sandr093

Originally designed to be projected on stage behind a local Nottingham Hip-Hop group. The piece is intended to be a collection of abstract visuals, which harbour no identifiable storyline, plot or characters. Basically it was meant to deviate from the conventions of the cliché' rap video, e.g. cars, girls. The Key themes are Mirrors, Death, Time, Energy and Anger. The extra two minutes at the end when the song repeats were designed in case the band performs over schedule. I used a lot of After Effects and filmed most green screen and live footage using the Canon 7D. This work was also assigned by the Nottingham design agency Urban Angle. Enjoy, Rate and please leave a comment.

There has been heaps of development since the last design practise 3 post I wrote here, two separate filming sessions have gone by, scenes have been built up in after effects and tweaked. Finally new ideas entirely for scenes have formed around the development of my existing ideas and I'm working on incorporating them into the 4 and half minute music video. Lets start with the filming sessions as that's a chronologically suitable place to start: my first session fell last Wednesday and was a combined arrangement by me, Jordan Brooks and Joe Burns, we helped each other set up equipment and act/model in each others videos. The lightning went well, we had an evenly lit green screen with no shadows and a correct exposure on the 7D. A main outstanding problem I believe disrupted filming and limited what I could achieve was the inherent time restrictions we had on our DSLR camera. I hate being rushed and that's exactly what it f...

Production Files Here is my complete production log in essence, obviously it will be refined and updated as further information is gathered. Everything appears to running smoothly and I am looking forward to starting this project, below are a few production stills at a location I'm using, it is to be noted that the majority of the 'magic' will in fact come from editing in After Effects post production: I have also collected a vast amount of textures for use in 3d planes, text and for characters silhouettes in after effects, although i could make my own I thought it would be nice to step away from the virtual world and get some real world ones. Here is the link http://www.flickr.com/photos/56511472@N08/sets/72157629070319613/  and here is a sample of my favourite ones:

Now that my Influence search is over I brainstormed what it was that I actually wanted to do, these ideas are far and wide and completely preliminary. It is to be noted that I have selected my music track, the track I have chosen to accompany my visuals is track 8, mainly for its slower pace and sadder tone, which believe will match my visuals betters. Brainstorm ideas include: Time lapse streets/cars and people, time lapses with stills, sky changes colour, travelling through 3d corridors, travelling through 3d with stills, travelling through 3D with green screen person, particle effects, energy effects ,3d earth, spinning stars, mirrors, running from mirror, surrounded by mirror, alive in mirror, ambiguous light, ipod style movement, static on a tv, cloning objects, white stripes style scaling, ink blotches and primitive shapes. Obviously they wont all be included but I have some good ideas to go on. Here is a mock up video for some of my ideas including mirrors...

I have watched a considerable amount of live concert videos to gather up some inspiration for this project, a noticeable contributor has been T4 on the beach, they have a whole array of interest projected visuals, sometimes standing out more than the actual artists performance. Here's one that uses falling fruit for the entire performance: Another recommended to me was Beyonce Run The World, this one is spectacular, it uses a mixture of 3D models, primitive shapes, particle effects, cloning and other effects perfectly synchronised to the performance. Another one that instantly came to mind was that off Gnarls Barkley - Crazy, that uses a sort of ink blotch effect throughout, this is the style: A pre existing idea I had in mind for this project before it started was manipulating and using mirrors for abstract effects, mainly influenced by the abstract use of mirrors in The Shining

Will the briefs never end?! No but seriously it's that time of year again, the time I have to make the awkward transition from relax mode to work mode. There's nothing more motivating to shake off the old dust then the brief post, It's the beginning of a new chapter, a fresh starting point to develop from. This brief is entitled 'projected visuals' and is the result of a partnership between Nottingham Trent and Urban Angel, we are to produce a set of visuals (6-8 minutes long) to accompany one of fourteen hip/hop, these visuals will later be preformed to live, projected on stage behind the artists. The main outlining requirement is that these visuals have no recognisable narrative, they must be abstract and deviate away from genre conventions (e.g., girls on car bonnets, clubbing, fast cars). The overall tone I received from the opening lecture was that of total creative freedom, the whole exercise has no right or wrongs, it's completely open...