Summary - last post

ok, spend a few sleepless nights trying to make this title sequence looks more professional. I've aded THX inro on the begining just to make it looks more realistic, I've changed font to TYPOGRAPH PRO and I am very happy with that choice - it looks much better now. I realised there is a little problem with one of the name fading in - out and then blinking for a second again (ANN WILLSON) but it was too late to change it as rendering would take ages! All other names fading in and out properly. I also managed to finish last clown bit on time. I used blue screen technique to isolate clown from the background, also changed saturation and exposure to make it more red and scary. I wanted movie title looks more profesional and 3d but I am not good enough at AE so decided to do it very simple. It doesnt look good, but projects are for learning not for being pro straight away.
I hate AE but during making this project I've realised its really amazing tool for videos (if someone know how to use it properly!) and I will definitely take more time to explore it in the future, for now I just need some break from AE and video editing.
I know my project is completely different, and not exactly followed our brief, but I can say I've spend exactly the same amount of time planning, recording videos, editing them, then using AE, bluescreen recording, rendering, editing again, sotyboarding etc. - as other students drawing or designing their scenes in illustrator or other software. I am quite happy with final outcome, but I also know it could be much much better, with little more time and more knowledge and skills it could be amazing!

I hope I will pass! :)

Problems on its way again

As usual last steps of my projects are always the hardest ones, and it's always just before the deadline... my blue screen ideas do not work very well... and I have no idea what to do now? Clown looks absolutely fake and rather funny than scary... lighting is crap, so there are some marks on the background, so everyone will realise there was blue screen trick used. I spend many many hours doing that, and the only bits of motion text for now are simple text fading in and out... I wanted to go extra mile and do it really awsome, and now it's not even up to minimum standard. I am very tired and I wish it could be all over now, as every single minute after work I am working on this project. All those sleeples nights and early mornings for nothing. I missed most of tutorials due to some important personal problems, and trying to work out AE on my own now, and it's much harder than I expected.

All project took me a long time: planning, storyboarding, shoting little footages, editing, then creating text in AE, choosing and looking for soundtrack, then shoting bluescreen footages, trying edit them and so on. Final piece is something exactly different from what I wanted to create on the begining, but my ideas are always changing and developing, and somethimes some things are going wrong on the way as well. I was quite happy with it in general, but I wanted to create quite effective final scene with clown and some motion text moving across the screen, but just can't finish it up. Everything stopped working - my computer, my brain, lighting etc. Thinking of giving it up, as I dont think I will make it on time anyway. ...

That's just a little preview of what I got till now (just few first scenes)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INt7MpLoTSM&list=UU5Li5EJbWQL1vmsBK_m1nBQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Music - decisions, decisions

Another issue arisen when my friend send me a link to a music track by Hans Zimmer (The Ring End Credits) - I wasn't so enthusiastic, when I hear it first time, but when I put it into the movie I loved it!

I do love my final piece of music with voices exactly when they need to be etc, but I also love this track and can't really decide which one to choose?

I know main part of this project is probably last 30 second when clown is playing with movie title, as it was main idea of this project to create motion serquence, but I wanted it to be something more than just 30 secs of something, without any meaning, thats why I do care about all parts of this little movie.

Last scene

OK, as a last scene is most important one, it will probably take ages. I've made few tests of bluescreen, and it's not going well, but booked studio for wednesday so it should be ok.
Another part of creating last scene will be sound, when creating similar movies I am always using freesound.org website as it offering CC licenced sounds such as laughs, voices, ambient horror tracks and many more. I choose few kinds of scary laughs, also some voices of children.

I had no chance to test motion text yet, as I couldn't get bluescreen right, but I should have enough time for that on Wednesday.

I also got tutorials on tuesday, so will ask for final advices then.

Fonts tests

After few fonts tests I come to conclusion that I should do longer transitions between each two scenes and put my subtitles in between on black faded screen instead of placing them on actual footage. I did those transitions quite short, as I didn't wanted this title sequence to be too long, as it would be boring for viewers. That's why even if I would prefer to place titles on faded black screen I will leave as it is now, just not to make it too long. I choose font called Ghastly Panic and made it red so it looks like blood marks. In some cases I had to use different colours of font just to make it stand out of the footage. Hope it works?

Font choice

Today, I've been looking at some 'scary' fonts. I've downloaded probably about 20 of them, and had to choose just one. It was quite hard task, as I am not good with choosing fonts...
I finaly found which one (in my opinion) that fits the best and changed all my subtitles to have a look how does it looks.
I will post results maybe a bit later today.

After Effect

I've finally done some work in AE, it's not brilliant, just simply names fading in and out, but there will be more at the end of the video, I am not really sure about the font, and maybe I should put writing on transitions when there is nothing going on in the background?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_tbqkmGUN8

Check this out, any suggestions?