Due to the fact that I do not need to digitize my videos, I could import the m2ts raw video files into Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 at the CATI lab in CNM.
The first round of editing was tough because I did not have a clear idea of what kind of shots I would want and what kind of effects to add later. I pieced the clips in the order I wanted and cut out various NG shots. I applied the reverse timing effect to the clips that needed it and realise a huge problem that I have.
In some of the reverse video clips, because we weren't aware of it, my brother was actually walking backwards. And there were also continuity errors, like in the scene where clothes were thrown at my brother, the blanket was supposed to be messed up, but it was folded. Small details like this was missed and I only realise it when I watched it on my computer.
I did not have a choice but to reshoot parts of the video. I called my brother, and he was totally not happy about it.
But when it comes to video, I do want things to be close to perfection.
Reshoot scheduled for next week.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Assignment 6: Storyboard
The objective this time round is to create a video, from 1 and a half minute to 3 min, with at least one kind of special effect or superhero power.
I wanted to create something that has to do with being normal but yet still have to do with super powers. I have this idea that most of my friends will do on 'the discovery of super powers', so I wanted to avoid it to avoid being normal.
However, there is a time constraint because I need to film this video while working on the final assignment with my group mates. Thus, I wanted something that is significantly impressive but yet not too tedious to execute.
This I present, 'Nearly Late... Superhero style'
The basic storyline revolves around this normal teenager who faces the same problem many people do, being late for school. Thus, I show how some superhero powers can come in handy to such situations. Then at the end, I leave some room for the audience to think. What is TV and what is reality?Where does reality end and TV begins? Is there really a distinct line between these 2 dimensions?
Although it might seem like something too heavy to be expressed in a max. 3 min film, I believe it can be done.
Pictures would be uploaded soon. My next problem would be to look for a willing cast. Or one which I can take advantage of.
I wanted to create something that has to do with being normal but yet still have to do with super powers. I have this idea that most of my friends will do on 'the discovery of super powers', so I wanted to avoid it to avoid being normal.
However, there is a time constraint because I need to film this video while working on the final assignment with my group mates. Thus, I wanted something that is significantly impressive but yet not too tedious to execute.
This I present, 'Nearly Late... Superhero style'
The basic storyline revolves around this normal teenager who faces the same problem many people do, being late for school. Thus, I show how some superhero powers can come in handy to such situations. Then at the end, I leave some room for the audience to think. What is TV and what is reality?Where does reality end and TV begins? Is there really a distinct line between these 2 dimensions?
Although it might seem like something too heavy to be expressed in a max. 3 min film, I believe it can be done.
Pictures would be uploaded soon. My next problem would be to look for a willing cast. Or one which I can take advantage of.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Final Assignment: Editing for the 2nd time
Because of the extreme conditions during the other editing night, we had to do a check for the subtitles as well as some of the editing that we have done the night before.
After running a check through the NUS video's subtitles, I went ahead to continue editing the CNM video. The CNM video still did not have an audio file to go with it so I had to look for one. Freeplaymusic.com was one of our choices as it offers music that is free for all non-commercial uses. Thankfully, Wang Yi, my group mate, found a good light-hearted tune to go with the CNM interview video. Thanks, Wangyi!
We also had a lot of problems with some green screen errors. We did not realise it when we added the background before but upon previewing the video, parts of our friend's body disappeared because she had an accessory on. And the guitar in the 'Music Conservatory' scene also disappeared! We panicked and called Jia Xiang for help.He taught us how to do masking and tracking, such that the mask will follow the subject and cover up the green screen errors. It's really amazing how something like that could save our work.
Now that the audio is in, the backgrounds are done, all we can wait for is the presentation.
Cheers!
After running a check through the NUS video's subtitles, I went ahead to continue editing the CNM video. The CNM video still did not have an audio file to go with it so I had to look for one. Freeplaymusic.com was one of our choices as it offers music that is free for all non-commercial uses. Thankfully, Wang Yi, my group mate, found a good light-hearted tune to go with the CNM interview video. Thanks, Wangyi!
We also had a lot of problems with some green screen errors. We did not realise it when we added the background before but upon previewing the video, parts of our friend's body disappeared because she had an accessory on. And the guitar in the 'Music Conservatory' scene also disappeared! We panicked and called Jia Xiang for help.He taught us how to do masking and tracking, such that the mask will follow the subject and cover up the green screen errors. It's really amazing how something like that could save our work.
Now that the audio is in, the backgrounds are done, all we can wait for is the presentation.
Cheers!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Final Assignment: Editing through the Night
A post before I collapse onto my bed.
My whole group managed to get permission from Mr Dennis Ooi of the CNM department to use the CATI lab through the night for video editing. I ended school at 4pm and started editing from then on.
We have already mixed some of the beatbox sections and have a basic beat based on a metronome to follow. We set the metronome at speed 92 and followed the beats accordingly to put the videos in. After we were done with the beatbox section, we had to start working on the rap section of the video.
To our horror, we realised that 2 of the files were captured to a corrupted format. The file could be viewed on a video player but could not be open in Adobe Premiere Pro. I ran to the MDL to borrow a DV camera and a firewire to do exporting into Zhiyun's laptop because it was near 5pm and the lab was about to close.
At midnight, we managed to get a couple of friends to help with the recording of the voiceover for the rap. We recorded in the playroom because at that time of the night, it was the quietest place to be.
After we were done with recording the voiceover, we continued working on things like green screen removal and touching up of the missing bits on the people due to lighting problems or very bad reflections. I never knew doing manual tracking is such a tedious task. I had to use an extra video mask in order to cover this moving object that shows holes showing the green screen.
After touching up, we experimented with adding background for the videos. Our first issue was with the difference in colour between the background and the subject. As we want our focus to be on the subject, we decided to either tone down the saturation of the background or to blur in totally.
I did some blurred background while my friend tweaked the colour on After Effects. In the end, we decided to go with the desaturated background as the blurred one made the buildings seem unreal and worse, something that our audience, the freshmen, could not relate to.
At about 3am, we were all very very tired. Zhiyun and I both started the day at 9am and was really suffering from severe fatigue at that point of time. The conditions of the room did not help as the room was small and stuffy and at 3am the temperature in the room went up to 32 degrees. The air-conditioning was off because it was centrally controlled. And the door have to be closed if not there will be an alarm. It was just terrible.
But we pulled ourselves together and edited as much of the video as we could.
In the morning, we had a rather satisfactory version of the video, with some ends untied.
I think it was a night well spent. Despite the extreme conditions.
My whole group managed to get permission from Mr Dennis Ooi of the CNM department to use the CATI lab through the night for video editing. I ended school at 4pm and started editing from then on.
We have already mixed some of the beatbox sections and have a basic beat based on a metronome to follow. We set the metronome at speed 92 and followed the beats accordingly to put the videos in. After we were done with the beatbox section, we had to start working on the rap section of the video.
To our horror, we realised that 2 of the files were captured to a corrupted format. The file could be viewed on a video player but could not be open in Adobe Premiere Pro. I ran to the MDL to borrow a DV camera and a firewire to do exporting into Zhiyun's laptop because it was near 5pm and the lab was about to close.
At midnight, we managed to get a couple of friends to help with the recording of the voiceover for the rap. We recorded in the playroom because at that time of the night, it was the quietest place to be.
After we were done with recording the voiceover, we continued working on things like green screen removal and touching up of the missing bits on the people due to lighting problems or very bad reflections. I never knew doing manual tracking is such a tedious task. I had to use an extra video mask in order to cover this moving object that shows holes showing the green screen.
After touching up, we experimented with adding background for the videos. Our first issue was with the difference in colour between the background and the subject. As we want our focus to be on the subject, we decided to either tone down the saturation of the background or to blur in totally.
I did some blurred background while my friend tweaked the colour on After Effects. In the end, we decided to go with the desaturated background as the blurred one made the buildings seem unreal and worse, something that our audience, the freshmen, could not relate to.
At about 3am, we were all very very tired. Zhiyun and I both started the day at 9am and was really suffering from severe fatigue at that point of time. The conditions of the room did not help as the room was small and stuffy and at 3am the temperature in the room went up to 32 degrees. The air-conditioning was off because it was centrally controlled. And the door have to be closed if not there will be an alarm. It was just terrible.
But we pulled ourselves together and edited as much of the video as we could.
In the morning, we had a rather satisfactory version of the video, with some ends untied.
I think it was a night well spent. Despite the extreme conditions.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Final Assignment: Digitizing DV tapes
The first part of the whole post-production process would be to capture the DV tape footage into digital format. We booked a computer at the MDL today just for this purpose.
Digitizing is simple but it takes a lot of time. Especially when we have 4 DV tapes to convert. We have 3 and a half tape worth of footage from the hidden camera in the corner, and half a tape of actual footage for our CNM video.
We sat in the lab for very long...
..converting..
...converting...
It was a very simple but painful process because we could do nothing but watch the footage run in real time.
Then, we had to get a copy of the video out of the computer only to realise that it stands at 20gb per file.
I decided to borrow my brother's 250bg hard disk drive and return the next day to get the video.
I never knew a video file could be this huge.
Tomorrow is the actual start of the editing. My group is quite worried about the deadline so we decided that we would stay over night in school on Friday just to do more editing.
Digitizing is simple but it takes a lot of time. Especially when we have 4 DV tapes to convert. We have 3 and a half tape worth of footage from the hidden camera in the corner, and half a tape of actual footage for our CNM video.
We sat in the lab for very long...
..converting..
...converting...
It was a very simple but painful process because we could do nothing but watch the footage run in real time.
Then, we had to get a copy of the video out of the computer only to realise that it stands at 20gb per file.
I decided to borrow my brother's 250bg hard disk drive and return the next day to get the video.
I never knew a video file could be this huge.
Tomorrow is the actual start of the editing. My group is quite worried about the deadline so we decided that we would stay over night in school on Friday just to do more editing.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Final Assignment: Filming
After my koto ( Japanese tradtional musical instrument ) practise, I rushed to the playroom to set up the equipment for the shoot. Zhiyun and Wang yi worked together to set up the green screen while Rae and I put up the camera and lights. I read a lot of tutorials online the night before about setting up lighting for the green screen and tried my best to create even lighting for the green screen so that editing would be very much easier when we get down to it. We were quite efficient as everything was done before the cast arrived at 12 pm.
We arranged the shoot such that those who finish their parts the most quickly and more efficiently would get to leave earlier. We have some alumni from the previous years and some of the students from other parts of NUS amongst the cast. This is because this is not just an FASS project, but a NUS one. Thankfully everyone was very co-operative and waited patiently for their turn for their section of the video.
The first part of the filming process was to record the sounds that we will re-mix into a beatbox. Everyone was running out of ideas of what kind of sounds to make and we ended up with a lot of possible sounds. Then we proceeded with the scenes for the rap. We got the people to lip sync to the rap because we figured that it would be very tough for them to memorise the rhythm and rhyme of the rap well.
Jia xiang was present too, because we contacted him earlier for him to appear in our video, as well as to check if we are doing things right. Although we did warn and tell our friends to avoid wearing colours such as white, yellow or green , which will make them 'disappear'into the green screen, he was concerned about some of the props that we were using.
In one of the scenes, we got one of our friends to play a guitar in the background. The guitar, as most guitars do, has a glossy surface and Jia xiang told us that it might disappear when we do 'green screen removal' on the video editing software. My group thought about it and decided to continue filming with the guitar as it was an essential part of the video. Editing might be a lot more tidious but we believe it is worth it.
We also changed several scenes such that a lot of the props would be replaced by computer graphics. For example, Nilar was supposed to 'push' a real book off her head. But we did a few takes and it just looked weird and thus we decided to use computer graphics for this shot. We did the same for some other takes as well.
At the same time that we were doing this filming, we had a very innovative and creative idea. Throughout the whole shoot, we had a little DV camera at the corner of the room, capturing our whiole filming process. We plan to use this footage as part of our CNM video.
Utilising the time for one video shoot to do two, I thought that was really pretty ingenious. Nevertheless, we are still worred as to how the video will turn out. I never knew that video filming for such a short video would take so much time. In the end, we filmed for 7 hours and left the playroom only at 830 pm after clearing up the place.
We arranged the shoot such that those who finish their parts the most quickly and more efficiently would get to leave earlier. We have some alumni from the previous years and some of the students from other parts of NUS amongst the cast. This is because this is not just an FASS project, but a NUS one. Thankfully everyone was very co-operative and waited patiently for their turn for their section of the video.
The first part of the filming process was to record the sounds that we will re-mix into a beatbox. Everyone was running out of ideas of what kind of sounds to make and we ended up with a lot of possible sounds. Then we proceeded with the scenes for the rap. We got the people to lip sync to the rap because we figured that it would be very tough for them to memorise the rhythm and rhyme of the rap well.
Jia xiang was present too, because we contacted him earlier for him to appear in our video, as well as to check if we are doing things right. Although we did warn and tell our friends to avoid wearing colours such as white, yellow or green , which will make them 'disappear'into the green screen, he was concerned about some of the props that we were using.
In one of the scenes, we got one of our friends to play a guitar in the background. The guitar, as most guitars do, has a glossy surface and Jia xiang told us that it might disappear when we do 'green screen removal' on the video editing software. My group thought about it and decided to continue filming with the guitar as it was an essential part of the video. Editing might be a lot more tidious but we believe it is worth it.
We also changed several scenes such that a lot of the props would be replaced by computer graphics. For example, Nilar was supposed to 'push' a real book off her head. But we did a few takes and it just looked weird and thus we decided to use computer graphics for this shot. We did the same for some other takes as well.
At the same time that we were doing this filming, we had a very innovative and creative idea. Throughout the whole shoot, we had a little DV camera at the corner of the room, capturing our whiole filming process. We plan to use this footage as part of our CNM video.
Utilising the time for one video shoot to do two, I thought that was really pretty ingenious. Nevertheless, we are still worred as to how the video will turn out. I never knew that video filming for such a short video would take so much time. In the end, we filmed for 7 hours and left the playroom only at 830 pm after clearing up the place.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Final Assignment: Props
Raemarie ( Sorry Dr Julian, I am used to calling her Rae. And from this post onwards, she would be Rae ) and Zhiyun went to buy some props for our shoot on tomorrow.
I was in charge of making sure that we get the room and equipment for the actual shoot. I booked the equipment from the Media Development Laboratory 3 days ago and got permission to use the Playroom on Saturday for a whole day video shoot. The others made sure that everything else is in order and that the cast will turn up on the day itself.
Today, I had to make the props while Rae and Zhiyun did a recording for the cast to refer to while we film them tomorrow. After the recording is done Zhiyun and Rae will be back with me to do the props too. We had to make a few things in order not to spend too much money on the props.
We bought clown's noses and paint to colour it orange like we wanted it. The noses were originally red ( due to the fact that most clowns have red noses ) . The main reason behind the noses was that we wanted something that would identify our cast as NUS ambassadors, or rather, students of NUS rather than normal people. We considered orange or blue shirts, but it was all to common. The idea of using an orange nose surfaced and we decided to use it because besides acting as an identity for NUS students, it also adds on to one of the points that we want to convey; NUS's students are actually very fun !
Besides the noses, we printed out and made a pile of flags to use as props in the video. The whole process of making props was tiring and time consuming. I do believe this would be worth it after the actual video comes out.
It seems like we are using more and more time. And I have lesser and lesser time to blog.
Well, I'm looking forward to the video shoot!
I was in charge of making sure that we get the room and equipment for the actual shoot. I booked the equipment from the Media Development Laboratory 3 days ago and got permission to use the Playroom on Saturday for a whole day video shoot. The others made sure that everything else is in order and that the cast will turn up on the day itself.
Today, I had to make the props while Rae and Zhiyun did a recording for the cast to refer to while we film them tomorrow. After the recording is done Zhiyun and Rae will be back with me to do the props too. We had to make a few things in order not to spend too much money on the props.
We bought clown's noses and paint to colour it orange like we wanted it. The noses were originally red ( due to the fact that most clowns have red noses ) . The main reason behind the noses was that we wanted something that would identify our cast as NUS ambassadors, or rather, students of NUS rather than normal people. We considered orange or blue shirts, but it was all to common. The idea of using an orange nose surfaced and we decided to use it because besides acting as an identity for NUS students, it also adds on to one of the points that we want to convey; NUS's students are actually very fun !
Besides the noses, we printed out and made a pile of flags to use as props in the video. The whole process of making props was tiring and time consuming. I do believe this would be worth it after the actual video comes out.
It seems like we are using more and more time. And I have lesser and lesser time to blog.
Well, I'm looking forward to the video shoot!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Assignment4: Pre-production Document ( For Final Assignment)
Our group had a group meeting just to put this document together.
There are a lot of things we needed to finalise before the document can be presented in class. We have had several discussions before and we have an idea of how we wanted to film the video. However, we needed to come up with several items before we can produce the document. Some of these items would be :
1. Script ( of the rap )
2. Equipment
3. Props
After a 2-3 hour discussion, we had an outline of our rap, at least roughly what we wanted to do in the final project.
Raemarie wrote most of the rap while the rest of us tried rapping it and changed words here and there if the rhyming did not work out. It was good practice, both for our English and 'sense of rhythm'. Perhaps we can all look into a career in rap music.
The main reason why we decided to do a rap is due to the difficulty in finding suitable music for this kind of projects. A lot of the copyleft or freesource music are usually limited to academic or personal use and not for public usage, like uploading on Youtube or the OSA website.
Therefore, we decided that it is the safest bet to write our own rap and add a rhythm to it.
Basically, the rap would sound like this:
Then, we created a list of people we could call and planned when we needed to buy the props, since we have planned what we needed.
I realise the importance of this document, because if it was not necessary for us to do this document, I would have no idea what to do first before the actual shoot. I learned from this assignment that it is very essential, especially for video projects like this, to have a plan long before the actual shoot to plan what we would need and possible problems we might face in the future.
From what I see, the final assignment seems pretty feasible and should not be a problem. The only possible problem I could see was the coordination of the audio with the video since we plan to do a voice over.
But well, that problem can be solved later. We need to start making props soon.
Time is running out.
There are a lot of things we needed to finalise before the document can be presented in class. We have had several discussions before and we have an idea of how we wanted to film the video. However, we needed to come up with several items before we can produce the document. Some of these items would be :
1. Script ( of the rap )
2. Equipment
3. Props
After a 2-3 hour discussion, we had an outline of our rap, at least roughly what we wanted to do in the final project.
Raemarie wrote most of the rap while the rest of us tried rapping it and changed words here and there if the rhyming did not work out. It was good practice, both for our English and 'sense of rhythm'. Perhaps we can all look into a career in rap music.
The main reason why we decided to do a rap is due to the difficulty in finding suitable music for this kind of projects. A lot of the copyleft or freesource music are usually limited to academic or personal use and not for public usage, like uploading on Youtube or the OSA website.
Therefore, we decided that it is the safest bet to write our own rap and add a rhythm to it.
Basically, the rap would sound like this:
We’re famous for our world-class education
A wealth of knowledge, so much information
This year we’re one-oh-five
We’ve seen a lot of students thrive
Eleven faculties. Let’s break ‘em down now:
Design and environment, Science and Dentistry
LKY School of Public Policy
Arts and Social Sciences, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory
Medicine school, Law, Engineering
Business school and Computing
But all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
On our hill, there are still things we can enjoy
If you ever need a change in scenery
Campus-wide you’ll see we’re swathed in greenery
Just wanna hang with your friends? Sit around and have some coffee
Otherwise pick a food spot and throw a party!
All year-round there’s a plethora of activity
Bazaars, fairs and arty acts at UCC
There’s soccer, swimming, tennis, rugby for the sporty
And other less vigorous ways to maintain your mind and body
The friends you make here come from all around
So much cultural diversity in our humble university town
Lost in translation? We think not
Two words for you: Melting Pot
It’s here where life goes way beyond the books
Please don’t be fooled by our ancient roots
We welcome anyone and everyone from far and near
Then, we created a list of people we could call and planned when we needed to buy the props, since we have planned what we needed.
I realise the importance of this document, because if it was not necessary for us to do this document, I would have no idea what to do first before the actual shoot. I learned from this assignment that it is very essential, especially for video projects like this, to have a plan long before the actual shoot to plan what we would need and possible problems we might face in the future.
From what I see, the final assignment seems pretty feasible and should not be a problem. The only possible problem I could see was the coordination of the audio with the video since we plan to do a voice over.
But well, that problem can be solved later. We need to start making props soon.
Time is running out.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Assignment 6: Filming the raw clip
I managed to get my brother, although rather reluctantly, to agree to be my main lead in the superhero video. Because it is the weekends, I also manage to get my mom to agree to be in my video.
Shooting was tough, because I did not want to reshoot any of the scenes if possible. And because I was doings several reverse action scenes, these shots have to be planned properly in order for the video to look realistic, even with the ridiculous powers.
I shot the scenes with my mother first because she had to go out later in the afternoon. After that I got my brother to continue filming with me and to go out of the house for several location shots. I was glad that I was using the Sony HD camera from the CNM department instead of the DV cameras from the MDL, it was lighter and more handy compared to the ones from the MDL.
Although it was a 3 min clip, there are so many scenes and several close-ups to make the video more interesting. I realise from previous experience, videos which are taken from the same angle would appear very boring and very dull. It will also put this distance between the actor and the viewer of the video which will make it seem not as realistic.
Thus I took several different shots of the same scene to provided a rounded angle. I wanted to try the Batman angle to show a bit of awkwardness, afterall, superhero effects are not exactly something most people are comfortable with. But the Batman angle did not look good and I decided to cut it out of the video. I tried various kinds of shots like close-ups and medium close-up and some further establishment shots. Afterall, I have learned all these in class and should put it to use.
I also decided to mute most of the videos and to find a freesource royalty free music to go over it. From my experience doing the NUS video for my group which depended heavily on sounds, sounds is very important to the viewer when watching the video, thus, I decided to put music to, firstly, give the video a suitable mood, and secondly, to let the audience concentrate more on the visuals and leave the audio as something complementary.
After a whole day of filming, I spent the whole night viewing the videos and deciding on what to use for the actual video. I'll edit the videos into order and decide if I need to reshoot anything the next day.
It's another tiring day of filming. Hopefully something good comes out of this.
What am I talking about... something will. (^_^)
Shooting was tough, because I did not want to reshoot any of the scenes if possible. And because I was doings several reverse action scenes, these shots have to be planned properly in order for the video to look realistic, even with the ridiculous powers.
I shot the scenes with my mother first because she had to go out later in the afternoon. After that I got my brother to continue filming with me and to go out of the house for several location shots. I was glad that I was using the Sony HD camera from the CNM department instead of the DV cameras from the MDL, it was lighter and more handy compared to the ones from the MDL.
Although it was a 3 min clip, there are so many scenes and several close-ups to make the video more interesting. I realise from previous experience, videos which are taken from the same angle would appear very boring and very dull. It will also put this distance between the actor and the viewer of the video which will make it seem not as realistic.
Thus I took several different shots of the same scene to provided a rounded angle. I wanted to try the Batman angle to show a bit of awkwardness, afterall, superhero effects are not exactly something most people are comfortable with. But the Batman angle did not look good and I decided to cut it out of the video. I tried various kinds of shots like close-ups and medium close-up and some further establishment shots. Afterall, I have learned all these in class and should put it to use.
I also decided to mute most of the videos and to find a freesource royalty free music to go over it. From my experience doing the NUS video for my group which depended heavily on sounds, sounds is very important to the viewer when watching the video, thus, I decided to put music to, firstly, give the video a suitable mood, and secondly, to let the audience concentrate more on the visuals and leave the audio as something complementary.
After a whole day of filming, I spent the whole night viewing the videos and deciding on what to use for the actual video. I'll edit the videos into order and decide if I need to reshoot anything the next day.
It's another tiring day of filming. Hopefully something good comes out of this.
What am I talking about... something will. (^_^)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Assignment 3: Presenting NUS/CNM
I presented my CNM promotional video today. All of us could not present both the videos because there were simply not enough time.
Here are some of the comments that I have received and will take into serious consideration today.
About CNM video:
More actions could be added to the 'moulding' process of the doll. Things that will 'enrich' the doll could be done.
Some suggestions was to use video editing software to add things into the doll. Possibilities could be things like objects ( CDs or Information) flying into the clay doll.
I will take this into serious consideration.
I am just glad that this video is over.
For now.
Everyone, please take a look at the these 2 videos on youtube. Thank you!
CNM Video ( Creating and Moulding your Future ) :
NUS Video ( Be part of the AwesomeNUS) :
Here are some of the comments that I have received and will take into serious consideration today.
About CNM video:
More actions could be added to the 'moulding' process of the doll. Things that will 'enrich' the doll could be done.
Some suggestions was to use video editing software to add things into the doll. Possibilities could be things like objects ( CDs or Information) flying into the clay doll.
I will take this into serious consideration.
I am just glad that this video is over.
For now.
Everyone, please take a look at the these 2 videos on youtube. Thank you!
CNM Video ( Creating and Moulding your Future ) :
NUS Video ( Be part of the AwesomeNUS) :
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Assignment 3 : Messing with clay
I think today was the most amusing day of my life. Even if it is for the sake of this NM module...
I bought 7 tubes of blue plasticine and a styrofoam ball and started moulding my blue CNM mascot early in the morning. The night before I was making the graduation cap along with the scroll, after a long day of scientific observations done for anothercross faculty project.
I was sitting in a discreet corner of the school, minding my own business with the blue doll, hoping that none of my friends would see me and think that I have finally lost my mind doing projects in school. The main challenge creating the doll is to make sure that it actually stands and will not topple when I get to Dr Millie's office. I have made an appointment the day I decided to use the 'clay doll' idea because I believe Dr Millie is one of the key 'front person' of the department and it would be fantastic to have her in my Ken Burns video.
Equiped with my blue clay doll and my DSLR, I headed for Dr Millie's office in time for our appointment before her meeting. I wasn't in the best shape to do the project because I was ill and made a few mistakes here and there before I got the right angle. Thanks to Dr Millie who was really patient with me and even told me to take care after the shoot was done.
Then I headed to the CNM conference room, the set for the rest of my shoot. Because it was the mid semester break, a lot of the academic staff were not in. I went to all the office I could and managed to find some of the professors in. Rodney, one of the research fellows offered to help too. I also managed to get Alex and Dr Chung Peichi to help me 'mould' my doll.
Basically, instead of getting them to 'mould' my doll' I did a reverse effect to make things easier. Thus, they will not mould the doll from a ball into a doll, but from a doll into a ball. In other words, they are destroying my clay doll to what it was originally.
The final effect would only be obvious when the final product is done. Meanwhile, here's how some of the photographs ( frame of the video ) will look like.
Interesting, isn't it?
Please look forward to the final video.
I bought 7 tubes of blue plasticine and a styrofoam ball and started moulding my blue CNM mascot early in the morning. The night before I was making the graduation cap along with the scroll, after a long day of scientific observations done for anothercross faculty project.
I was sitting in a discreet corner of the school, minding my own business with the blue doll, hoping that none of my friends would see me and think that I have finally lost my mind doing projects in school. The main challenge creating the doll is to make sure that it actually stands and will not topple when I get to Dr Millie's office. I have made an appointment the day I decided to use the 'clay doll' idea because I believe Dr Millie is one of the key 'front person' of the department and it would be fantastic to have her in my Ken Burns video.
Equiped with my blue clay doll and my DSLR, I headed for Dr Millie's office in time for our appointment before her meeting. I wasn't in the best shape to do the project because I was ill and made a few mistakes here and there before I got the right angle. Thanks to Dr Millie who was really patient with me and even told me to take care after the shoot was done.
Then I headed to the CNM conference room, the set for the rest of my shoot. Because it was the mid semester break, a lot of the academic staff were not in. I went to all the office I could and managed to find some of the professors in. Rodney, one of the research fellows offered to help too. I also managed to get Alex and Dr Chung Peichi to help me 'mould' my doll.
Basically, instead of getting them to 'mould' my doll' I did a reverse effect to make things easier. Thus, they will not mould the doll from a ball into a doll, but from a doll into a ball. In other words, they are destroying my clay doll to what it was originally.
The final effect would only be obvious when the final product is done. Meanwhile, here's how some of the photographs ( frame of the video ) will look like.
Interesting, isn't it?
Please look forward to the final video.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Assignment 3: First ideas first
We have to present a storyboard for the Ken Burns video that we would have to present after the mid semester break. There is one to be done for each CNM and NUS. It should be like a promotional video and thus must reflect some good parts about NUS/CNM.
My idea for the CNM started from the slogan that I thought up while looking at the 3 alphabets. Like the past few slogans that I have created for CNM freshmen camp and events like that, I like to use the 3 alphabets to create a slogan.
"Creating and Moulding"
That was what I wanted as my slogan. So what could CNM be moulding and creating?
"Creating aNd Moulding your Future"
This came up to mind and I thought it was a good slogan to work on. Thus, based on the idea of moulding, I came up with this idea of CNM moulding us from a little clay ball into a clay doll ( that is more 'in shape' to work in society )
This can also reflect how we, as freshmen, came into NUS without knowing a thing, and through our major, Communications and New Media, we are moulded into people that can stand for themselves in the media industry.
So instead of using various transitions, the bulk of the video would be based on the immense amount of work done by taking a lot of photographs and even making props.
This is the storyboard for the CNM Ken Burns video.
Then for the NUS video, I want to base it on another form of wordplay by using the alphabets 'NUS' to replace nouns that end with '-ness'. I wanted to use words like colourfulness to describe the colourful culture, 'conduciveness' to describe the facilities that NUS have.
For this, I would need to use a software like Adobe Premiere Pro to create good transitions so that the video would look impressive. The choice of font for the text is also important.
I guess for the NUS video, there is nothing much to talk about until the final product is out.
So look forward to it.
My idea for the CNM started from the slogan that I thought up while looking at the 3 alphabets. Like the past few slogans that I have created for CNM freshmen camp and events like that, I like to use the 3 alphabets to create a slogan.
"Creating and Moulding"
That was what I wanted as my slogan. So what could CNM be moulding and creating?
"Creating aNd Moulding your Future"
This came up to mind and I thought it was a good slogan to work on. Thus, based on the idea of moulding, I came up with this idea of CNM moulding us from a little clay ball into a clay doll ( that is more 'in shape' to work in society )
This can also reflect how we, as freshmen, came into NUS without knowing a thing, and through our major, Communications and New Media, we are moulded into people that can stand for themselves in the media industry.
So instead of using various transitions, the bulk of the video would be based on the immense amount of work done by taking a lot of photographs and even making props.
This is the storyboard for the CNM Ken Burns video.
Then for the NUS video, I want to base it on another form of wordplay by using the alphabets 'NUS' to replace nouns that end with '-ness'. I wanted to use words like colourfulness to describe the colourful culture, 'conduciveness' to describe the facilities that NUS have.
For this, I would need to use a software like Adobe Premiere Pro to create good transitions so that the video would look impressive. The choice of font for the text is also important.
I guess for the NUS video, there is nothing much to talk about until the final product is out.
So look forward to it.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Assignment 2 : A day in NUS
This was a very rushed piece of work. Nevertheless I tried my best when I took the photographs. Afterall, Dr Julian do know that I took the Digital Photography module and I must live up to the name. Or at the very least not mess up the composition and colouring of the photograph.
To me, whenever such an assignment comes up, my main concern would be how to differentiate my idea from the rest. It might not be true but I sincerely believe that design is all about creativity and a component of that would be to stand out from the rest. No one would be interested to look at your work if someone else's was better.
I tried my best to add some fanciful borders and ornaments onto the website along with the encoded photographs I took. The disk space restriction was a tough one to work around but I did what I could to reduce the size as much as possible without turning the pictures into thumbnails. Afterall, it is part of the requirement that the pictures are of a decent size.
My main idea was to create a poem around school, describing hidden messages around the school that students have failed to notice. This is inspired by the Da Vinci code where different pictures, could have zillions of meanings, depending on how you look at it and what you choose to perceive from it.
Therefore, when one look at the images that I have on my site, it would not seem obvious as to what I was talking about. But the similarity in terms of the forms and shapes that were present in each picture would link to tell the story.
The link is still currently not working because I have some problems uploading it onto the correct server. Will link this when it is up.
To me, whenever such an assignment comes up, my main concern would be how to differentiate my idea from the rest. It might not be true but I sincerely believe that design is all about creativity and a component of that would be to stand out from the rest. No one would be interested to look at your work if someone else's was better.
I tried my best to add some fanciful borders and ornaments onto the website along with the encoded photographs I took. The disk space restriction was a tough one to work around but I did what I could to reduce the size as much as possible without turning the pictures into thumbnails. Afterall, it is part of the requirement that the pictures are of a decent size.
My main idea was to create a poem around school, describing hidden messages around the school that students have failed to notice. This is inspired by the Da Vinci code where different pictures, could have zillions of meanings, depending on how you look at it and what you choose to perceive from it.
Therefore, when one look at the images that I have on my site, it would not seem obvious as to what I was talking about. But the similarity in terms of the forms and shapes that were present in each picture would link to tell the story.
The link is still currently not working because I have some problems uploading it onto the correct server. Will link this when it is up.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Assignment 1: MDL website
With the CSS crash course that I had from the various online tutorials, and with the help of my group mate who have had more experience with Adobe Dreamweaver than me, we managed to made the changes that we want to the MDL website.
Firstly, the toolbar at the top was changed into a film strip. We did this because from what we know, one of the key things that the students go to the Media Development Laboratory was to borrow video making and editing equipment. A film strip became the core of the design with colour over the icons when the cursor hover overs it. The idea was thought up by Raemarie, my group mate and I thought it was a fantastic idea. I did the first version of the film strip using computer graphics, but we managed to find a stock image of the film strip that was free for all to used and used it.
Because the background was too bare, I found a stock image and blurred it and used it as a background for the website's frontpage.
It was not easy for 3 CNM students who have little experience with web design software to do up all the formating for a webpage like this. I attempted to create flash tutorials to replace the word ones that was found on the website but I wasnt able to create a good one that is comprehensive enough for students whom might be visiting the site.
Slightly before the deadline, we realise the display problem when we view the website on different browsers. It was a panic rush trying to sort the problem out and we eventually solved it using a function on Dreamweaver.
We made it in time. And I followed Dr Julian's instructions and made a new URL mirror for it.
Check it out at: http://mabraezy.mooo.com
The name is from... Mab(el) + Rae+Z ( hi) Y(un) = mabraezy
The others might thought it was pretty lame. Well, I thought it was pretty clever.
Firstly, the toolbar at the top was changed into a film strip. We did this because from what we know, one of the key things that the students go to the Media Development Laboratory was to borrow video making and editing equipment. A film strip became the core of the design with colour over the icons when the cursor hover overs it. The idea was thought up by Raemarie, my group mate and I thought it was a fantastic idea. I did the first version of the film strip using computer graphics, but we managed to find a stock image of the film strip that was free for all to used and used it.
Because the background was too bare, I found a stock image and blurred it and used it as a background for the website's frontpage.
It was not easy for 3 CNM students who have little experience with web design software to do up all the formating for a webpage like this. I attempted to create flash tutorials to replace the word ones that was found on the website but I wasnt able to create a good one that is comprehensive enough for students whom might be visiting the site.
Slightly before the deadline, we realise the display problem when we view the website on different browsers. It was a panic rush trying to sort the problem out and we eventually solved it using a function on Dreamweaver.
We made it in time. And I followed Dr Julian's instructions and made a new URL mirror for it.
Check it out at: http://mabraezy.mooo.com
The name is from... Mab(el) + Rae+Z ( hi) Y(un) = mabraezy
The others might thought it was pretty lame. Well, I thought it was pretty clever.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Assignment 1: Planning process
We were told to recreate the look of the MDL website as the first assignment.
To me, it was a huge problem. Despite the fact that I have taken computing modules and various NM modules that require website design, I am still pretty weak at it despite using it several times. And I was worried as well, due to the fact that there are Computing students in my class.
But nevertheless, my group members and I brainstormed and came up with some things that needs to be done to the old website. We realised that a lot of the information needs to be rearranged and the current layout was way too boring for something that is called 'Media Development'. It was like, how can a place that sounds so technologically advanced have such a plain looking website?
Then we decided to add more aesthetic designs to the front page and to reduce the number of words used per page. This will probably make it much easier to read and students will be able to look for information much easier.
We have only talked about it and the final thing would be done much later.
To me, it was a huge problem. Despite the fact that I have taken computing modules and various NM modules that require website design, I am still pretty weak at it despite using it several times. And I was worried as well, due to the fact that there are Computing students in my class.
But nevertheless, my group members and I brainstormed and came up with some things that needs to be done to the old website. We realised that a lot of the information needs to be rearranged and the current layout was way too boring for something that is called 'Media Development'. It was like, how can a place that sounds so technologically advanced have such a plain looking website?
Then we decided to add more aesthetic designs to the front page and to reduce the number of words used per page. This will probably make it much easier to read and students will be able to look for information much easier.
We have only talked about it and the final thing would be done much later.
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