Throughout the whole process, my roles were Camera Operator and Editor/Animator. I was the camera operator for only two of our idents which were the Art ident and the Sports ident. My main role is the Editor as our group believed that it is best suited to me as I have experience in and passion for video editing. I have used many different types of video editing software at home such as Sony Vegas Pro, Adobe After Effects and Cinema 4D. These softwares together can help create videos to stand out, which I believed our suite of idents is stood out from the rest. I used two editing software After Effects and Sony Vegas to help create our suite of idents. I have also used CINEMA 4D along with Photoshop to help create the CTK TV's logo and the 'Up Next' bumper.
Roopa, Maya and Shanee were my assistant editors as they helped contribute to the final product. I sent them each rough cut of our idents and they did some animation on each ident using Photoshop. I had to re-do their rough cut ident because some ident's duration was either short or long, I also has to sync with the soundtrack (beat-editing). Then they sent me their finished version which I’ll add more animation to it and also do visual effects to make the products stand out.
This whole process helped me to have mixture of practical and creative skills such as learning how to animate with paint brush and also learning how to use rotoscope brush. This process also given me the ability to work under pressure and meet tight deadlines, which are skills needed to be an video editor.
We had some problem such as when we were doing this animation technique known as rotoscoping (earlier in the post-production stage), we realised rotoscoping is very time-consuming as we wasted quite a lot of time, some of us took longer than other which slow down the process. We eventually had a meeting to discuss that we won't be doing rotoscoping anymore as we wasted a week of doing rotoscoping and it was good enough for professional standards as we didn't even use it in the final cut. We then decided to just do animation as it was quicker and less time-consuming for us. Although we wasted a week which I'm not happy about as it's seems unprofessional, we still managed to meet the deadline because we still had a lot time as we finished filming earlier than expected which gives us more time in our schedule.
I would say my weakness in this process was me being a perfectionist when I was editing all of our final cut idents. I did worked quite slow which I do need to work on. I wanted to make sure our suite of idents is at least professional standards. It did get frustrating at some times due to my computer sometime being slow or doesn't respond.
For this art ident, I was the camera operator, I filmed a lot of different shot types and angles so we have more shot types to show. I feel this ident was our best ident along with the Talent show ident because the animation and the visual effects used which made the ident stand out. This ident has no difficulties or problems, this is one of the quickest ident we've edited (rough cut) due to enough shot used. The only thing we had change in this ident was the room, we were originally meant to film in the art room but we filmed in the photography room as the art room was taken which delay our shooting plan, the room didn't really impact anything at all as the room is still an art settings.
After Maya sent me the rough cut animation, I added more animation to it and also add visual effects to make the product stand out more.
The original idea of this ident was Fashion Show Dance, we were to meant to find a crew of dancers and also a crowd but we felt we don't have enough time to find these talent. We decided to change it to Talent show which will still include dancing and don't really need crowd or more talents etc. This talent show ident was my responsibility (rough cut and animation).
I found this ident to be one of our strongest/ best ident along with the art ident. The animation was the most fun to watch as the talent was playing with the animation unlike other idents. Maya was the camera operator for this ident, I was the talent and also the assistant camera operator as I only filmed the cutaways shots and tell Maya what shot type to use. Even this was the best ident, this was the most stressful to edit due to the camera shots taken by Maya. There was a lot of unusable shots (blurry, too close, shaky, bright etc.) I managed to fix the shaky footages by using stabilisation effect which fix the shakiness. There was still some good shots we could still use which you can see in the ident.
The crime scene ident was Shanee's responsibility which was the rough cut and animation. Maya and Roopa was the camera operator for this ident due to me not being well which why I couldn't come to the shoot. This ident we kind of struggled with this ident in the post-production because we all think the soundtrack and animation would not fit with a crime scene would not tie in with the ident. However, we found a way to make it fit with the crime scene. Not our best ident but I still think it's decent.
This sports ident was Roopa's responsibility. I was the camera operator again for this ident, I made sure we have enough shots which we did. This ident has no difficulties or problems, this is one of the quickest ident we've edited (rough cut) due to enough shot used. Although I felt that animation wasn't really used creative enough. I feel this ident is our weakest although the visual effects is used the most.
This was our original idea as you can see our animatic below, we didn't feel doing animation at the time until our client suggested it us. I feel the animation is the eye-catching of our idents as animation made a massive impact, I can't really can't our ident without animation anymore, I glad we went with it.
Friday, 9 June 2017
6b) V.
V. Explain the changes made to the ident resulting from various constraints and unforeseen challenges.
During the making of the four idents, we went through different constraints/challenges such as copyright, ethnicity and location.
As for copyright, we originally plan to have four different soundtracks for each of our four idents but it did not go to plan as we realised it will break the consistency/continuity and also the soundtracks we chose was copyrighted. At first I felt using one soundtrack will not suit with all our four ident especially the crime scene ident as happy music do not usually fit well with thriller crime scene.
In able to include a soundtrack for our suite of idents, we will need to be aware of copyright, the owners can choose to grant permission for others to use their work. Usually we will have to make a payment for the right to use the material after we write to the copyright holder and ask for permission.
It has taken us a while to find the right soundtrack to fit with our idents as we were looking for a vibrant, lively and happy music. We eventually found one that could also work with the crime scene ident. As of now, our four idents has the got the same soundtrack throughout to help our consistency/continuity and it is also copyright-free as we search on YouTube for copyright-free soundtrack. We do not have to worry about the owner of the soundtrack as it is free which gives us the right/permission to use it. The soundtrack is called 'Happy Upbeat Background Music' which was created by Audio Lounge Music.
If we had gone with our original plan that is the four soundtracks, we were going to use without asking permission to use it. Our suite of idents would have likely be taken down and we could be sued.
Next, we have location; the only problem was the location for the Art Ident. Our original location was the art room, an actual art room. We did not film in that location because it was always busy with art students who were doing their work. We even booked the room to film, yet the room was filled with students doing their work due to exams. This affected our schedule as we did not filmed that day due to the room was taken. We had to find another location to book and film in, this means that we had to do another risk assessment etc. We eventually found a room that is quite similar to the art room, which was a room for photography students. The room was a good backup choice as the room is still an art setting.
Using this room helped us save time for our schedule and was a better option than us had to wait until 5:00pm for the art room to be free; some of us was not able to stay until 5:00pm due to other plans.
Last but not least, we have ethnicity; we needed to have the right talent for each of the idents to avoid from offences being taken and discrimination from our final product. For example, we shouldn't just have male talents throughout our suite of idents or one race (skin colour) throughout. As our theme is diversity, we will need to portray both genders equal and as we live in a multicultural city, we need to be careful when portraying different religion so we don't portray Christ The King as a single-faith college sixth form. We need to be careful as it can cause a lot of problems and controversy. We had to make sure each of our ident won't be offensive and doesn't discriminate other people's background, gender and their religious belief.
This made us find different talents to helped build our theme which is Diversity; Our 1st ident (Art) include a black/light-skinned female drawing, the 2nd ident (Talent Show) include a black male dancing. The 3rd ident (Sports) include a female playing football which represent equality and our 4th ident (Crime scene/Media) include a white and mixed female.
As for copyright, we originally plan to have four different soundtracks for each of our four idents but it did not go to plan as we realised it will break the consistency/continuity and also the soundtracks we chose was copyrighted. At first I felt using one soundtrack will not suit with all our four ident especially the crime scene ident as happy music do not usually fit well with thriller crime scene.
In able to include a soundtrack for our suite of idents, we will need to be aware of copyright, the owners can choose to grant permission for others to use their work. Usually we will have to make a payment for the right to use the material after we write to the copyright holder and ask for permission.
It has taken us a while to find the right soundtrack to fit with our idents as we were looking for a vibrant, lively and happy music. We eventually found one that could also work with the crime scene ident. As of now, our four idents has the got the same soundtrack throughout to help our consistency/continuity and it is also copyright-free as we search on YouTube for copyright-free soundtrack. We do not have to worry about the owner of the soundtrack as it is free which gives us the right/permission to use it. The soundtrack is called 'Happy Upbeat Background Music' which was created by Audio Lounge Music.
If we had gone with our original plan that is the four soundtracks, we were going to use without asking permission to use it. Our suite of idents would have likely be taken down and we could be sued.
Next, we have location; the only problem was the location for the Art Ident. Our original location was the art room, an actual art room. We did not film in that location because it was always busy with art students who were doing their work. We even booked the room to film, yet the room was filled with students doing their work due to exams. This affected our schedule as we did not filmed that day due to the room was taken. We had to find another location to book and film in, this means that we had to do another risk assessment etc. We eventually found a room that is quite similar to the art room, which was a room for photography students. The room was a good backup choice as the room is still an art setting.
Using this room helped us save time for our schedule and was a better option than us had to wait until 5:00pm for the art room to be free; some of us was not able to stay until 5:00pm due to other plans.
Last but not least, we have ethnicity; we needed to have the right talent for each of the idents to avoid from offences being taken and discrimination from our final product. For example, we shouldn't just have male talents throughout our suite of idents or one race (skin colour) throughout. As our theme is diversity, we will need to portray both genders equal and as we live in a multicultural city, we need to be careful when portraying different religion so we don't portray Christ The King as a single-faith college sixth form. We need to be careful as it can cause a lot of problems and controversy. We had to make sure each of our ident won't be offensive and doesn't discriminate other people's background, gender and their religious belief.
This made us find different talents to helped build our theme which is Diversity; Our 1st ident (Art) include a black/light-skinned female drawing, the 2nd ident (Talent Show) include a black male dancing. The 3rd ident (Sports) include a female playing football which represent equality and our 4th ident (Crime scene/Media) include a white and mixed female.