Composite video example

For this task I am required to explore different applications of motion graphics and compositing to devise and produce a sequence(s) to be included in my music video that I am currently producing.

No.1 Compositing Music Video Final by Angelina Monetz

This video was made by filming the singer/guitarist in front of a green screen and then applying a filter to it which made it look more cartoonish.





They then applied the background and the different animations for example the large CD at 0:42.
They also included a picture of a old room which they put behind both the CD and the singer/guitarist.

They also used motion graphics in the video with form of kinetic typography in the video which made the text look like sound waves which was very clever and interesting.

The video also used a very interesting way of editing the singer with the footage. They made use of repetition and thanks to the green screens isolation effect it made it look very seamless.
Its also filled with 2D animation and graphics.






                                                            No.2 Fireflies by Amber Gan

This whole video is a motion graphic which was done in a vector  graphics style program.

They used a very cartoonish style of animation which made it very friendly towards the audience.

It also makes the whole video feel like your in a different world.




They added different things like toys and space ships which when combined with the animation style and setting it makes it feel like your sleeping and this is your dream or someone else's.

This is a 2D animation so it could have been made in a photoshop style program.


Its also very abstract for example it transitions from you looking at a regular house to then it being contained in a lightbulb and then a robot shutting down the bulb. This makes it feel like your or someone else's dream has just ended and they have woken up.

The text is also utilises kinetic typography as it appears and disappears as well as explodes as a way to appear and vanish.

Not to mention the font of the text makes it feel like its from a kids book or some kind of lullaby.



                                                  No.3 Its a Beautiful World by Samjt Hew

This music video is completely made out of motion graphics which could have been done in a vector graphics style program.

The video uses a cartoonish style of animation which makes it very friendly to the audience at first.

However the video uses this animation as a way to send a deeper message which is "protect the environment".

The video follows the lyrics of the song quite closely and uses them to support its point.

The video covers multiple nationalities in the video such as British, Italian, etc.

Which means that the issue that this video is trying to promote isn't a single persons problem or of a single country but of the whole world.

It also shows that if humans tried to help then we could make a difference.

The video also has a strong influence of 2D animation.

It makes heavy use of imagery and graphics.

It also has a strong emphasis on making animals seem like they are also to some extent like humans and have feelings.

For example an elephant was crying because his forest was cut down and he lost his tusks because of illegal poaching.

Another example is this penguin on the side is sweating because the sun is very hot and is melting the snow the penguin needs to survive.







                                                    No.4 The Show Lenka by Amber Gan

This music video is completely made out of motion graphics and would have been made in a vector graphics style program.


The video has a very prominent 2D graphics  and animation influence.

The animation is very friendly towards the viewer.

It also focuses on the story of a girl who is looking for love but can't seem to grasp its meaning.

The video also uses a wide variety of kinetic typography by displaying the lyrics of the song.

The video also emphasises that love is slow and needs time which is reinforced by the image on the right which compares it to traffic which is shown as, slow and time consuming.

The video is also very abstract and moves the viewers perspective over multiple places or dimensions.

This could mean that this is just in someones head.

The video also shows how small a single persons desire is compared to the world and a good example of this would be the image on the right, which shows a bird (the person) and a planet (the world) being compared by size to one other.

Motion graphics

This image is a pattern with a hint of repetition.

This is a balance combined with unity.

This image is a pattern with a hint of repetition as well as the inclusion of rhythm.

The background of the room is detailed with maps, the name of the reporter. The text details the current topic with the logo of the news outlet being on the side whilst simultaneously showing the current stock exchange rate.

The background was probably done by using a green screen that has been placed behind the reporter or have a actual set up of TV screens placed behind him.


The text in front of him is probably on a separate screen that is then connected to the main camera,
the text was most likely created before hand.


This image has elements of compositing and motion graphics.

Animated Advert

The animated advert was a difficult and interesting project to do and I will describe how I did it and what problems I encountered.

At the very beginning I made several ideas for the characters first, the first idea was thrown into the bin since they were too cartoonish.
The second and third ideas were combined together to make the character who I like to call Mr. iS:

The idea had arms and legs but I then settled with just the  little fin at the top since I wanted to make it look more serious.

The shape was easy to make and redraw in photoshop so animating it didn't take long which was a really good factor since the dead line was only a week away.

The idea for the shape of the character (which was a square) came to me since the logo of the company was a square so I thought why not turn it into a character and at first I wanted to make it as a 3D character.

The idea was taking shape and I was happy with how it looked but, I didn't know how to animate it and I started running into problems with the dead line so I chose to make a photoshop animated version which was much better in the aspect of animating and wasn't as complex.





We then moved to the spect of filming the footage and then merging it together with the animation.

I easily came up with a way of merging the animation and the video footage.

I first filmed the footage and then made the animation so that it has space for the video as well as the text.

Each scene of the animation was also reversed since I was going to re-use them, it would also save me time making another scene all together.

This proved to be highly effective and is a bit of a shortcut in a way.

I then extend the animation in the final cut program so that I wouldn't have to extend it in photoshop, that saved me a lot of time but there were a few problems with the video which I didn't take into account.

During the instillation of the voiceover I discovered that some of the scenes were a bit too short and the voiceover was longer than initially anticipated, I quickly adjusted this by extending some of the scenes and shortening some of the voiceover lines.

In the end the product was well received and I was happy with how it turned out.

Spaceship GIF

This is my attempt at creating a GIF.

The whole thing was made from scratch using photoshop and it consists of 20 layers each 0.1 seconds long.

 The beginning was very simple nice I just needed to create the basic assets as a foundation for the more detailed sections of he GIF, I first made the ship which I grabbed inspiration from Star Wars Rogue Ones gunship in terms of wings the rest was made from scratch.

The first thing I did was make a outline of the ships body, then I started adding things like the cockpit, vents, and reactor as well as engines on paper. After that I moved on to powerpoint and started making the outline of the ships body there in a separate layer.


I then moved on to more complex things like detailing the hull.
I also added two small lights on the tips of the wings to make it seem like a actual spaceship.








I then started making three different versions for the flames.


I wanted the flames to look unique and to be able to go from small, medium to large which I succeeded in producing.

The flames were all all made from the first one (the small flame in the middle) after which I moved on to the make the medium sized flame and then the large.

I first made outline of the onager sections then added the yellow and dark orange sections, after I was happy with how it looked I used the eraser tool to add a bit of a shade to the flames to make it look more alive in a sense.

After that I went through the challenge of creating the effect of it moving, I first moved the ship up and down in the layers to give the effect thats its somewhat hovering in space, then I started creating different STARS for the background so to make it seem as its moving.

During this process I had a lot of problems such as the stars looking too bit, not moving at all and over all the colour as well.

I created five versions of stars alone all of which were meant to work together in one gif, but it was a ugly mess of pixels that were mashed together which wasn't what I wanted at all.

In the end I started from scratch with the stars and made two completely new layers which I then used one after another in the animation.

The stars looked more like sticks which has a fading out effect at their ends which makes them look like they were passing by.

Strangely they were compared to gunfire rather than passing stars.

I then created a small purple comet of sorts to give that extra feel of being in space where asteroids and comets are common, it also had several versions of it, initially it meant to look more egg shaped with a more smooth cloud of smoke behind it.

But that was way too big and was very difficult to animate, so I went with a more skinny version that had a more dusty appearance with particles rather than with smoke, my inspiration was the red stone torch from Minecraft which I actually modified a bit to make it more round rather than square.

I also made several different versions of the particles so that whilst passing by the ship the comet looked like it was actually leaving behind particles.



The difficult part was when I had to link all of these factors into a gif, I had to start with a certain flame and make sure it end on the flame that was at the start of the animation and same goes for the stars and the position of the ship.

It took me a long time to make the animation seem seamless because I was always stuck at the fact that the ship was in the wrong position or that the flame or lights were not correct.

In the end I created the gif in a format of 2040 pixels and uploaded it to youtube and made it its separate form as a GIF.

Gifs

I looked at these gifs and I really like how they were made.

Video assesment

Its been a long year for me and I am now going to asses my videos and how my progress has gone so far over this past year.

Lets start with my very first animations:

This was my first animation, which I made using ink instead of a pencil (which was quite challenging since one big mistake could ruin the whole thing.

The animation was just about a dot doing something, we were told to make it do anything, even bouncing around was ok.

My idea was about a dot becoming something bigger which made it look like a seed growing bigger.

I made the animation on multiple pieces of paper, stapled it all together and the took a photo of each layer and assembled it into a video.

This one was made the same way but instead of ink I used a pencil, and the idea was to have a ball bounce around.


Animations made using photoshop:

This animation has the same concept as the one above with he ball bouncing, but instead of making it on paper I made it in photoshop and it was my first attempt at making a animated object in photoshop and it also had a small amount of physics.

But also pack then just to be on the safe side I included a line which you can see in the video which I made so that I knew where it would start, go and end at.

This animation was my attempt at making something explode, now its not necessarily a ball but more of a dot that again bounces but instead it explodes mid movement then continues to bounce.

Most people said its more resembling a flame rather than a explosion which I agree with.


Cut out animation:

This animation as says above was made using cut outs which were made out of paper.

This was made as a team with me coming up with the idea and the rest was made collaboratively.

The idea was that we would make a remake of 8-bit ping pong but using cut outs and it turned out ok, but one of my guys got his hand caught in the animation on accident.


Animated advert:

This was made by me over a two week period and it turned out well, the initial ideas was to make it 3D but I settled for 2D instead which was easier.

The animation was ok in my opinion I would like it to be coloured and a bit cleaner but for my first properly animated advert I say its alright.

The animation was made using photoshop and I then filmed and put the footage together so that it fits almost perfectly.

Then I recorded the dialogue and then added a few sound effects like for the shape bouncing up and down.

Max Fleischer

                                                                        Max Fleischer

Max is responsible for many famous cartoons such as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye and even superman have all been his inventions and he is also responsible for creating Rotoscoping.
He is considered to be a pioneer of American cartoon animation in the 20^th century and it’s easy to see why.
 Rotoscope, created by Max Fleischer and his brother Dave, could project images of a film in an animation table. 
From there, the actions could be transferred frame by frame and incorporated on animation characters.
It was actually meant to enhance already made scenes, in some cases it can even be referred to as sketching since the animator would make the initial scene, clean it up and then just make another one of the same scene but change certain things like the hand could be slightly higher than in the last scene and this turned out to be a great success since he and his brother used it earlier before he ever owned a studio or in 1917 to be specific.

His out of the inkwell series is also quite a notable thing since all of his cartoons apart from superman can be found there, there even coloured versions of them. 

He is also responsible for making several small training films for the US army during WWI.

But he also has several books although they were not made by him they were made by his son who in his fathers memory made them so that people can learn more about his father and his craft:

Almanac of Famous People, 7th ed., Gale Group, 2001.

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Gale Research, 1998.

Links:
http://biography.yourdictionary.com/max-fleischer