Appearance technique- review

So, I thought I'd do a little review on the appearance technique we created today in order to give you an insight about our thoughts about the transition. Personally, I feel that we will definitely use this technique within our final music video, its a good and effective way to transition from one setting to another, yet its so simple. The whole filming and editing took us about 30 minutes which isn't a long time in comparison to the hand drawing effect we recently tried.
However, although this was easy to create, next time we use this technique, I feel we need to plan what gesture we will use to transition from one setting to another. For example, the character closing their eyes and then opening them up to find their in another setting, I think this would work well to start the video off. I recently researched previous A2 students who used this effect, so thought I'd link it below so you can get a feel for what I'm trying to describe. This student went underwater and then came back up to find their in another setting, its almost like they just appeared there like magic, which is similar to what we want to create...

Appearance technique- practice

Hey guys, so today Me and Connor gave the appearance effect a good go. It didn't take us very long to do. We aimed to keep the camera still, but as the clip was filmed on my phone ( hence the bad quality of the clip :( ), I didn't have a tripod so was difficult at times. The editing didn't take long either which is a bonus, as its simple to create but also really effective. I feel maybe the clicking of the fingers was hard to perfect the timing, so in our final music video we may use the opening of the eyes to transition and create the appearance effect rather than the clicking of fingers. In order to edit this we used windows movie maker however, for our final music video, we'll be using Adobe after effects and premier pro so editing will be simplified.

Appearance technique- Steps

Hey guys, so I recently mentioned that Me and Connor wanted to feature an appearance technique within our final music video. This simply is a transition and mainly requires a lot of attention on filming, camera positions and the subject (actor) making it more believe by using facial expressions. I tried to research into this, but nothing was quite similar to what we wanted to create so instead I wrote out a few simple steps for us to follow when filming to give us prompts on how to achieve this effect.
Here are the steps we created...

How Deep Is Your Love- Textual analysis

Hey guys, so I've just completed a textual analysis on Calvin Harris & Disciples - How Deep Is Your Love. I feel this has a similar aesthetic to what we aim to create our music video like as it includes an 'appearance' transition and also the main character seems confused throughout the video as to why she's there which is similar to our initial ideas.

How deep is your love textual analysis from 10lowean

Narrative

Afternoon! So, Me and Connor have recently just done out pitch video which I've just uploaded, but I wanted to give you an insight on the narrative of our music video as it wasn't made clear within our pitch and we have altered a few things.

We aim to first start off the video with one of the charcters putting headphones in and closing their eyes to symbolise the following clips the audience is about to see is almost dream like. We're still keeping our initial ideas of a 'hide and seek' game and adventures but adding a twist.
We want to create the illusion that the character (character 1) is watching in on himself/herself having fun with friends, almost ghost like, trying to get their attention only to find that their friends can't see the character. We want to make the character confused that no-one can see them and make it seem like its real when really, its a dream. At some parts we may want to use a cloning technique so be sure to keep checking my blog for our practice of this! To finish off the video, character 1 would then open their eyes all for the audience to find out it was just a dream.

The reason we decided to change our mind was the original narrative seemed too simple and there wasn't anything significant that would grip the audience. We felt that the use of the 'ghost' effect would be more interactive for the viewers.


Attached below is Mine and Connors brain storm of our narrative, it took us about a day to come up with this, enjoy our hardtoreadcolourfulposter :)

Pitch video

Hey guys, so Me and Connor have just finished our pitch video, keep checking my blog for more about our narrative as our final plans have been made (and you're in for a treat)...enjoy

Hand drawing effect- behind the scenes and advice

I feel overall the hand drawing effect is very simple to create. Although a points it is rather time consuming and can become repetitive when editing large clips but the outcome is all worth it.
Here is My step by step way on how to produce this effect...

To begin with, import the clip you wish to add this effect on, into Adobe After-Effects, the programme itself seems rather over whelming as there so many buttons and you feel everything can go wrong, don't worry, just follow these steps.

Be sure to render your clip before you start editing. To begin with, I thought 'oh its okay it'll work without rendering...it wont! Rendering allows us to work on the clip with the brush tool.

  One you've rendered the clip, double click the clip itself and a 'paint' icon will appear in the bottom right corner- nearly close to the fun parts, I promise- the duration is usually set to 'constant' in order to create this effect, you want single frame, feel free to use any duration type you want, but this is the one you need to create this.

THE FUN BEGINS! Me and Connor chose to use a rather small brush size so we could get into smaller parts of the body, If your clip is a close-up shot, I'd recommend using a bigger brush simply because the smaller brush size won't give the same effect. We used brush size 9, this was the perfect size for us as the clips were birds eye view and a long shot, so was the right sized brush for us. You can also change the colour of the lines if you prefer to.

Make sure to have fun with this as much as we did, it may seem daunting and rather time consuming at first, but once you get into the swing of things, you'll fly by.

 

Hand drawing effect- The making

So today, we did it! It took an hour to do two clips,  which I don't thinks too bad considering we're beginners. Thought I'd share with you the two clips we did...






This is our practice piece number one. We simply used the white paint tool to create this. From the research process I found that a lot of videos highlight feature of the mis-en-scene which I think would be effectice when using the hand drawing effect. This skill is simple but effect, it can make a plain video come to life with something so simple.






The second example is my personal favourite. I started to use the white brush tool effect, Connor suggested to use different colours to make it seem more fun... straight away, from the use of a simple coloured brush stroke, added life to the clip. We will defiantly use this skill when producing our final music video, it a simple trick that adds character to the clip.

Hand drawing effect- Step by Step

Hey guys, so Me and Connor are going to give the hand drawing effect a little go, but first I wrote up the tutorial I watched in a step by step way so we can quickly refer to it whilst practicing... I also added a few After Effects keyboard shortcuts, as it'd get us used to working quickly as we have to work to a deadline for our final music video... Hope our practice piece turns out well, I'll keep you updated, but, for now, I'll just upload my step by step notes...

Hand drawing effect- The research

Hey guys, so recently I've really been interested in the 'Hand drawing' effect that a few music videos have included lately. For example, disclosures front covers include this;

 

and Justin Bieber's 'what do you mean' video also includes this effect. Me and Connor really want to create this in our final video so I did a little bit of research and watched multiple YouTube videos on how to create this within after-effects, thought I'd link below my favourite tutorial I found and the most helpful video...

Copyright email to Glassnote records

Me and Connor have emailed the record company in order to receive permission to use the song 'Undercover Martyn' to use for our final music video. Here is the email we sent,


I am writing to you to request permission to film a music video version of your song Undercover Martyn. This forms part of my OCR A-level Media Studies course where my task is to record a music video to a song of my choice. It is only for assessment purposes and will not be used for any commercial or profit seeking purposes. I acknowledge your copyright of the material and will not use it for any other purpose than that stated above.

If you require any further information or clarification regarding the use of this material for educational purposes please contact my teacher Mr Welch (welchch@tuptonhall.derbyshire.sch.uk)

Here is the screen-grab;

Feedback from preliminary task

Hey guys, so we recently received some feedback on our preliminary task- don't worry it was all positive- however, I'd just like to discuss a few points I feel were Mine and Connors strengths and weakness'. I feel that Me and Connor came up with rather inventive idea's for our preliminary task, the use of a silhouette shot and also the reverse of a clip at the start of the video, was really effective for the audience. I noticed when others watched it, they couldn't stop watching, which is generally what you aim for when making a music video. Sir stated in the feedback sheet that the use of these skills have a good sense of aesthetic and recommended to use these in our final music video if relevant. Although the song we've chosen to do our final music video doesn't really fit this theme, I think it'd be effective if we used a 'silhouette in the sun' shot, maybe walking through a field, creating a silhouette image at dusk with the sun in the background, this would fit our theme a lot more as we want to make the video more fun and playful. Sir also stated that we used filters to keep a consistent sense of genre and appropriate look. I do find this useful as Me and Connor could add a vibrant filter overlaying our clips in order to give a happy and joyful feel to the video.

Although I do feel that our preliminary was successful I feel there is room for improvement and ways we can learn from this task. I do feel the filter was rather heavy and at times, when there was a close up shot, the audience struggled to see, this is not what we aimed for, as the clip was in reverse so we wanted everyone to be able to see it. In the future if we were to use this reverse technique again, we would make sure that the lighting is bright or use a more vibrant filter in order to enhance the feature's of our faces, bodies or even objects and make clear to the audience that the clip is being reversed. From the feedback we received, Sir suggested that if we do go for a similar aesthetic again, try aim to explore illustrator where we can write and draw over the video. I feel that this technique would work rather well, as we can use this in order to make the video more playful and enjoyable, especially as the less exciting parts, this may make the video more interactive and interesting and allow the audience to 'step into our shoes' rather than just simply watch a music video.

Below is the feedback sheet we received....

'Keep your head up'

So, in mine and Connors pitch we mentioned that we wanted to make our video with the similar initial idea's as Ben Howards 'keep your head up'.  The video consists of a few people having fun but in the beat of the song which is similar to what we want to do. I guess a few of you haven't seen this music video so I linked this down below so you have a feel of what we're talking about...

One page pitch

Here is mine and Connors one page pitch for our music video. This states our initial ideas and what we will base our music video on.