Rationale (what’s the idea; chosen medium/media; why this particular approach);
I am going to create an animated dance video for my final project. I wanted to take all of my past influences and make something that can incorporate them together. I want to work with music and dance. When I hear a piece of music I often imagine an image in my head to go with it. The image I create usually has specific colors and dance movements. I’ve always wanted to bring one of these images into reality so I am going to do it with the open assignment. I plan on working with two different artists, Blue Hawaii and a dancer Alexsa Durrans, and collaborate on a piece with inspiration from their practices.
I am constantly surrounded by artists working on inspiring pieces of music at Arbutus Records. In the fall, I was working in the studio while a friend made a piece of music that I really connected to. The studio is filled with lots of beautiful plants and at the time, the sun was shining in so brightly that it created a very peaceful atmosphere. I imagined a small colorful dancer moving through a softly lit outdoor space. The space being a little foggy but very rich in green plants. The song is an instrumental Blue Hawaii demo that gave me the sense of melancholy. Despite the melancholy feeling, it also seemed as though something new was being created. I want to focus on this idea of creating something new.
I want to change up the choreographic process for this project. Usually, a dancer chooses a piece of music and then choreographs to the music. If I were to do the project in this way, I wouldn’t have much artistic influence on the outcome. Therefore, I want to not share the song with Alexsa and only describe a feeling and emotion to inspire her. I wanted her to improvise with the space so that she would create very natural movements. This way, I was also able to help her come up with movements to explore. If she came with anything choreographed, I wouldn’t have been able to capture the feeling and emotion she felt by being in the space. I planned on shooting a lot so that I have a lot to work with.
After having the footage and song, I plan to combine them together. Coming from a dance background, I understand how movements of the body flow together. I want to edit the video together so that I ‘choreograph’ the already danced dance to work with the piece of music. I plan on doing this by cutting the video so that movements match together. Once I edit the video all together to work well with the music, I am going to rotoscope the dancer. I want the animation to be like brush strokes, more like a pointing than big clocks of color.
I want to use rotoscoping because I’ve always been interested in animating a dancer. I find the shapes dancers create really beautiful and would like to focus on this. I plan on using animation to extend her movements so that they become surreal. I’m hoping that the extensions will accentuate the movements and shapes created by Alexsa.
I decided to shoot the video in Malibu, California. I have a friend with an extremely beautiful garden that fit my vision perfectly. There are many different areas of the space to choose from. It’s very well taken care of and has a beautiful view of the ocean and sunset. I was lucky enough to have shot on an extremely foggy day so it created a calming mist.
I’m doing this project because I’m extremely interested in movement, music and animation. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to create something intriguing by tying all of these ideas together. I think that film will be the best way to portray this. I’d like to project the film in a room with surround sound so that the audience can really feel the music and be engulfed in the piece as if they could jump right in the screen.
Resources/new skills needed
use a tablet
use premiere pro
learn how to properly color correct my footage
learn how to rotoscope!
Weekly breakdown of tasks/goals
February 28th: I shot all of the footage for the film in Malibu with dancer Alexsa.
February 29th- March 6th: Review all footage and begin to edit everything together. I have about 2 hours and 30 minutes worth of footage that I need to choreograph together into 2 minutes and 16 seconds.
March 7th – March 13th – My plan for this week is to have the final video version cut by the beginning of the week and learn how to rotoscope so that I can begin working on the video. Update: Have edited the video all together and will start on color correcting on Monday!
March 14th – March 20th – Color correct the video and continue learning how to rotoscope. Update: To view the cut and color corrected file click here. For some reason the quality decreased a lot when uploading to vimeo so I’ll be showing this from my hard drive in class, but wanted to upload the progress for reference if needed.
March 21st – March 27th – I need to have 00:00 to 00:45 completely rotoscoped by the end of the week. Update: I have 100/2000 frames done… Haven’t run into any issues! I really like rotoscoping and using the drawing pad to do so. I borrowed a friends and haven’t run into any issues with it like others did with the ones at school.
March 28th – April 3rd – need to have 00:45 to 01:30 completely rotoscoped by the end of the week. Update: I have 500/2000 frames done…. Things are falling behind but I think I can still get it together. Once classes are over all of my time is going to be devoted to rotoscoping, even if I’m up for 4 days straight! See below for what I have done so far.
April 4th – April 10 – This week will be reserved for any last minute editing. I need to have 01:30 to 02:16 completely rotoscoped by the end of the week. UPDATE: Haven’t progressed much further due to other classes deadlines. I’m going to have 10 days when this is the only thing I work on so I’ll get it all done 🙂
April 14th – Deadline
Anticipated Issues
I anticipate having issues with getting the rotoscoped area to look like how I would like it to. I’m interested in having a paint/water color texture instead of big blocks of color. I think that this might take longer than expected. Another issue I anticipate on running into is having a hard time turning my 2 hrs worth of footage into 2 minutes.
Process and Final Outcome
I am extremely happy with how my final project for intermedia turned out. I successfully created an animated dance video inspired by a piece of music made by Alexander Cowan of Blue Hawaii. I think that this piece effectively represents my past and present influences.
Everything worked out to my plan outlined above except for the animation style that I was hoping for. I ran into difficulties trying to use a different brush head to create the paint-like texture. Every time I overlapped two lines they would change and move to different places than I had drawn. Therefore, I ended up having to change my vision slightly due to the affordances. One thing that I am happy that I didn’t have to sacrifice was the length of my film. I knew rotoscoping took a lot of time, and trust me it did, but I’m really glad I didn’t cut it down at all. I think that the impact wouldn’t have been there with hearing any shorter than two minutes of the song. I wanted both the images, dancing and music to work together and I think the music needed that extra time to shine through.
Overall, I really enjoyed doing this project, it’s something that I’m extremely proud of. I really enjoyed learning how to rotoscope. I was able to see myself improve with the different programs that I used throughout the process like animate and premiere pro! I think that my goal of creating something to accentuate the beautiful shapes created by the body was successful through this piece.
A6 blob
Bronwyn Ford – blob
Watch Final blob below
Rationale (what’s the idea; chosen medium/media; why this particular approach);
I am going to create an animated dance video for my final project. I wanted to take all of my past influences and make something that can incorporate them together. I want to work with music and dance. When I hear a piece of music I often imagine an image in my head to go with it. The image I create usually has specific colors and dance movements. I’ve always wanted to bring one of these images into reality so I am going to do it with the open assignment. I plan on working with two different artists, Blue Hawaii and a dancer Alexsa Durrans, and collaborate on a piece with inspiration from their practices.
I am constantly surrounded by artists working on inspiring pieces of music at Arbutus Records. In the fall, I was working in the studio while a friend made a piece of music that I really connected to. The studio is filled with lots of beautiful plants and at the time, the sun was shining in so brightly that it created a very peaceful atmosphere. I imagined a small colorful dancer moving through a softly lit outdoor space. The space being a little foggy but very rich in green plants. The song is an instrumental Blue Hawaii demo that gave me the sense of melancholy. Despite the melancholy feeling, it also seemed as though something new was being created. I want to focus on this idea of creating something new.
I want to change up the choreographic process for this project. Usually, a dancer chooses a piece of music and then choreographs to the music. If I were to do the project in this way, I wouldn’t have much artistic influence on the outcome. Therefore, I want to not share the song with Alexsa and only describe a feeling and emotion to inspire her. I wanted her to improvise with the space so that she would create very natural movements. This way, I was also able to help her come up with movements to explore. If she came with anything choreographed, I wouldn’t have been able to capture the feeling and emotion she felt by being in the space. I planned on shooting a lot so that I have a lot to work with.
After having the footage and song, I plan to combine them together. Coming from a dance background, I understand how movements of the body flow together. I want to edit the video together so that I ‘choreograph’ the already danced dance to work with the piece of music. I plan on doing this by cutting the video so that movements match together. Once I edit the video all together to work well with the music, I am going to rotoscope the dancer. I want the animation to be like brush strokes, more like a pointing than big clocks of color.
I want to use rotoscoping because I’ve always been interested in animating a dancer. I find the shapes dancers create really beautiful and would like to focus on this. I plan on using animation to extend her movements so that they become surreal. I’m hoping that the extensions will accentuate the movements and shapes created by Alexsa.
I decided to shoot the video in Malibu, California. I have a friend with an extremely beautiful garden that fit my vision perfectly. There are many different areas of the space to choose from. It’s very well taken care of and has a beautiful view of the ocean and sunset. I was lucky enough to have shot on an extremely foggy day so it created a calming mist.
I’m doing this project because I’m extremely interested in movement, music and animation. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to create something intriguing by tying all of these ideas together. I think that film will be the best way to portray this. I’d like to project the film in a room with surround sound so that the audience can really feel the music and be engulfed in the piece as if they could jump right in the screen.
Resources/new skills needed
Weekly breakdown of tasks/goals
February 28th: I shot all of the footage for the film in Malibu with dancer Alexsa.
February 29th- March 6th: Review all footage and begin to edit everything together. I have about 2 hours and 30 minutes worth of footage that I need to choreograph together into 2 minutes and 16 seconds.
March 7th – March 13th – My plan for this week is to have the final video version cut by the beginning of the week and learn how to rotoscope so that I can begin working on the video. Update: Have edited the video all together and will start on color correcting on Monday!
March 14th – March 20th – Color correct the video and continue learning how to rotoscope. Update: To view the cut and color corrected file click here. For some reason the quality decreased a lot when uploading to vimeo so I’ll be showing this from my hard drive in class, but wanted to upload the progress for reference if needed.
March 21st – March 27th – I need to have 00:00 to 00:45 completely rotoscoped by the end of the week. Update: I have 100/2000 frames done… Haven’t run into any issues! I really like rotoscoping and using the drawing pad to do so. I borrowed a friends and haven’t run into any issues with it like others did with the ones at school.
March 28th – April 3rd – need to have 00:45 to 01:30 completely rotoscoped by the end of the week. Update: I have 500/2000 frames done…. Things are falling behind but I think I can still get it together. Once classes are over all of my time is going to be devoted to rotoscoping, even if I’m up for 4 days straight! See below for what I have done so far.
Progress Bronwyn Video from Bronwyn Ford on Vimeo.
April 4th – April 10 – This week will be reserved for any last minute editing. I need to have 01:30 to 02:16 completely rotoscoped by the end of the week. UPDATE: Haven’t progressed much further due to other classes deadlines. I’m going to have 10 days when this is the only thing I work on so I’ll get it all done 🙂
April 14th – Deadline
Anticipated Issues
I anticipate having issues with getting the rotoscoped area to look like how I would like it to. I’m interested in having a paint/water color texture instead of big blocks of color. I think that this might take longer than expected. Another issue I anticipate on running into is having a hard time turning my 2 hrs worth of footage into 2 minutes.
Process and Final Outcome
I am extremely happy with how my final project for intermedia turned out. I successfully created an animated dance video inspired by a piece of music made by Alexander Cowan of Blue Hawaii. I think that this piece effectively represents my past and present influences.
Everything worked out to my plan outlined above except for the animation style that I was hoping for. I ran into difficulties trying to use a different brush head to create the paint-like texture. Every time I overlapped two lines they would change and move to different places than I had drawn. Therefore, I ended up having to change my vision slightly due to the affordances. One thing that I am happy that I didn’t have to sacrifice was the length of my film. I knew rotoscoping took a lot of time, and trust me it did, but I’m really glad I didn’t cut it down at all. I think that the impact wouldn’t have been there with hearing any shorter than two minutes of the song. I wanted both the images, dancing and music to work together and I think the music needed that extra time to shine through.
Overall, I really enjoyed doing this project, it’s something that I’m extremely proud of. I really enjoyed learning how to rotoscope. I was able to see myself improve with the different programs that I used throughout the process like animate and premiere pro! I think that my goal of creating something to accentuate the beautiful shapes created by the body was successful through this piece.