Music Video
For this project we had to create a music video for a song/poem/music piece of our choice. I chose a classical piece called ‘Dies Irae’ by Verdi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeXR5blDTIk. I chose this song because I wanted to use a song I had heard before but not something I listen to regularly, therefore I chose this song because it is sampled in a song I know which is called ‘Requiem’.
The concept of both of these songs is along the lines of wrath of god/judgement day, which is partially a religious concept. Since I am not really religious I wanted to portray this in my own way by trying to incorporate the concept of animals/nature making judgement instead, because animals/nature can be associated with religion and they also have a reason to be judgemental since they are often disrespected. Another reason was because of the footage I have, since when thinking of ideas I remembered this video of a bee I had taken. I would have liked to take some new footage to add to this however I didn’t really get a chance, so instead I animated/rotoscoped over the old footage to make something new.
Once I had chosen the song and had a rough idea of the concept I then had to start making the music video. The first thing I did was stabilise the footage I had using the warp stabiliser on premiere pro, this helped a lot because some parts of the videos were a bit shaky since they were taken quite a while ago and I didn’t think I would end up using the videos for anything.
After stabilising I then set up a photoshop document and made a rough rotoscope of the bee video I had, however since the bees movement wasn’t really what I wanted I later edited the rotoscope and extended the animation by referencing the movement of the bee and using onion skins. Therefore I was left with a basic rotoscoped animation and a bee animation. During this I had to scale up and polish the animations since they were quite small and when I scaled them up the lines were a bit pixelated. To scale them up I first had to convert them into smart objects so I made sure to save everything first.
I then found the YouTube video and converted it to mp3 using a website. I could then add it to the document and start adding some of the animation to the music. I added some bees at the start and also tried out some hexagon animation which I wanted to use as a sort of glitch effect which would perhaps represent the bees/animals having control/gaining control. This turned out nice however in the final version I made the lines too big which made it look a bit strange.
After adding some basic elements I then listened through the song and wrote down a rough timing of what I wanted to happen in the music video. I didn’t entirely stick to this timeline towards the end of the project but it was very helpful for getting an idea of where I could put things and making sure that I included the majority of the things that I intended to.
I then went home and animated the bird video using screenshots and firealpaca (a free digital drawing software) since I couldn’t access photoshop at home (I tried to but I think my connection wasn’t good enough at that time and I didn’t want to waste time trying to connect) I exported these animations as images of each frames which were very easy to export into premiere/photoshop however I had to duplicate the animation quite a few times since it only covered one loop. I imported them using import the selecting the first frame and import sequence.
The next day I started by editing the rotoscoped bee animation so that I could include the original background but the bee would still be visible. I did this by wasting lots of time to colour the bee and then adding a yellow glow fx. I also changed the colour of the background so that it looked more ominous and wasn’t too distracting. I then added a sort of hexagon firework effect after this to match the music. In the final video the timing was off slightly for this, so this would be something I would probably like to fix. However I think the effect turned out really nice. I also made some other effects using hexagons, for all of these I used an image I had made using a hexagon pattern. When I tried exporting some of the parts of this to premiere to edit it didn’t really work out how I wanted it to so instead of wasting time trying to fix it I made the first 30seconds on photoshop, however in reflection I think I should have exported some of it in different segments. Part of this 30 seconds included some of the birds behind the hexagon pattern which could be view multiple ways including honeycomb, a fence or some sort of bug eye effect. I really liked how this could be viewed in different ways. The most challenging part of this was organising all the layers for all the birds since I had to duplicate the bird many times. To help with organisation I converted the layers into smart objects. After this I made the hexagon disappear and the birds to fly down off the screen. I think I could have improved the timing for this. I also added some textured backgrounds to the video.After these main parts were done I exported them as a QuickTime file and imported to premiere. I then sampled this footage and the bird animations to create the rest of the music video. I also used colour change effects to change colours in some parts by selecting the colour I wanted to change and adjusting the tint. Overall I think this worked out well and I am quite happy with how the video turned out despite it being far from perfect. I think it does a good job at portraying my idea and I got a chance to experiment a lot with techniques and colours.
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| A small moodboard for the project. |
After stabilising I then set up a photoshop document and made a rough rotoscope of the bee video I had, however since the bees movement wasn’t really what I wanted I later edited the rotoscope and extended the animation by referencing the movement of the bee and using onion skins. Therefore I was left with a basic rotoscoped animation and a bee animation. During this I had to scale up and polish the animations since they were quite small and when I scaled them up the lines were a bit pixelated. To scale them up I first had to convert them into smart objects so I made sure to save everything first.
I then found the YouTube video and converted it to mp3 using a website. I could then add it to the document and start adding some of the animation to the music. I added some bees at the start and also tried out some hexagon animation which I wanted to use as a sort of glitch effect which would perhaps represent the bees/animals having control/gaining control. This turned out nice however in the final version I made the lines too big which made it look a bit strange.
After adding some basic elements I then listened through the song and wrote down a rough timing of what I wanted to happen in the music video. I didn’t entirely stick to this timeline towards the end of the project but it was very helpful for getting an idea of where I could put things and making sure that I included the majority of the things that I intended to.
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| Timelines |
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| Bird Gif |
I then went home and animated the bird video using screenshots and firealpaca (a free digital drawing software) since I couldn’t access photoshop at home (I tried to but I think my connection wasn’t good enough at that time and I didn’t want to waste time trying to connect) I exported these animations as images of each frames which were very easy to export into premiere/photoshop however I had to duplicate the animation quite a few times since it only covered one loop. I imported them using import the selecting the first frame and import sequence.
The next day I started by editing the rotoscoped bee animation so that I could include the original background but the bee would still be visible. I did this by wasting lots of time to colour the bee and then adding a yellow glow fx. I also changed the colour of the background so that it looked more ominous and wasn’t too distracting. I then added a sort of hexagon firework effect after this to match the music. In the final video the timing was off slightly for this, so this would be something I would probably like to fix. However I think the effect turned out really nice. I also made some other effects using hexagons, for all of these I used an image I had made using a hexagon pattern. When I tried exporting some of the parts of this to premiere to edit it didn’t really work out how I wanted it to so instead of wasting time trying to fix it I made the first 30seconds on photoshop, however in reflection I think I should have exported some of it in different segments. Part of this 30 seconds included some of the birds behind the hexagon pattern which could be view multiple ways including honeycomb, a fence or some sort of bug eye effect. I really liked how this could be viewed in different ways. The most challenging part of this was organising all the layers for all the birds since I had to duplicate the bird many times. To help with organisation I converted the layers into smart objects. After this I made the hexagon disappear and the birds to fly down off the screen. I think I could have improved the timing for this. I also added some textured backgrounds to the video.
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