Final Portrait Piece:

7/12/10

After finishing my after effects segment, I added it to the pre-edited footage on the final cut timeline. I then added a credits piece, adding and modifying the ‘Bad TV’ effect, highlighting the purple with the ‘3-Way-Colour-Corrector’ and adding a subtle vignette.

This is the final cut timeline:

This is the final piece on Youtube (in HD):

 

This is it on Vimeo (Slightly better quality):

Adobe After Effects work for my Portrait:

6/12/10

This is the after effects title I plan to play before the footage, uploaded to my YouTube:

I tried to represent Brighton using the silhouetted image of the pier whilst also trying to heavily stylise the piece, hence the Glow and blur effects, underlay beneath the title, purple burns and old-style section at the very beginning. Also, due to the running stylistic theme, I tried to stick with the single colour purple highlight. I experimented heavily altering the attributes the effects had and their positioning, etc, but this was the final piece I stuck with. These are some screen shots of the after effects project and the effect settings/keyframes:

The effects I applied to the the title of my name:

 

The effects I applied to the underlay of the title:

 

The effects I applied to the West Pier image:

 

The effects I applied to the introductory, ‘old-style’ clip:

HD upload testing for Portrait:

1/12/10

After putting together a rough cut with effects and music of simply the footage (pre After-Effects), I decided to do an HD test on my YouTube channel, following the instructions of the tutorial I posted earlier:

And this is a comparison between the edited (colour correction, etc) and original footage:

In order to achieve the effect on the footage, I brought up the contrast ever so slightly, added a subtle vignette and applied a ‘3-Way Colour Corrector’, highlighting specifically purple colours, and de-saturating the rest whilst also bringing out the darker parts and upping the saturation on the purple. This is the technique I used to achieve the single colour highlight:

This is a screen-grab of my ’3-Way Colour Corrector’ settings, which I used to achieve the look of the piece:

My course YouTube account:

25/11/10

I have decided to set up a new YouTube channel for all my University unit work and test uploads. This is it:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Alhodgson

Final Cut HD export/upload research for my Portrait:

24/11/10

As the footage in my piece was shot HD, I thought it would be best to research successful methods of high definition uploading to YouTube from Final Cut Pro. This is a good, simple tutorial I found describing the best method of full 1080i HD exporting, ready for YouTube upload:

Outcome of the shoot and further portrait idea development – After Effects ideas:

18/11/10

The shoot with Drew was very successful in my opinion; I felt we got the perfect footage I planned on getting and represented everything I wanted to represent, ready to be put together in Final Cut to make a rough edit. Making the portrait HD was something I was very set on as I felt it would really bring out the stylistic possibilities for the edit, so I’m very happy with the result of our shoot. I feel my HD influence mainly comes from the ‘Color Theory’ videos I posted a few weeks ago, and so I’m glad I was able to utilize my opportunity to use a camera that, in my opinion, offers some of the nicest HD footage available.

As for developing my ideas on how to represent my hometown Brighton in After Effects, I feel I should use a symbolic landmark. Possibly the most famous being the burnt out west pier: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Brighton-WestPierRuins-contrejours-02.JPG

I plan on incorporating an image of the west pier into an after effects composition along with my name to represent a place which is very important to me and that has played a huge part in my life. I may try to subtly portray this however, maybe making the image simply a silhoutte and not take up much space in the composition. Also, to keep up with the stylistic nature of the piece I plan to incorporate and highlight specifically the colour purple. I may also try to emulate aged film techniques to contrast them with the new HD footage.

Developing my Portrait idea further:

11/11/10

After a lot of thought over the aspects I want to reference and represent about me within my portrait, I have decided that it will depend on which of the two processes I will my using within it. I feel that for the section that will be filmed, I will reference skateboarding, Bournemouth and myself and when it comes to the section put together in After Effects I plan to reference Brighton. I also plan to reference some music that I am into by incorporating it into the edit; this will hopefully also add some atmosphere to the piece. I’m planning on attempting to use a style I quite like with both the way I put together the After Effects section and how I edit everything together in Final Cut (this will incorporate my use of colour within the piece). I have a good idea of how I want it to look and hopefully it will turn out that way.

With the help of a friend of mine who owns a Canon 5D Digital SLR camera I plan to shoot a short HD edit of me walking out of my house in Bournemouth (representing my current location since I have moved to university), riding onto a skateboard, doing and trick and riding off around the corner (hopefully representing skateboarding and how it means a lot to me). I plan to focus heavily on the colour purple in this shoot so I will be wearing a purple jumper, hopefully this will add to the stylistic nature I am planning to achieve. I will arrange a date to film with my friend and once shot I plan to make a draft edit of how the footage will look. I have not yet specifically decided on how I will represent Brighton using After Effects, but I plan to post any ideas for that in my next blog post.

Different kinds of Digital Portrait research.

4/11/10

When researching for this unit it seems that there are two main types of research to take into account:

• Technological research – how to create the effect I want to through the use of software. For example, using Internet After Effects tutorials or looking for other digital examples of what I want to do. This may mean looking at people’s video show-reels, etc and looking into other processes such as Super8 in order to find out how they have done it.

Example of a stylistic smoke lettering After Effects tutorial:

• Artistic research – how the artist puts across their message and/or creates the portrait of a something or someone. This may mean looking for other digital media portraits in order to see how the artist has created what is portrayed and what they have used to do so.

Lasse Gjertsen’s digital media self-portrait (describes himself within the video whilst using digital editing techniques):

Alternate examples of the use of portraits.

28/10/10

In class today we looked at other types of portraits and what they portray. As a group we looked at the book, ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll People’ by Hamlyn, which was a book about famous rock musicians. It contained many portraits of these artists portraying them in many different lights (no pun intended). There were some conclusions we came to about the many photographs in the book:

• An importance of the front man was always apparent, often being portrayed as the main part of the band. This was often done through shot composition (them in the foreground, everything else background) and the use of spotlighting on them.

• The front man’s instrument was always heavily focused on as well. We assumed that this is because the rock musicians were often known most for their art so this had to be portrayed in their portraits.

• The idea of ‘freedom’ often was portrayed within the images through what the musician was doing and what they were wearing, etc. For example, in a photograph of Bob Marley, his hair is waving outwards while he is playing representing freedom and expression through his music, while his clothes are a slight contrast to the contemporary fashions showing a lack of constriction by society of that time.

In this lesson we also discussed the idea of ‘truth’ and ‘untruth’ within portraits and whether they were true to their subjects (natural) or a creation of the artist to portray something else. This idea also asks the question of ‘are the portraits only superficial or do they have deeper meaning/portray a message?’ As I look at other portraits I will tie in the true/untrue idea to get a better feel of the artist’s intentions/meanings.

Forming Ideas for my own Digital Media Portrait.

27/10/10

In order to form some ideas about my Digital Media Portrait I created a brainstorm/mind-map with four main points. This is it:

*Inspiration for single colour highlight (something that appeals to/interests me):

Tom Asta – Mystery Skateboards ‘Color Theory’:

Jimmy Carlin – Mystery Skateboards ‘Color Theory’: