Hey Presto Introduction

As the start of the new module we have been assigned a new task which involves myself bringing up some of the techniques in multimedia that i have not used since my time at CCAD green lane. These techniques involve myself in charge of the animation for this piece of film. I am also the assigned Camera-op, starting firstly with Storyboards and research into the different varieties of animation then moving onto testing and applying these forms of media to the finished piece. One of the main questions that need to be asked at this moment of time is "What animation would be appropriate for this piece?". As well as "What would be practical & accomplish-able at this short amount of time?".

Some of the pieces of animation that i found easy enough to use and get control of are such varieties like "Cut-Out, Stop motion, Pixilation & 2D digital animation". I have practised with all of these forms animation and found them accessible, One of the only forms of animation i found difficulty with would have to be three dimensional digital animation, not only that but the time it would take to do this would be impractical.

As for the filming process I feel confident that this should not bite to much time into my animation process as i will need a certain amount of time with this. I have read the script and sat through a variety of the read through's. I have found no issues with the amount of scenes as the animation that is needed is minute in comparison to the filming itself. There may be some forms of difficulty with certain parts of the process for instance there is a scene that me and Janice have spoke about which involves a number of animated cockroaches to follow the sister up a pair of stairs, The difficulty here involves where the placement of the cockroaches would fit as i would probably need to film the scene first and then animate over the top but the number of cockroaches could be a problem but i will figure out a solution to this when the situation arises.

From here my research will be the main focus so i can piece together the jigsaw puzzle that is this multimedia film. I like the idea of the concept and was happy to put my self forward for this film, i am looking forward to what our group can achieve.

Music Video: test shoot

So here I was camera man for some of the rest shots that we shot on the day. We used a variety of props and lighting, as well as smoke and some of the class as extras so we could capture some filler shots. We did close ups of several boot shots, we did a few tracking shots and tried several attempts with different arrangements of balloons, glow-sticks and gels. Below are a few different shots that were took whilst filming showing the set up as well as some of the outcomes that were created with the tools used.

In this shot you can see the circular set up being created focusing on the center in which the props will be placed. We blacked out the background with the curtains to avoid any unwanted items in the shot.

In this shot you can see the colour's that were chosen giving a vibrant contrast adding to the 80's art pop aesthetic.

In this shot you are able to see some of the interesting effects formed by the collaboration of gels and smoke.

Here you can see an example of what some of the close up shots looked like, i personally really like this photo due to the various colours bouncing of the skates.

In this shot you can see the use of props, you will also notice that there is a makeshift logo for the band created out of glow-sticks. Though this was a great idea, it did not seem to pick up well on the camera even with the ND filter switched up.

Music Video: Pitch to client

So for this task we had to produce the final pitch that would be shown to the client which would go onto the following week which we would recieve feedback on exactly what we need to do and even if it came to it collaberate with other ideas that have been brought forth. Below is the link to the pitch itself that we presented.

Music Video: Introduction to Task

For the classes next task we were introduced to the idea of creating a music video for a client, we were told the name of the band, we also listened to the tracks we would be working off. From here we were split into teams, my team being "myself, Sarah, Beth, Jack & Janice". Our first task was to group together and find out and create a PowerPoint presentation on the theme of the band itself being "the 1980's". Our research was towards the political views and movements of the 80's, we were set this task to gain an insight on what exactly might work with the bands video corresponding with there interesting style of post modern pop.

Beth and Janice presented our piece of research very well and pulled up some interesting points that could give us some ideas of the design and aesthetic of the video. Our secondary objective was to think and plot the ideas down of the pitch we were to display in front of the class the same day. We had to create and note down the narrative (if any) and design of each individual song and pitch each one individually, some of the ideas I introduced was a girl set in the theme of the 1980's getting ready and making her way down the street in a vibrant and jazzy fashion. Whilst simultaneously a boy from this generation was doing the same but in the normal fashion full of up to date technology. The main idea here was to  focus more on visuals, with flashy graphics and a vibrant colour scheme. A few ideas I liked that I brought forward was the colour splashes of each step, the band playing on old fashioned TV's in a shop window and finally the band playing in the street at the end of the video. This idea was for the first song in the list which was "Hot City Nights", the second song was "Dance Floor" in which the focal point of this idea was from Janice.

The idea was to be focused around a roller disco, I thought that this fit extremely well with the theme of the song itself. Again this was to be based around the same kind of visual style and follow on from the narrative of the last in which the boy and girl are trying to connect at the roller disco resulting in choreographed dancing and skating tricks. A few ideas that popped out at me was the idea of using neon colours and UV lights to create some amazing visuals. I also enjoyed such ideas like the smoke on the skates but another idea i had was to do with coloured paint being sprung from every hit on the drums.

Our final idea was to do with the final song which was ran out of love, the focus for this was to shoot the scenes inside a kind of maze.  The idea for the narrative here was to show how the boy would be chasing the girl. We did find that our last two ideas were stronger but we did put this one fourth due to we had to have an idea for each song. The next week that followed would be a stronger pitch for all of these as we would be showing them to the client.

Music Video: Dance Floor Storyboards

So we got the feedback on the pitches and our group was selected to be out in place with the second song which is Dance Floor. Below is the storyboards I draw, I added some colour just to show exactly how the vibrancy of the shots might look like. 

Preparation: Me, Myself & I

Before i shot my film i decided to prepare my garage by going to B&Q and buying some matte black paint. I also bought a pack of rollers, so when i got back me and Andrew cracked on and painted the back walls and gave it a second coat. Once finished i began to make room for the lighting and camera equipment, i also found a problem as there was light breaking trough the door. So i then chose to get a dark towel and block out the light so i could capture a better image.

Overall i thought this was a good idea and it worked out well with no problems with light bouncing back off the walls though obviously we did have trouble with shadows of sorts. This really helped with my film and gave me a lot of time to shoot as i did not have a required time to leave.

Me, Myself & I shooting day no.1

So on Thursday i decided that i needed to start to shoot for my film. Yet i did want to shoot on the Wednesday as that was the best day as you can see from my weather report. But due to all the equipment being booked out i had to make do. So i started the day by getting all my equipment before hand and setting off to mine. Once we got to mine the first shot that took place was the out door scenes shot in front of my house. Establishing shot, tracking dolly shot & a few close ups were involved in this section of filming. Ethan was my Camera Op and Andrew was my Sound Op for this one which fared very well as they worked hard to achieve what i was asking of them.

So i moved on from here into the garage where i decided to shoot my scenes that were suppose to show my emotions and thoughts in my head with the lighting and other sorts. This went very well but did take a good amount of time which lead to the battery dying in which we decided to charge it up and head to Tesco for a break whilst it charged.
On our way back i told them the plan of action of what i had left to shoot. I contacted my actors that i would be using and was informed that they would not be ready until 4:30, so i decided to get the shots in my house that would lead to the end of the film leaving only there shots left to capture.

It hit 4:30 and to my annoyance they were 30 minutes late heading to five O'clock which was rather infuriating as the area became much darker than before which would clash causing continuity errors. But i went ahead and tried to get the best of what i could capture out of there time but suddenly as we began to set up on location it began to pour down with rain leaving me with no option but to pack up and re-schedule for another day to capture my final scenes.