This project was by far the most rewarding and frustrating project that we have done all semester. When we first got the assignment I had a little panic attack that I would have to put something together on Final Cut because I wasn't entirely comfortable using the program on my own. I was used to taking theory classes where Final Cut wasn't needed, so the thought of creating a project using it (even though it only had to be a minimum of one minute long) scared me. If you would have asked me two weeks ago what I thought of the project I would have said I hated it. So who would have guessed only a few weeks later that I put this project down as my favorite...I sure wouldn't have.
I had a tough time coming up with a concrete idea for my project. I'm not into political commentaries or a real analytical thinker, so I knew my project was going to end up more on the light hearted side. My original idea was to do something with Brides and how crazy wedding's make them act, because my sister is getting married in May and we often joke with her that she has some Bridezilla moments. I knew she wouldn't really appreciate the idea but I figured what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her : ) I never really developed that idea more (which I'm not sure why that was), but instead starting thinking of another idea that would involve clips of reality television shows. I was going to do a montage of the catch phrases of reality tv such as "You're fired." and "Please pack your knives and leave the kitchen." (Top Chef). I found a lot of great clips on YouTube and on the actual websites for each show but then was stuck with how to get those clips into Final Cut. I was given the suggestion to use Vixy, but since I'm not the most tech-savvy person in the world I decided to stick with using archive.org or google video footage that I knew how to get into Final Cut. That's when I decided to go back to my original idea and get some wedding footage.
My original idea had to be tweaked a bit once I realized all of the "good" footage was coming up as YouTube videos. I found some good wedding bloopers and funny wedding scenes that I was going to cut all together with wild animals, but once I came upon the Wedding Catfight clip my idea started to evolve. The clip was too good to be true, and once I found that I was relieved. The animal footage was all stock footage off of Google video or archive which wasn't too hard to find. The hardest part was finding footage and movements of animals that matched the movements of the girls fighting. Once all of my clips were found I just had to edit them together and I was halfway there.
I worked on the visual components first and then went back and added sound. Cutting together the girls and animals was easy, but getting a solid beginning and end was a bit tricky for me. The real clip was about 8 minutes, so I obviously had to cut out a lot to get the parts I needed. The beginning set the pace for the rest of the story so that wasn't terribly hard to decide on, but the ending really stumped me. I knew the conflict had to be resolved somehow, so I started looking for clips of animals reconciling (which is an odd phrase that didn't really give me anything to work with), so I searched for "animals playing" and the panda bear clip came up. The one part of that clip could be mistaken for a little rough so I used that intercut in the one fighting scene, but the panda bear then stops biting and lays his head down which ended up working well for the end of the fighting. Then I added the bride and groom standing at the alter (which actually happened before the fighting started in the clip I used) to the end and I was done with the visual story.
The sound was a bit tricky as well because I had to build my own soundtrack from scratch. I had Pachabel's Canon in D on cd so that was no problem adding that in, but everything else I made up myself. Most of the animal sounds I used were not sounds of the actual animals shown, but because I layered a bunch on top of each other you couldn't tell the difference. Most of the sounds for the animals were repeated during each animal fighting section with different levels being brought up in each section so it didn't seem like I was repeating a sound. The same goes for the girls fighting. I had a really hard time finding good fighting sounds for females. So once I found a few good ones I used them over and over again in different capacities. It helped to have the music as a track to pull it all together. Towards the end I started to overlap the animal sounds and human ones so that it all seemed a jumbled mess. The "Yes I do" sound clip was stolen from a conversation in "Wedding Crashers" because I couldn't find any wedding vowel clips on sounddogs.
Once I screened my project in class the first time I was given the suggestion of adding dissolves which ended up giving my project a whole new tone that I liked a lot more. The silliness of the girl fight footage seemed more real and believable and the clips of the animals and girls flowed more together giving it more of the jumbled, messy feel I was going for. Something that wasn't mentioned in class after we screened it a second time was the fact that there were dissolves missing in three cuts throughout the project. I kept the first and last cuts as they were, but Final Cut just wouldn't let me add dissolves over three cuts, and I don't know why. I think the clips were too short for the dissolve I wanted, but even by making the dissolve time less it wouldn't work either. I was stumped and didn't know what to do so I ended up just leaving it. No one mentioned it in class so I guess it went unnoticed. Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it at all...haha.
Holy crap I just wrote a novel about my project. Sorry!! To sum it up in way less words, my frustration and anger towards the project all went away when I saw my finished product. Compared to the others in class it wasn't top notch, but for me it was the best I could do, and for that I am very proud. Of course it could improve in areas here and there, but overall I am very happy with what I did and I'm glad I was forced to overcome my fear of Final Cut!
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
rayogram evaluation
This project hit in the middle with me. It wasn't one of my favorites but it wasn't a least favorite either. I think I have mixed feelings for it because I wasn't involved in every part of the process, therefore I didn't really feel an ownership to the project as a whole.
I enjoyed the actual rayogram part of the assignment because it was a cool technique that I had never been exposed to (no pun intended). Since we got a few chances to print on the film strips we could really experiement with different shapes and textures to see what showed up well and what didn't. My group used a slinky on our film strip which gave a really neat effect. I also liked the beads of a necklace that we used. The shapes came out so clear which if part of why I liked using them.
The contact printing (hopefully I'm not getting the names of the techniques mixed up) wasn't as interesting for me because I felt we couldn't be as creative with the technique. It was a little repetitive to just hold the film strip against a blank one and contact print that. When we did that in class I was wondering how in the world we were going to be able to incorporate those random images into our finished prodcut but I realized later on that it was those images that allowed us to have our story.
Sarah and I did the ambient sound on the project. I had no idea what to expect as far as the project theme, mood, etc. Honestly I was a bit confused when we first watched it. It was almost a "this is it?" feeling that I got. It wasn't because I didn't think what they had put together was good or interesting, but I still wasn't seeing the big picture of how the story would come together. I just didn't really get it. We decided to stick with the sports theme and add in ambient tracks at opportune times when there wasn't a lot of other sound going on. We used a lot of crowd noises to fit along with the theme. There were a few spots that seemed scarce on sound when we watched it in class last week, but once all the sound was mixed it sounded a lot more put together. Once I thought of the project as more abstract I think I was OK with it.
I'm still not sure I really think that's the best finished product we could have put out, but I think that was due to so many people working on it at random times. Like we had discussed in class yesterday, I think it would be a more effective project if done in smaller groups. That way each person could be more hands on with their project and the finished product would yield more rewarding results.
I enjoyed the actual rayogram part of the assignment because it was a cool technique that I had never been exposed to (no pun intended). Since we got a few chances to print on the film strips we could really experiement with different shapes and textures to see what showed up well and what didn't. My group used a slinky on our film strip which gave a really neat effect. I also liked the beads of a necklace that we used. The shapes came out so clear which if part of why I liked using them.
The contact printing (hopefully I'm not getting the names of the techniques mixed up) wasn't as interesting for me because I felt we couldn't be as creative with the technique. It was a little repetitive to just hold the film strip against a blank one and contact print that. When we did that in class I was wondering how in the world we were going to be able to incorporate those random images into our finished prodcut but I realized later on that it was those images that allowed us to have our story.
Sarah and I did the ambient sound on the project. I had no idea what to expect as far as the project theme, mood, etc. Honestly I was a bit confused when we first watched it. It was almost a "this is it?" feeling that I got. It wasn't because I didn't think what they had put together was good or interesting, but I still wasn't seeing the big picture of how the story would come together. I just didn't really get it. We decided to stick with the sports theme and add in ambient tracks at opportune times when there wasn't a lot of other sound going on. We used a lot of crowd noises to fit along with the theme. There were a few spots that seemed scarce on sound when we watched it in class last week, but once all the sound was mixed it sounded a lot more put together. Once I thought of the project as more abstract I think I was OK with it.
I'm still not sure I really think that's the best finished product we could have put out, but I think that was due to so many people working on it at random times. Like we had discussed in class yesterday, I think it would be a more effective project if done in smaller groups. That way each person could be more hands on with their project and the finished product would yield more rewarding results.
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