Assignment 3 Final Version

Here is the link to my final version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC-UYFqg9y8.

Basically I added some animation to the verse so that viewers don't have to wait for the next word to appear. This should be more interesting than the previous version ;) I also changed the typeface for "take that (to new extremes)" to the standard one and distorted it to create perspective instead. I also tried to standardize the non-important words to black text, unless there is too little contrast for the words to be legible.

Assignment 4 Storyboard

I thought of a simple story for the superhero video. My superhero power will be to create multiple selves so that I can do different things at the same time. Thus I can get work done faster while relaxing too.

The main effect I will be using is done by overlapping videos to create multiple selves. I remember learning this in poly, where the camera stays at the same position, and only the person changes position. I can then overlap two videos where everything is at the same place, and only the two "me"s appear at different positions. This is similar to the soda video in the lecture notes. I may add sparkles (using particles) in After Effects when I rub my hands (I'll try to come up with a less cliche action).

The challenge of executing this lies in getting the eye line correct. Thus I'll try to look at myself when both of "us" are standing or sitting down. It is also difficult to pass objects to one another, so I'll probably point instead.

The biggest advantage of this video is that it can be filmed entirely at home, and I have all the props I need. I made myself go back to sleep instead of studying at the end of the video, in hope of achieving some humor. I also hope the process of me "duplicating" myself is not too repetitive (it only happens twice? (: ).

Here is the storyboard:

1. I walk into the screen with a pile of homework already placed on a table. After staring at it, I sigh to show that I am too tired to start on it.

2. Hence I put my head down on the table and doze off staring at the pile of homework. As I was dozing off, I wonder how nice it will be to be able to have multiple selves so that I can multitask yet finish the homework within a short time.

3. Suddenly, someone taps me on the arm.

4. I jolt awake to see myself staring at me. The other me offers to do my readings, which I agree after I calmed down from the initial shock. Then I thought I can further "duplicate" myself.

5. Although I don't know how it happened in the first place, I try rubbing my hands.
 

6. Miraculously, another me appears. Thus I tell her to watch television.

7. The next me that appears is ordered to go online, maybe surf Youtube. (For consistency, I may repeat the previous scene of me rubbing my hands before this.)

8. The original me then saw that everyone (who is me) is getting work done/being entertained perfectly. (A panning shot will be used for this.)

9. Satisfied, the original me yawns happily.

10. I then go back to catch up on much-needed sleep. (The scene then fades to white.)

11. After some time, I wake up to find the pile of homework in its original place.

12. Shocked, I look around to find an empty studying chair, and the television and the computer switched off.

13. I then realize that all the multiple selves were a dream.

14. Dejected, I go back to sleep.

Hope I don't have to make major changes.

Assignment 3 Critique

After watching some of my classmates' videos, I understood what Julian said about the words being static and the audience waiting for the next word to come in. I think I'll try to add some animation (e.g. fades or word or camera movement) for the verse.

I should also try to keep the typefaces of unimportant words the same, e.g. for the "take that to new extremes" part. (So sorry I was explaining how I did the color change for the "hear me cry" part, I only heard the second part of the comment.) If the unimportant words refer to "take that", it was because I tried to make it 3D, so when I rotate the words they don't look flat. But then the effect didn't exactly work in the way I hoped for, and the words can look nicer too. Maybe I'll try again, like, leave out the texture and make them plain black or something... If it's for "to new extremes", I did try to leave them black in color, but I'm afraid it'll be a bit difficult to read against the darker background at the bottom, so I probably won't change that.

Thanks for the feedback! :)

By the way, if anyone wants to know, the "ME (crying)" changing color is done using inner shadows. Basically I changed the shadow color to blue, then increased the softness and made the shadow blur. I then animated the angle/position to make it move down. Actually the shadow is in the shape of "ME", but because I blurred it, it looks like it's just a blue solid moving down. (Disclaimer: written to the best of my memory. But I'm sure it's easy to adjust stuff from here.) Hope this helps :)

Presentation 5

What is special effect and visual effect? What are their differences?

Special effects used to refer to the optical illusions produced on film, television, theater and entertainment industries. These illusions are mostly used to simulate imagined events. However, with the emergence of digital film-making, there came to be a distinction for visual effects, which refer specifically to effects created digitally. Special effects thus only refer to effects produced with filming equipment or by using physical objects.

There are two kinds of special effects, optical effects and mechanical effects. Optical effects are effects created photographically. They either use in-camera effects such as using multiple exposure (to combine different images), mattes (to combine an image with a different background) and the Schüfftan process (to place life-sized actors in miniature sets), or they can be created in post-production using an optical printer (to re-photograph strips of film so as to apply optical effects e.g. fade outs and slow motion). Mechanical effects are those that can be achieved by physical objects, such as pyrotechnics, set design and prosthetic make-up. They also include atmospheric effects where wind, rain, etc are created.

Benefits and disadvantages of special/visual effect?

The benefits of visual effects include being able to simulate effects that are too expensive, dangerous, or difficult to achieve in real life. Visual effects can reduce costs and the effort needed to produce mechanical special effects (ie sets, props, make-up etc). It also removes the danger of actors and actresses filming with pyrotechnics (eg explosion scenes). More importantly, special/visual effects make movies much more interesting to watch, and hence are widely used to capture audience attention.

Disadvantages of special/visual effects include making the movies more unrealistic, and thus some audience members may feel that the movie is less believable and may relate less to it.

3 clips of special effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqeqaweXBV0)

The movie uses mechanical special effect (prosthetic make-up) to make Brad Pitt convincingly old. This probably more convincing than finding another actor to act as the old Benjamin Button. Visual effects are probably too troublesome, as the effect would have to be applied and changed accordingly as the actor moves.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWB1HGnA3tA)

The movie uses optical special effect. For example, the sky at 1:14 is actually matte (ie a painting of the sky and not the real sky, as seen at 0:27 – 0:32 in the next link). However, the other objects in the scene are real, so those nearer to the backdrop had to be scaled smaller to give the illusion of depth/distance. 

 

A Series of Unfortunate Events (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_-VJG1tdgk)

For mechanical special effect, the movie uses elaborate set designs as can be seen in this interview. This allows greater control as the filming process will not have to be subjected to problems such as weather conditions and location availability, but high costs and efforts were probably invested into producing the set. 

3 clips of visual effects

For some reason I seem to remember music videos better (maybe because of the songs), so I found two music videos with visual effects. As mentioned before, visual effects make the videos more interesting to watch. As for the last video, the visual effects complement the storyline as it is about supernatural beings that are supposed to achieve inhuman feats, so the visual effects are convincing.

Good Morning, Beautiful Dawn! - Crowd Lu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTPVmB2m1Nk)

The whole music video is filmed in reverse. I remember watching the making of the video on MTV before, and basically the singer sat down and ate the food on the table. There were crew who handed him items (eg the flowers) off screen. The song was probably reversed and he lip synced to that, so that when the video is reversed in post-production, it'll look as though he is singing the song correctly. The challenge is probably remembering the actions and getting them right, as their order will be reversed for the final product.

The reverse makes the video interesting as it is impossible to achieve some of the actions in real life. For example, it is impossible to pour juice back into the bottle from a cup, or “unpeel” a banana. However, I do agree with one of the comments that it is sort of disturbing to see the singer “spitting out” food to their original state.

Chui Zhi You - Fama, C-Kwan feat. Khalil Fong (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lt_20GBjc1U)

Yup, this is the same video from which I got inspiration for our second video (CNM is about) for the group project. The video shows the rapper painting a portrait of the singer, who is absent from the video, then whole video is fast-forwarded in post-production.

The fast-forward makes the video interesting, as it is impossible to paint at such a speed in real life. It also keeps the painting process more fast-paced and within the duration of the song, so that the audience will not be bored looking at someone painting. 

Supernatural (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz2migRftCY)

I remember watching this some time back. There are a lot of visual effects in this trailer. One of the more memorable effect from the show are the eyes of people changing color when they reveal that they are demons. Usually their pupils become enlarged and all black. This can be done in After Effects, as shown in this tutorial:http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/eye_replacement/.

The changing eyes are disturbing and thus complement the portrayal of demons as well as the supernatural theme of the show.

Assignment 3

I've finally finished Assignment 3, here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzl3ShqUkw0 :) As much as it was tedious, I actually had fun exploring the different effects, and there is still much to learn.

I've mainly followed the ideas from the previous post, but I changed the background. Initially I wanted to use a background of an old ruined wall, but after looking through some images, I realized that the wall's texture may be distracting. Thus I created a plain beige rectangle in Photoshop instead. I then made it darker at the bottom with the burn tool. This is so that I could scroll the image from top to bottom, to complement the song as it starts off in a rather positive tone but becomes much more negative at the chorus.

I also added the title of the song as well as the credits at the end. As the introduction was a bit long, I thought I could make a "horror film-like" effect by making the words "scramble" and the screen flash. This reiterates that all seems fine to the singer at first (the title fading in in an orderly manner), but things are actually not (hence the "scrambling" words). The same flashes were added to the credit for consistency.

The biggest problem I met when doing this assignment was to sync the lyrics with the song, as After Effects (AE) lagged (so much that the song pitch-shifted). Thus I had difficulty checking if I matched the lyrics correctly. As a result, I had to open the song in GarageBand and playback a lot of times to check when the words were sung. Then I had to take down the time (and divide it by 33, as GarageBand splits 1 second into 1000, and in AE it's about 30 frames per second) and match that in AE. I had to wait for AE to render the video so that I can export it and double-check if the video is synced. Thus quite a lot of time was wasted there. (I tried to find a way to solve the lagging problem, but after looking through a few websites to no avail, I decided it would be faster to work the way I did.)

After making sure the lyrics were synced, I started to animate them. The two icons (tear drop and heart shape) were drawn using the pen tool in AE. Most of the lyrics were done word by word. "Surprised", however, was animated by the letter and I spent some time doing that as it was rather tedious. All of the letters took different routes to their normal position, then they fell apart in different directions. I also animated the contrast so the letters turn gray before they fall, to show that the singer is not surprised.

Despite the work, I found it rather easy to learn animation in AE. I think this may be because I have worked with music sequencing software (e.g. GarageBand) before, and animation is like automation in music software. For example, fading in the music can be done by increasing the volume between two key points, and fading in the words can be done by increasing opacity between two key frames.

I watch some online tutorials to learn how to do the effects, such as the "scrambling" words (for the song title in the beginning), writing (for "page") and burning (for "watch me burn"), and explored by trial and error for others. (I found that I could twist the heart before it shatters in the last part of the video, under the same shatter effect.) As for fade to black, I couldn't find the correct transition (maybe I didn't explore enough, and I didn't want to spend more time looking for tutorials) so I added a black solid and automated its opacity instead. Similarly, a beige solid was used for the flashes.

I had to change a bit of the animation as I realized some transitions slowed down the pace of the video and made it look as though the words were not synced. For example, if I fade in the word "angels", it'll appear to come in slower as opposed to it directly appearing on the screen. Thus in these cases, I either made the transition shorter or removed the animation.

After I finished the animation, I added a camera to pan/tilt/zoom etc. This made the video look more interesting, and I can use the camera to focus more on the words as they enter the screen.

The final video, however, was 1GB plus, so I compressed it to 20MB plus, but it looks slightly pixelated. I hope it looks ok on Youtube.

* By the way I couldn't upload the compressed video to the server as the transfer died (at most) around 18MB. I've uploaded the AE project file instead. (I've tried for more than one hour :( )

Assignment 3 Typefaces Critique

Sorry I just finished my 1500+ words update before lesson, so I didn't get to upload it early. It was also a bit rushed today so I didn't get to present my ideas for animating the video. As my song is not very fast, I don't plan to use Luolan's method of combining everything into a large sheet of paper. The text can probably enter/ exit/ fade in and out of the screen.

Yit Hann suggested to zoom in to "watch/hear" for the chorus to see "me", which is interesting as well. I'll keep that in mind. I'll also choose fonts that are more readable.

On a side note, I'm glad most people liked my audio for Assignment 2. At least the skills I learnt in poly didn't go to waste :)) I'll change the colors of the title on the first photo like Kenny suggested, so that the words and not the letters are of different colors. However, I'm not inclined to submit the video to OAM as I used quite a lot of sound effects, which may be prone to copyright issues despite being in the public domain. I don't think I have time to record foley...

As for the super-obvious Photoshop for the friends section, that is on purpose to show that "friends make life colorful" ;)

Assignment 3 Typefaces

The lyrics I chose for this assignment are from Love The Way You Lie Part 2 by Rihanna, featuring Eminem. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B50RUXbs-8)

Initially, I wanted to choose Drops of Jupiter by Train (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Xf-Lesrkuc), as there are a lot of imagery in the lyrics. However, I found it difficult to do kinetic typography for the "hey, hey" in the verse as I couldn't come up with any interesting transitions to fill the space, and I didn't want to type the words "hey" as they are more of a continuation of the melody than part of the lyrics. Some of the lyrics are also rather abstract, such as "she listens like spring and she talks like June", which is difficult to express using kinetic typography. (I can use flowers or greenery for "spring", but it is not obvious as flowers or greenery can signify other things, such as gardens, as well.)

Next, I thought of Yellow by Coldplay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MwjX4dG72s) as I can literally color the lyrics yellow ;) However, the song has long interludes which makes it difficult to fill the space.

Then, as I was browsing through Youtube (I actually don't listen to english pop that often), I saw Love The Way You Lie in one of the links. Although I've heard the song before, I thought it might be unsuitable as there is a lot of rap, which is fast-paced and probably a lot work to do for kinetic typography. The lyrics however, portrays strong emotions. As I have learnt from last week's presentation, kinetic typography cannot change the mood of a song, but it can enhance the emotions. Hence Love The Way You Lie is actually a good choice. So I clicked on the link anyway and was happy to find out that there is a second part to the song where there is more singing. There is also enough imagery for me to work on. Hence I decided to use Love The Way You Lie Part 2 for Assignment 3, from the beginning to the end of the first chorus (about 1 minute long).

Here are the lyrics I'll be using:

On the first page of our story
the future seemed so bright
then this thing turned out so evil
I don't know why I'm still surprised
even angels have their wicked schemes
and you take that to new extremes
but you'll always be my hero
even though you've lost your mind

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
but that's all right because I like the way it hurts
just gonna stand there and hear me cry
but that's all right because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

I started with searching for suitable fonts. For example, digital fonts are used for "future", and "horror/bleeding" fonts are used for "evil" and "hurt" , etc. As for other lyrics, I intend to use kinetic typography to express their meaning: "bright" will glow, and "surprised" will jump, etc. I also experimented with layout. I plan to write the words "your mind" in the "o" in "lost" and have the camera zoom in to "your mind". This is to show that "your mind" is lost and it can only be found if you look closely. The words "your mind" may also fade out to further express the concept of being lost.

Here are my typefaces with the rough layout:

On the first page of our story

The word "first" is colored in gold as a gold medal or trophy is usually awarded to the winner of a competition. For the second variation, I experimented with the layout by using "1st" and having the other words sit on the number "1". I used handwritten fonts for "page" as we often write on paper. Beige color is used as it is analogous to gold, and I thought white or black to be too contrasting. I somehow inferred that females (since the singer is female) will think of a story with a bright future as a fairy tale, so the word "story" is in a medieval/arcane/classic font. I'm not sure if the old, rusty color works well though, as it complements the old, medieval feel but it's not fairy-tale-like.

For the video, I'm thinking of having the words "on the first page" flip 180 degrees, like how we would flip a page while reading, to reveal the next "page" - "of our story". However, the second layout is less rectangular (hence it looks less like a page), so the animation probably wouldn't work with it.

The future seemed so bright

Digital fonts are used for "future", and it is colored in neon colors to give it a futuristic feel. "Bright" will be animated to glow, or have stars revolve around it. Alternatively, the word "future" can fade on "seems" (since "seems" means it's not definite) and glow on "bright".

Then this thing turned out so evil

"Horror" fonts are used for "evil", and the word is colored to look like blood.

Since this line has a lot of letter "t"s and "h"s, the lines of the letters can extend to the next word's. Then "out" will come out from "turned", Alternatively, the "t"s and "h"s can stay while only the last letters change. Then "turned" can turn by spinning 360 degrees before "out" flies out from it.

I don't know why I'm still surprised

"Surprised" is multi-colored, as I associate it with birthday parties. Thus it is also in cute, rounded fonts. However, since the singer is NOT surprised, I'll animate the words such that they'll change to black color, and probably scatter and fade out. I may also make the words "jump" to enhance the feeling of being "surprised".

I can either type out the line in full, or replace "don't know why" with a big question mark, where the dot of the second "i" shares the one on the question mark.

Even angels have their wicked schemes

I found related fonts for the words and colored them conventionally (yellow/gold/halo-colored for "angel" and red and black for "wicked", as I associate it with devil). I tried two layouts, but basically I hope to have "angel" and "wicked" near to one another for contrast.

I also changed my standard font (i.e. the one for the words that are not decorated) to Impact from here. This is because the song starts to take a darker turn. I hope this is not too inconsistent, if it is, I'll change all to Impact. I may also make my background (maybe some image of an old ruined surface, to portray the hurt feelings of the singer) darker from here to complement the song.

And you take that to new extremes

The word "you" is cracked, to show that the bright future that the singer hoped for is gone and "you" are the cause of it. I hope to be able to make the words "take that" 3D and have the camera follow the words falling down, to show that the hopes of the singer has fallen through. Alternatively, the camera can swish pan to show the words "and you take that to new" to portray the misjudgment of the singer (and hence disorientation/giddiness during the pan). "Extremes" will stretch to the extremes of the frame, either horizontally or diagonally.

But you'll always be my hero

"You" is still cracked, and bold/superman fonts are used for "hero". "Hero" is either higher, bigger, or more in the foreground than the rest of the words to portray superiority.

Even though you've lost your mind

"You" is cracked, and as explained before, the words "your mind" will be in the "o" in "lost", where the camera zooms in to "your mind". This is to show that "your mind" is lost in "lost". The words "your mind" will then scatter and fade out.

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn/ Just gonna stand there and hear me cry

These words are big and bold as this is the chorus and the climax of the song. The repeated lines will be animated similarly for consistency. "Stand there" can be army green or red as "you" refers to a (probably violent) male character, and army and blood is related to violence.

Instead of writing out the line in full, "me" will burn and "cry". I will try to animate a drop of tear reaching "me" and make the word change to blue color or smudge as a result (as though written ink is met with water).

But that's alright because I like the way it hurts/ But that's alright because I love the way you lie

"Alright" is in a thin font as although the singer says that she is alright, she really is not. Thus the thin font portrays weakness and vulnerability. I may also make the word "tremble".

Although people don't usually associate "like" with a heart shape, I decided to use the same layout as "I love the way you lie" for consistency. Hence the words and icon will appear in order, with the words "hurt" and "lie" appearing last, on the heart. As the words are "bleeding", I hope to achieve the effect that the words on the heart are cuts and the heart is bleeding. At the end, when "I love the way you lie" is repeated, the other words will fade and the heart will shatter or break (depending on which effect I manage to learn). Then "lie" will be scaled up and be left on the screen for a while before it fades to black.

Alternatively, I can place "alright" and "I like the way it hurts/ I love the way you lie" on the word "me". The camera can then zoom in and pan or tilt accordingly to show the words. Again, everything will fade out leaving "lie" at the end of the video, before "lie" also fades to black.

Group Project (Pre-production)

My group decided to do two videos on promoting CNM. Since the work may be rather time-consuming, we decided to make our second video simpler.

The Many Faces of CNM

Our first video will introduce prospective students to the career prospects of CNM. Inspired by the transitions of the opening of a Japanese animation, Sheng suggested that we could do the same. We will pan or zoom in on a person holding an object, then pan or zoom out to another scene with another person holding it. These different people will hold the different jobs that CNM graduates can be offered.

Reflections

Although this is an interesting presentation of CNM, we may need to spend time scouting for locations that can realistically portray the offices of the different jobs. The scouting process may be tedious, and so is the filming process where we’ll have to lug the filming equipment around. Hence we try to minimize this problem by limiting our filming locations to COM1 and the CNM lab. We hope to be able to find different views of the same place to portray a different location.

We may also need to find talents. However, in the event that we are unable to, we can always act ourselves. The challenge is then to find appropriate outfits that can portray the different roles clearly, so that the same actor may even take on multiple roles.

Editing the video may also be tedious as we have to ensure that the transitions are smooth.

Since there will be no narration, the music will have to complement the video in keeping viewers interested. Hence we’ll need time to find adequate tracks, or compose our own.

On the other hand, this video requires no budget as props can be sponsored by ourselves or we can borrow them.

CNM is about…

Initially Sheng suggested a documentary where we film an NUS/CNM student going to the various places in school and engaging in different activities. However, this is time-consuming we’ll have to scout for many locations and find talents. Moreover, the narration for the documentary has to be interesting. Hence after some deliberation, we aborted the idea.

I got this new idea from a music video which I have watched only once. I guess if I can remember it, it must have its benefits that we can learn from by using a similar concept. In the music video, the rapper is painting a portrait of the singer, who is absent from the video. The entire video is then fast-forwarded. The rapper changes his outfit a few times, and paints from different positions to maintain visual interest.

Our video will be similar, just that instead of painting a portrait, we’ll put up CNM-related concepts on a blank wall. The video will also be fast-forwarded. This is much simpler than the documentary, as it only requires one location, and no talents, as we can put up the items on the wall ourselves.

Our problem with this concept, however, was coming up with what to put on the wall. In the end, we settled for Creative, Analytical and Informative. This fits in with CNM’s three main tracks: Media Design (which requires us to be creative), Media Studies (which requires analysis) and Communication Management (which is informative). We avoided CNM as Communications and New Media as that is too conventional. We also did not want to start the words with C, N and M, as that is rather conventional as well. We try to keep the relative positions of the letters instead (i.e. C in the beginning, N in the middle, and M at the end). Communications and New Media will only be showed at the end of the clip to reveal what CNM really stands for. We hope the viewers will wonder what CNM is about and stay until the end of the clip where the answer is revealed.

Reflections

This idea does not require much effort in terms of production as all we have to do is to put up and take down our props on a wall. The main work for this video comes from preparing the materials. Also, we’ll have to buy the props, although being stationery, they’re not really expensive.

Again, as there is no narration, we may need to find good music to complement the video. However, since Julian commented that the words that represent CNM may come across as forced, we may decide to add a narration to justify our word choices after all.

Assignment 2

I finally got the video done (hopefully without more adjustments). Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQMc_ImoSV0

After consulting Julian on the sketches, I realized that my problem was less on conceptualization but more on the execution. This is because it is probably rather easy to come up with promotional photos for NUS (landscape, food, friends, etc), but everyone will probably come up with similar things. Thus I decided to make my video stand out via animations, collages and sound effects.

As a result, I used After Effects instead of iMovie as it allows me to add more animations.

I kept the main concept of the video, but I took the photos of the NUS lanyard and the clock again. I thought a top view might show the lanyard better than a side view.

I also wanted to remove the "QQ" in the clock (although not everyone will relate to it as an emoticon for crying). Moreover, the face of the clock in my room has a person studying on it (I hope the close-up is clear enough to show that), so it may relate to studying in NUS better. 

(By the way the clock is from 798, an "art district", in Beijing. )

Then I replaced the draft photos with original ones:

Waiting for the Bus

I took this at a bus stop outside my home. I captured the back view of a bus to show that the bus is leaving, and I'll have to wait for the next one. I tried taking an empty bus stop, but I thought the photo lacked focus. I could have added myself in the photo, but since the photo has to be a long shot to include the bus, the bus stop and me, it will probably not make a lot of difference as it is not obvious that I am in the photo. I then zoomed and panned the photo to add a sense of motion.

Waiting for the Train

I know we are not allowed to take photos of the MRT for security reasons, so I took a photo of the MRT moving away from the station from an overhead bridge. This gives a better angle (as opposed to photographing from ground level). Also, the diagonal lines and the depth of the photo convey a sense of motion, to complement the message that the MRT is gone and I'll have to wait for the next one. Zooming and panning the photo further enhances the sense of motion.

Waiting for Lessons to Start

My friend helped me take this photo where I am climbing up a flight of stairs in school. This shows that I am waiting for lessons to start as I'm only on my way to class and lessons haven't started. I zoomed and panned the photo to add a sense of motion.

Waiting for Lessons to End

My friend helped me take this photo in a tutorial room where I am staring at my watch, counting down to the end of lesson. I zoomed and panned the photo to focus more on my watch, as viewers may only notice me looking down (and not at my watch) initially.

Waiting for Graduation

I Photoshop-ped a photo of myself staring at the commencement lion in NUS Co-op. The photo is out of proportion to show that I have not graduated and is thus merely thinking about graduation. I zoomed and panned the photo to change the focus from me to the commencement lion.

All these photos are at 50% saturation to show that life is seemingly dull in NUS. This is in contrast with the second (colorful) part of the video.

I changed a bit of the concept from the draft from here. Instead of conventional promotional photos of NUS, I decided to take less-than-perfect photos. This conveys a more realistic and honest view of NUS. These photos also complement my message that friends are what I'll miss most about NUS. However, I took care to not show any negative side of the school, as it will then defeat the purpose of creating a promotional video.

Fade to black was used to slow the pace of the video and portray the "agony" of waiting, but as the pace of the video picks up from here (to prevent viewers from getting bored), straight cuts are used instead. I did not zoom or pan the photos either.  

Food

I took a photo of a long queue at the Arts canteen to show that food is not what I miss about NUS. This side-steps the potential damage to NUS's image as I didn't say that the food is not nice, simply that it takes a long time to get to the (good) food.

Greenery

I wanted to take a photo of the greenery in school being obscured by the rain, but when I got to take the photos, the rain had stopped. Although the sky was relatively dark, the photos were too pretty. (I'm not exaggerating, the greenery in school is beautiful and I had a hard time trying to find wilted plants, which was my back-up plan.) In the end, at my friend's suggestion, I decided to take a photo of a stone marking of underground cables. I then Photoshop-ped the photo so that it points to ants instead of cables. Again this side-steps the potential damage to NUS's image as ants have always been part of greenery, just that people never liked them much ;)

Readings

This is a photo of my spectacles on my readings. I hope to portray that I felt so tired from reading that I took off my spectacles for a nap. Initially I wanted to add my arm in the photo, so that the photo is taken from the first person's point of view, but the photo looked rather cluttered. I chose this photograph also because there is a reflection of my spectacles on the plastic cover of the course pack, which I drew into another pair of spectacles for the Friends section, to show that I am not the only person to doze off reading the readings. I guess most, if not all, students are like that, so this is not a complain about NUS.

Bidding

I took a photo of my mac with the CORS point management web page on my screen. I made a white flag from recycled paper and a chopstick to show that bidding is so tough that I can only surrender. I hope this is not negative - it's just an honest view and prospective students can probably find parody videos on bidding on Youtube anyway.

My FRIENDS

I took photos with my friends at Random Blends, but the background was rather cluttered. Thus I changed the background to scenes in school, e.g. the pink corridor at AS1. The backgrounds are vibrantly colored on purpose, to show that "friends add color to life". I added another flag to Bidding, again, like the photo for Readings, this is to show that I am not alone in surrendering to the bidding system.

These photos (from Food to Bidding) are colorful for contrast with the first part of the video. The Friends photos are even increased in saturation to show that they make dull study life colorful.

I used a bit of kinetic typography for "They always make life colorful" by making the word "colorful" colorful. I also did the same for "far from boring". Hopefully this breaks the monotony of photos and titles.

Next I used two photo montages before the end of the video. Again, this is to break the monotony of photos and titles.

And so although I'm still Waiting

I took the suggestion from the critique session of showing the clock at different times to portray waiting. I took photos of just the clock at first, but my friend said it wasn't clear that the clock showed different times as the scene lasts for only a short time. She suggested that I can wait at different positions staring at the clock, to make the photos look more different, which is what I did. The clock is out of proportion, but it would be too small to see otherwise. I think it's fine to be less realistic in this case, as my main objective is to show "waiting". (Two examples above.)

The wait is far from Boring

I changed the hue for the first few photos in the montage, to give a more pop (as in pop culture) and fun feel. However I kept the last one natural, for contrast with the first photo of the NUS lanyard, and also as respect to NUS's original colors. After all, this is still a video for NUS.

I typed a smiley face as conclusion: that I am happy in NUS :)

*Photos are edited as necessary, e.g. color correction or to accommodate titles in the video.

Audio

I added sound effects to the video to make it more interesting, since most past-year clips I've seen on Youtube simply add background music. Sound effects are also important for me as I did not add narration. I had trouble finding a suitable sigh sound, as well as one for the lecture, so I recorded in Audacity and edited them in Garageband (changed equalization/reverberation). The "lecture" comes from the first line of my first reading for the first lecture for NM2209 ;)

I wanted to find background music at first, but I had trouble finding something suitable, so I made my own, derived from music loops. The music is synchronized with the video, to complement the change of mood.