Photomation - Behind The Scenes

In audio, we had the task of making our own photomation. A photomation is a sequence of images, which when played in succession look like moving video. In the first week we experimented with photomation and made our own short videos using the technique. I found it was quite easy to do but very time consuming as it involved taking a picture, moving the subject a fraction, then taking another picture and so on. The editing was also fairly straight forward, as we were taught how to import our photos as an image sequence into Premiere. This way the program could handle the footage a lot better and the photos were all grouped into one video clip. Here is the video I made experimenting with Premiere and Photomation:
Because it was like skateboarding, I added some effects on Premiere to make it look like it was filmed witha a fisheye lens. This made the video look more fitting.

After this it was time to start planning our full photomations. I firstly started a document and listed some features that I wanted my video to have. These were:
-around 60 seconds in length
- add titles and colours grading when editing

-include skateboarding, certain music I like & photos I've taken

I also did a blog post researching how I want to present my video, and what size/ratio it will be. I decided to make it square so it can be posted both online on platforms like Vimeo and YouTube, and on mobile on Instagram.
 After this I drew up a storyboard:

When it came to the final edit, some of the shots I storyboarded didn't make it as when making my photomation I experimented and tried to make an effective video with the things I had available to me. During shooting, I used a tripod to get some interesting birds eye view angles. I also used a tripod for other shots to make sure that the photomation wasn't shaky. I used a bridge camera with manual settings to ensure that the lighting stayed as consistent as possible in shots. If I was to do this again I would've used a DSLR for better looking images, with a high aperture. After I had taken all of the photos it was time to edit them together.

Firstly I arranged the different shots into folders so I could import them into Premiere as individual image sequences. At this stage I also deleted any bad photos and did some masking using Photoshop. This was for a shot where I made my skateboard appear to do tricks and essentially 'float'.

To do this I imported a photo of the skateboard on top of a jar so it was raised and then on another layer imported a background with no skateboard on. I then used the eraser tool to remove the jars. Lastly, I adjusted the Brightness/Contrast of the background layer so everything blended in. I did this for about 10 frames.

I Then composited the whole project in Premeiere Pro, arranging the clips alongside the music and adjusting the speed of some clips. I added titles to help narrate the video, as noted in my plan and storyboard using the Titles feature in Premiere Pro. The text looked boring at first and I wanted to give it some creative flair to make it look more interesting. Therefore I added a stroke and drop shadow to it, and changed the text colour from white to a range of pastel colours. I also changed the font. As the film is meant to represent me, I made the text look appealing to me.

In Adobe Premiere I also touched up each shot by adding an adjustment layer to each one.

In this adjustment layer I added the effect 'Three Way Colour Corrector'. This allowed me to adjust the hues of the shadows, midtones and highlights. It also can adjust the input and output levels and saturation.

After this, I had a section in the video where it says I take photos, and here I wanted to insert some photographs I've taken. I did this, but they didn't fit with the flow of the video as they were still and made it look a bit boring. Therefore I used photoshop to split them up between the foreground and background. I did this by cutting out the foreground subjects with the lasso tools and bringing them to sepereate layers. After this the original image had gaps in so I used content aware fill to fill in the gaps. Lastly, I touched up the gaps with the spot healing brush tool and clone tool. The background still looked a bit scruffy for a couple of images so I applied a gaussian blur to soften it.

Once I was done, I ended up with a layer for each subject in the foreground, and a background image. I did this for three photographs then moved onto Adobe After Effects.

 In After Effects, I dragged in my seperated photographs (saved as .psd's) and put them into a new composition. I then used keyframes to change the scale of the background layer, and scale/position of the subject layers. This gave a 3D photo effect which made it look like the photograph was moving and I found it really effective and proffessional looking. I rendered the After Effects composition into a 5 second video for each photograph.

Keyframing my 'Photo Parallax' in After Effects

After I had done this, I moved back to Premiere and put in the photo clips I had made. The video was finally complete, however I still had to give it sound. I used a website called 'freesound.org' to search for copyright free sound effects I needed for my project. I downloaded them and added them to my timeline to sync them up with the video. This was fairly easy, however I had to adjust the volume of each sound so that it didn't clip and everything stayed under the -6dB mark in the audio levels in Premiere. This is a photo of my complete timeline:

Lastly, I rendered my video. It was a bit confusing, but as I was familiar with this process I managed to pick the right settings so that my video exported correctly in the best quality. I picked the H.264 format and made sure that the frame size was the same as my project (1280x1280). 

If I were to do this again, I would have spent more time planning in order to achieve some more interesting shots with some variety. I'd also use a better camera with some shots that look stylish (e.g. using a shallow depth of field/long exposures). Maybe I would try to shoot at some different, cool looking locations too. The audio worked well I thought, however I could narrate with my own voice which is also something else to consider if I were to do this again.

             
The video fits well in the YouTube player and would also work well on Instagram if I decided to post it on there.

Adding Sound to My Silent Film

Today in Media Theory I had to record and add sound to my silent film. To do this, me and my group watched the film a few times and took note of all of the sounds going on that needed to be replicated, not forgetting ambient noise. After this we went out to record and did this in a variety of ways.

One hard part of recording was getting ambient noise and car sounds from outside without the wind interfering with the clips. To solve this problem we shielded the microphone, however some wind was still audible. In the end we just waited for it to stop and recorded at those times. Something which worked well was using Max's bag to make sounds in a silent room. This helped us to create realistic sounding effects which we needed.

My Premiere timeline showing all of the
audio clips alongside my silent film.

After we had all our sounds recorded, we had to edit them into our films separately. This wasn't too much of a hard task software-wise, however some of the sounds needed adjustments. To make them fit I changed the speed and pitch of some of them. Lastly, I downloaded some royalty free sounds from freesound.org to fill in any gaps where our recordings weren't good enough. This is the end product without music:




Overall I think this audio has made the film more effective. This is because firstly it gives the story being told more depth and realism because the viewers ears will tune in to the sound alongside the visuals. Another way the sound is effective is that it helps to add pace and drama to the film e.g. the footsteps added to the chase scene make it more fast paced. In the opening of the video the sounds are effective in setting the atmosphere of the film, through the ambient sounds which show its outdoors in the street. Lastly, sound was effective as it made the video funnier. When action takes place like a fall, the sound helps to add impact to it.

Overall, I think that by adding sound, the film has been improved and portrays a better story, although it doesn't really fit as it's a silent film and adding sound doesn't make it true to it's time.

This is the finished product with the added sound and music.

Sound in Film

Sound plays a big part in making a film good, and it helps towards setting the mood of a scene, adding punch to visuals, telling a story and putting the film in a certain era or timeframe.

In early cinema, silent films had music that was played live alongside the film, in order to make the visuals more entertaining and have context. In modern cinema not only music but a range of sound is used to tell a story. Compared to early cinema, modern films are a lot more effective in telling stories and portraying emotion because of the developments in technology allowing use of dialogue, sound effects and music timed with the visuals. (Not to mention advancement in cameras and editing). I am going to analyse this clip from stand by me and list how the sound is effective in setting the scene:

In this scene the sound helps towards creating an atmosphere and brings together the mise en scène. At the beginning of the scene only background ambience can be heard (birds, water and wind) along with the footsteps of a character, isolating them and bringing attention to them. It helps to connote the serenity but this calmness is juxtaposed by the first piece of dialogue heard; shouting.

The sound of the train is quiet but gets progressively louder as the tension of the scene increases. The ambient sound gets quieter to bring attention to the train and the action taking place. As the train is coming towards them, the shot changes between a close up and long shot, which contrasts between intensity and normality. The shouting and screaming boys contribute to the hectic mood and as they escape the train, the tension goes back down to normal and the scene gets quieter once again. Therefore in this scene the train acts as a dramatic device to adapt the tension, and the unpleasant loud noise it's making helps with this.

Me in 60 Seconds

Research

Here is an example of a video filmed in widescreen:

A dramatic effect is presented by this wide format, as it has the ability to show a lot in frame, and this makes scenes appear to be dramatic. Although it looks impressive, this is a very common format of film and most videos today are filmed like this. For my project I'd like to make something different which stands out and can be viewed on both mobile and computers, so I looked at other formats and found some portrait video on Instagram:

Pure VFM on wood from @palaceskateboards. @blondeymccoy Lucien Clarke and #RoryMilanes creating options with an old board 📹 @halfwaybrooks Via @darkclarke87 #SlamShopTeam

A video posted by Slam City Skates (@slamcityskates) on Sep 12, 2016 at 2:20am PDT

After researching, I’ve chosen to make my film in 1:1 ratio (square) for both mobile and online viewing. This ratio will help frame faces and objects with no other distractions, forming some intimacy/connection with the viewer. One example of this format is Xavier Dolan’s “Mommy”. This square format looks unique so the video will stand out.

My video is going to be around 60 seconds long, and will be a photomation (sequence of photographs) with titles and colours/editing added. As I won't be narrating it with my voice, I'll use text to narrate the video.

It will consist of some skateboarding, certain music/films I like, my friends and family, pets, travel and photos I've taken. As I want it to represent me, I will be shooting the video in and around my house.

For the sound, I will record some of my own effects but also use royalty free sounds which I'll source online from websites like freesound.org and freesfx.co.uk. In order to not face copyright issues, I'll use this song from soundcloud, which is royalty free.