Final version of Aeroplanes and Neon Lights

animatic vs final shots 2

here are some more examples of the animatic compared to the real shots.

animatic vs final shots

here are some shots of the animatic compared to the real shots. i like how similar they are to our plans in the animatic.

Screen Shots from final music video on youtube

screen shot of final cut project

This is our Screen shot of our Final cut program.
as you can see we used more than 3 lines to place our scenes in order to make the best editing as possible and it made it easier for us to move the scenes around.
We also included animation as it was part of our video. The only sound we used was from the original music track, we didn't think it was necessary to use diegetic-sound as we were illustrating other thoughts with images and animation. its good because it shows how many different shots we used.

Feedback to other groups...

Once completed, we viewed all the music videos from our class. most of them were were not narrative based videos, many held simple ideas, we thought this was a good idea as many music videos are like this so they can stand re watching. groups 43 and 46 did this in particular. Each group clearly approached this project in a different way, some focused on lip syncing (almost exclusively) whilst others, such as group 48 did none, but had musical sync ups. our video was narrative based but we referenced the song in other ways, such as our timed speech bubble.

We are pleased that our idea stands out against the others. ours was the only linear narrative based music video. it was our aim to create a video that looked unique and different and we think we achieved this. it was aimed for our own age group, ranging for teenagers and we think we also reached this target audience because it is sinister and wacky and suits this age group with the wierd, comic based theme.

Feedback to our complete

We have received some feedback about our music video from the class, who appeared quite pleased with the music video results.

Good effort with the animation - clever tenticle
well thought camerawork which merged well with the animation movement.
clever how drawings blended into real life footage.
clever narrative - good twist at end, realised how he wasn't real.
the atmosphere and tone matched with the weird song.
cool ideas - eg bat with bring it on. This repeats through out the song with the book etc.
good blandness of the character.
narrative holds it all together

Constructive Criticism: Some shots held too long. (This was due to unsuccessful animation not being put into the shot.)

Animations

Here are some animations we have created and placed in the video both created by Loren

Sketchy frames

We have done some more sketch themed still frames using Photoshop and put the coloured photos into black and white then used a artistic filter called coloured pencil. This is how we managed to create these effects and produce a sketchy look. We also during this week have created more animation in Istopmotion, and put them onto our timeline, to add more effectiveness to our video.






How we created the sketchy look.

• Capture still shot in final cut of picture you want to look like this
  

• Photoshop
• Open a photo
• 
• Play around with the settings for the right look.
  
  
  
  
  

Doing Extra

On the Monday before half term Loren and Gaby stayed in school till late to get some extra work on the music video done. It was helpful because it meant we had more done by next lesson.

Also, now that our music video is taking more shape, we have thought of an extra small idea that would help continue the theme of art become real life by remind the audiance that the comic is being drawn throughout the story. We're doing this by collecting still shots and editing them on photo shop to look drawn, and then merging them with the real life footage on Final cut. so it looks like it will be transforming from sketch to real-life.

Here are some examples of the edited still frames , i have done on photoshop, ( however my photoshop is simply photoshop element, and doesnt have as good effects as the ones on the macs at school so i think I will try out more effects on the macs at school ):

2D animation

Animation using tracing paper. This is how Loren was drawing the tentacle, and how the animation comes together at the end.

Using 2-D animation for all the pieces would take an incredibly long time, so Loren only plans to use 2-D animation for the more intricate and detailed pieces of animation that need to be quite smooth and flow well. (the tenticle at the bottom of the stairs is a good example of this). Starting the 2-D way is easier to see how the overall movement of the animation piece will look, you then have to scan each frame onto the computer, where you can easily quickly colour them and place them onto separate layers on Photoshop to then save into a moving animation on a GIF file. Gabby has experience on Flash which will be increibly useful for creating the simpler animations such as the clock and missile.

rough cut feedback.

After last lesson we had to stop editing no matter how far we were and show our work so far to the rest of the class. to enable us to edit more efficiently we placed our full animatic under our final footage, this unfortunately caused some confusion amongst our class mates, who mistook it for the actual footage.

Positive feedback
44'drawings are really good, detailed'
43 'good concept'
48 'good drawing'
47 'good drawing and editing so far'

Area's for improvements
44 'you can hear the track from the when you filmed in the background'
43 ' you need to manage your time better, you might run out of time'
48 ' do all in animation'
47 ' use either real life or animation, not both'

Over all we appreciated the rest of our class taking the time to look over our footage, however it would've been more beneficial all round if we had the chance to show more of our footage put together, to prevent them getting confused and presuming that this was how the music video was going to look. This way they would have noticed more of the footage that we have captured, which has yet to be placed in order etc.

Capturing the Footage

This weekend we all got together to capture the footage for our music video. However, the camera we were given caused some trouble for us and we struggled to capture all the footage as easily as we had hoped. The battery kept on running out far too quickly so we could only film on 10-15 minute intervals max, we then had to charged it for an hour before we could use it again. this meant that the time we had to film was largely reduced and seeing as we only had this one day to film, it caused us not to get all the footage captured on the day and less variety of shots. The battery was also not holding properly in the camera, causing the camera to constantly turn itself on and off and therefore capturing long shots or different shots of the entire song being sung was impossible without the camera failing on us.
To complicate things further, the camera was not equipped with a foot so using the tripod for steady footage was out of the equation and the zoom was also broken, not allowing us to zoom in very far without the lens immediately zooming back out. So we were unable to hold the lens at a certain distance or capture smooth footage.

Overall the footage we captured was ok, but we are really disappointed that we weren't able to work to the best of our ability and we are also worried that it will greatly effect the editing and our marks of the completed video. We will do our best to work with what we have though, but we know that not having all shots will cause our detailed shot list and music video plot to be affected.

Animatic Version 2

Here is our final animatic of the full song. We will rely on this for when we film and it will be really helpful. We are very pleased that the music video plot looks successful just as an animatic.

Loren drew the animatic and merged it on final cut and edited it from the previous version because we realised how many more shots were needed compared to professional music videos.

Roger Rabbit Movie Trailer

This is an example of how our music video is going to have both elements of animation and real-life. Our animation characters will vary and it will appear from real-life prop and location.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG37ysSqgq8
look at the link because the embedding has been disabled.

Feedback for the blog

This is the feedback taken by other students of the same project in our class:

1) Types of posts they think its missing- need more shot lists, better animatic.
2) Evidence of research- you can tell that the research its been done b y looking at the animated video from A-HA
3) Will the visual effects will be successful- YES, with a huge amount of effort, it will be very good at the end.
4)Overall assessment- LEVEL 3: Proficient planning 20 marks!!!

Reply from Kid Harpoon

preperation

Genre Conventions

Our artist Kid Harpoon defines himself as lyrical/Alternative. This is not too difficult as many contemporary artists define themselves as this today. Wikipedia defines it as: Alternative (also called alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative; known primarily in the UK as indie) is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s. The term "alternative" was coined in the 1980s to describe punk rock-inspired bands on independent record label that did not fit into the mainstream genres of the time.
We will create our video with this in mind, which is why we think our mixture of animation and real footage is so effective, we will also be able to follow some of the more conventional and traditional elements of a video such as lots of shots with the artist (or in our case actor) and the images highlighting the unusual lyrics thus promoting the song whist giving the impression of going against commercialism, which this artist and his fans clearly values.

Performance/ Lip sync.

Before choosing our actor we asked him to show us if he would be able to lip-sync convincingly in our video, luckily he was sufficiant and is practising with Caitlin to improve. We are teaching him instead of finding someone who has more skill as he general apearance and natural attitude fits with the character in the song. We practiced our lip syncing with Caitlin and posted it on the blog, so our actor could get more of a feel of his task.

Camera work

whist thinking about our camera work, we decided to look at previous Kid Harpoon videos to see if their was a clear style, and if it would be appropriate for our video, we noticed it used a lot of long still shots, then contrasted them with sudden close ups and broken up with angle changes. we thought the bases of this (the unique contrast) would be appropritat with our video but we decided that a lot more moving shots would 'go' with the the song better, as their are few location changes and a lot of camera movement would give the feeling of being trapped and unable to get out as this song so strongly places empasise on.

Editing

Obviously, when editing caitlin and I will have more of a task because we have to edit in all the animation gabby and lauren will produce, in addition to all the standard footage cutting and lip syncing. We plan to use a veriaty of quick cuts and slow fades depending on the tone of lyrics, if it is a line such as 'whenyou know damn well you will survive' it will have a quick cut to the next shot, however when there's a line like 'its a few years on, and i'm still inside' we'll have a slow fade. we feel this interesting mix will add to the unique look of the video, and not solely rely on the animation for uniquity.

Shooting Schedule

When:
we will have the camera from 3rd - 5th October during this time we will shoot all our real life footage, our actor is avalable thoughout this period and Lauren is able to do alot of the filming with us on the friday night and the rest of the group will complete the remainder on the saturday.

Where:
We will film at Caitlin house and surrounding area including local streets. We will be shooting in these limited areas to reinforce the songs feeling of detachment from society.

What:
Primarily focused in a bedroom, as its a perfect example of the feelings of isolation within the song.

Backup plans:
We have a back up location of daisy's house, which doesn't have everything we wanted but close enough if necessary.

Prop List.

• Baseball bat - Gabby/Daisy
  
• Sketchbook - Loren
  
• Posters - Caitlin
  
• Clock
• Flour
• Book
• Newspaper
• Chair
• Pencil
• Bed
• Window

lip syncing practice

This is our lip syncing practice, we could not use our actor in this due to camera constraints, however we know our actor can mime well, and we have sufficiently practiced our editing so I'm confident we will still be able to make our video to the best of our ability.

Test animation footage

This is our tester animation. In our opinion it was successful, and it allowed us to learn new skills.

• Animation on top
• Footage on bottom
• Effects - Video Filters
• Key - Colour Key
• Select colour using the Pipet
• View - Final
• Tolerance 38
• Edge thin -13
• Edge feather 4
  

A-Ha Take on me music video

We have just found this music video by A-Ha which shows real life and animation which collides and is an inspiration to our video as we wish to have those two things together.

Animatic feedback

• We have looked at another animatic (The Gorillaz) which we have already posted on our blog. We found that it had 27 shots in the first minute compared to our 10 so we have descided to re-vamp our animatic and we feel this will make our music video a lot better and give us a real idea of our shots needed and what we will be creating.
• Loren and Gabby are adding more shots into the animatic which we will post up shortly.
  

Music Video Animatic

This is the first minute of our animatic, when we were creating this we decided that lauren and gabby would draw it, and caitlin and i would upload the images and edit them to the track, this worked well as it played to the groups strengths.

Storyboard Shots

These are the description of each shot of the storyboard:

Shot_1: a tracking shot thoough to the characters bedrood
shot_2: a close up of a hand picking up a pencil
shot_3: a close up of the hand drawing
shot_4: zooming into the artist drawing, over the shoulder
shot_5: a close up of the artist drawing someone lying on a bed, this will then fade into the actual feet of our actor
shot_6: a close up of our actor lying on his bed, taken from his feet this will become a pan over his feet
shot_7: a long shot of the actor laying on the bed, this will zoom in on him
shot_8: an extreme close up of his face
shot_9: a POV shot of the celing
shot_10: a mid shot of the character sitting on his bed
shot_11: a long shot of of the character pacing around his room
shot_12: a close up of his face, looking depressed
shot_13: a panning shot of the whole room
shot_14: a close up shot of drugs of a desk, which will pan across to see him walking past
shot_15: a close up of the back of his head as he stares from the window
shot_16: a close up shot of him staring from the window, thought the window
shot_17: an extreme close up of him rubbing his nose
shot_18: a POV shot of the street below
shot_19: a mid shot of him sitting down though the window
shot_20: a POV shot of the street below
shot_21: a close up though the window of him with his hands pressed against the glass
shot_22: a POV shot of the street below
shot_23: a mid shot of a hedge
shot_24: a high angle shot from under neith a car
shot_25: a long shot of clouds
shot_26: a long shot of an airoplane
shot_27: a mid shot of him by the window
shot_28: a mid shot of the back of him looking from the window
shot_29: a mid shot of him though the window
shot_30: a mid shot of the clock
shot_31: a close up of him looking confused at the clock
shot_32: a mid shot of the clock
shot_33: a close up of him looking angry at the clock
shot_34: a close up of him hitting a book with ihs boot
shot_35: a close up of him looking down
shot_36: a long shot of him picking up the book
shot_37: a mid shot of him flicking though book pages
shot_38: a close up of a blank book
shot_39: a mid shot of him throughing the book over his shoulder
shot_40: a mid shot of book landing on floor
shot_41: a long shot of bedroom
shot_42: a close up of him looking scared
shot_43: an extreme close up of his mouth
shot_44:long shot over shoulder -missiles appear.
shot_45: long low angle - him running from room
shot_46: mid shot character looking down stairs high angle.
shot_47: mid zoom in down stairs.
shot_48: reaction shot-suprise
shot_49: longshot - running from the stairs to the bedroom.
shot_50: close up of his hand closing the door.
shot_51:close up of grabbingthe baseball bat.
shot_52: long shot of him sitting in the chair.
shot_53: mid shot of him holding the baseball bat in chair
shot_54: Extreme close up of him gripping the bat
shot_55: zooming out of him scrunched up on chair
shot_56: close up of comic writing
shot_57: a close up of loren drawing
shot_58: Loren drawing on comic
shot_59: close up of lorens face - fed up
shot_60: loren drawing the comic
shot_61: loren closing sketch book
shot_62: long shot of loren standing up (from behind)
shot_63: loren walking across landing (camera @ bottom of stairs)
shot_64: extreme closeup of loren face
shot_65: loren looks downstairs - high angle.
shot_66: mid angle loren looking angry shaking head.
shot_67: close up of loren pushing door open
shot_68: close up of loren peeking round door
shot_69: scan of room
shot_70: loren looking around room
shot_71: mid shot of him looking surprised
shot_72: close of him peeking around from chair
shot_73: over shoulder from him looking at loren
shot_74: mid shot him standing up from behind chair slowly
shot_75: close up of lorens face
shot_76: over shoulder of loren him looking sad
shot_77: over shoulder him reaching out to her
shot_78: POV loren -don't see him
shot_79: close up - him sad
shot_80: she turns to leave (long shot)
shot_81: long shot of him looking at her as she leaves
shot_82: close up of loren looking sad
shot_83: him fading out
shot_84: loren rubbing drawing out
shot_85: close up of lorens face

Our Animation example

This is an example animation from Loren's previous work!! This animation shows how we are going to animate or sequence with the cartoons characters. The format of the file is GIF, made in Photoshop. Loren is the one working on the animation as she has the program and the skills to complete it. There is no music in this example because all of the music and other effect will be inserted and edited in Final Cut.

We can't download on the blog but here is he link where you can find

http://alatariel-amandil.deviantart.com/art/14-Smile-ANIMATION-51457036

Timeline

0.00-0.09 Instrumental

0.10-0.37 1st verse
Bang, and now I would like to test my neon lights
Aeroplanes have lifted the sun from the sky
here we want to begin with the artist drawing on a sheet of paper, these pictures will run though the video. it will then zoom in to the picture to symbolise that the video is going to be within her art book.

Through net curtains and bay windows, your heroine names
Your crack cocaine’s insane, why did you play that game, big boy at all.
here we will begin our footage of the window and slowly pan towards the actor who is just lying on his bed obviously doing nothing, (we will come back to this image at the end of the video to close it.)

0.38-1.02 Chorus
So come on, my son, use your head,
it’s this neighbourhood
Aaaaaaaaaaaa
It’s the neighbourhood
here our actor will be looking from his window onto a bleak street, with weird images appearing such as a lock-ness body seeping in and out of the tarmac road. we will edit the location to emphasize the bleakness with the saturation effect.

1.03-1.17 2nd verse
ou moisturise me with your rain
here it will being to rain (drawn)

The favours and time I invest in you,
not time enough, when time falls through alone.
here we would have a weird image of a clock. such as, one with no hands or the hands moving faster than they should.

1.18-1.21 Interlude

1.22-1.35 3rd verse
you’re reading books on how to live your life,
When you know damn well you will survive.
here we think it would be effective to have the lyrics appear on the blank pages of a book he has just picked up, he will throw the book over his shoulder and we will see a clip of the book landing face face down with the title of the book being 'survive'.

1.36-1.57 Chorus
Aaaaaaaaaaaa
here well have these lyrics come out of his mouth.

1.58-2.06 4th Verse
I know you are coming up my stairs,
here we will have the actor leave from his bedroom and walk along the corridor and reach the top of the stairs. here he will see a variety of anamated things which will cause himto escape back to his bedroom (eg an octopus arm curling round the banister)
following this Bring it on… he will close the door and stare facing the door with a baseball bat with the lyric's slogan on it.

2.07-2.20 Instrumental

2.21-2.54 5th Verse
It’s a few years on, and I’m still inside
here we'll portray as though time has gone by (by darkinging and relighting the saturation of the room in editing (night and day effect etc)) and he will still be sitting in his chair. still holding the bat but drooping slightly.

I’m petrified of the news headline
he is looking over his shoulder looking at a cartoon news paper with something animated on his desk.

2.55-3.12 Chorus
3.13-3.43 Chorus
So come on, my son, use your head, it’s this neighbourhood
Aaaaaaaaaaaa
It’s the neighbourhood
Awoohoo awoohooo awoohoo
here for the closing scene we'll have him looking from the window once more with animated images and 'awoohooo' roughly schetched onto the scenery. he will walk away from the window and go back to lying on his bed just staring at the cieling. slowly the whole image will fade away to white, and cleverly cut so you won't realise the difference to the white of the paper, it will zoom out from the page, revealing the artist blowing rubber dust from the sheet having rubbed out the images, symolising the end of this creation.

Costume Ideas

These are a few ideas of what the character may wear, in the video. This is because it reflects the personality of the character and shares similarities of other Kid Harpoon music videos. The scraggy jeans reflects his 'torn up life' and the t-shirt represents his 'longing and despiration' which is also visualized through the lyrics.

Animatic

Example of an animatic shown by the Gorillaz-Dirty Harry, with the music playing. There are no colours but instead its written inside the frame, just like the non-diagetic sound. The movements are within the drawing shown with arrows in order to have a easier idea on how we filming it. Its hard but convinient YEAHHHH!!!!!


Loren and Gaby are going to draw the animatic and Caitlin and Daisy are putting it together with music and transitions.

Pitch2

Actor(s):

We have chosen a main character for our music video, he is one of Lorens friends. He will be playing the role of Kid Harpoon and after asking many friends he was the most willing person to help out. He was also the best at miming.

Location:

We have selected a location called Bottisham where Caitlin lives, and we are going to film our video around her house and village. It looks the part as it is the most appropriate place and ticks all the boxes (mentioned earlier).

Costumes:

For this we have decided upon contemporary clothing that is scruffy everyday wear. He is going to be a contrast between his dull lifeless costume and the bold colours in the space surrounding him.

Adverts/Film Sequences

1. BECKS BEER ADVERT. This combines animation with real life footage, including an animated and real person. This would be useful as we are considering drawing a companion for our character.

2. NISSAN CAR ADVERT. This inspired us to create an illusion, so our character thinks the image is real, despite it's not. This is relevant as our character is on drugs.

3. BP GARAGE ADVERT. We chose this advert because of the strong contrast between the bold and vibrant colours to the dull grey and blacks. This will be used to contrast the outside world with the character.

4. ULTRAVIOLET TITLE SEQUENCE. We chose this film sequence as it shows non moving imagery, manipulating by camera shots and angles, used to create an effect and to appeal more to the audience.

5. CATCH ME IF YOU CAN TITLE SEQUENCE. We chose this film opening due to the fact of the writing and how it links with the characters movement with in the clip. This is good for us because we wish to use words with our character.

Pitch Feedback

As a group, we presented our pitch to the class and they offered some constructive feedback to help our video:

• it would be improved if we affected things that were in our real life footage, for example the audience willl be able to see a bush from the window, we could affect with anamation to make it seem sinister, like the song.
• look at more inspirational videos such as the car advert which combines the two nicely as well as the becks beer ad '4 steps' which also does this.

we will take this on board when continuing with our project

Caitlin's Location Shots

This is the Stairs in which the octopuses tenticle will creep up.






This is the neighbour hood in which we will show under cars and the sky



This is the room the plot takes place in mostly as it has everything we need in it.



This is the window where everything takes place when he looks out into the neighbourhood.