Intended to Un-confuse You About The British Isles

I'm not sure how I found this, but I did, and I think it's a great video, especially since I love the British Isles.

Reflections

I've posted these videos before, but I'm posting them again to reflect one what I've learned this semester.

Forgetting Oneself from Kim Berens on Vimeo.

It seems strange, but it feels now like this wasn't my first stop-motion video. It seems like I'd done it before this. When I was making it it didn't seem like I'd done it before this, but now it does. Maybe because I've seen so much stop-motion since and done a couple more project using the method.

When my professor introduced us to this assignment, my first thought was, "how can I use Photoshop?" I came up with having an invisible person. Every frame where skin appears I cut the person out and added the inside of the clothes that would then be visible. I also added the light when the light turns on because it was washed out.

I think people liked the video because it was unexpected that the person in the video would not have a body. After that it's the, "how did they do that?" reaction. If I saw a video like this, I'd want to know how the artist did it, even if I knew how I would do it, I would want to know how another would attempt the same thing.



Vote Nov. 2nd to Save Troy Library! from Kim Berens on Vimeo.

With the Vote November 2nd to Save Troy Public Library, I learned... don't post a political information video the day before the election when you're attempting to sway the votes. Of course, this wasn't entirely my fault. If you consider the circumstances and use a few key synonyms then it may even appear that I'm an ambitious, determined and enthusiastic worker! (which is my attempt in the following sentences). The election (obviously) was November the second, but the project wasn't even due until the ninth! Professors usually give adequate time to do an assignment, and having it done a week early was very difficult. Regardless of posting it so late, 9 people liked the post and three people commented. It's not very much, but a couple of the people I don't even talk to! So it made me feel good.

There were of course problems. For whatever reason, when exporting a 24 fps file as a Quicktime, the video had ghost images, which were ugly and made it hard to understand the video. But I needed to post it. I figured that as long as I got the word out there, people would mind the ghost images. For my class however, I either had to change it to 12 fps and cut out half the frames (looong and tedious) OR, what I ended up doing, which sounds convoluted, but really is quite straightforward: I exported the video (without audio)as a swf file and imported it into After Effects, then exported it as a Quicktime and imported it into Final Cut, where I added the audio and exported it again as a Quicktime. See, really not difficult.

And the week after November second was niiiice.

As for the content, I think it comes across very well. My Dad, who I believe to be very politically knowledgeable, gave his thumbs up, and many people from Troy liked the video on Facebook, meaning they understood the message.

It was a great introduction to Flash and time-based media, something I really enjoy and, as a designer who has spent many years dedicating hours to Photoshop, I seem to be spending a lot of energy on pursuing time-based design!

Save the Library (If You Can Turn Back Time)!

I previously posted this video, but it looked very strange with ghost images making it difficult to see what was going on, so I finally fixed it up and here's the final video! The purpose of this video is long since redundant, but hopefully you will still manage to find some merit within the tweens and voice-overs.




Save the Troy Library at the November 2nd Election! from Kim Berens on Vimeo.

Save the Library!

So I did my video on how people in my hometown can save our library from closing at the November second election. Well, the assignment isn't due until the ninth, but I still had to get it done so that it could actually teach people about how to save the library! Anyway, for some reason it exported really oddly into Quicktime, so I'll have to work on that. I still want to improve it for my class, but I have it mostly done, which is a relief. Hope you like it!

Troy Library storyboard

The library is closing in my town, and although there is something we can do about it, not many people are aware. I'm hoping my video might help people make educated voting decisions.

 

There are some changes I need to make (luckily this is only the storyboard. At the end of the video I still have the percentage 25%, that should be changed to 60%. Sorry

I learned Flash in a flash!

Besides being a terrible pun, the title to this blog is completely untrue. I am learning Adobe Flash, but it's taking a while. I hope to become as comfortable in Flash as I am in Photoshop. Wow, that would be the day. I would be unstoppable!



Anyway, here are my exercises in Flash for my Time and Motion class. I don't really like the square and circle ones, but I really like the line one. I'm glad I could actually make something I like from a simple exercise!

Forgetting Oneself and Reflection

Yes! My first stop motion film is up! If you don't understand what is going on, please comment! I would really appreciate any feedback.




Forgetting Oneself from Kim Berens on Vimeo.




Reflection:
I really wanted to use Photoshop for this project, so I came up with this idea where a person is invisible. Of course I needed a story around that, and our assignment was about an everyday moment. What I came up with was a person forgetting herself. I didn't think it would be that hard, but when I shot test photos, I realized how wrong I was. However, when I shot the actual photos and actually went into Photoshop, it really wasn't that bad. It helped that all the shots where she is invisible have the same exact background, so I could just use a shot sans person and just cut her skin out, add a little gray to the inside of her sleeves and collar, and voila: invisible person. It was a lot of fun, and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
But the person is not the only thing I photoshopped. I also photoshopped the lamp. Either the light was (of course) too overexposed or the surrounding area was (of course) too underexposed. So I just shot the lamp underexposed and photoshopped that light into the normal images, so that you could see the detail.
What I found difficult was keeping focus when the camera and subject both moved. That's why the feet go out of focus, and even though I don't mind the blurriness because it actually looks kind of cool and if I were a cinematographer I might use that for something again, I do wish there were a way to keep the shots all in focus as the camera moves. I suppose I could just not use continuous exposure and record the pictures the old fashion way: one at a time.
I recorded my own audio, but my version of Audacity is not compatible with the campus computer's version, and although Audacity is free, I didn't think the computer would let me install something on it, so I just went with freesounds.org, which has many many useful soundbites. I had to add the new audio in only a couple of hours, so hopefully I chose well.
I really loved using Final Cut. I want more reasons to play around with it. My credits are so simple, and yet I got so excited about them!

Final (as of September 14th) Storyboard

So I have already finalized my storyboard for my stop-motion animation, and I have to say that I am excited to get to work! I've hired my model (I payed her with "pleases") and I expect to have test images taken by tomorrow evening! I'm photoshopping several of my images so that it appears that clothes are moving independent of a person, yet retaining the human form, so I have to take two shots for every one frame.
I did this on purpose.

Am I Missing Something?

I have created two rough (rough) storyboards for a stop-motion animation I am creating. The longer one is, perhaps obviously, the one I would prefer to do. But just in case time is not on my side, I have a shorter version which also meets my satisfaction. So either one I would be happy to make.

I am incredibly excited to create the invisible person. That is actually where the idea originated, because I really wanted to use Photoshop. I know it is going to lots of hard work, but it's what I enjoy staying up late (or getting up early) to work on, and I've spent too many years scared of taking risks due to time and other resources that are hard to come by. Can't wait to show the final product!

Reversed Storyboard

In my previous entry I wrote about the Herman Miller advertisement I had selected for my Time and Motion assignment. The assignment was to create a reversed storyboard of roughly thirty seconds of our the video.

In making the storyboard, I realized a few things about the video I hadn't noticed before. For example, at one point a head with a the outline of a brain appears. It comes from the "camera", almost as if it is coming directly from the viewer. I think this is a simple technique the designer used to draw in the viewer my making it seem as if these are all the viewer's ideas. Reminds me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding!

Helping the Environment One Chair at a Time

For my Analysis Exercise assignment for my Time and Motion class as Michigan State, I have selected a furniture video by Herman Miller. It is entirely made up of created images, most likely from drawings. There is not a straight line in it - which of course reminds me of Julie Walter's description of the Weasley house. The assignment is to develop a reversed storyboard made up of screen captures and annotations as to better understand the process of creating such a video.