I’ve been having fun experimenting with my green screen, the only drawback I’ve noticed so far is that when chroma keying the programs have a few minor problem differentiating between the foreground and background(the green screen). I’m figuring this is because there isn’t enough light landing on the screen, so tomorrow morning I’ll give it another shot but using natural light instead.
New clips shouldn’t be far off.
Short post tonight, I made a small portable greenscreen tonight using a pin board and attaching my tablecloth screen material onto it using thumb tacks. Surface is smooth enough for my level of green screening.
Will post some photos and test footage tomorrow.
Just a bunch of pics today,
Girlfriend jealousy.. Was my friends birthday today and his girlfriend made these for him…
Yes it’s a home made Optimus Prime birthday card! painstakingly made over 8 hours using scrap booking skills. So insanely jealous!
He also got a homemade Army Cake.
Battlefield anyone?
Onto almost serious stuff now, my Fig Rig with my Camera in it(see previous blog entry on how I made it)
My Green Screen Material
Incase you can’t read the text on it, it’s a table cover from a partyshop(30 meters) should be good, will post an entry on how it goes later.
Till next time.
10. Herbie Hancock - Rockit(1984)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=S7dAxvj2mlU[/youtube]
Robots dancing in beat with music, what could be more awesome? Obviously not much as it was nominated for 7 MTV Music Video Awards in 1984 and won 5 (Best Concept Video, Best Special Effects in a Video, Best Art Direction in a Video, Best Editing in a Video and Most Experimental Video).
9. Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=FfW46MZ6mb8[/youtube]
With an Indiana Jones-esque theme and directed by the Highlander director it’s unsurprising this was a smash hit music video of the 80s.
Fun fact: Bruce Campbell did a cover of this song for an Old Spice commercial
8. Men Without Hats - Safety Dance(1982)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=HcOZ6xFxJqg[/youtube]
Successful 80s music video check list, memorable dance check, repetitive lyrics check and a kooky midget check. The safety dance was the only hit for the group before they faded away into obscurity, yet the safety dance will always remain synonymous with the 80s
7. Dire Straits - Money for Nothing(1985)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=aNaKWXqXkhw[/youtube]
A song criticised for being sexiest, anti-gay and racist yet it still had a ground breaking CGI music video and for it’s time it was state of the art CGI.
Fun fact: The animators who worked on this founded Mainframe Entertainment which went on to do Beast Wars, Beast Machines & ReBoot.
6. Weird Al - Fat(1988)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jw00EUh0GT4[/youtube]
More Chins then China town. The second parody of a Jackson song by Weird Al and it was a 1988 Grammer winner(Best Concept Music Video)
Fun fact: Apparently MJ enjoyed the parody.
5. Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer(1986)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=hqyc37aOqT0[/youtube]
Sperm, Dancing Skinned Chickens and whole lot of stop motion animation, how can you go wrong? Obviously you can’t as in 1987 it won 9 MTV Video Music Awards which is a record that still stands today.
Fun fact: Aardman Animations was responsible for the claymation and stop motion animation, in the following years Aardman animations would go on to produce the classic Wallace & Gromit.
4. Michael Jackson - Thriller(1983)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=rT90keJ51bY[/youtube]
With a Budget of $800,000(approx 1.7 million today) it was the most expensive music video of its time, the longest music video of its time and is still regarded by many as the best music video of all time.
Fun fact: You’ll notice that Michael Jacksons face appears normal when he’s singing the chorus with the zombies, according to the making of documenty this was because the mask was making his face feel unconfortable.. imagine that, MJ actually wanting to show his real face..
3. Paula Abdul - Opposites Attract(1989)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=FbknGnZXHUk[/youtube]
Come on’ a cool cartoon cat dancing with a presumably pre-alcholic babe, this really should be placed at no.1
Fun facts: Directed by David Fincer(Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac), and it was parodied in family guy
2. Genesis - Land Of Confusion(1986)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=3MzShg7yXik[/youtube]
With a music video featuring such top class names as Arnold Schwarzengger, Sylvester Stallone, Clint Eastwood, Leonard Nimoy, Prince, Madonna, David Bowie, Mick Jagger and many more it was destined for greatness.
Fun fact: The music video featured puppets from the UK Show ‘Spitting Image’, and the voices were provided by Chris Barrie(best know for playing Rimmer in Red Dwarf)
1. A-HA - Take on me(1985)
[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=CUod3jGQt0U[/youtube]
Directed by Steve Barron(the director of the original TMNT film), the pencil drawing effects were achieved by using a duckload of rotoscoping, much respect for the effort.
Fun fact: Was also parodied in Family Guy
Spent the afternoon messing about the HDR7 Slow Motion recording, I’m kinda disappointed by the quality drop in the footage but it’s still fun as a novelty.
Will post another top10 list tomorrow, something 80s related no doubt and I’ll hopefully blog a couple of slow motion clips.
Also on random note had a lot of Chinese today, which was kinda odd but cool none the less.
As said in my previous posts I have been working on a short project(started wednesday, finished today) based on experimenting with Mattes & Cropping. Hence it’s a very simple project yet still time consuming compiling all the clips.
Lighting levels between clips were NOT meant to be consistent.
[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6495596765466035748&hl=en[/googlevideo]
Was pretty simple to make and it goes without saying that I can’t dance, the main thing I learnt from this project was why my audio was going out of sync on some of my previous projects.
What was happening….
I always use a default 1080i25(50i) template for my projects, capture my footage, import soundtrack(mp3s), edit the footage, and line up soundtrack to play where I wanted etc.
In the preview window the project looked/sounded fine, the audio was correctly synced up to the video… but when I exported the video no matter what render settings or format the audio wouldn’t start at the correct place.
After much mucking about I noticed when you create a HD(1080i) project it sets the audio sample rate to 48000 Hz.. oops.. the mp3 I was using was 41000 Hz and unfortunately you can’t edit the Hz rate for an already created project.
The solution: Either down sample your audio or create a new custom project with the correct audio sample rate and import your project in(what I did).. All audio will be corrupted on import so you have to place all your audio again.
(Minor catch, when importing Adobe doesn’t default list projects for import, you have to select the option in the drop down filetype list).
Next Project will be experimentations with slow motion (only 1/4 of real time so don’t get too excited)
My little project has now become a big-little project, it’s getting to the stage where I’ve spent so much time editing it that the novelty has worn so thin that I can barely tell if it’s good or not anymore. Will be finished by tomorrow evening.
On a more up lifting note I ordered a Wide Angle Adapter for my camcorder yesterday, can’t wait~.
Also props to a certain radio station for linking my blog.
Spent the afternoon filming for my mini-project, it’s going to be very similar to my Lion King project except with slightly less effort in some areas.. Actually this project marks a bit of a rebellion from what I’ve been trying to do in my previous projects.
I’ll be spending the remains of the evening doing post-production, expect it tomorrow~
Hopefully it’s get a light laugh or a hearty groan.
Went to three paper wholesalers today yet no luck getting a roll of green paper to use for a green screen, looks like fabric will be the path.
Started yet another project this evening, bit of a homage to a ‘John Hates Jazz’ music video, should be a short project.. expect it soon.
Yesterday I left my Camera recording a time lapse of Ice Melting for the day(….), I don’t know what I was expecting but it’s pretty poor to watch. I may publish it sometime in the future when I have nothing else to do.
Yet another week of devoting my spare time to the void known as ‘Video production’. First goal for the week is to build a green screen, I’ll no doubt create something similar to here except I’m hoping to get my hands on some rolls of green paper to use.. although not much luck finding them yet.
Second goal is to make a steadycam, looks pretty simple.
Should be a good week.
