Humorously enough, our third and final project for Motion Graphics was actually the only project where my idea didn’t do a complete 180 in the middle of the process! Sticking with the idea of working with my brothers and myself, I probably had the most fun filming this video out of the three projects this semester.
After James had introduced us to the project, I started out with a brainstorming session. Hearing the project description, I immediately thought of my two younger brothers, as they and my parents have been the biggest sense of community for me since being stuck at home. I was also recently inspired by a film I watched for Photo 1––La Jetee––which loops in terms of plot from the end to the beginning. I also took a lot of inspiration from the Gondry videos James showed us, where Gondry works in multiple, yet still interacting, frames. With these films in mind, I set out to create my own looping, multiple-frame video, featuring the three Bond brothers in their own frames.
Before I started filming, I met with James and Sophie again to run my idea by them. James gave me a lot of helpful tips, including making sure I storyboarded and choreographed things ahead of time to ensure an easier filming process. He also emphasized the importance of repetition between the three actors, and using simple shots to keep things from getting too complicated. Taking this advice, I moved into the storyboarding process for my project.
I initially thought my video would be a film of my brothers and I playing hide-and-seek within our house; however, I felt this would be too complicated to fulfill in the 45 second time restriction. Instead, I decided the three videos would be Nick, Stephen, and I interacting with each other from three completely separate rooms of our house, made to look like they directly connect through editing. Keeping James’ advice in mind, I also wanted to have some shots where all three of us were doing the same things in our respective frames. After storyboarding a bit, I moved into the filming process of the first draft of my project.
As usual, I used a tripod to film, along with my Canon Powershot G7X Mark II. The lighting in my house, however, is not ideal. Conveniently, my brother Nick recently purchased a ring light for his TikTok videos, which he allowed me to use for the project, definitely helping with the process. I started out by just filming myself and Stephen, just to get a feel for how the filming and editing process would work between multiple frames. It wasn’t perfect, but the first draft definitely helped prepare me for working with three people later on! The version of the film with just Stephen and I is below:
After showing this version to James and Sophie, they gave me some essential feedback and ideas for the second version of the film. With their help, I came to the conclusion that I definitely needed a shot list for the second iteration that included Nick, and that I should think about what I want to do for audio. Thus, before re-shooting, I took some time to carefully plan out what shots I needed, and where the three brothers would interact within the film.
I created my shot list on Google Sheets, and I organized my shots into three columns for the three different frames. I pulled this sheet up on my iPad while filming, and would highlight cells green as I got the shots I needed. This process sped up filming exponentially, and also frankly kept me a lot more organized!
After filming, I realized that the editing process was going to be a lot more confusing than my last two projects. I had to keep everything synced up well to make my film effective. I started by putting my frame together, as it was the middle frame, and working around that first video. I then wrote down every time stamp where I switched shots or someone walked in or out of the frame, and edited Nick & Stephen’s videos with the same time stamps. This worked pretty well, and I ended up with my second draft of the film!
Now, all that was left was to add audio to the film. I watched my draft and thought of all the sound effects I wanted to include, and used my Voice Memos app to record them all! The process was pretty simple, and I managed to record everything right in my room, without the assistance of my siblings. I made sure I recorded three separate versions of every sound I needed, so there was some audio difference between the three frames. I then sent these sound files to my computer and dropped them into After Effects. The Waveform tool was essential during this process, making sure all my sounds lined up perfectly with my visuals.
And once my audio was finished, I completed the video! I’m extremely proud of this project––I think it came out really well, and I’m surprised with what I can do within the confines of my house. This video is probably my favorite final product from Motion Graphics, although I definitely enjoyed all three projects over the course of this semester! James and Sophie, thank you for such a cool class! I’m so glad I got the chance to take it as a junior, and I’ve already recommended it to so many other juniors and underclassmen.
Oh, and I guess I should post my final version! :)
