Final Sting & Looking Back

Above you can see my final sting for the Sky Arts Brief. I have added music supplied by Sky and I think it really works with the piece. I am really pleased with the outcome and looking back I think I have done well in the time supplied. I have overcome setbacks such as the failure of the perspex letters and the introduction of the hardboard letters instead. I think I have stayed pretty true to the brief, the sting is slightly over the 20 seconds. I think that my choice of music is perfect for this piece and works beautifully with the footage. I think that the final sting is perfect for the Sky Arts channel and would look very in keeping.

Video Angles

Here is a scene plan to show where a bouts in the room the camera was set up in relation to the projector and projection area on the wall.

Lights, Camera, Action

The initial problem I faced on recording day was getting the letters to be far enough away from the wall to create a shadow but at the same time make sure they were perfectly weighted. As you can see from the picture above I had placed it too far away from the wall meaning that even the slightest movement in the room caused it to spin around.

Once getting them all perfect (or so I thought) the S started the play up due to its strange centre of balance.

Thankfully Simon & Mike were on hand to balance on the headboard and risk their lives :)

When they were all finally balanced I started to play the footage through the projector.

The set up of the equipment was rather important..thankfully Mike supplied me with a massive, plain white wall and the Creative Centre in Uni supplied me with a projector (which we managed to create an amazing stand for, making it the perfect projecting height). I captured the straight footage playing onto the wall from several different angles making sure that I had as much top quality material to work with when it came to editing it all together.

WeAreFamily

Here are two of the four videos I have captured to be projected onto the wall and letters. I have used my Mum & Sister in these videos. The themes of the four videos are..

Ballerina

Actor reading from a script

Violinist

&

Scene from a period drama

Perpex Is Aus / Hardboard Is In

Im gutted that the perspex hasn't worked because as you can see from the images above the effect was really beautiful 

...However I am really pleased with the effect that the hardboard has created. The white surface of the board has a really nice modern feel to it. I have also decided not to cut the middles out of the A and the R as I think it will look too much like bubble writing. I think that leaving the letter as a whole doesn't take away from the trueness of the sky font. It also means that there is a larger surface area for the projector to be seen on.

Change of Plans...Damn You Perspex

The first problem I started to have was that when I was using the jigsaw the heat from the blade was starting to weld the plastic back together as I was cutting making it really hard to keep a clean edge on the perplex...it also created the risk of snapping the letters in half.

My plan to get around this scratching led me to sanding the surface which created a really effective frosted glass effect. 

DISASTER...my S has crack and I have rendered it impossible to used perspex as my material for my letters. Im thinking some kind of wood. Maybe a hardboard? 

Drawing Up

Tonight I have drawn the letters A - R - T - S onto a sheet of perspex...I am slightly nervous incase the perspex doesn't react well when I decide to take a jigsaw to it :/

Action Plan

Time to get my bum into gear and plan out my time to complete this sting. I have decided on the suspended letters idea and having video footage projected onto a white background behind the letters. To get inspiration for ideas for my video footage I have supplied some examples below.

[Official Action Plan]

Self Reflection:

Strengths 

I think that my main strengths in motion are being able to fathom an idea in my head within a few days of doing a brief (whether that idea is any good is another thing). I also think that my research is one of my strengths, I like to look at peoples work for inspiration to try and find new processes that I would never have considered in the first place.

Weaknesses

My main weakness is my time management. I have worked on this since last year and have got a lot better, but I still think there is room for improvement. My main problem is 'i'll do it tomorrow' syndrome. For future briefs I am going to make sure I am completely commented to finishing the brief with enough time so that I'm not still blogging on assessment day.

Building On My Strengths:

I want to make sure I have a better background understanding of my specialism. I feel like my research is strong yet when a strong artist in the field of motion is mentioned I get really annoyed that I've never heard of them before.

I really would like to improve my After Effects skills. I feel like they are really basic at the moment and could do with a boost. To build on this I am going to watch some youtube tutorials on After Effects.

Improving My Performance On The Course:

As above. I could really benefit from gaining more knowledge in After Effects.

Improving My Employment Prospects:

I would really benefit to getting some work experience in the field of motion. This will always give you a head start when it comes to applying for a job. I would like to get involved with some of the local community projects in my area.

Ideas & Storyboard

This image I have already uploaded previously but I want to show my first 3 ideas as a whole.

My second idea could be created using after effects. The idea revolves around dropping letters from a height and when they hit the surface they duplicate. 

This is a final draw up of what I want to create for my final piece.

This is my storyboard for how I want the final sting to turn out. I have a vision of having quite a soft blur over the footage making it feel almost like a home video. 

I want to record my own footage to be projected over the cut outs of the word Arts. 

Video footage such as a violinist.

The finale to the sting will be the words Sky and HD appearing around the ARTs cut outs to show the entire logo.

For the footage I am going to use family members such as my Mum and Sister.