OK… video is 250 megs, and the highest it will let me do is 100 megs.  Next time I’m on a computer with FCP I will make a smaller version to post.  For now- here is the layout for the title scene which is 100% done shooting.  I showed Stephanie the first version for this scene, I think that this version is much much better.

Good morning! Long time coming, but here is where I stand with my IP:

I’ve created a structure, start to finish, for my video.  It is 2 minutes and 10 seconds long, with a shot change about every 12 seconds.  The idea is the same as it has been for a while- items interact in a stop-motion space, set to music, and the outcome of the ordeal is a multi-block woodcut print.  A number of ideas have been added in the past month, so I will touch on a few of them:

VU Meter:  Items in the video (legos, candles, tall glasses full of liquid, rollers with ink, felt, tape, and more) tend to arrange themselves into vertical bars that resemble an electronic VU meter (green on the bottom, red on top when the volume gets too loud) and react to the music playing.

Ableton Live:  This is the program I use to make the music.  The overhead view of the table upon which this video takes place is inspired by the layout of the Ableton window.  The camera angles change periodically, going in and out of the birds-eye, so that this concept doesn’t get worn out.  But the general idea is that the setting for the video is actually a “machine” of sorts, which churns out prints.  In real life, Ableton is an imaginary machine that churns out music.  Because the video takes place in actual 3-dimensional space, I figured it only makes sense for it to create an actual 3-dimensional item that can be touched.

Items: I don’t know how to describe the concept I am trying to get at here— basically I am taking smaller, more playful items like the toy piano or toy drum, and in stop motion I am acting like they are something different.  I was inspired by the artist PES, who uses everyday objects to represent food items in videos like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMO6vjmkyI

Real-life computer:  I wanted the video to pay tribute to the look and feel of a computer, since I have been interested in “man-made vs. machine-made” all year.  In the overhead view during the video, there is a felt cut-out in the shape of a mouse pointer that dictates some of the changes in the music.  Also, I chose to use LEGOs to create titles because they kind of represent pixels (and they are also very easy to animate)

Anyway, I am about 1/4 done shooting the pictures for the video, which leaves me with a LOT of work still to do, but I am confident that as long as IP stays at the top of my priorities (AKA as long as it is my only priority) I will be able to finish on time.  I am aiming to be finished before March 29, since that is when I have to turn in a ‘rough draft’ to David Chung.  Then there will be a week to tweak whatever is wrong with it…since there will inevitably be something wrong with it.

I had some trouble at first getting the lighting to be even from picture to picture, but I realized that it was due, in part, to the slight flicker that incandescent bulbs have when shot at a high shutter speed.  I re-shot the scene that was messed up with a much longer shutter speed, and the lighting came out WAY better.  The scene that I am talking about is the title scene with the LEGOs turning into a VU meter.  I will post the new version of that video.

I’ve been using (possible abusing?) Final Cut Pro in order to create the illusion of the VU meter.  In the LEGO shot, it looks like I changed the LEGOs out one by one and shot the entire thing in chronological order… But in reality I just shot a still image of each level and then frame-by-frame arranged them against the peaks of the audio.  Then I used the crop tool to crop them so that one bar coincided with the piano, one with the snare drum, bass drum, hi hat, etc.  I think I did a fairly good job, because even for me it is hard to notice the sliiiiiight imperfections.

The song that will accompany the video is nearly finished.  The structure is set in stone, but I need to go back into it and add a couple instruments, fix some transitions, little stuff like that.  I am confident that it should only take a couple hours to finish.  I added a sample (back to using a sample??) from Fleet Foxes, which plays behind the piano part that I wrote.  It gives the song a little bit more flavor (the instrumental was a bit boring without it) but the song does not rely solely on the sample.  Matt Shlian told me “if you’re a musician, make the music” —I still feel very confident about the fact that it is MY song.  But using a sample is both interesting and allows me to add a visual where I put a circular block of wood on the toy drum and it begins to spin, like a vinyl record on a turntable.

I have a bit of carving left to do on the blocks, but I have to be careful about the order in which I do that.  The blocks show up in the video before being carved, and every stroke carved into them is shot.  So I need to get to a certain point in the shooting before I can finish carving them.  I showed Stephanie the layout and content of the print.  It’s tough to explain via the web.

In terms of hours…  I can’t even count the amount of hours I’ve spent on IP this week.  Three separate nights of more than 10 hours… so I’m guessing it’s somewhere in the 35 hour range.  Anyway, it’s all I’ve been doing, and I like that.

Next step is to knock out two scenes— one is a time-lapse of colored pieces of ice melting in the tall glasses.  I am going to use the photos from the time-lapse to animate the glasses as VU meters.  The other scene is an overhead shot in which the felt cutout pointer carves out pixels from a block of wood by clicking on it over and over.

Not sure if any of this blabber makes much sense, but I don’t know how better to describe any of it.  Hopefully it lets me load this video right now.  At the very least I have some still shots.

Thanks for reading,

Jimmy

Hello All,

So this past week I finally got some shots together— Can’t post them yet because theyre too large for my computer.  I’ve got them on my hard drive for now, and when there is a little bit more to post I’ll make the videos smaller and lower quality to post.

I’m learning a lot about light in my Video-editing class with Cynthia— this is helping me create more compelling shots.  I am really getting away from the documentation, which I am enjoying.

I will post again when there is a little bit more to add— I’ve got a lot to think about after the critique I had earlier today.  Specifically, I am going to be considering very carefully how I frame shots, what colors appear, what kinds of parallels I can draw between different shots, and FINALLY how I am going to end up making some prints. I’ve been out of the habit of making prints for about a month now, and I am anxious to get back in the studio.

Sorry this is so short! I will be updating more frequently this week to make up for it…

Jimmy

So, the week isn’t quite over but I decided to update early so I don’t forget later.

This week I have kept myself busy with some logistical concerns for the IP exhibition- specifically, we (myself + 3 others) signed a contract to book the Ann Arbor Art Center for our off-site exhibition titled “in-kind.”  We will have opening and closing night parties, a shuttle from our exhibition to other off-sites, food, drinks, music, etc.

Now that this is official, our group will need to work on ‘in-kind’ promotion materials as well as those for our own individual projects.

In the realm of my own project, I finished making a fake piano-printer object.  I will try to shoot the first few scenes of my video tonight or tomorrow.  I’ve been striving for perfection with every move, since I am unsure of how many iterations I will be able to make of this video (at least 2.  but I might want to use some of this footage for the later ones.)  I created a filming space in my studio, where I hope to have full control over the lighting and background situations.

I’ve learned a fair amount about white balance, aperture, depth of field, gain, and shutter speed in my video class.  I will be using this knowledge to perfect the look of my still images and stop motion.  In order to make the movement of my video look nice, I will use a bit of a motion blur technique when things are moving fast.  

I found a nice stop motion video where an element of my future video is embodied- the element is the music visualizer aspect of Ableton live.  It goes up when the music gets loud, down when it’s soft, and it tends to bounce to the beat of the song.  The bottom part is green, and when it gets higher it turns to red.  It is only in this video for a tiny moment- around 0:45-0:48. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SKVcQnyEIT8

Moving forward, it’s all about shooting the videos.  I have been sketching what I want the final print to look like, but at this point much of that can still change.  Not sure why- but I have been sketching ski lifts a lot lately, and I want to include one in the print.  Perhaps I am longing to go skiing.

Update as soon as I have some previews. - Jimmy

This past week…

I started the week by storyboarding my next video.  I included scenes that make use of stop motion much more than I had before.  I then went to salvation army and picked up some vintage glass vases for a nice background for my videos.  I took some test videos of the setup to see how the framing will work, added a piece of plexiglass in front of the entire setup so that my camera won’t get wet in scenes where water or ink are splashing, and then watched as the plexiglass came loose and crashed down onto the glass, shattering most of it.

So two nights ago, I went back to Salvation and picked up some more glass.  It actually looked really good before things crashed down.  I will be posting this week after I put in a couple long sessions of shooting.  Tonight will be the first one, so hopefully I will have some work to post later this evening.  I have a rough cut of a song I have been making to go along with the newest video.  I’l post that right after this.

Moving forward, I am going to be shooting the video.  I have some awesome props now, so I can definitely get at least a couple scenes done before I need to get anything else.  Looking forward to posting more work!  -Jimmy

So from the faculty consultation, I came away with three main things:

The first is 100% original music.  I talked about this in my last post- got a new keyboard over break so that I can bring it back and forth from the art school.  I think getting out of my house to use my keyboard will allow me to make more music this semester.

The second is to make the videos more interesting.  Flat out, a how-to video is boring.  From now on, I don’t want to show how I actually carved or printed the woodcut.  Instead, I will use stop motion as a medium to let me tell a magical story of how the print was created.  For instance— tapping my finger on a block of wood while it carves itself out instead of showing me carve it.  I want to storyboard way more crazy ideas instead of just show a progression of a work of art.

The third thing I came away with was some input about showing the final print in the video.  The panel agreed that it is not a good idea to just end by showing the final product, but they didn’t like the way I did it (neither did I).  I need to spend a lot of time thinking about how I will be ending the videos.  This is going to be the main area of exploration in the coming weeks- multiple endings for the same video, etc.

From here on- I am going to begin working on my next print and video tomorrow.  I am halfway through a music composition that I will use.  Looking forward to filming some new ideas.

So one of the big takeaways from the faculty consultations was that I should be making 100% original music.  This isn’t something I am totally unfamiliar with, although I’m a little nervous my own compositions won’t stack up against music that has a following already.  (using music that has an existing following was one of the reasons that I thought people would be drawn to my videos— intrigue them into listening to a remix of one of their favorite songs, and while theyre listening, they’re tricked into watching a great video)  but I am going to take the advice for now and step away from remixing.

Last night I goofed off on piano and recorded it… it’s too pretty and too epic to be used in a video but I was impressed by the sound quality coming off ableton live.  It’s just one track, me on acoustic piano, making it up as I went along (thus, 100% original)

The best part about Kentridge’s animations for me is the lingering frames that have been erased.  Process is visible within his work.  I am using animation to document process, but striving to get above the expected cycle of “watch me make X, look at how X turned out.”  I found inspiration in how Kentridge works with materials to draw in a time-based way.  A good video to explain this…

Kentridge:  ’So it’s not that I’m better at recognizing eight pieces of paper as a horse than anyone else. What I do do is allow myself the luxury of saying “this is going to be the way I am going to spend months and years of my life - is arranging stupid pieces of paper into saying AH..a horse,” everyday as if it’s something fresh.’

http://www.diyphotography.net/light-stencils-video-tutorial-and-a-pacman-bonus

Not sure how I could integrate light stencils into my videos, but it’s a good trick to know how to use.  Even if it is just for a tiny segment where the lights go off, I would love to utilize this process.  Originally I saw light stencils when I was looking at a project about light stencils used as a means of drawing portraits of people who died. 

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2011/11/light-stencils-commemorate-victims-of-the-2011-christchurch-earthquake/