Framing

In this third assignment, I created a short narrative about having a crush on your best friend. Initially I kind of struggle with this because having a storyline in mind is not my forte. Later on I decided that I should probably do a storyboard and just proceed with my shoot.  I tried exploring different shot scales and relating them to what I usually observe in videos. I find it hard to separate my vision of how the story should be progressing in a video into a sequence of still images.  When it comes to still image, I have to select the keyframe that can communicate a point, leaving out the fillers.

What I did to show that there is a change of settings was to have the characters wear a different set of outfit. But it seems a little confusing to viewers as mentioned in feedback. In addition, I need to be selective when it comes to the props as well. 

All in all, it was a fun experience to be able to create a mini series in this short window of time!

Image with Movement

Cinemagraph

Results 1

In the original video for the above cinemagraph, the kids were walking around at the side. Initially I wanted to keep their movement and freeze everything else, however due to the moving sea background, it was just too complicated to mask the movement without having to interfere with the sea. To makes things easier, I masked parts of the shoreline so that the movement is still considered subtle, leaving out all the incoming wave. As for the sky, I had to mask the part where the bird flies and not the whole area to avoid the moving clouds. I also adjusted the opacity of the mask at the right side to create an illusion that the bird was at a further distance.

Mask 1

Animated GIF- From Still to Moving Image

Shot on Nikon FM2 (ISO400)
Results 2

For the second set, I tried to convert a still to moving image instead of capturing a video. I masked the smoke area using different opacity and then cropped it out as a new layer. In the timeline tab, I added keyframes and adjusted the size of the smoke (Command + T) accordingly. Additionally, I also added Fade effect into my smoke layers to smoothen the transitions. 

Mask 2
Layers