Video and Sound Production Final Project

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17/10/2022-03/12/2022(Week8-14)

Ng Jia Xien (0355062)

Video and Sound Production

Final Project

Instruction

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Week 1 Task 1

We were asked to search for stop-motion and visual effects short videos, list three videos we liked, and provide reasons for choosing them.

Fresh Guacamole

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNJdJIwCF_Y&list=LL&index=11&t=15s&ab_channel=PES

The first short video I chose was PES's "Fresh Guacamole", which was PES's 2013 Oscar-nominated film. In addition, "Fresh Guacamole" is the shortest film ever nominated for an Oscar.

"Fresh Guacamole" is PES's second food film, the first being "Western Spaghetti,Western Spaghetti", and the 3rd being "Submarine Sandwich, Submarine Sandwich", all are stunning stop-motion videos with smooth movement and great editing skills, which are worth learning from.

PES's food movie series contains many different filming materials, such as dice, baseballs, light bulbs, and human hands. This forms the difference between it and other stop-motion videos in that only one material is used for the entire video.


The Coin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuVKX-x9ABM&list=LL&index=5&t=1s&ab_channel=ShortoftheWeek

And the second stop-motion video I chose was "The Coin",  which is a bit long, but it's a great stop-motion work film by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Si-Qi Song.

According to the director's note, "The Coin is a film about tradition, family, immigration, and most importantly, about finding ourselves." The entire animation is about a girl searching for faith within herself.

Not also the engaging storyline, the use of materials and the fluidity of movement, and the overall beauty of the picture also bring the audience a great visual experience. 

The Maker

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXOioU_OKM&list=LL&index=2&t=20s&ab_channel=ZealousCreative

The last video is "The Maker" produced by Zealous Creative. Unlike the previous videos, "The Maker" not only focuses on stop-motion animation but also does an amazing combination with music, giving the audience a visual and auditory feast.

In addition, Zealous Creative also provided a video about the scenes behind the production, The Maker, Behind the Scenes, in which we can find out that creating a stop-motion animation is a big project that requires the dedication of many people as well as many hours to complete the final work.

Visual Research



In the end, I decided to use paper and clay as the materials for my stop-motion animation, because clay can be the main character, and using paper makes it easier and more convenient to create the character's expressions.

Process

Now I will describe the process of creating my stop-motion videos. I spend a lot of time thinking about the story and can include it in a 30-second to 1-minute video.


Above is the storyboard for my stop-motion video. The story is about two cats fighting over a fish, but in the end, no one can eat the fish because when they fight over it, the fish jumps back into the lake.


I created two characters for this stop-motion animation, which are two cats, one blue and one black. Their bodies are made of clay, but the texture of the clay is a little heavy and not very sticky, so I used toothpicks so that the cat's legs and tail could stick to the body. However, during the shooting process, sometimes the tail would suddenly fall off, which taught me that when creating stop-motion videos, it is important to be prepared before shooting because when the shooting starts, even small changes will look obvious in the stop-motion video.

blue cat

blue cat

black cat 

black cat

In some scenes, I wanted to use close-ups, so I had to create two large hands for close-ups. In addition, I created some simple symbols such as question marks to express the feeling of the cat.



That was the end of my preparation. Next I started shooting my stop-motion video.


When editing the video, I also inserted some sound effects to make the whole video look lively and interesting. Finally, for the reflection of this project, I am not very satisfied with the result because this is my first time to do stop-motion video and I am not familiar with it. I encountered a lot of problems during the shooting process, but all of them were good experiences for me. I found the whole process, from thinking about the storyboard to creating the characters, to shooting and final editing, very interesting. I learned a lot from the process and I hope that one day I will have the opportunity to see how a professional team shoots stop-motion videos.





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