Green Screen Test 2

This is the second green screen that that we have done. We took all of the ideas that we had from the first one and improved it.

We covered the green screen so it doesn't interfere with the clip that is playing and we used a longer track to get more time walking. We repeated the action as it is something that we will do in the video. The green screen will be something that we will do at the start of the video as there is a intro bit where there is a build up to a crescendo when the main riff kicks in.

Can't Stop Song

I decided on a song that the song i wanted to use for the music video was Can't Stop by Red Hot Chili Peppers. I have gathered various resources that the performer can use the help him learn the song. One of these is the Original song.

I have also sent him the instrumental which will be easier to play along to. After speaking to him, he seems to be learning the song fine. 

I have also sent a 200% and a 50% speed tracks to him. This is so we can do Under and Over-Cranking. 

I sent him the tabs as well that i got over at Ultimate Guitar Tabs. This will also help him learn the song. 

Audience Research: Related Artists + Survey

I have gone onto amazon and looked at "By The Way" which is an album by Red Hot Chili Peppers. I then went to the "Customers also bought" and took a screen shot of the results.

This is page 4 as the first 3 were all just other albums by Red Hot Chili Peppers. As you can see Nirvana appears twice.  Nirvana is a Grunge band which has some similarities to RHCP. Other Artists there are The Strokes, The Sex Pistols, and Green Day.

I then went on Spotify and looked at the related artists there. This will show me a more accurate representation of the related artists.

This is a survey that we have done to work out the artists that people listen to and also how often and where people listen to music.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Can't Stop lyric annotation

Green Screen test

This is a green screen test that we did in Final Cut Pro.

Final Cut can use green screens by changing the layers. You put your clip with the green screen on top of the second clip that will be played trough the green screen. 

What you then do is chose in the effects tab and drag it onto the first clip. This will add the chroma Key tab to the video. 

The Chroma Key tab looks like this and is used to chose the colour of your green screen. What this does is it removes this colour from the first video and seen as the second one is layered behind it will show through.

What we have found out about doing this effect is that we need to use a tripod and a track. This meant that out video was steady and moved forward at a constant speed. We needed a longer track than the one that we used in the test. A longer track would allow us to have a longer starting video and also set the scene. 

We also need to use a better clearer green screen so we can isolate the colour of it more effectively. This will avoid the graininess that the video has. We could have also faded out the first clip to make a cleaner transition between the two. This would finish the effect that we have actually travelled through the wall. What i want to do in the music video is to have a framed green screen so it would look like a picture hanging on the wall.

Datamosh Test

This is my first datamosh test.

To achieve this effect you first have to download 2 programs. The first one is called ffmpegX and what it does is converts the clips that you are trying to datamosh. What ffmpegX does is it removes all of the I-frames and put them in every set number of frames. If you set the number to an amount of frames like 9999. It'll make a video with an I-frame at the start of the video and the rest will be P-frames. 

After you convert the two clips that will be datamoshed they will have the file extension mov.ff.avi.e.avi. This shows that the video has been converted correctly. These can now be used to datamosh

The next program is avidemux2. This is a simple editing software that can is only useful for deleting individual frames.

The frame type is shown at the bottom and you can use the buttons to move frame by frame. A and B select parts between frames which makes it easy to select individual frames. You delete the I-frame at the start of the second video and moshing process is complete.

What i found out after doing this test is that the second clip needs more movement to properly distort the video. Otherwise, it is only distorted a little bit and doesn't use the effect to its full potential. Fast movement makes the second video come through, whereas a slower clip will keep the pixels intact. 

Video Analysis- Watsky!

Exploring other techniques that Artists use is quite a challenge as bigger artists are under pressure to release content so may not have the time to some of the stranger videos. However Independent artists have to show their uniqueness so have to try stranger techniques to stay different. 

Jump Cutting

Another effect that Watsky! uses is jump cutting back to something hat has just happened and keeping the video lip-synced. This is show in his video for "Whoa Whoa Whoa".

 

In the video the jump cuts are going back about 0.5 seconds but the video stays lip-synced. This is because of instead of being just jump cuts they have put it trough after effects and taken a full video of him singing the song and deposited the mouth over. This gives the video a strange effect, plus the whole thing as also synced to the drums in the backing track. 

Translation On a Pan

The video for "Dent in The Moon", the premise is that Watsky! is throwing a baseball from scene to scene and the camera tracks the ball in flight until it does a sideways translation to him catching a ball thrown from the opposite side. This gives the impression that he has thrown the ball to himself.

This effect also works because he uses a variety of locations. He goes from places like a farm straight to New York and then transitions to somewhere in the countryside that has snow. This would mean that he would have first have to have gone to all of the locations and thrown a ball. This would require a lot of planning.Although it is a nice effect I don't think I will be able to do it as it would require more time than I have. I could use elements of this do do one or two cuts but I don't think I will be able to do a whole video of translations. 

Props

The video for fireworks is only props made of ice that are being played back by a high speed camera. There are also cuts to the beat showing the ice exploding. The video is also in parts played in reverse which give the impression that the ice is reforming. The props used are also the lyrics of the song so it's not like its just some random props. 

This is all done in a studio with very good lighting as you can only see the table that the ice is on and nothing else. Although this is a nice effect I don't see how i would incorporate it into my music video as my video would have to be all props as well, and I don't have the correct equipment to be able to playback high speed video (or explosives to blow up ice). 

Reverse

The video for "Stupidass" is all one take played in reverse at half speed. The video played nromally shows someone throwing up on Watsky! and Watsky! taking off all of his clothes to get rid off the sick whilst walking away. This creates a strage effect as a shoe comes flying into the scene, whilst played in reverse, and lands on his foot. Because it is all in reverse it means that the physics don't look quite right as everything is falling up.

This effect is a good effect however it is only one shot so would not get me many marks as there is no shot variant. however another notable video that does the same thing is Coldplay's "Scientist". This is done in reverse and also lip-synced as well. This means that the singer learnt the words backwards and sang it like the for the video.

If I was going to do a video all in reverse it would be more like "Scientist" but i liked the effect that the falling objects had in Watsky!'s Video.

Camera Track 

In the video for "Never Let It Die" the whole premise is that Watsky! is inside paintings and the camera travels through the painting to interact in the scene. This requires lots of props as he is dressed up to fit into the paintings. The effect is done by having a scene with a very tiny green screen on the wall, about the size of an A4 piece of paper. This acts as the next painting and that's what the camera is going to "travel" through. The camera is on a track through out all of the painting scenes. and Watsky! walks backwards and interacts with things in the scene. 

This creates a very nice effect as it looks like the video is all done in one take whereas it is changing scenes. however this would require lots of set building as it would need to look like a different location each time. I may use this technique for a transition but not for a whole video. To make the painting look like it is going past the camera they first need to start the next scene with a Trombone shot. This adds the effect of depth the the video layered onto the green screen and makes the transition easier. 

Passing props from scene to scene

Like in "Dent In The Moon", Another video by Watsky! uses a similar effect. "Strong as an Oak" often has three videos playing side by side and they pass props in between them whilst staying lip-synced. The aspect ration is also smaller than the window that it is played in and there are three colours that show which character is on scene, as they are all played by Watsky!. There are actions that are synced in the video that can be jump cutted to from any of the characters. This creates a very nice effect of a fluid video between three narratives.