Pre-Production // Post-Production

What was the task?

Our class was assigned to recreate a specific moment within a song of choice that stood out a lot to us, and all of us had different songs that we chose to recreate, for me and Faheem(my partner) we decided to recreate the song Purple Ape and there was little bit of inspiration from other songs such as Rap God from Eminem but, in terms of more of a graphical style. We eventually decided to film the more visual abstract sequences of the music video, as that is our goal for our final project that we want to film. We then decided how and where and who was going to film, and decided to have Faheem just be  to be in the music video as it was a test and it didn't need to be a proper finalised product as we wanted to see what we capable of creating. Our vision for this recreation was to play homage to the original or intextualise it (referencing) because of the use of the shots and visuals that would be added but it also had our own little twist as we don't have access to all the sets that they had in the music video, so we improvised and by doing so we went for our dance routine, but sticking to the main attraction in the video which was the abstract eye segment.

Our shooting Script

 During the pre-production we created a shooting script which contained all the details such as the shot numbers, locations, shot angles, movement, length/duration and more, this was all planned for every shot so it made filming it much easier and understandable to do. The shooting script was very beneficial for us to use for our recreation because it allowed us to get everything we wanted at the exact time frame we needed, we also had exact footage from the seconds from pressing record and stopping the recording, this allowed us to have extra frames to edit in post production making if any errors much easier to fix. We will use this shooting script for our music video later on in the year.

How did we edit it?

During the editing process, we primarily focused on cutting the clips and removing any parts that weren't desired, once the cutting was done, the footage was then edited in Adobe after effects this was because it was only three shots so it wasn't a very sequence. Once the footage was put I the timeline of Adobe after effects the footage was edited, with lots of effects such as tracking and masking and visual effects, once all the technical aspects were completed the colour grading was applied on all of the clips giving a much more professional and cinematic feel, which is a type of style we wanted because we like the short film style of music videos, then the letterbox aspect ratio was added to give the cinematic look. During this whole process I made sure that shots had the camera movement that was wanted with, any other conventions such as angles, duration and even transitions, but the transitions were mainly non conventional for short films because we wanted a surreal abstract feel to our music video. We also included the close ups of the artist as shown with the face zoom as we wanted the audience to focus on Faheem directly on the screen, we then decided to add Black and Yellow as a track to the background as our music video had no audio originally, and decided to have Black and yellow as we liked the song, and it flowed well with the video. Overall I liked the comparison between the final version and the non Edited version as it has a totally different atmosphere and I'm very happy of the final product.

Here is a midshot of Faheem before editing had took place, we wanted to make sure that all the clips were all in the right place, and all in order, once all the clips were put in the correct places then they were trimmed and cut to the desired points that we wanted.

Once the clips were cut to what we wanted small edits were made such as during the sequence we wanted to make sure that the camera angle and perspective of Faheem was visible and clear for the audience to see him as the focus, so a warping effect at the corner of the screen was applied to give that abstract illusion and surreal nature but still focus to the main subject.

Here is another shot which is a close up of Faheem before any edits, and what we wanted to do was to keep his face still recognisable so that you can still relate to the image but at the same time give it a much more creative and surreal nature and by doing so we decided to manipulate certain parts of his face such as his eye and the sides of his face.

Here is the tracking process, which was done by finding high contrast points in the eye to track, once the points were tracked the data was then exported to a null object which contained this data, which then allowed us to apply visual effects to the image later.

Once the data was contained in the null object, the video layer was duplicated and I then, applied a mask around the eye, with other effects the glitch, blue TV eye colour was applied to his eye, then other areas of his face were tracked and given other visual effects, while doing this we maintained the original composition of the video wasn't disrupted and lost.

The other footage was then applied with other effects such as this sketchy drawing effect, which gave an illusion of how the world being creating is sketchy and isn't real, and seems very artificial, it also has parts of the real world coming through, suggesting that the world is trying to reclaim itself from the artificial nature of the video, because as the video continues the effects change as if its a constant battle between real and fake.

Once the transitions and other major effects were applied, and bright colourful simulation was created next to Faheem on the right, this is like a juxtaposition between the surreal and the real worlds, as the right looks like a simulation while the left is slowly being consumed by the this force.

Once the footage had been done to how we wanted it, the colour grading was then applied to the footage to give the colours a much more distinct visual boost to what they were originally, this also gives the footage the mood that we wanted such as the bold digital realm coming to reality.