Assignment 3 - Ken Burns Effect (Part 2)

I've finally finished the videos for this assignment!

They can be found here:

CNM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYJtxXZsBpg
NUS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afAvNao3YYE&feature=channel

Not very pleased with the final product, I would say, because the video looks very amateurish. But then again, it is my first time using Adobe AfterEffects to complete a project and I am still quite proud of them. As with last semester's nm2208, I think I will pick up more AfterFX skills during the course of the module.

For the CNM video, which I titled "i heart cnm", it's an extension of the idea I presented in class. However, due to time and resource constraints, I didn't manage to get enough pictures for this video. I am still unsure of how to control the camera and transitions in AfterFX, resulting in jerky looking footage. Also because of the pictures, which aren't in very good quality in the first place, the whole video looks rather grainy, which is worsened with the compression in order to upload onto youtube. My original file size was 2GB plus. That's insane right? Thank goodness for my portable harddisk.

The whole idea for this video is to show how cnm students love their course. Even the music chosen is similar, titled 'Psycholove' by Borea. In the lyrics, the singer can be heard singing the phrase, "Looking for my psycholove", which I feel is suitable for prospective nus students who want to pursue a course which they would love. I took on Lyanna's suggestion in class, which was to put words instead of the pictures, but as the assignment requires pictures, I added some in and put her idea in front. In case people don't watch the entire video, they can get a glimpse of what it is trying to convey with the first few frames.

As for the NUS video, I chose the song "Big Blue Sky" also from Borea. By the way, their song can be found on jamendo.com, which is a site for music under the creative commons license. This song is upbeat and cheerful, with instrumental intro, providing a good ambience for the starting of the video. The different scenes in the video also tries to follow the rhythm of the song. Camera views are modeled after the different places in NUS, for example, the central library is above the central forum and therefore the camera moves upwards. Not much comments were given for this video's storyboard in class.

I hope this video managed to encapsulate the theme of "My Life, My NUS" which leads to "My choice." It's the little things around school, the paths taken when we are there that make up this part of my life. Which was why I ended the video with photos of me in past activities and also the "I WAS HERE" sculpture in front of the UCC, to show my life at NUS.

What I learnt from this assignment is that alot of thought needs to go into producing those few minutes of video. (No wonder people like copyright.) The production schedule needs to be managed properly and accurately, as time lost means the shortage of some valuable resources. I really need to learn more about using AfterFX too, (seeing how I rendered the video 3 times without audio, thank goodness for google) as it can be a really powerful production tool if I know how to use it correctly.

Sidenote: I like how AfterFX makes a small *ping* sound when the rendering of a video is done. Especially useful if you fall asleep at the computer while waiting for it to be done.