Final Project

11th September-27th November 2019 (week 3-14)

Daryl Pung Xi Ern (0333743)
Video and Sound Production Final Project

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Week 2
We were told to choose 3 stop motions videos that inspires us for our final project. I decided to find a mixture of mediums including using objects and real people. 

1st video: Fresh Guacamole by PES

I like how smooth the frames are as it seems as if it isn't a stop-motion. Also the creativity behind this with the different objects that they use to represent real food. I found that to be really interesting and it's something I would like to incorporate in my final project, to be able to create frames as smooth as this. 

2nd video: Obsession music video by OK Go 

The use of colors is pretty interesting in this one, and it creates a video game feel when their bodies are being rotated and moved around. Everything also feels quite balanced in the shot, especially with the choice of colors and how they're placed. 

3rd video: Stop-motion parkour by Corridor 

Although they aren't actually running on the floor, but the sound effects and the movement of the grass tricks the audience into thinking that way. This inspired me to put more thought into the audio of my final stop-motion, as it can often mimic sounds that can make the animation come to life. 

Week 8-14 
Within the last few weeks, we started to work on our final project. My partner and I initially thought to create a meaningful story about a man whose kindness is often taken advantaged of and one day he snaps, taking revenge on those who mistreated him but eventually feels guilty for the things he's done. However, after consulting with Mr Martin he said that it wasn't necessary to have a story with a moral in it. So, we decided to scrap that idea completely and start fresh. 

Here's the basic storyline: 



After Mr Martin approved of the outline of our story, we went to work with the presentation.

Our animatic:

Our lectures said that it was straightforward and easy to understand for the most part, but there were just some scenes missing to create a better transition between the frames. Mr Martin then told us to recreate the melting part of the stop-motion.

For that, we used plasticine, paper and some transparent strings to do the rain. Here's our test shot:

Mr Martin then told us it didn't really look like rain, so he advised us to change the ending of our stop motion. So we thought of another way in which the main character becomes so far that he falls over, two people approach him and starts throwing rocks at his stomach. Then, his stomach bursts which causes his body to burst as well. Eventually, he turns into a ball and starts chasing the two people. He begins to transform into a dog, a bird and finally a dinosaur.

We began shooting the scenes:

First Draft:

Final presentation:

Mr Martin said that our ending was messy and told us to redo it so that it actually shows the transformation of animals instead of cutting to black.

2nd draft:

Feedback: Mr Razif said that we should refine the sound a little more by making the crunching of the flesh louder and crunchier. He also said for the rotating scenes there should be some sounds that follow the main character's movements. Additionally, we should have more variety in sound rather than repeating the same tracks over and over again. Mr Martin said that the dinosaur scene still wasn't particularly clear, so we decided to photoshop the dinosaur to become smaller.

After taking note of their advice, we went to fix our video. This is our final outcome: