Digital Studio Sp.11

DIGITAL FOCUS FINAL REFLECTION

2011-05-11T18:21:06Z

Drandon: The Night Job
Digital Media

I initially didn't plan for this to be more of a music video, I wanted to just have Brandon shown from shot-to-shot from point A to B. after reviewing the raw files a few times, it seemed like I could do more with music because there would be too much silence and it would be a boring piece.

The instrumental was the first thing I started on, which consists of bells, synthesizers, and many other instruments from Logic's library. Next, I dragged all of the .dv files to separate my nephew's quotes and such from everything else. I bounced the tracks and put them under the video in Final Cut Pro while keeping the original audio above so I could match everything up with the music
After bouncing the tracks, I began piecing together the vocals with minimal effects. The main effect I used was pitch bend, but I was able to stretch Brandon's voice by using - my best friend - the flex tool.
I didn't have an inspiration for the beat when I started, but after listening to the whole thing over-and-over, I found some inspiration to tweak it a little. The 2 mini bridges were inspired by, "Number One" by R. Kelly and Keri Hilson, and "Neva Eva (Chopped and Screwed)" by Trillville.

For the video section of this project, I used Final Cut Pro 7. I mainly cut and pasted clips where I say fit the best. Since I silenced unwanted audio in Logic, it was easy to line the video up with the words in the song. When I changed the speed of the video to have Brandon's lips match with the words, I muted one side of my speakers to the song and muted the other side to the audio from the video
Since I prerecorded all the video long beforehand and couldn't go back to record again, it set up a huge challenge for how I would piece the whole thing together. The main strategy was to edit pieces at a time and watch the video over-and-over again. To get the clips to change on beat, I simply just used markers; overall, I believe I had close to 100 or more markers.

Every technical issue that could happen happened. Frustration and anger played a big roll in this project. I was just short of feeling like Pinhead was going to jump out of my screen and take me down to hell for expecting to get this project with ease. With Logic, I was fine until I was a little over halfway done. I had a system overload within 10minutes of having the application over, and that slowed my process down a bit. This problem forced me to bounce the song, listen to it in iTunes, and then make "blind edits" since I couldn't see directly where I needed to make the change and just needed to make it by ear. With this issue, I wasn't able to add ad many effects, as I wanted to put in. Just about every bounce is named either, "MotherFucker 1-3" or "ThisShitBetterWork" - just another way to vent my frustration other than using my stress ball. I wanted to fix the color and shakiness of the video and fix a few camera errors in Apple's Color and Final Cut, but I was working with .dv files and neither one supported them. None of my issues were resolved, so I was pretty much stuck in a position to where I had to make the most of things.

I wouldn't change anything about this project itself because I spent a lot of time working on it and I am happy with the outcome. The only thing I would actually change is the camera I worked with because I had trouble with it the moment I wanted to get everything on the computer. I will never use a hard drive based camera, let alone a JVC camera EVER again.

The idea from what we learned in the class about using other people's work was carried into this project; only it was my own work. I recorded the same video for both classes, but had two completely different concepts for the two and the biggest challenge finding enough video to separate the two. I think I did this well because both videos are different. If I were to share this to a pubic audience, I would have it aired on TV, on a show that's relevant to my project. I would also share this publicly on the internet. Expanding on this project, I really like the camera shots that I captured and I would definitely use them again in future projects.

Password (for both videos): desiree
Hunt's Class

The Boy from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

Rock's Class

Drandon: The Night Job from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

Anne-Susanna Lindström

2011-05-11T17:16:12Z

Anne-Susanna Lindstrom's visited our campus on April 19th. I didn't get much of her own artwork, but I did take note of what she does currently. She is a professor at a college campus in one country and teaches junior high art in another. The reason she can teach in two different countries at just about the same time - in the same academic year - is because they are right next to each other (I forgot the names of the countries). She spoke mainly about the differences in the interests in art from the two countries, and the artist people usually liked.

Crit 4

2011-04-28T17:55:50Z

For Thursday April 28 Critique

Crit April 28 from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

(password:desiree)

The Boy

2011-04-28T04:29:09Z

Video work for another class you needed to see.. wasn't sure where to put it :-\

The Boy from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

(password: Desiree)

Crit Screen

2011-04-23T02:02:00Z

Currently working with 28 tracks... :|

Critique 4

2011-04-21T17:28:34Z

This is a sample of the beat I have just about finished and have added a few vocals.
There are no real effects because it's always recommended to add towards the very end before mastering.

Drandon Crit from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

(password: Desiree)

This is a snippet of the same thing and just added pitch correction so you can see how it will sound.

Drandon Crit2 from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

(password: Desiree)

Critique 3

2011-04-16T21:30:55Z

I have already started making the beat for the video, but I am stripping the silence from the video so I can play different quotes and comments in the song. This is the process I am going through, only with a video file. It's a little harder because I have some static in the microphone so i have to manually tweak just about every single clip that isn't perfect.
I also have to go through and name a few hundred clips so it's more organized and this should take a few days.

Critique 2

2011-04-13T02:57:13Z

I recently discovered an artist that I like - William Kentridge - he works with charcoal in stop motion. The reason I like this artist is because he works the same way I do; he doesn't ever use a storyboard, script or screenplay, he just "goes with the flow" and films.

http://video.pbs.org/video/1619754531/
Of course I had a plan for the project, I am not following any structured plan on editing - I am just working on it as it goes.

I know the final version will be like a previous sound project I did in another class.

That's All You Get from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

(password: desiree)
The story is the same with the boy getting dressed and all, but I want it faster and more "fun" than it has looked while going through my RAW files.

What I might do that's close to it is this video. But I will set Brandon's voice to the keys on my keyboard and tune it. I am in the process of making a beat for it.

Critique

2011-04-08T07:42:05Z

I showed project to the crew for critique, and what im gonna do is probably make my music video within the project of the boy getting dressed. I'll have more to show next week. =]

Presentation Day

2011-03-31T18:59:34Z

A.Influences
To be honest, this project wasn't influenced by anything. I wanted to shoot some video over spring break and since I knew I would be watching my nephews, I had to think of a way to put them to work and do my project at the same time, but something simple for a child to understand and do.
The idea just came to me as dumb as it sounds, but there are some movies that can influence the outcome of my project.

1. "Shaun of the Dead" has some scenes where Shaun is getting dressed and it has fast close up clips of him getting ready

2. In the beginning of "Dodgeball" you see Vince Vaughn getting ready in the morning, but you don't really see him until he goes outside.
3. Andrew Coutts was the editor for "Saw VI" and I really like the way he transitioned scenes. A shot would be on one person and then the camera would focus on the floor and go up to another person in the past from the previous shot.

B.Past work
I have done a video, "AITC" where I am at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and I am documenting my trip as a step-by-step process of it.
I have also done more video work like "Stalk Me Like An A-Team"

C. New work
I have gotten some still shots of the video I have looked at already
The sound would consist of Brandon talking to himself and have some music in the back - the music will more than likely be jazz from one of my uncles who are musicians.
The overall project on how it will be exactly is hard to say, I still have a lot of
video to go over and chances are, I will have to go back and film some things over
again.

C.Techniques
I like those mirror shots in movies, I want to do that. I know for a fact, I will like my video better in a 16:9 because for one I hate the 4:3 and two, mirror shots to me look amazingly better in widescreen

Final Focus Idea

2011-03-28T14:39:47Z

I have finally decided to shoot and film my nephews. It is about a little boy, getting up after hours, and getting ready for the "night job" he has by doing adult things.

Mardi Gras

2011-03-28T14:33:50Z

For this project, I helped plan the Mardi Gras flash mob party.
I helped my group come up with party items we would need from masks to the beads.
I created a poster, but we ended up not putting them up.
I was the admin, along with the other members of my group, on a Facebook page, advertising for people to come - I also added all of my friends here in Duluth to come participate.
I made masks at home and handed them out during the party, but did not take any pictures of them.
During the party, I handed out masks and candy and tied to get people sitting down to participate in dancing, but failed at doing so.
Finally, I worked on a video from the event. I just had a lot of difficulties exporting this video and finally got it to work.

Mardi Gras from Dez Brown on Vimeo.

(password: desiree)

New Project Idea

2011-02-28T04:21:32Z

I will more than likely make a music video. If I can write lyrics and finish the beat in time I will. I plan on filming a majority of my project over break.
For my video, I would like to use the ballroom, and will require a lot of extras....
Hmm, I might need 3 -6 ladders or so, so I can get a overhead shot. I'm going to be acting so I'll probably have to go through the stress of directing a camera person.

Not really sure where I can get that many ladders... but I know that will do the trick for the shot I want.
Making a storyboard for this project will do me no justice because my stuff looks better with spur of the moment ideas.

Soooo yeah.

Focus

2011-02-21T02:46:38Z

I have decided to do a video for this project. It will be a documentary on my life ranging from my every day activities to my plans for the future.

Copy Wrong Image6

2011-02-21T02:44:23Z

This is fair to use because my image was added, but the background is so distorted, it's hard to see what the original image was.