Translation Experiments

To create this purple sphere was a lot more complicated to achieve.  I used Trapcode Form to create this, as well as using a mask and playing around with curves/levels etc.

Music by Daft Punk

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Translation Experiments

This video was created using Trapcode Form and Shine.  This has been the easiest to create so far.  I just used Form to create the overall effect and Shine to enhance the colour/brightness and giving it a night sky background.

Music by The Art Department

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Translation Experiments

Another experiment using Soundkeys.  This is one of the more easier tutorials I have looked at to create this.  However, I wasn't able to finish this at the time, so it's a working progress.

Music by Volta Bureau

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Translation Experiments

So here is my first experiment for my current studio project 'Translation'.  I am interested in making effects react to audio using Trapcode, a plug-in for After Effects, so began experimenting.  I have used Trapcode Form to create this effect and make the particles react to the audio.  This was fairly easy to create but I had problems with the positioning of the camera, so the look is not exactly how I would have liked it to have been.

Music by Pendulum

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Any Which Way 2012

This year the first Any Which Way live art show was held in Byram Arcade, Huddersfield.  Once again it turned out to be a great day with up and coming designers and illustrators exhibiting pieces of work.

Live music also came from BALL-ZEE and other dj's/artists.

Many thanks to Calder Graphics who donated lots of free stationary for this event.


                                          

Tracking

These two videos are about experimenting with motion tracking in After Effects.  The first video was a little more complicated as I had to track the moving hinge/butterfly to a dot, so that it followed a path.  I then replaced the background.

For the second video I used track to aim at a certain point in the video, so that the camera was much more steady and focused on one point.

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Light and Time - Final Piece

So here is my final piece for light and time.  Following on from the previous driving video experiments, I made this video on Premiere Pro.  I really enjoyed making the previous videos and knew this is where I wanted to go for a final piece.  It has both original videos speeded up, with the last video in reverse speed.  I knew I wanted it to be quite dark and I wanted to make most of the environment disappear along with the black road.    I therefore changed the hue/saturation, brightness/contrast, put a glow effect on and a lens distortion effect.  As you can also still see the road markings in most of the video, with some of them now distorted, it feels to me like you are travelling down something at high speed, almost like you are on a track.

Even though I put a music soundtrack on, I also put a rollercoaster sound effect with the sound of the tracks to emphasise this in the appropriate parts of the video.  I also added a wind sound effect to create atmosphere by making it seem like you are travelling in the open air.  Adding sound effects is something that I really enjoyed doing.

How is it related to light and time?  If there was no light there would be no video and it is related to time through speeded up film.  Originally I had around 15 minutes of film but after editing parts and speeding it up, I was left with just over under 6 minutes.

I am so happy with this video.  When I originally got given the brief for 'light and time', I was struggling to think creatively and couldn't think of an idea that didn't show light and time in a subtle way, apart from with the slit scan.  It was only when I stopped thinking about what the brief meant and experimented more, when my final piece came about.  It usually always happens towards the end of the project, where I get and idea that I am happy with and end up going with that.  I very rarely have a solid idea at the beginning of a project.

Music by Netsky

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Light and Time - Experimenting with Effects

For the following two videos I placed a video recorder on the dashboard in my car and recorded two different journeys I made in my area.

For the first video I wanted to know how to do a split screen with two videos.  I put both videos into After effects and rescaled them so that they played side by side.  I then changed the hue/saturation, vibrance, levels and put a glow effect on the video next to it.  The video on the right is also in reverse speed which I did on Premiere Pro.

Personally I think split screen looks good and I enjoyed editing both videos.

Music for the split screen video by Daft Punk


For the video below the split screen, I just put an extract effect onto one of the original videos.  I wanted to put more of an emphasis on the places travelling by and the environment rather than the road itself, which I think the extract effect does quite well.

This video was made in Premiere Pro.

Music for the extract video by AdamF

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.

Tracking motion in After Effects

Have a look at this short video I spotted on Vimeo. The style is sort of similar to the video I would like to make as my final piece, however, I do not plan on using motion tracking to create mine.

http://vimeo.com/4079366

Light and Time - Developed Slit Scan animation

Here is the developed slit scan animation that I had originally made as a final piece.  I spent weeks planning this thinking about the order in which the scans were going to be placed and the speed of the animation.  It includes over 1251 scans, with some darker random scans at the very beggining, at about 10% speed/duration.  As the clear scans fade into each other I changed the speed to around 0.2 and duration to 1.20 for each clip, as I purposely wanted the clear scans to fade into each other slowly, to see shape and colour.  I then changed the speed to around 60% to run faster and then gradually to 100%.  I chose to change the speed of the animation and place certain scans in different places because I still want the viewer to see a beginning, middle and end, so that the animation has a point.  The middle of the animation being during the day capturing peoples movement, colour etc.  Then working through the darker scans as people disappear towards the end of the day.  I did not just want to put over a thousand random scans together, as it would have no meaning. 

I also tried to get the music in sync with the video which was quite a task as it was such a long song.  I edited parts out where appropriate, but there is a part at the beginning that is slightly out but I tried my best with it.

One big problem I had was having to rename all the scans.  Each time the computer made a scan, that image automatically went into a folder, but when the folder was full, I had to stop the scan, move all the scans out and delete all the ones inside it.  This was in order to make a new set.  The problem was that in each folder the scans were named the same (output 1, 2, 3 etc).  I therefore had an extremely tedious task of renaming over a thousand scans, so that After effects would import them correctly.

To make this video I rendered it in After effects and edited it in Premiere Pro.

How is it related to light and time?  If there was no light there would be no scan.  It is related to time through time of exposure i.e. how often the computer makes a scan.

Overall, I am very happy with this piece and I enjoyed making it.  It was going to be my final piece, but through experimenting I created something I am much more pleased with.

Music by Drums of Death

Untitled from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.