Video and Sound Production / Final Project
29/4/2022 - 1/7/2022 / Week 5 - Week 14
Nurul Adlina Rizal / 0345429 / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Video and Sound Production
Final Project
LECTURES
Week 3:
Storytelling in Film
Story = What happened?
Plot = Why they happened? And how?
Plot Segmentation
- the best method for understanding a film's narrative system is to create
a plot segmentation, a scene-by-scene outline of the entire film
Story Structure
Beginning:
Setup / Introduction of a story
Introduce the world
Introduce the main characters
Establish the dramatic situation
Leads to an incident that complicates the story (Plot Point 1)
Middle:
Confrontation of a problem
'Rising action'
Develop obstacles / complications
Leads to climax of the story (Plot Point 2)
End:
Resolution of problems
Ending of climax
Answer to all obstacles / problems
Tying the loose ends
Plot Point 1: the plot thickens
- the inciting incident
- turn the story in a new direction
- sets up what act two is going to be
- raises the stakes
- reminder of the narrative enigma; presents the possibility of a different
outcome
Plot Point 2: the longest mile
- climactic turning point
- protagonist's quest reaches critical mass
- possible solution is presented
- will the protagonist win or lose?
Week 4:
Storyboarding
Storyboarding = Visualization
When the scene has a complicated action involved or few perspective POV,
storyboard is the most effective way to map out the scene.
- originally developed in Disney during the 1930's
- involves converting a script into a comic that depicts the action
visually
- provides a layout of events as seen through the eyes of the camera
- contemporary storyboards are used in a wide variety of multimedia
projects
Purpose of Storyboard
- show important action
- continuity
- shot composition
- indicate camera angle / movement
- map out the scene
Storyboarding process
> do story breakdown
> get shot list ready for storyboarding
> use floor plan to mark out the camera position
> start from EWS/WS, then cut in to characters/objects
> cut between action and reaction
> cut to different framing and different angle shots
> use cut away to enhance storytelling and creating mood
> insert cut away / CU shot as transition for a new scene
> staging subject among foreground, midground and background to create
contrast in size and distance, focus, brightness and color.
Animatic
- defined as series of images played in sequence often with a
soundtrack
- animated storyboard
Advantage
- timing of every shot
- rhythm of the scene
- audio & music added
Week 13:
Stop Motion Editing Brief
Stop motion is filmed on frame at a time.
Pre-Production
Prepare storyboard.
Clock every shots.
Calculating the Frames Needed (8-10 FPS)
Start collected sound clips.
Prepare materials and build the puppets and background.
Set camera on tripod.
Use manual exposure & focus.
Shoot during the day, but use artificial lighting.
Shooting Stop Motion
with DSLR
Select jpeg L/Fine
Resolution: 5K-6K
16:9
Shooting stop motion with Phone
Use app to export video for editing.
Editing
Seperate sequences in different folders.
Premiere Pro CC > Preferences > Timeline
Still Image Default Duration > 5 secs to 2-5 Frames (Trial &
Error)
After decided the speed, import all folders into Premiere Pro.
Toggle on "Insert and overwrite sequences as nests or individual
clips"
1920x1080
INSTRUCTIONS
Final Project
Week 1 (1/4/2022)
3 Stop Motion Shorts
1. Paper • Shortfilm by Mat-a Freelance
Fig 1.0: Paper Shortfilm by Mat-a Freelance (7/4/2022)
Rationale
This is a wonderfully made stop motion short using only paper. I chose it
because I am inspired by how smooth the animation and movement was as well
as how expressive the characters were. Without dialogue, Mat-a Freelance
tells a sad story of a boy who falls in love with a girl that is stuck in
paper. The character design is simple and generic to help the viewer focus
more on the story being told and be able to relate to the main character.
The lighting and color of the whole film which is blue and dim reflects
the mood of the character and story.
2. Fresh Guacamole by PES | Oscar Nominated Short
Fig 1.1: Fresh Guacamole by PES (7/4/2022)
One of my favorite stop motion short films of all time. It uses
basic household items to demonstrate how to make guacamole. It has a funny
and intriguing charm because of this. The color palette is bright and
colorful. I believe the highlight of this stop motion is its audio
editing. The sounds are true to the sounds that would be made if one was
actually making guacamole but in this video, the person uses only
household items. It leaves the viewer feeling uneasy yet giving them an
oddly satisfying feeling.
3. Negative Space | Oscar Nominated Stop-Motion Animation | Short
of the Week
\
Fig 1.2: Negative Space by Tiny Inventions (Ru Kuwahata & Max
Porter) (7/4/2022)
Rationale
This work is genius. Not only did I choose it because it was clay stop
motion animation, it had an impressive way of telling a story. A story
of a relationship between a father and son and how they bonded over
packing luggage. It tells the viewer of how this has mold his mentality
of how he perceives space and how one can utilize it fully. I also love
that in a way, it tells a message about how important the relationships
that we have with our parents are, how it affects us and how we will
always crave for their approval.
Week 3 (8/4/2022)
We learned about the 3 act structure.Week 6 (6/5/2022)
Mr Martin told us to decide on a final project medium whether it be
visual affects video or stop motion. Since I am doing animation as my
specialization, I am required to do stop motion as my final
project.
He also told us to define the theme and story outline.
Theme: Mental / Work Burnout
Letting other people's expectations pressure you into working hard that
you become burned out.
Title: Burned Out
Story Outline
Introduction
There was once a genius prodigy kid that made their parents proud. They were talented in many different skills. It shows from all the awards in their house.
Rising Action
They actually do not enjoy being a high achiever, they feel pressured by their parents. They question if they like studying. The kid actually enjoys doing something else.
Climax
The kid, at one point, gets burned out. Their grades start failing and their parents are worried and reacts negatively. With a lot of pressure on their shoulders, they see two paths way. Will the kid decide to continue on this path with a high risk of failing due to not enjoying and being burned out or will the kid decide to what they love and not be burden by other people’s expectations?
Good Ending
Falling Action
The kid decides to do what they like to do. They pursue it and put themselves first in every future decision rather than thinking about others and their expectations.
Resolution
The kid is living a happy comfortable life. They do better than before.
Bad Ending
Falling Action
The kid decides to continue this path, in hopes it gets better but it doesn’t. They still struggle, and they are in a constant state of burned out.
Resolution
The kid ends up with job where they are unhappy. Their parents continue to nag and yell at them.
Message:
To follow your heart.
Don’t let others expectations of you stop you from achieving all that you can and want to be.
Type of Stop Motion: Clay/Paper cut-out
References:
1. Negative Space by Tiny Inventions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI2lsdXJQ40
2. Coco by Headexplodie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo6-6ENTl7o
3. Lost & Found by Andrew Goldsmith & Bradley Slabe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35i4zTky9pI
Week 8 (20/5/2022)
Final Project Proposal
Fig 1.3: Final Project Proposal (20/5/2022)
Week 11 (10/6/2022)
I had finalized the story of Burned Out to in a compressed manner so that
it would not be too lengthy to do especially since I had to create every
frame. I decided to do Paper Cut-Out stop motion due to the nature of my
story that would fit best in paper. It also helps me practice my 2D
animation skill.
Week 12 (17/6/2022)
Storyboard
|
| Fig 1.4: Burned Out Storyboard (8/7/2022) |
The storyboard shows the key thumbnails of my stop motion. As you can see in the storyboard, fire boy reads a book - signifying that its something he usually does or something mundane he does daily. He then comes across something interesting - either a candle or a star - and immediately abandons the book to take a closer look. However, the happiness he experiences of finding something new does not last long, it is immediately taken away from him when the star / candle dies out and he gets carried away by a being to go back to reading his book. (metaphor for having to be forced to do things you don't want and abandon your passion) Overtime, he gets slowly burned out. (he is sad / no longer wants to be reading books / does not enjoy reading anymore )
Since this story is a metaphor for the act of being burned out of the
things you constantly do in real life, I need to make sure that the message
comes across to the viewer. It will be a difficult task.
Week 13 (24/6/2022)
I completed Scene 1. In Scene 1, he is reading a book and comes across the
star. The animation I had included in this was the fire animation which I
followed this tutorial:
I wanted to show that fire boy is an active flame that later in the story,
dies out.
Fig 1.5: Frame by frame animation digitally (9/7/2022)
I decided to test out the fire burning animation digitally to see if it will look smooth when I cut it out on paper. Based on the tutorial I followed, my fire animation managed to look quite smooth even when I took out a few frames. In the future, I should try adding more in-between frames.
 |
| Fig 1.6: Fireboy's papercut model (9/7/2022) |
Decided to separate the glasses from the body due to it being a different color and so I can move and animate the glasses as well. Same concept for the body and head.
 |
| Fig 1.7: All frames of fire boy burning out (9/7/2022) |
I made the flames progressively smaller while keeping the same orientation and style for each frame so that it still look likes its burning but smaller.
I used a stop motion app on the app store titled Stop Motion. It was easy to use and has a nice interface. I could do most editing on the app itself which will make the video editing process easier later on.
 |
| Fig 1.8: Using the Stop Motion app (9/7/2022) |
Week 14 (1/7/2022)
I attempted Scene 2 where he throws away the book to chase after the star.
For the book throw, I had to look at 2D animation references of how they
depict thrown books.
Book throw reference:
I did 5 different frames and position of the book being thrown into the air
and falling back down due to gravity. I enjoyed doing this part.
 |
| Fig 1.9: Throwing book frames (9/7/2022) |
There was a total of 6 frames for this action.
Later on, I tried completing all the other scenes - Scene 3, 4 , 5.
This is how I broke down the scenes:
Scene 1
Red (fireboy) is reading a book and encounters a magical star.
Scene 2
He is enchanted by this magical star and throws away the book he was
reading.
Scene 3
Red take a closer look at the magical star. He is amazed by its beauty.
However, the star gets taken away from him and he is shocked.
Scene 4
Red sighs. He is sad that good things are taken away from him. He is then
carried by an entity to go back to reading.
Scene 5
Due to this experience, Red is no longer interested in reading and burns
out.
The End.
FINAL
For the final, I had compiled all the scenes together, added music and
sound effects. I had also did color correction since I wanted all the scenes
to have a consistent lighting and color scheme. Since I recorded with my
phone, the original lighting of the frames are not very nice to look at so I
tried my best in that aspect. I wished I had the chance to record in the
studio but it would have taken me a lot of time and effort.
Link to the final youtube video:
FEEDBACKS
Week 8
General Feedback: Don't make your story too long and lengthy. Tell a
story concisely.
Specific Feedback: Story is good just need to simplify certain parts
and figure out how it will look like visually, make a storyboard.
Week 12
General Feedback: -
Specific Feedback: A little slow in the progress but storyboard
looks alright.
Week 13
General Feedback: -
Specific Feedback: Reminds me of vector animation. Hope
to see the first draft by next week.
Week 14
General Feedback: -
Specific Feedback: Work on your sound effects.
Week 15
General Feedback: -
Specific Feedback: Ready to submit.
REFLECTIONS
Experience
For the final project, I had personally learned a lot from it from story structuring, framing, lighting, sound editing and especially animating. Most of these were things I was already learning in Project 1 and Project 2 so in the final project I was applying the things I have learned as well as expanding my knowledge. Animation was something new I had to self study due to not being used to doing paper-cut stop motion. The stop motion I had done were mostly either clay, Lego or using other toys.
To be honest, as much as I appreciate the feedback given in class, it was nerve-wracking to even share my work because I was feeling very demotivated and insecure. I did not think my work was worth viewing and feedback sessions did not help me much due to Mr Martin not having much to say for me to improve. It was quite disappointing since I had worked hard on it but there was not much he could say. I could feel that my work was not that great but I was not sure what I could improve on since there was not much comment given to me. I did not know if that experienced affected my experience overall because I genuinely did have a fun time doing this project. I loved learning how to animate, cutting out the frames, taking photos of each frame, putting them together to see how well I managed to make the animation to look like. I was honestly really proud of myself even when no one else was.
In conclusion, despite the small bumps I experienced, classes were well, I managed to learn from other's feedbacks and had a good time creating the stop motion animation.
Observation
I had observed that I tend to get really insecure on work that I believe I could improve on but do not know how. I can tell the quality of my work is not up to standards but not knowing how to improve it made me really nervous, scared and insecure. I was doubting my skills as a designer and animator. This project was definitely a big challenge on me mentally as well as on my skills. I had to garner all the skills I have and know of stop-motion despite not having done it in a long time and feeling really sad that I could have not done it with better quality. I believe that I should have done this video at a room with better lighting. Nonetheless, I can learn from this that I should do my best to improve on skills I am not so confident about. I should have done my study on stop-motion so I would have not felt so doubtful of myself.
I had also observed that my passion on animation still exists because I enjoyed learning about animation and doing it myself. Seeing the results of my study on the animation movements - fire burning and the book throw - really made me happy.
Findings
I found that these challenges that I faced during this project was normal. It is normal to feel insecure about something you have not done before, this just means that I have more room to improve. Since I am taking Animation as my specialization during my Year 2, this is just the beginning. I hope to learn more and see the changes and improvement I have made overtime.
Moreover, I found that I should invest in good equipment since they really do affect the quality of the work. Having good equipment can also speed up the process and give me more time to learn rather than worry about the quality of my work which can slow me down.
Last but not least, I have come to appreciate people that do stop-motion animation because of the crazy amount of work it takes to create a single second of smooth animation. The hard work they put on definitely pays off since stop-motion animation films that I have seen are so well done and one of my favourite movies ever is a stop-motion film titled Fantastic Mr. Fox.
In conclusion, I am glad to have been given this task, I definitely learned a lot about filming, video production and animation in this Final Project.
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