Video narrative editing

We're in the middle of the editing process and I feel slightly more comfortable with adobe flash. The one flaw in flash is the frames per second of a document has to remain at one constant value and cannot be changed periodically through the piece. This has caused us slight concern but we've countered the problem by adding more of the same frames if we want a scene to be slowed down slightly. I reckon we should have the finished product up on the blog in the next few days. Hopefully.

Stop Motion

We've got all our photographs sorted now for our stop motion video narrative. Below is a practice piece we did to make sure we got the technique correct. Downing a beer was all part of the artistic process!

Week 8

This week we were learning how to create a working button in flash. My computer didn't seem to like it and was causing me all kinds of grief, so instead of following our teacher Maria, I opted for this tutorial video instead. Not wildly exciting and i couldn't figure out how to upload the flash file onto this blog so not a hugely successful lesson! Hopefully next week will be more productive...

Week 7

Last week we practised merging pictures together in adobe flash.


We also did a complete u-turn on our video narrative idea. We dropped the CCTV idea in favour of a more humorous concept about a romance between a man and his bike. Have a look below at our proposal:

30 million cars contribute to pollution in Britain today with roughly 3 million of those in the London area. Petrol fumes from cars contain carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, soot, oil vapour and lead. This extensive list of fumes are all potentially dangerous to human health and medical experts claim that more than fifty-thousand people a year may be dying prematurely because of air pollution caused by petrol fumes. London is a pollution hotspot and it’s obvious we need to find ways to reduce the level of carbon dioxide emissions.

One way of achieving lower air pollution and creating a healthier population is encouraging people to cycle rather than drive. Not only will it improve the quality of the air we breathe but it will also improve our health. Cycling burns 600 calories an hour and is a great form of exercise. It is 3 times faster than walking, making it a time efficient mode of transport. It also saves on space as you can park 20 bicycles in the same space as only 1 car.

Our video narrative will take a humorous, light-hearted response to an important and critical environmental issue. The majority of people are well aware of the pollution issues we face today and already understand we should be doing more to help. Our video will give people a reminder of an issue that has recently gone slightly under the radar but without regurgitating monotonous facts.

Our video will be based around a poem ‘Oh How I Love Thee, My Precious Bianci’ by Julie Hochstadter. We found this on the internet whilst searching for examples of how people developed a love and dependency on their trusty 2 wheels. This poem in particular caught our eye because it had a comedy edge but also portrayed a real passion and affection for the bicycle. There is no solid story to the poem but it will provide a good launch pad for us to generate a narrative.

We are basing our video on that of a romance, just as you would get with 2 humans yet 1 is replaced with a bicycle. The video will resemble a day in the life of an average happy couple. For roughly each two lines of the poem we will have a scenario acted out in stop motion editing. The storyboard will go as follows:

Scene 1: The guy looking forward to spending time with Bianci (the bicycle). This will be portrayed with thought bubbles coming out of the head.

Scene 2: The meeting. The 2 are united at the station and look longingly into each others eyes/handle bars.

Scene 3: Couple strolling through park. Holding handle-bars and then riding Bianci.

Scene 4: Bianci checking out another bicycle.

Scene 5: Jealousy factor from scene 4 but relationship is solid and they walk through park content.

Scene 6: Restaurant/pub. Sat opposite each other at the table drinking and having fun. Guy holding tassels coming off handle bars to signify unity and happiness.

Scene 7: Couple in bed. Thought bubbles coming from both with pictures of little baby bikes.

End with a caption along the lines of "love your bike, love the environment".

The requirements for this project will be a digital camera plus a sturdy tripod for outdoor use. We will also be borrowing a girls bicycle for the role of Bianci. We will need approximately 2 days for the photography and then the following week we will use our time to collate the photos and edit them in adobe flash. After this is complete we will then add our soundtrack (taken from the movie Napoleon Dynamite) and audio. We have not fully decided whether to have the poem narrated over the video or typed on the screen. This can be decided once the main elements are in place.

The poem:

Oh How I Love Thee, My Precious Bianci

You are so beautiful
graceful, slim and sleek
you make me feel so good
riding fast on your wonderfully smooth seat
I feel like I'm flying
in the clouds
Just you and me
no other thing compares
nothing matters
just you and me
I love those days when you and I can spend hours together
forgetting our worries
One day we will move to an island with no snow, sleet or ice
and live out our days together
and make beautiful little baby road bikes

Week 6

Here's some more tutorials I followed using Adobe Flash.

The bouncy ball isn't as smooth as I would like but I'm slowing getting to grips with the basics.

Week 5

Last week we were introduced to Adobe Flash and we tested out ideas and got familiar with the basic functions. This is a tricky program so with a little help from an online tutorial (http://www.vineyardesigns.com/tutorials/flash/) I created this short animation of a runaway train.

Week 4

Yesterday we learnt a handful of very useful skills on photoshop. Check out my "crazy fish" to see the overlay and type mask tool in action.

Then by using the magic wand tool I moved this guys desk from a boring city office to a beautiful mountain landscape. I also threw in some hot air balloons for good measure.

Week 3

Using some of the skills learnt from last week, we attempted to create a picture in the style of the hugely successful American pop artist Andy Warhol. To manipulate I chose an original piece of artwork from the artist and illustrator Jeremy Fish. To differentiate the four identical pics I played with some colour overlay and a small amount of basic filter.

We also had a quick look at Adobe Illustrator and the advantages of using vector images rather than jpegs. Vector images can be scaled indefinitely without degrading the quality, whereas bitmap images such as jpegs are based on pixels and can lose clarity. Below is an example of a landscape picture I used to get familiar with the new program. As you can see I am completely alien to Illustrator!

Week 2

This week I partnered up with my classmate Sean and we played around with some video narrative ideas. Initial concepts such as water wastage and binge drinking sprung to mind, but we finally settled on the world of CCTV and how much people are actually watched. London is the world’s CCTV capital so this is a local, relevant and contemporary issue. It’s a vague concept at the moment so needs some honing!

Second half of the lesson consisted of taking some pics from around the campus. We then uploaded them into Photoshop and with the help of it’s auto aligning tool we created a panoramic view. Mine is of the Surrey County Hall.

First week!

Our teacher Maria explained the general aims and work programme of the module. We also took a look at some previous video narrative concepts from past students. Take a look at this impressive and quite profound example.