Monday, May 9, 2011

Musical Typography (Mary Mary)

A Musical Photography with the song Mary Mary sang by Cumbawamba


Here You Go!
Enjoy the Final Product of This Mission



p/s: specialist thanks for Madam Lydia and Kak Nor to comment on our video and we can  improve it 









Sunday, May 8, 2011

Animation x Background

Hi, I am Danny Yek Teng Ziin.
For this assignment, i took the part on Background Creation and Animation
I had done this part with Gary. It is fun to work with my group members.
I will show how we assign it.


Used Software : Adobe Photoshop

First, open a new layer and name it as Text. Then select the brush tool. You may create your own unique brush through the brush create function in Photoshop. For more information, please visit http://watanukiworkshop.blogspot.com/ to get the idea. After create the brush, select the brush and press "F5", you may view the "brush preset" in this setting, you are allowed to set your brush movement. For example, set the space between a point of brush or set the brush moves randomly. Here is how i made the background.


Used software : Adobe Illustrator

For this typography background, i had used the Adobe Illustrator to make it. First, make the background in black color, then select the text tool which is "T". Then i search an essay that about Mary from the internet. Copy(ctrl+"c") and paste(ctrl+"v") it into the layer of illustrator then done.


After finish the background, i open another layer in same file. Now, i have to create a girl whose name Mary.
Gary had sketched a girl's shape on a paper first and scan into the computer. Then i use the pen tool("P") in illustrator to trace it out. I put the background in black color also. Because we need to make the girl running in animation so i have to split her body. I trace her right hand and left hand in different 4 layers and her body and head in another 2 layer. Else we can't animate her body in flash.

Used software : Adobe Flash

Now, we start to animate the girl in flash. First, import the illustrator file that created above into flash. Then, select the all part of the body and press Modify -> Convert to Symbol or F8 you will see a box appears, select Movie Clip and press "OK". Without this step, you can't move the girl's body with bone tool. After that, select Bone Tool(x) and click on the girl's body then drag it to link to another part of body. Now, you can move it as you like. I just animate her left and right hand to make it looks like running.



Used software : Adobe After Effect

After finish the above part,  export your flash into picture format because we need to import it into after effect to do stop motion. Drag the jpg folder into timeline then you may view the movement of the girl. You can adjust when it start running. Go to Composition Setting to set the frame per second(fps). 

And also insert the special effect which create by Ang Eng Keat. You may see there is some texture in the girl. Then, add also the typography in the timeline. Adjust it with special effect.

On the timeline, you can view how we adjust the movement of word and the girl. Texture is included when the girl start running.

Here is the final timeline that we adjust.


Its quite hard to estimate but Hope You Enjoy This!










LIGHT ing effect.......

I am Gary,one of the group member in the last minute production. I work together with others members to complete this assignment this is a very good experience for us to learn from each other as well as train us how to work in a group.After the discussion, I am in charge on the lighting part and animation. I will work alone in lighting part but for the animation I will work with Danny. This is how we assign our works. Now, let me introduce you all about the lighting effect first. In our Musical typography, lighting is the important part because it will enhance the whole video even make it more attractive. 

Software to be used : Adobe After Effects
Create a lighting layer: Layer > New > Light (Ctrl+ Shift +Alt + L)

Before you create the lighting layer, you must make sure one of the layer is in 3D layer otherwise it wont function. By create the lighting layer, I had make a focus point on the word "Mary". I also adjust the intensity of the lighting to get different type of light . I use the spot as the light type but you can try others light type if you want.
the word marry is in 3D layer
After create the lighting layer, adjust the lighting by move the 
X (red)- horizontal movement 
 Y (green)- vertical movement
Z (blue)- zooming 
To get the mood that you want, you may create different lighting layer on different angle. I am using the lighting layer to bring out the mood of tension and express the escape of "Mary".




In this part I had set my lighting in bottom and focus on center. Thus, the audience can see the typography clearly without the disruption of the background. Actually, lighting is very powerful layer in doing animation.


This is about lighting part and hope you guys can learn about this because it will be very useful for you in produce the video. You can search for more after effect tutorial in www.youtube.com, that will be more clearly and more detail about lighting layer.








Special Effect

Hi there, Ang Eng Keat is here.
I was in charged on doing Special Effect in this project. The software i used is Adobe After Effect and Adobe Photoshop.
I wanted to use some unique effect in Adobe After Effect but when i search from internet, the effect's plug in need quite amount of money to buy. So i decided to make it myself.
I will show how to make those effects.

First, i open the Adobe Photoshop and make a new file. I choose Brush Tool to make those effects. Press "F5" and you will see the Brush Preset, with this function, you can do some changes to your brush as the picture shows. I chose to make it looks like ink spurting.
Next, i wanted to make the texture in the background, i download the brush plug-in from internet and also adjust it in Brush Preset mode. Here is the final effect as picture shows. After this, i export it as the jpeg file.

Import the jpeg files to the Adobe After Effect and drag into timeline. Then, copy and paste those texture in different layers. Adjust the timeline and move the texture picture from left to right then my texture effect background had been done.

Here shows the effect's timeline and how it works.

This part is almost ending of the song. First, put an essay as background then a white layer in front of it. And the word "MARY" with opacity 0% comes from down to up. So you can see a girl is standing at the middle.



My part had been done, Enjoy It!!

Camera Ready! 3~2~1~Action!

Here we come again! This time, we - Ban and Danny are in-charge in Camera skill and editing in this Mission.
Why we need different camera angle?
Without a camera skills (Shake and Movement of Camera), this would be bore and dull enough to present the whole Music Typography.
With camera skill/layer, the Music Typography can view some 3D from different angle and distance. Just as it is easier in the real world to move cameras through and around a scene than it is to move and rotate the scene itself, it is often the easiest to get different views of a composition by setting up a camera layer and moving it around in a composition.

Software to be used: Adobe After Effects

Starting using a camera layer, We create a new camera layer in After Effects.
Layer > New > Camera (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+C)

In the camera movement and shaky of camera, we selected the position of camera in transform under the layer of camera. Different position apply different angle for the camera view in this clip.

We try to make the view of the screen slightly slanted.
In about 1st second, the position of camera is set to 1420.4, 375.5, -925.9
When the typography is dropping down, we also try to make some 3D view to turn the camera to a side to show the side of text.
In about 9th second and a half, the position of camera is set to -884.5, 502.8, 2399.6
Not only the we want to show to typography in 3D, we also try to let the image to be 3D with different camera angle.
In about 15th second, the position of camera is set to 806.6, 1013.5, 1964.9

Through the printed screen image, we had used many position of camera even in millisecond having noted with different position. This is because it can be only be smooth for movement and shake of camera. 
It is ROCK! The shake of camera surely would be apply in this Musical Typography. 












Mary Mary, My dear Mary of Music

In this Assignment, Music is the main property that can't be forget. Without any music/sound, this assignment will not be able to present! So, what music would be selected as the theme of this 'Mission'?

After the discussion again and again, a day after a day by the members of Last Minute, some outcomes of music is chosen. 
For example: 
Hey Soul, Sister by Train
Yeah 3x by Chris Brown
Mary Mary by Chumbawamba
Where is the Love by Black Eye Peas

After ups and downs of the members, here we come.
Mary Mary by Chumbawamba is the final music that we decided to used as the Musical Typography for this 'Mission'.

How to song heard like? Never heard before?
Don't worry. Here you go, Enjoy the music by Chumbawamba from YouTube


Why we choose this song?
This is because this music is categories in the part of Heavy Metal and Rock. From the other hands, we can use this type of music to apply the rock with using shaking camera and heavy metal with using font of the text.
Not only the type of music, the middle part of music is repeating: Whatever happen to Marry, again and again. Don't you believe? Play it again! 
From this point, this may let us easy to create our Musical Typography! Am I right? Yea.

So, I am Ban. Ban Teng Ruen. Here to in-charge for the editing and cutting the music of Mary Mary!
Software to be used: Adobe Soundbooth CS4

At the first part, surely, I need to cut off and pick out the part of the music of Mary Mary which in 'Whatever happen to Marry'. I cut out the music and separate into Audio 1, Audio 2 and Audio 3 plus trying out to combine the music so that it can be repeat 'Whatever happen to Mary' again and again.

The music is cut out and separated into Audio 1, Audio 2 and Audio 3.
After the editing part and cutting part, the music is required to be smooth. But how? No worries, by using Fade in and Fade out of the effects in Adobe Soundbooth. 
In the Effects Rack, set the Stereo Rack Preset to Mastering: Fast Music. Compressor and Mastering stay default. 
With the music starting for this Mission, I adjust the Curve so that it can fade in and no doubt, another curve is create to fade out when it is going to the end part.

Music is applying Fade in and Fade out by the effects with setting Mastering: Fast Music in Stereo Rack Preset.

This is the end part for the music editing! Hope you Enjoy






Saturday, May 7, 2011

Story Board

Hi, everyone, this is LAST MINUTE group's blog. We have 4 members in this group- Gary Lim , Ang Eng Keat, Danny Yek and Ban Teng Ruen. In this assignment, we will work together to produce the Musical Typography. Based on the lecturer, we need to produce a 15-30 musical video and we can choose any song to our assignment. After we decided to use the song Mary Mary by Chumbawamba. Below is the job for each group members. 
Ang Eng Keat- concept 
 Ban Teng Ruen- Camera setting
Gary Lim Teck Yi - Lighting
Danny Yek Teng Ziin- Animation 
Of course there will be fun when produce the work and we will enjoy it very much. We believe that this will be the good memorize for us in the foundation years.




The story board is complete by Gary and Danny. After decided the concept and the song, they roughly draw out the story board based on the idea that we will do on our video and they separate it into 3 parts. For your information, we will use the impact as the font in the video and the size of font will be different depends on the story flow. We will use Adobe After Effect CS4 to complete the whole video because it is more advance compare with the others software.

CD cover
This is the CD cover for our musical typography designed by Ang Eng Keat and Ban Teng Ruen. Actually they applied  the scene of the video into the cd cover. As you can see, the front page is the title as well as the back side of cd cover is the group members name.