To begin with recreating this music video we did a preliminary test, filming a student in our class, Rob, just swaying in time to the music. We then printed out each individual frame and coloured over them in class.
We chose to shoot the video at 12 frames per second as this was the least frames we could use (to reduce the amount of colouring needed) without the video appearing jumpy.
However, even with this reduction we still needed a huge number of frames to be printed out. This raised the problem of the amount of printing we needed to do, so we printed the frames as 4 per A4 page and in black and white.
Once coloured, we scanned them back in and uploaded them to final cut to edit them back together.
We were very happy to find that this was exceptionally effective, filling us with the hope that maybe we could get the whole video done in creative arts evening. However, it did throw up some problems which we can improve upon.
We timed how many seconds of the video are spent with the 'coloured in' images of the artist; this came to around 90 seconds. We then worked out how many frames would be required if we shot the video at 12 frames per second; this came to 1080. Somehow, we'd have to print out 1080 frames for people to colour in which is going to use a lot of paper. The 4 frames per A4 were s bit small so we need to decide whether we print 2 frames per A4 or 4 frames per A3 by weighing up the quality of the image with how much paper we can afford to use.
Furthermore, we decided that the video looked better when the images were printed in colour so, for our real video, the frames won't be printed in black and white.
We also found that the pens we used went through the paper, therefore we've bought chalk pens which are more vibrant and clear and we're not going to print the pages double sided to avoid them showing through.
Additionally, with 1080 frames printed out and members of the public coming and drawing on them, there's a great chance of them getting mixed and and out of order, consequently ruining the whole video. Therefore we're going to print the frames with a number in the bottom corner of the picture so we can keep tabs on who's got which frame and the order in which they need to be scanned in on the night.
Then we began shooting the real thing. We filmed the whole video in an afternoon using a green screen and studio lights to ensure that it would be as effective as possible (as green screens need to be well lit). We shot most of the video in 4K to allow us to zoom in in post production and not lose too much quality. We had the original video playing as we shot it so Rob was able to replicate some of the movements of Justin Bieber.
Once this was filmed we uploaded the footage to Final Cut Pro and distributed a different section to each group in the class to edit. I was given the first 'graffiti' section with the time lapse in the middle. Me and my partner worked together to edit this to look as much like the original video as possible.
The first section was relatively easy as he's just stood swaying for about 13 seconds which required no real editing or cuts. Therefore we just changed the green screen to make it white and used masks to cover up imperfections caused by shadows on the green screen.
The next section was more challenging. First we had to choose parts of our footage which matched the movement in the original video as closely as possible. We cut these together in time with the music so it looked like he was purposefully doing the movements we'd selected from across the shoot in time with the song. This was actually more challenging than I'd anticipated as I hadn't realised how the speed of Rob's movement complemented or clashed with the pace of the music at a given point so early. Once we had our final cut we made all the green screens white to match the first section. This threw up a whole host of problems of it's own - there we imperfections on the green screen but Rob was moving so, when we used a stationary mask, parts of his body would disappear and reappear as he moved in and out of it. Therefore we had to use keyframes to animate the masks so they moved with Rob, allowing us to hide marks in the white background whilst also not removing any of his body.
We also had to increase the orange colour tones in the video to make the footage appear slightly warmer to match the tone of the original video, rather than our quite harsh, cold light which the raw footage had.
When we made the green screen white it also created 'dancing pixels' in Rob's jacket which we then had to fix using a fill holes tool on Final Cut to make him appear as a solid figure, rather than pixilated.
Then we started adjusting the effects on the footage to create a similar sequence to that of the original. On the second to last frame we noticed that the camera tilts and moves upwards so we used Final Cut to edit our footage and do the same. We also added transitions between some of the shots to match the look of the original video.
Next we moved onto the most obvious effect, the duplicate frames of Justin Bieber layered up to create a 'sliding' look. To do this we replicated some footage of Rob and layered each one on top of the others, slightly displacing each one so they move out of time. This created the effect used in the video and we were very happy with the way it looked.
We then exported our section so it could be combined with the rest of the class's work to create a completed video. We will print out all the frames and, on creative arts evening, have a 'station' where people can come and colour in the pictures. We will create a production line where the pictures are then systematically scanned in and uploaded to a computer. They will then be cropped and edited together to produce the final video.
On creative arts evening we also need to film the time lapse and footage of people colouring in the pictures to go in the space between the three 'graffiti' sections we edited. I am one of the people working on collecting this footage and we will do it by using a GoPro to shoot a time lapse from two spots in the room, one looking at the 'colouring table' and one with a view of the whole room. We can cut between these pieces of footage to create an effect as close to the original as we can get. We cannot fully replicate it because they had a moving time lapse, using a machine to programme the movement of the camera between each picture being taken, creating the effect of the camera moving during the time lapse. As we don't have these facilities, the closest we can get is switching between two different time lapse cameras. Before the evening we practiced with the GoPros to see what the time interval between each picture in the time lapse should be. We experimented using a 0.5 second time interval compared with a 5 second time interval and decided that the most effective one to use is going to be around a 1 second one.
We will then edit this time lapse into the rest of the footage in post production to complete the video.
This is excellent work Melissa - loads of detail. I will try to get the test version we did to embed too.
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