VIDEO AND SOUND PRODUCTION - FINAL PROJECT
See Zi Yi 0340094
Video and Sound Production
Final Project
INSTRUCTIONS
Pre-production
Week 1 (17/04/2020)
My 3 favourite Stop Motion Videos
1. Lost and Found
Lost & Found is a stop motion short film that tugs at the heartstrings. It is a story about the sacrifice of a knitted toy dinosaur who must completely unravel itself to save the love of its life. What I love about this stop motion:
1. No narration. The story is told with pure visuals and minimal sound effect which makes the viewers' eyes focus on the visuals.
2. Interesting materials used. Using crocheted stuffed animals as the main characters is something one of a kind, especially in the film industry.
3. Immersive mood/setting. The production is able to go wide and really play with perspective and depth of field in a way that is rare for the form.
4. Devil's in the details. Small details, such as the animation of water, string, and the puffs of stuffing, really showed how intricate the production team can go.
2. Negative Space
Negative Space depicts a father-and-son relationship through the art of packing a suitcase. What I love about this stop motion:
1. Its storytelling techniques through each transition. The transition between each scene really amazed me, e.g. when the guy was driving through the underground tunnel and transitions to the zip of the suitcase, brings the viewers back to the story of the film.
2. Wild imagination. Items of clothing as waves on the shore, sea creatures... this one of a kind ideas is what that catches the viewers' attention.
3. The deep meaning of the film. Although there's narrative in this film, the lines are still pretty short. And most importantly, impactful. "Look at all that wasted space" makes the viewers ponder more about the meaning behind it.
4. And again, details.
3. Distortion
This stop motion does not really have a solid storyline to it, but it just depicts how the clay is being distorted from one form to another, in a very playful way. What I love about this:
1. The smooth and perfect transition between each form of clay.
2. Simple backdrop. This makes the audiences focus on the clay while watching it.
3. Mischievous forms of clay are moulded. I have yet to see such a realistic form of the human face being moulded, not mentioning how exaggerated the expressions are.
My chosen topic is: verbal abuse
because it's something interesting and relatable to me, hence I wish to inform the public about this issue through visuals.
Week 4 (08/05/2020)
Moodboard for Final Project
As another part of our pre-production, we had to come up with a moodboard which explains the following details:
1. Ideation:
1-2 paragraphs (The story is about ___. The theme of the story is ___. )
2. Art Direction:
Clay/paper-cut/Lego, set building, visual references.
3. 3 Act Structure:
Describe the story in 3 act structure:
- Act 1:
Once upon a time, there was ___.
Every day, ___.
Until One day ___.
- Act 2:
Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___.
- Act 3:
Until finally, ___.
And ever since then, ___.
The Moral of the story is ___.
Below is my first attempt:
However, I had another idea on the mind the next morning. Instead of using human figures, I decided to give the humans an identity of a flower instead. In other words, using metaphor for my protagonists. Below is my revised moodboard:
However, while listening to Mr Martin giving feedback to my friends, I realised I have similar issues like my friends, which is the descriptions provided for each of my acts are difficult to be visualized. Also, instead of having two characters like how I did in my previous attempt, I reminded myself that there are only 30 seconds for this project, hence I cut down to one character, which is the Sunflower character. Below is my third attempt:
Feedback:
"The references are made for motion graphic, if using it for storytelling, can the plot/message easily picked up by the audience?"
Week 7 (29/05/2020)
General feedback:
1. We should be realistic by keeping it simple so that our video can be within 30 seconds.
2. Our storytelling method is too complicated.
3. We are not planning our shot/art direction according to stop motion. Look it our story from a stop motion point of view.
4. We should keep our storyboard at around 6-8 shots.
5. Start purchasing the props to do our final project.
Ask yourself:
"How can we simplify it?"
"What is our art direction?"
"Is this plot doable?"
Wide shot and medium shot can be used interchangeably as the ratio of the photo taken is larger than the ratio for video shooting.
Specific feedback:
1. act 1 (5 secs): m.c grows into a bunch of beautiful flowers.
2. act 2 (20 secs): verbal insults hurt her, flower dying, leaves dropping..become dead bushes? tree trunk?
3. act 3 (5 secs): ONE kind word turns over a new leaf...
Week 8 (02/06/2020)
For this week, we had to turn in our revised story breakdown and shot list. I did more research on my chosen PSA topic and had a change in mind on my storytelling art direction. Below is the revised version of my storyline:
1. act 1 (5 secs): m.c grows into a bunch of beautiful flowers.
2. act 2 (20 secs): verbal insults hurt her, flower dying, leaves dropping..become dead bushes? tree trunk?
3. act 3 (5 secs): ONE kind word turns over a new leaf...
Week 8 (02/06/2020)
For this week, we had to turn in our revised story breakdown and shot list. I did more research on my chosen PSA topic and had a change in mind on my storytelling art direction. Below is the revised version of my storyline:
Week 10 (19/06/2020)
For this week, we had to present our work with storyboard and animatic.Here is the video for my animatic:
Feedback:
Video
Act 2 isn't impactful enough
- more hurtful words in Sc 1 Sht 3.
- collage words can fill up the entire scene.
- after having the harsh words thrown at him, he collapsed on the spot. MWS in Sc1 Sht 5 can be removed.
Sound
- Sc 1 Sht 3: The harsh words fighting with each other sound, e.g. punching, attacking, etc.
- Sc 1 Sht 4: Sobbing sound.
- Sc1 Sht 8: Don't use the same popping sound effect, use a positive type chiming, magical sound, as it's too comical.
- Overall, not much responsive sound effects for plants. E.g. plant moving.
I revised my art direction from clay to papercut, as it looks more elegant. Aside from that, I have also revised my storyboard to make it look more impactful. Below is my revised proposal.
Week 11 (26/06/2020)
We were tasked to conduct a trial shot of one of our shots by multiplying the number of seconds with seconds with 6, instead of 24 frames, which is the professional's standard. Below are the lecture slides.
We are also tasked to conduct a trial shot for our stop motion. Here is my trial shot created in GIF.
Reflection:
I kind of like how it turned out but I feel like the pace is too fast. It was difficult to gauge how much should I twist the flower's stem because I realized I twisted too much at certain times. Hence, I had to be really careful while twisting the stem.
In today's class, we discussed our trial shots and how we can improve it. Mr Martin taught us how to shot, as well as to import the shots into Premiere Pro. Preferences > Timeline > Change the Still Image Default Duration": 5; Seconds to Frames.
Below is what I have attempted.
Sound
Sound identification:
- Identify types of sound required
(1) Ambience sound (softest in loudness)
(2) Typical ones
(a) Direct: open doorknob, on-camera, off-camera, car sound
(b) Action:
(c) Foley: Foley is a unique sound effect technique that involves creating and “performing” everyday sounds for movies and television shows. Foley artists create these sounds in a recording studio during post-production, in synchrony with the picture, to enhance the quality of the audio.
(3) Special effects: explosion,
(4) Voice/ acting/ dialogue
(5) Narration (loudest in loudness)
* Always put sound effects before music.
* Mixing is essential.
* Not every sound should be added, e.g. not all footsteps is needed.
Below is an audio storyboard that Mr Razif showed to us during the ZOOM session. It's an effective way to organize our audio in our video to optimize our time for production/ post-production.
PRODUCTION
Below is some progress of the making of the props.
Once I was done with preparing the props, I began my shooting progress. I tried out on both DSLR and phone camera. Below is a comparison between the differences.
Based on the above differences, I opted to use the DSLR for shooting due to the quality of the pictures.
Below are a compilation of my shots taken for stop motion.
POST-PRODUCTION
After finished shooting the needed photos, I began my post-production process on Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Audition. Below are some progression shots taken throughout the progress.
VIDEO EDITING
AUDIO EDITING
FIRST DRAFT
Here is my first draft for my stop motion.
Feedback:
Visual
Audio
FINAL STOP MOTION
Below is my revised and final version of my stop motion:
Below is some progress of the making of the props.
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| Fig. 1.0 Materials used for stop motion |
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| Fig. 1.1 Flower in the making |
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| Fig. 1.2 First attempt at making the flowers |
Once I was done with preparing the props, I began my shooting progress. I tried out on both DSLR and phone camera. Below is a comparison between the differences.
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| Fig. 1.3 Photo taken on DSLR (Shot at night) |
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| Fig. 1.4 A photo taken on mobile phone with the stopmotion app (Shot at night) |
Based on the above differences, I opted to use the DSLR for shooting due to the quality of the pictures.
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| Fig. 1.5 Shooting in progress |
Below are a compilation of my shots taken for stop motion.
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| Fig. A screenshot of the shots taken |
POST-PRODUCTION
After finished shooting the needed photos, I began my post-production process on Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Audition. Below are some progression shots taken throughout the progress.
VIDEO EDITING
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| Fig. Video editing for color grading on Adobe Premiere Pro |
AUDIO EDITING
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| Fig. Audio editing for triple gunshot sound on Adobe Audition |
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| Fig. Audio editing for teasing sound on Adobe Audition |
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| Fig. Audio editing for hard limiter on Adobe Premiere Pro |
Here is my first draft for my stop motion.
Feedback:
Visual
At the beginning, Mr Martin thought I haven't done my color grading yet. So I explained to him about my intention to give a dull feeling to the video, but I was advised to improve on my color grading by adding more contrast to differentiate the subject from background. Basically to make it pop. The scene where the main character was surrounded by harsh words should also slowly zoom in. Besides, the video should end with a tagline which resonates with the theme, e.g. words kill/ stop bullying, etc. End credit should be added as well.
Audio
Overall, the audio is fine. Mr Razif commented that the ending where I used reverb to intensify the mood was cool. However, I can still improve on the part where the red flowers enter the scene. He suggested that I can use pitch shift to differentiate the pebble dragging sound and probably delay one sound from another, as it doesn't have to sync with the movement on the screen. This is to give a better separation between two sounds. Besides, I can pan the audio as well. One should pan to the left as if it comes more from the left speaker and one pan to the right so it comes more on the right speaker.
FINAL STOP MOTION
Below is my revised and final version of my stop motion:
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