MV Production - 03

Music Video Production - Phase Three (Final)

Please help rate and comment on our video =)

Assignment Three - 04

My Valentine - Phase Four (Final)

I'm overall satisfied with the outcome of my video. However if given more time, I will add in more illustrations to develop my story better. It will be interesting to incorporate photographs as backgrounds as well (like my prototype video).

Assignment Three - 03

My Valentine - Phase Three

Changes
I simplify my plot to a troubled guy having problems expressing his feelings onto the valentine card he is drawing for his girl. Eventually, he gives up. When the guy met up with the girl, he expresses that "no words and drawings can express my heart, but this great big hug" and gives the girl a tight hug.

I also decided to do an illustrated story and thus did my sketches on paper to be transferred into Adobe Illustrator. I planned the drawings and basic effects I want to do first so as to know what illustrations I need after. The audio is sourced beforehand as well from freeplay music and incompetech. I downloaded multiple music that suits the various moods I need (i.e. playful/beginning, disappointed, happy/memories, heartwarming/ending).

Illustrations

Tool used: Adobe Illustrator CS

Video Editing
I imported the stills into Adobe Premiere and started to filter the appropriate audio. Using the selected audio rhythm as a guide, I edited video effects on the stills. I mostly played with their positions, scales and rotations. Most of the video transitions are manually editing the stills' opacities and layering them on top one another.

Assignment Three - 02

My Valentine - Phase Two

Prototype Video

Due to time constraints and deadline clashes with my other project modules, I didn't have sufficient time dedicated to create the prototype. I took a day outside to shoot various empty scenic photographs for scene #7 (refer to storyboard) and another day to shoot the letter-writing process. However, I was unable to find models to shoot the i-miss-you scenes.

Thus, the prototype was unable to fully narrate my story. In fact, many were misled by my fading transitions and the appearance of my main character (a white faceless guy) that he is dead.

I've decided to rethink my plot while retaining my underlying message, that a lot of our inner feelings cannot be expressed simply in words.

Assignment One - 02

Dreams - Phase Two (Final)

I changed the background color to cyan (instead of dull blue) as the color is brighter, making the poster stands out more and the odd color combination with red creates a surreal feel. I've also amended the title.

Assignment Four - 02

I am a Superhero - Phase Two (Final)

Changes
We redrafted our story, changing our villain from a serial killer to a robber so it's easier to establish his character and motive. We added additional shots in front that focus on our victim's expensive accessories. Our villain is also seen stalking the victim before the scene at the carpark. Our superhero (angel) is given a makeover as well. Previously due to rushed filming, our angel wore the normal tee and jeans. Now, she adorns in purely white and has a wand. This reinforces her character.

We added multiple filler shots as well such as a close-up of the villain as a critique before was our viewers could not clearly make out his weapon and action while bending down behind the car.

Storyboards

#clicky for full-view:

Timefreeze Effect

To freeze the villain and car while the angel continues her action, first we need to create the black and white matte. The white area shows the still frame and the black area shows the moving clip. This matte is placed on the topmost video track and needs to be hidden. The still frame is placed on the bottommost video track and the moving clip is placed above it. A “Track Matte Key” video effect is applied to the moving clip (Matte: set to matte video track; Composite Using: Matte Luma; Reverse: checked).

To make the villain disappears; we changed the still frame to one without the villain. When the angel works her magic, it simply cut to the empty frame.

MV Production - 02

Music Video Production - Phase Two

Filming Process
Actors
As our story revolve around romance, it was pretty hard to find actors who are willing to act as a couple. Sourcing for actors took longer than expected and our filming schedule had to be pushed back because of it. Eventually, our groupmate Jesse managed to get her friend to act as the male lead while herself act as the female lead.

Acting/Filming
I took on the role of cameraman and director mostly. It was a challenge to position shots with good angles and depth. I find myself relying on the tripod a lot except for shots that require movement (chasing the actors in the playground) and over-the-shoulder shots. There was also the need to adapt the storyboards into our setting and direct the actors their necessary actions and expressions.

The entire filming process took us 3 full days. The dates were mostly scheduled around our actors' timetable and the scenes were carefully planned so as to optimize our time. The various filming site includes Jasmine's house, playground, mailbox and cafe near her house, the airport and our tutor Julian's office in school.

Video Editing
All the raw footages are distributed among our groupmates. Together, we discussed how we'll split the audio into 4 bits and work on the scenes individually. Then we came together to review each other's clips and further edit them for compilation. A problem most of us faced is we have too many clips/scenes to squeeze into our allocated time of approx. 1min, thus certain scenes may seems rushed. We had to re-pace the scenes to its audio, i.e. cut certain shots to make time to lengthen other shots; while keeping in mind to sync the shots to the audio rhythm.

The lighting of some shots need to be adjusted as well. For my scenes (the ending), the shot of our actors in the balcony is bright but subsequent close-up shots of the paper airplane and real aeroplane taking-off are darker compared. Thus the "luma corrector" video effect is added to adjust their brightness and contrast closer to first clip. I also did the overall compilation of our clips and further edited certain clips such as standardizing our flashbacks' effects to "additive dissolve" (as suggested by Jasmine) and adding an orange tint to most flashbacks so they can be well-differentiated from those in current time since our flashbacks and current time inter-cut multiple times throughout our mv. The video is then passed to my groupmates to add in the title, credits and sync the lyrics.

The final exportation of the mv uses "microsoft dv avi", with the compressor "dv pal".