Fine Cut (sond mix)

This may need some more tweaking here and there, but it is an attempt. I went with a selection from Last Exit with an upward pitch bend. Also, there is some static sound effects in the beginning. I'm not sure if they are really working out as much as I would have liked.

Fine Cut (sans sound)

Much time and dedication went into biting the bullet and re-shooting all but 3 locations. Tripod, tripod, tri-pod. Lesson learned. I think this looks significantly better than last week. Some of the devices look a little cartoony, but it does make them stand out at least in the fast passed sensory overload that is the 30 second short. Admittedly, it is a bit of a work out on your eye to try to look at everything while it is continuously zooming in, but that was the initial vision and that's the end result that we get. I am now experimenting with sound that will pair with the piece. My three prime candidates.
A.) God Speed You Black Emperor (a brooding instrumental group)
B.) Last Exit (improvisational free jazz)
C.) Starving Jesus (my friend Mikey's electronica composition)

I am considering trying out some of the peices, paired with an approipriately curved pitch bend applied to the audio track to convey the notion of a constant increase in speed. Something with a constant build up in tempo would be preferable, but I haven't come across anything like that that would fit.

I am also still open to changes for the sake of the overall project if anyone has any constructive/deconstructive criticisms.

Rough Cut (without effects)

Obviously, this needs a bit of work/help. I went with an idea from class to switch to an inward zoom for the entire sequence. I also to the liberty to change the order of the locations to some degree. I still need to clean it up (alot) and add film effects on top of each shot to make the quality of the film seem to improve. At this point it seems apparent that I either need to reshoot some locations with a tripod, or purposefully make the locations shot with a tripod purposefully jittery to look more handheld. I clearly need to arrive at a happy medium. Let's not even mention that I still need to find an appropriate soundtrack.

Story Reel 2

I took the advice to use a tripod when shooting footage. However, it seems as if the two new clips that have been added are less shaky, but will need some steadying nonetheless. From here, I will need to load the all of the clips and device still pictures into After Effects and try to create the zooming effect without the footage looking grainy or pixelated.

Story Reel

I have dropped footage of 8 of the locations into the final cut animatic. In actuality, I will probably need to do the entire 30 seconds in after effects. I intend on putting each video on a separate layer, and zooming out through them using a virtual camera in after efects. I will also be applying filters onto each layer of video to make the quality change from black and white to modern day color.

Animatic

Animatic for "Evolving World Within Screens"



Images borrowed with consent from Valeri Larko
http://www.valerilarko.com/
"Transformers, Morristown", "Pulaski Skyway in Winter", "Power Plant, South Kearny", "Consumer Goods"

To complete the animatic portion of the project, several shoot locations from the original story boards were revised, and the additional 6 locations were sought out from searching for images online. I actually came across an artist. Valeri Larko, whose work included an entire catalog of paintings of industrialized areas of northern New Jersey. I found many of these locations to be ideal for the project, so I contacted Valeri, asking for permission to use the images in my animatic, as well as the actual locations for the final project. We have come to an agreement that I can use the likeness of her work so long as it is properly cited wherever the project and associated material is made public.
In the animatic, I show the pacing of when each image will finish zooming to the next location. I do not explicitly show that each subsequent image will appear inside of the next devices' screen. I would have liked to include this aspect in the animatic, but it proved that it would be a heavily involved step that perhaps should be left to be worked out during the development of the project's rough cut. I think that it was enough to show that each location is shown for less and less time as the sequence progresses.

Download the Reworked Script: [here]

The script for the project has been reworked based on the constructive criticism provided by my professor. The number of devices and locations has been scaled down to a total of 12. This gives each setting an average screen time of 2.5 seconds. I plan to have each zoom get gradually faster. The new script reflects this plan by showing that there will be 4.5 locations shown in the first 15 seconds, and the remaining 7.5 in the last 15 seconds. Also, I will attempt to find one soundtrack that will be suitable to play during the project instead of one for each setting.


Download the Story Boards: [here]

Each story board image corresponds to an item listed in the reworked script:

1. 60s TV: Back road with small homes
2 Late 80s TV: Overlooking Paterson NJ
3. Early 90s Laptop: High Tension Fence Area
4. Late 90s Portable TV: Near AC Wind Farm
5. PDA: View of Highway 1&9
6. Video Phone: New York Skyline from NJ

Since these boards were constructed from stock photos found on the internet, some of them may not depict the exact scenery that I would like to show in the finished project. Due to the nature of this project, I will not know exactly what vantage points I will physically be able to shoot some of the locations until I am actually there. If nothing else, the background layers of the boards give at least the idea of the locations that I would like to depict. The devices, however, were a bit easier to find the exact ones that I will want to use in the finished project.