A few weeks ago I did a slideshow of the best pictures from this year to show at the formal. I found out that I didn’t have as many group or happy pictures that I wanted (I certainly had enough pictures of sports), but everything worked out okay. I also think that I overdid the sad factor a little too much. The last slideshow that I did was for a week of senior high camp, and the idea there was to make them really happy at the beginning, then go to the sad stuff and try to make everyone cry. ;-) This concept worked well at camp, with the slideshow being the last scheduled thing before everyone goes home.
I think that the exciting-to-melencholy outline for slideshows is still good, but at the formal, I don’t think that it worked as well as at camp. After the slideshow was queen entertainment, which is supposed to be funny. Having some really sad stuff beforehand might have been weird. I’m probably overanalyzing it, but for next time I think that I’ll keep the happy-to-sad method, but make the sad part a little shorter and less intense.
Here’s the incorrectly labeled “blooper reel” from the previous post that is actually more like outtakes, but I didn’t care to fix it. ;-)
All in all, the “Like a Beau” video was a ton of fun to do. It was my first experience script-writing and brainstorming for lines, even though it was a parody, making it a lot easier. I have also concluded that making things slightly amiturish works a lot better than making the video more professional. I think that if we did a retake on the first introduction scene, redid (or actually) used the scenes toward the end that were according to plan/script. The awkwardness is a lot funnier than an almost-perfectly acted video, and it’s easier to do, since acting is hard. Just a thought.
I know there are a decent amount of quirks that I couldn’t totally iron out, but as it being my first real project, I think it turned out pretty neat.
From the description I added on vimeo and youtube:
Messing around with a slideshow-type effect in After Effects. I just did a really rough pen mask (then feathered) in Photoshop, imported each 3-layer file into After Effects, and then went from there. All this took me a ridiculous amount of time to get to my liking (mostly), but I definitely learned a lot through the process. I would just never do it for a slideshow unless I was paid by the hour. :) Also, I wish Think Different” wasn’t an Apple slogan. I don’t mind the company (I like their products), but I chose to avoid that phrase in the video for moral reasons. ;)
