Me and a friends facebook discussion abnout my work

do you think it is worth re doing the drum shot at a nicer angle and with slightly more realistic playing?

Harry O'Callaghan: yeah, maybe a shot similar to the one you had and an HD close up of the tips hitting the skin
btw i love the bit when the head comes out of the grains i also when you make it go all red like 2/3 in i think you should keep it for the lighter shots?

Jack Sauverin: yeaboy that is the best shot. have you noticed where it flicks to a pic of my bro in the same pose as the head?

Harry O'Callaghan: HAHA! no?! defo searching it for that now :P

Jack Sauverin: the red shots thougharent post producion it was using a red light so i would mean redoingthe shot and some cant redone as it was a one off thing, like burning shit or the blood and it is the last frame of the head coming from grain stop motin sequence

Harry O'Callaghan: AH I SAW IT. its awesome.
you could add that red in post though?

Jack Sauverin: yea i could but not in shitty movie maker. and i dont want to re make the whole thing in another program but i could take the clips i wanted red and redify them in a program save tem and then put them into my moviemaker file.
Harry O'Callaghan: could export the whole finished thing then jsut select where you wanted red. i think you can do that in the school whats it called. i cant remember.

Jack Sauverin: really i thought it might not be able to do that ad it would be saved as a continuous clip rather than scenes. but i suppose i can cut it up it might just be tricky. i could also reshoot some of the slightly out of focus shots and a few where you can see my shadow
another thing movie maker wouldnt let me do is put any effects on the pictures so they are all too bright. and i couldnt be arsed to photoshop everysingle one. ug i thought i was finished but i realised i have loads more to do. but i actually find it fun so i dont mind

Two working progress cuts of my media.

Editing

One thing i had to consider was, where to put the climax of my video. The lyric that corresponded to the shot was too early in the video. So i had to put it in later though it didn't fit i think it was necessary for the video to have an interesting pace. Also the final couple of minutes drag on but this is due to the length of the song. I used windows moviemaker as the school laptops sucked. This meant i couldn't add effects to the pictures so they don't really keep with the mise en scene of my piece. I also couldn't add the red effect i achieved using a red light in post production, as i wanted more shots to have it.

Another issue was effects. i really like the 'old film' grainy flickery effect on some shots and not others. it has been very difficult to choose whether to go all effect free, all grainy or a mix. I settled on a mix, removing the effect on the shots which i thought looked better without. Those were the flame and blood shots as those shots were vivid and the grain dulled the colour and the sharpness of the focus. I don't think the grainy/non-grainy differences between shots was noticable. but the gainy shots gave the piece a olde worlde feel which was my aim, and the non grainy shots gave the piece added visual appeal.

Adding movement to the soldiers

i tried to add flexible joints to the soldiers.
firstly i tried heating the shaft of a drawing pin. and i then inserted it into the soldiers arm sockets. this worked however the shaft quickly lost heat and i couldn't afix the arm in time. i then tried using a small drill piece and then a heated pin to create a hole. However the hole was too small to fit onto the drawing pin shaft. With the drill piece i managed to make it fit but the arm and torso had warped with heat so the movement was poor. I think that it would perhaps be worth making a few pieces slightly more animatable. I also tried removing the limbs and using bluetac but that looked pretty messy.

Editing thoughts

i think my piece will have a natural home-made olde worlde feel which is in keeping with the artist and the song content. However i may add a grainy film effect over the top (but not the imovie one as it looks naff). I also feel adding some shots between the main storyline such as my planned shot of a drum etc will help to keep the audience engaged.

Some of my pictures from the stop motion have slightly different lighting between stills, some have a red/yellow/blue tinge. When i watched the pictures put together for the first time it seemed jumpy and flickery, at the time i felt this detracted from the piece but maybe in the context of the rest of my footage it may look better. I could however edit the odd photos in photoshop. i will leave them until i have a final-ish cut and see what i think and what the audience thinks.

I used a frame rate of 25 fps and 12.5 fps the difference wasn't huge, as there is a fair jump in movement between frames speeding up the movement doesn't really add to the smoothness. So a slower frame rate makes my footage go further. The fast frame rate made the shots too quick but i am worried the slower frame rate which looks better may bore the audince, so i may intersperse the shots with other images.

Some stills

One issue with the images is the slight differences in lighting and therefore mise-en-scene. However i think this might have been an unintentional good move, as i want to contrast 'happy' and 'sad' moments in the piece and a change in mise en scene can help to achieve this. Some of my shots a brightly lit and predominately yellow, others dim and red. The yellow has connotations of happiness, the floor of grain shows a prosperous time. the red has connotations of violence and death and the low key lighting help create a sombre atmosphere.

Filming

I have been doing some filming over the last few weeks, i have completed several shots. I have also found as i did last year that many new ideas come into your head as you film. A few of my new ideas include:
-The head rising on a pile of grain
-A shot which follows a ripple in the grain 'sea' - i can either do this shot by attaching the hd camera to a tray and pointing it at a ripple also on the tray and moving the whole tray so it looks like the ripple is moving but the camera and ripple kept the same distance between each other (which is what i want), however the grain wave would be stationary, if i did it in stop motion which would obviously take longer i could slightly adjust the wave between shots to give it more life.
-cutting from the foam head's eyes to real eyes.

First draft of poster

Possible inside panels Ancillary 1

shot ideas
spears against backwall
drum stuff
zoom out
Also i think i should add some wire joints to my army pieces to add a bit more life to them.

More set

Set

Here are some pictures of my on going set construction.

More Prop stuff

Here is a photos of some of the props I will be using. They are toy soldiers fit in with the song's theme and they are small. This means they will be dwarfed by the polysterene head which will act as an imposing government figure.

Right I have kind of started filming now, I have done a little piece of i am not sure what, blog work but not for my final piece. (results will be up sometime during the week) I was going to do the real thing but i encountered some issues i had overlooked. I have dismssed some locations as i need access to a power source for lighting, though i could cut that piece, and i need a very long time on the location. using somewhere around my house would allow me to work when ever i wanted.

garden
+
lighting during day would be good and even and at night i could bring out an extension cable to do the red scenes.

- it would very much look like a garden

attic
+
looks quite cool beams cobwebs etc

- looks like an attic

i can overcome these issues hopefully as i will be working zoomed in to small objects, the background hopefully will lack focus and i will do my best to keep unsightly things out of shot.

an alternative location i could use is my grandad shed, id need to clear it out and i could run and extension cord out, it looks really cool and the shed spins for some reason, which woul dbe a cool shot.

I think i shouldve found a cool location first and then created something to fit it like i did last year. rather than creating something and then looking for a location.

Right after all that i have decided

i am making a set in the study, it will be like my orignal vision, floorboards olde worlde look. It will be practical and good looking. It should be ready for use mid next week. :D until then i will carry on with some stuff for my blog.

Shooting Order

There are a shortage of HD cameras at school and i dont want to work in low def. However there is an SLR available. I can use the SLR to create the stop motion aspects of my video. The issue is that some of the shots will include me destroying or tarnishing things so i cant do those shots first and then repair the objects to then shoot the HD shots.

Due to the shortage i wasn't able to get a camera over the winter holidays this was when i planned to do most of my filming. Stop motion is a very lengthy process and adding more real time footage may well be necessary, especially considering the length of the song. I plan to capture as much stop motion as i can, and if last year was anything to go by ideas will spring to mind during the process. Hopefully these ideas can be shot in real time. Also i have kind of assumed that the combonation of the two (real and stop motion) will look fine. I may have to add an entire alternative narrative to my piece, for example band shots.

Stop motion shot i can take.

Opening- grain growing shots.
Moving head
pattern crystal fighters inspired part

Cant do the paint shot or the burning/melting

might be able to do the pins shot.

Stop Motion Workshop

Did a stop motion workshop the equipment was awesome. A clicker and onion skin would be so useful in my work. Onion skin shows the active frame you're setting up live on the computer, but also puts transparent version of the previous frame. This can be used to see how much you've moved things what you still need to move etc. The workshop also taught me how much to move a piece, and the importance of keeping everything moving even tiny background elements or the piece lacks life and professionalism. I plan to work in 12 fps to speed the process it will be slightly jumpier than 25 but will still look fine as it is used in industry. It took about 4 hours for less than 30 seconds of footage, it was hard work.

Ancillary 1

Looking through http://www.recipetips.com/kitchen-tips/t--1007/types-of-grain.asp i think i prefer a large oval shaped grain, perhaps wheat or barley.

Here is the head i ordered. Creepy no?I decided on this one as i liked the dull eyes and expression. it is polystyrene but if it look too bad i will paint it or use a shot which masks the dodgy parts. Other ones i looked at looked too happy / plastic however that couldve been creepy as well.