Assignment 4

Pre-assignment thoughts

Chris and I had some fantastic ideas for this assignment actually. Unfortunately we were lacking both in technology and time. I think the greatest thing that came out of it was this idea of a movie trailer, where the main guy suddenly discovers that he has the power to freeze time. So we started filming some footage and all but in the end, our most ambitious part of the project, which was to create a freezing barrier aura – a globe that gradually expands from the main character and shifts out and anything that gets caught in it gets frozen – was way too difficult to pull off.

We also toyed around with other freeze frame ideas that were a little off track. From having mundane discussions where things would just freeze to weird comedic pieces. In the end though, we settled for something that was a little off beat too – an instructional video for a freeze frame upgrade to super powers. Yes it sounds long but the idea was to make the power to freeze time a product that heroes can buy and use.

This actually required me to use After effects for the first time this semester, so it did take a while to figure out some of the functions and how after effects works. I tried to originally do the entire clip on aftereffects and realised that it would probably be better to do segments, and then export those segments into premiere.

Finding music was not much of a problem because of the previous assignment. It had allowed me to get acquainted with the music that was available. I wanted something classy and light.

Class Response

Well there were 2 things that bugged people. Firstly, it was that not enough freeze footage was inside and that the whole video was building up to an anticlimax. Secondly, it was the rapidly changing colour of my skin due to the gamma correction, brightness and contrast adjustments made to the briefing clips. I shall re shoot some of these.

Updating

I decided to keep the freeze frame clips, but added a new clip that used not just freeze frame but a camera shake effect (not the wriggler, its shaking combined with motion tiling and mirrored edges) and a light bloom effect to emulate a nuclear warhead exploding. Hopefully, that adds some weight to the video bits.

Insights

I think that it was this project that single handedly showed me the power of adobe aftereffects, at the time of writing, I have downloaded at least another 5-6 new presets for aftereffects and am experimenting with the effects just for fun. Some of them are truly amazing and if not for this assignment, I would not have been able to fully grasp the full power of aftereffects. No wonder its often called the photoshop version of premiere.

I think this assignment had also helped me plan videos in terms of special effects. In some of the clips, we had to act as if something was there which wasn't and this require before hand planning and sometimes, several retakes.