To begin my process I started shooting footage. As discussed before if I were a skilled enough musician I would make the soundtrack first but alas... I gathered a mix of proper footage with nice lighting and mock footage with no concern for continuity.

e.g. drawing on paper and using a guitar and stylus didn't require any setup but other parts like the TV continuity changes in time and clothes I just did in one sitting for an idea of the timing.

I never ended up exporting a mock version instead I just replaced each shot with the newer nicer one in the same project🤦‍♂️

Issues encountered

1. Popcorn is predictably unpredictable

   • I tried several attempts with single kernels and I encountered a plethora of issues ranging from low light, reflective light, oil spits, moving popcorn, steam-fogging camera lenses, e.c.t
   • In the end, the footage wasn't of amazing quality, and I wasn't able to get the zoom I wanted because there were other kernels in the shot but the movement was minimal and the sound was great ^pop
   1. I didn't feel hungry while I was shooting the popcorn couch scenes so I didn't want to waste a whole bowl but I wanted the bowl to look full so I had to fake it a little...

2. Originally, I was trying to get my close-up with the camera close to my face

   • This would cause a fish-eye-ish distortion so I ended up shooting from a short distance in higher quality then cropping the video down

3. Video quality is awful at night

   • No solution just lots of grain in the night footage
   • It's really disappointing that I shot like 30 minutes worth of footage on the couch but only ended up using like 4 seconds of it

4. The zoom-in on the hair looked awful because the image quality was so low

   • I used a graphic element to cover up the transition and wipe to black

5. The last thing I had to shoot was the piano footage to match it with the audio

6. I tried for SO LONG! to get the Kendama trick but I couldn't get it to land on the spike😔

   • The most disappointing was when I got it but it was out of frame
   • I had to settle for the cup catch

7. I was waiting for a nice cloudy day for like three of four days😴

8. Footage of the picnic and books weren't as nice as I thought

   • I ended up substituting Picnic with footage of talking with friends at a party
   • and substituted books with boardgames

9. The lamp light in the room was way overexposed

   • I tried following a tutorial on how to colour-correct correct but it wasn't helpful
   • The second one I watched suggested adding an adjustment layer and lowing the white point and contrast e.c.t
     1. This was helpful but I found that the more I added the colour looked worse so I had to compromise with a little overexposure🤷‍♂️.
     • 
     • Not a great fix... definitely something worth working on in future🙇‍♂️

10. I had also run out of storage on my phone but luckily Pixel phones allow you to continue shooting they just don't store it in the cloud. This was annoying though because to get any footage I had shot I needed to upload it to one drive (🙏1 Terabyte of RMIT OneDrive storage coming in clutch🙏) and then download it onto my computer

    • There was a lot of waiting for files to download... For reference, my DMS folder now has 19GB of files🫠

Deviation from storyboard

1. Popcorn zoom

2. Order of couch seats and popcorn throw

   • This was just preference after I'd seen the footage

3. Hair transition

   • As mentioned above, I also added similar graphic elements to the eyes parts to emphasise the subject and to close the video

4. Order of match cuts (skipped paint and mouse and added paper)

   • The paint seemed messy and difficult, and I don't even really like painting. I liked how the movement was accentuated rather than subtle during the sequence and focussing on the zoom of the mouse seemed too nuanced.

5. Picnic and books switched for party and board games

   • I might just add that the end of the party scene seems deeply rooted in symbolism, that wasn't my intention while shooting but I love it. I thought the distance between me and my friends could be symbolic, I tried to exaggerate this by zooming in and panning from one side to the other also reflecting the direction of movement made earlier in the video but with a slower atmosphere. The shadow on the wall could also be analysed but I guess it's up to your own interpretation.

Sound design

Music

I was initially inspired by the phase of memes on TikTok and Instagram where people use classical/neo-classical music in corecore trends or just meme reposts.

Classical	More jazzy
@jake25.17 I broke a string making this part, you gotta leave a like 🥺 ♬ What Falling in Love Feels Like by Jacob Hoover - jake	@mistfulplays I apologize if the ending sounds sus. #amoungus #imposter #sus #piano #jazz #improv #free #soul #funny ♬ original sound - mistifulplays

I really liked (in the left one especially) how they used E♭ G B♭ D(I have no understanding of music theory but) to me it feels dreamy or potentially hopeful.

Really I just mucked around with lowering and raising each of the notes to find the pattern I wanted. Once I had the chords I just watched the visuals a couple of times over and played along while recording.

I emphasised the staccato beats in the beginning to make it feel more exciting and jumpy then relaxed and used arpeggios to float through the rest.

It took quite a while to get the timing just right😵‍💫

Sound effects

I didn't end up adding any sound effects because I thought my recorded audio was perfect but I know I'll have to think about what to add later, as it is a part of the brief.

Assignment 1: Version 1

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