Well that it all finished and ready to be sent away. I am so so happy with the results. I think it compliments and enhances the music while staying sympathetic the melody.
What I wanted to create
-I wanted to create a part abstract film about a lazy Sunday walk playing on the fact that the song is a modern take on a "walking" style song
-I wanted to have shots that provoked a nostalgic feeling to symbolize the past/happy memories
-I wanted to include movement to symbolize travel and loved ones that aren't close by
-I wanted to create a airy, silky piece of visuals that harmonized with the melody.
-As Gaelic is a small language, I had to make sure the visuals conveyed the essence of the song so that non-Gaelic viewers could understand the song.
I feel I have accomplished everything that I set out to achieve. I have learned so much in after effect and premier pro through trial and error and good tutorials.
So here it is...hope you enjoy it.. and lets hope that I win :D
So after going out a week or so ago, I noticed when walking home one day the the street light where actually inside the trees that I was filming and the effect that it gave off was beautiful. A dark blue sky, dark yellow leaves and a ray of light beaming onto the immediate leaves giving such a high contrast to the other leaves.
I really loved the contrast and in the second picture the kind of sun like glow even though it was dark, it just shows how lighting can really change how you see things.
After my tests with water/oil, it got me thinking about using different liquids with dye, so I whipped out the cooking oil from the cupboard and WOW! honestly, the results I got from this studio session (in my kitchen) was amazing! Basically at first I was just playing around with dropping it in, and because the oil was heavier, it was holding the dye in place here is some videos of the tests starting off...
First of all, pouring in the oil, wow, it was like particle effects that people actually try and make in after effects it was so cool, I think i might try and use this footage in daniels music video as it would be really cool as an effect on top of another video (see a post in the next few days about daniels video)
What was really cool was that when a drop of oil was poured in, little parts came off and floated up and down and it gave like something you would see in a desktop screen saver, it was so aesthetically pleasing, little bubbles of colours floating around.
(video of knife and oil)
Then as the dye kind of settled, I though " hey this is no fun" so I got a knife and started swirling and irritating the dye so it had more movement in it. The results where amazing and I could hear a kind of "swoosh" noise is my head, so I went and sourced a "swoosh" noise and here is the result
I think it works pretty well, the timing was quite hard to get as I was working in after effects but its still a good attempt.
I then decided to add water and see where that could get me, It was so funky looking, the water sat on top of the dye almost and it gave the video more of a 3d dimensional feeling, there was a foreground of smaller bubbles and a background of large bubbles.
Then I decided to play around with the lightening as it was getting harder to see what I was doing because of the dye
Then things got a little bit messy, not sure if Im happy with the next part, but still- trial and error..
Anyway, I feel this studio session was the best yet, it has really inspired me, keep a look out for more cool stuff to come :D
Some more media tests here for you. Ive always liked the dye in water idea so I thought I would just give it a go myself! I played around with different colours, Size of glasses, movement (washing machine).
These are just some screenshots of the videos. When I was playing around with the glasses on the washing machine, something AMAZING happened, the glasses started dancing around and moving all over the place, THEN two of them clashed into each other, and it was like a little jingling sound, it was so amazing. I thought " wow this is a really cool way to visualize the sound that a washing machine makes" So I think in the near future, there will be some more tests on washing machines!
Seeing as last year I put a ton of things on a bass speaker, I wanted to experiment with the things that I used and put them to use in different ways to make up different ways of movement. Seeing as rice was quite a significant item I thought about using it as a way of movement but not in the rice moving, but enabling something else to move through it, this is the results I go, they are pretty cool! But anyway, take a look at this video showing what I'm talking about...
So here I was doing the dishes and the washing machine was on, they way our kitchen is laid out, the washing machine is under the drying board for the sink so very close. Then it started going onto a high fast spin and the water in my basin starting to produce really cool, water waves and patterns and it was like a light bulb going off in my head! why not try and put things onto the washing machine to make movement! Right so I get to it and grab the first thing I think of... salt. So I pull my washing machine and cover the entire top with a layer of salt.
What happen, did not happen like this....no way near it, but it did kind of do the transitions a little bit...
So here I am making an awful job at trying to make the salt move, the only kind of cool thing is I drew squiggles in the salt and the movement of the washing machine evened it out. But over all the salt test was a little bit of a fail. I will have to come back to it and try the washing machine with different things, maybe go back and play with water and that seemed to work pretty well....
THENNNNN
I whipped out the hoover to get rid of the mess that I had created and what happened was just so amazing!
It just looked so so amazing, it was like little tiny sand dunes in the sahara desert and the hoover was creating these amazing "sand storms" and cool patterns.
I've been reading up about Leopold Survage and his "Colored Rhythm" work. Its really interesting due to the era that Survage was in. Survage was a painter but he was restricted by the canvas in which he painted on. In music, there is no limit to space, it is free, no limits unlike the edge of a canvas, the painter has to stop.
What I am finding out more and more is how similar music and moving visuals are. Through characteristics like colour, form, rhythm, movement, harmony, repetition, dynamics. The list goes on and on. What Survage did was he created a huge array of paintings that he intended to animate, these paintings played one after one so that you could see a beautiful array of free flowing colours, as free as music, clashing, colliding and bursting of the page. Survage solved his problem of space but unfortunately he could never see the final outcome due to the war. Thanks to youtube, someone has put all of Survages paintings together and we can really understand what Survage wanted to express.
When I watch the video I kind of feel like I'm watching a bird be freed for the very first time. You can see the freedom that Survage must have felt when he was finally no longer restricted to a canvas.
Ive been looking quite a lot into textural videos, and one that particularly inspired/motivated me was this fine member-
I absolutely love this video! I love how he uses visual cues like a hats, shoes, sunglasses and colours in the background so the viewer can easily distinguish between the different parts of the song. I love how for example when the sound is defused, the visuals go blurred to visualize that and the movement shows how the sound is moving. Take a look at it and be amazed, its brilliant!
I would really like to try something like this as a media test. My video from last year was in "imagination will take you everywhere" It was in an installation of TV screens and that is the way it was presented, but with lots of different videos too. My idea was if I had all 7 and each screen visualized different parts of the music. For example, when a sound is quite, the visual cue for that sound would be on a small screen and when it gets louder it would slide on to a big screen. I want it to look like all 7 videos are connected, when really they are not.
Ok so a Little while ago I talked posted some pictures from a creative drawing class of scarfs/materials/textures. I just want to expand on that as I was thinking about some kind of installation art to do with textures to mimic the textures in music. Then while watching back the footage that I took on that day I had an idea for a final piece. It would be an installation piece with lots of wonder scarfs hanging from a pole. Then there would be fans placed all around the scarfs and then (I know know technically how it would work) but the fans would be timed to go along with the music and create a spectacular dancing installation that represented the music in a more natural way than just programming visuals from audio. Think it would be quite a cool idea, maybe I will give it a wee test out later!
