This is my post production video.
I began this idea by wondering what it would be like if we could see our thoughts. I thought about it for quite a while before deciding that it would be pretty embarrassing if we could. From this I decided that I would make a character, whose thoughts can be seen. I knew I could go either of two ways with it; one option was that only the audience can see the characters thoughts, and sympathize with her, or other option was that people can see her thoughts and she is put into somewhat embarrassing situations by it. I then began to look for some sort of stimulus towards this idea. I looked at ‘The Sims’ and looked at how the thoughts are displayed above the Sims head. This form of communication shows you their wants and needs.
The narrative.
The video begins with the statement ‘Why we can’t see thoughts’. The video aims to show the audience that it’s just as well ca cant because it would be very awkward. It begins with a girl waking up. The ‘!’ shows the audience that she has just woken up. She then yawns and wants coffee which can be seen in the first thought bubble. After making coffee she goes to her wardrobe and thinks about what she wants to wear, this thought can be seen in the next bubble.
This seems all very well, the only thoughts that are showing are just typical thoughts and wants, nothing embarrassing about them at all.
The thoughts become embarrassing when the girl is walking outside and sees a boy who she likes. The heart thought then appears. She obviously doesn’t want the boy to see this and so gets embarrassed and tried to make the thought go away so he won’t see it, but what she doesn’t see is that he has similar thoughts.
I filmed using a Canon legira HFS 10. I captured the footage from the camera onto a Mac using iMovie. Unfortunately, premier pro would not recognise the device when I tried to capture to PC. After I had all the footage I needed, I imported it into premier pro, where I built a sequence which I would use. After I had done this, I exported the sequence into after effects where I applied the vector images which I made in Illustrator. Because I forgot to add tracking points when I filmed, I had to find something in the footage to track from. In the instance for most of the video it was the girls’ hair. However, because there were no solid colours to track from, it was tracking all over the place, so I ended up going through a lot of it frame by frame which added a lot more time and effort to my schedule. After I had tracked the whole sequence, I copied and pasted the key frames from the motion tracker onto the vector images which I had already placed onto the timeline. I then parented the vector images to a Null object. I changed the opacity of the vector images by adding the appropriate key frames.
Once I had finished motion tracking, I rendered the sequence and exported through QuickTime as a .Mov which I then imported back into premier pro. Here I added the titles and sound.
There are of course changes I would make if I were to re-do this project. Firstly I wouldn’t make things harder for myself by forgetting to add tracking points when I filmed. Secondly I would change the thought bubble at the end so that the girls’ hands looked like they were going through the bubble. I did not know how to do this, but if I were to go back and make changes, I would find out how and use that to make it look more realistic.
I would also remove the two small white dots which appear under the coffee bubble. I only noticed these myself when I was rendering in Premier and as I had already built a sequence which I was happy with, I did not want to go back and do it all again.
If I had thought about it earlier on in the project, I would also have added more than just motion tracking to it. I could have made a day to night transition in the first scene so it looked darker and more realistic, I could have also colour graded the whole sequence using premier or after effects.
Overall I am pretty pleased with the way the project has turned out for me. I’d love to integrate more motion tracking into my future projects as I have learnt from this one that it’s really not as complicated as I thought it was
