hadn’t been
informed about this, and that as third year students we weren’t allowed to use
the equipment over Easter, a really useful period of time for getting work
done. However there wasn’t anything I could do about it so I decided I would
spend the holidays working on the visual effects in my piece and getting
everything together so that when I had my last piece of footage I could just
slip it in to the finish composition. This is something that I guess will come
up quite a lot in this industry, not having access to the equipment you need
when you need it. Being able to problem solve and switch plans around to avoid
losing time is something that I feel is really important and that I am quite
good at.
Over Easter I produced the split screens
for my video, the warp effect at the beginning of the video and the eye
enlargement for the end of the video (Figures 9, 10, 11). I produced the split
screens in After Effects, which were really simple to do. I had already decided
what shots were going to be in each scene in my storyboard, so all that I had
to do was to but them together. There was a slight difference between the scene
in my storyboard and the final scenes in that the splits are all vertical or a
cross, as apposed to the diagonal splits on the storyboard. This was because
splitting the shots with a diagonal line more often than not cut the majority
of the girl’s faces/bodies out of the picture. I decided in the end it would be
much simpler to use vertical lines. The only time I needed to play around a
little with the split screens was in a scene where I used a panning shot so in
order to keep the model in her side of the scene, I had to key frame the shot
to move in the opposite direction to the pan. When I had all of the shots in
place, I separated them with a thin black line which I felt finished off the
shot.
The warp effect on the cityscape shot at
the very beginning of the video was fairly simple to do as well. I used a warp mesh
in After Effects. Warping the shot just required taking the points on the mesh
grid and pulling and pushing them to pull/push the picture out of shape. Then
using key frames I warped the shot at three different points in the scene,
which then needed lining up with the audio so that the scene warped at exactly
the right time. This was the trickiest bit of this effect, but didn’t cause me
too many problems and I really liked the finish result.
The most difficult effect I was attempting
for this project was the eye enlargement. At certain points throughout the
project I thought about leaving it out, but I really didn’t want to feel like I
had taken the easy option and not challenged myself to learn something new. I
thought that I had nothing to lose by attempting it, and if I couldn’t do it, I
could leave it out of my project without much disruption to the rest of the
piece. Before we had broken up for Easter I spoke to my course mate Brad who had
an idea of a technique I could try to create this effect, so this was the
technique I was using. I created the effect in After Effects. I used the original
footage, two duplicate layers and two null objects (one duplicate and null for
each eye). I then ran tracks that were attached to the null layers and ran a
stabiliser track on the duplicate layers. The duplicate layers were then pre-comped
so I could mask out the eyes. The layers were then pre-comped again, parented
to the null layers with the tracks on them and the eyes were enlarged and put
into place. When I played the footage, the eyes were perfect and didn’t move
out of place at all. I was over the moon with the results and was so happy that
I had successfully created something quite difficult.
At this point I was feeling really good
about my project and was ready to start building the final clips together,
ready for the last piece of footage and then the final render. Putting the
final comp together was quick and easy as I referred back to my storyboard and
animatic again.
The first morning back at university was
the final shoot of my final major project. I had corrected the mistakes of the
previous shoot regarding hair, makeup and costume and the weather was
considerably better. I knew that I needed to exaggerate more in my acting and
Nisha, who had kindly agreed to help me again knew to be more critical of the
footage, as neither of us were prepared to reshoot for a second time. When I
looked at the new footage, I was one hundred times happier than the first time
and quickly edited and colour graded the final shots. These were then slipped
into place in the final comp.
When I'd done this I found there was a twelve second
gap near the beginning of the video, at the end of a clip that I decided to change
during filming. This clip was the montage of the different things around the
locations I was shooting in. I decided to change this because of time
constraints and instead made a split screen montage of a really nice wall of
graffiti that I had shot during the first shoot at the skate park. I tried
slowing the clip down to half speed to fill the gap, but the footage looked
really jerky and not good at half speed. I therefore went back to the After
Effects comp and changed the editing of the footage around so that it was twenty-nine
seconds long instead of seventeen seconds long. I did this by adding more split
screens to make the time it took to get through them longer.
Once I'd filled the gap I had to render the video
out so that I could watch it from beginning to end without it lagging or
stopping. When I watched it through there were a few things that needed
changing, so I went back and changed them and then rendered the final piece out
again.
When I looked at the file size of the video when using
an H.264 codec it was very large at 5.95GB. I spoke with a tutor who
recommended I try adjusting the quality of the render and finding a compromise
on quality and size. I started with 50% quality and that rendered out at under
2GB, and the quality wasn't too different. I eventually settled on 80% quality,
which wasn't much different to 100% quality, but was only 2.4GB.
When I spoke to my tutor he also showed me a
document about formatting for hand in. We needed to hand in two versions at two
different codecs and sizes, and we also needed to include the university logo
at the end of our work, showing that they have permission to use our work in
the future. Once I had put these in place I rendered out the master copy and
viewing copy to hand in.
When I look back at my project, at what I
wanted to achieve in the beginning compared to the finished article, I have
mixed feelings. There are many aspects of my project that I am immensely proud
of, for example the eye enlargement and the quality of the footage. I think
that sometimes at the beginning of projects I have ideas of what I would
ideally like to produce, but there’s always a realistic voice in the back of my
mind reminding me of the skills I already have and how far I am capable of
stretching those skills. I would say that I am confident in my abilities in
that I am a fast learner and naturally quite intelligent, but I am well aware
that although I am creative and do have some talent in this industry, I am not
the most naturally gifted person, especially when it comes to visual effects.
Therefore when I am able to learn new skills and to produce something of a
fairly high standard, I am really proud of that. On the other hand, there are
some things that I planned to do in this project that have been changed over
the course of the project, due to timing and honestly, to make certain things a
little bit easier for myself. I think if I was going to redo this project, the
few things that I would change would be to not give up and change ideas so
quickly, but to persevere and try to complete the original tasks, although I am
well aware that ideas develop and changes often occur during a project. I would
also try and be a bit more confident in my skills in visual effects and to try
and use a few more in the video because although I want to go into editing
after I graduate, it’s always nice if you can demonstrate skills in other areas
of the industry. I am pleased that I used actresses from the drama courses in
my final project, I just wish that I had not been let down twice, leaving me to
step in. Although this was probably the biggest problem with this project (that
and the weather) there was nothing I could have really done differently with
the situations I was in. I am pleased that I reacted efficiently and managed to
lessen the disruption as much as possible. My planning was also something I was
really pleased with. I am an extremely organised person and plan everything and
more importantly, try and stick to the plan (Figure 12). I think being
organised is something that has always and will always serve me well in this
industry, as time management is crucial when working on a project.
In conclusion, I have really loved working
on a full year project. It has allowed me to concentrate on the details, from
pre production planning, production and post, and create something really well
thought out and executed. I am looking forward to putting this project onto my
website and showing it at the exhibition, and doing the same thing again next
year in the MArt.
Since finding out that the MArt project
will be an extension of this years project, I have been thinking about what I
want to do for the next major project. I decided the common link between the
two projects will be the theme of fashion. I also decided that I wanted to push
myself even further next year and include much more visual effects in the MArt
piece. My favorite area of visual effects is probable Chroma keying, so I
started thinking about how I could tie fashion, visual effects and a green
screen together to make a project. After some thought and some research online
I decided I would create a one to one and a half minute runway video featuring
one model who’s clothes change throughout the video, as well as the background
changing too. The background plates will also be created by myself, but I have
not yet decided whether these will be filmed or composited and created in After
Effects. I will again try and scout outside help to feature in my video,
although this time I will look in the fashion department instead of the drama
department. I will try and protect myself from people dropping out by ensuring
that they are one hundred percent committed to the project, but there will
always be a risk when using outside help, it’s just a risk I will have to take
in order to find someone professional. I think the biggest lesson I will take
with me into next years project will be to repeat what I have done this year in
terms of organisation and planning, as this was successful this year. And also
to shoot indoors!
References
Americas
Next Top Model- ‘Modelli
Folli’ Cycle 15 Motion Editorial, found online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVIEIuPm_ns
The
Weeknd- ‘High
For This’ found online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDe86ul6RmI
Rihanna- ‘Mad House’ found online
at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYW14f7gwII
Burton,
Tim & Wolverton, Linda (2010) ‘Alice in Wonderland’
‘Johnny
Depp changing into The Mad Hatter’ found online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48CzYuYZO5Y&list=PLF139E1A994C8FB2E
Lady
Gaga- ‘Bad Romance’
found online at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I
Little
Mix- ‘DNA’ found
online at:
Appendix
Figure
1- Moodboard
Figure
2- Storyboard
Figure
3- Locations
Figure
4- Hair Styles
Figure
5- Makeup Looks
Figure
6- Costumes
Figure
7- Colour Grading
Figure
8- Graffiti Backdrop
Figure
9- Warp effect
Figure
10- Split Screen
Figure
11- Eye Enlargement effect
Figure
12- Gant Chart
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