Early Memory
This poject required me to produce a visual representation of a story. I was to interview and write down Q & A's or record someone telling a story. I had a problem with this due to curcumstances beyond my control. I decided that I would ask the members at my local youth club to tell me a few things they remeber about the youth club. The common theme presented itself in the form of Kayking. The kids all remebered the time I took them Kayaking in Gortin Lake. They told me about certain incidents that took place such as people capsizing, making angels in the sand, how cold it was and that my daughter and another leader's dog was there. I decided to make a short recreation of the day they spent kayaking. I had to organise Kayaks and safety equipment and get permission from the youth club and the members parents to not only take them Kayaking but to film them as well. This is due to child protection proceedures. I also had to take my daughter and get the other leader to bring his dog. I also had the added challenge of starring and recording as I am the qualifed instructor. I brought 3 cameras with me and set them up around the lake with one being handheld. I also asked a friend to come along to help shoot the scenes and told him how I wanted each shot taken (this was really laborious and the kids got a bit fed up with the start stop nature of it, ah well if they want to be film stars then they will have to get used to it).
The challenge I now had was to make the film cartoonish as I wanted to show that the members remember things in a childish way. They fogot impotant things like being shown how to paddle properly and how to get out of the Kayak if it capsized and most importantly how not to capsize. They also never mentioned how they got there or how they got home. Strange that they forget some important details but remember tiny ones,such as what colour the helmets and life jackets each of them were wearing. I decided to use after effect and illustator to create the cartoon as opposed to an effect in iMovie or MovieMaker as the effects don't really work that well. Below is my first attempt in black and white (no title music overlays).
The following video is the first attempt at making the video into a cartoon.
The next film is the final piece full colour and audio.
Research
I spend a lot of time looking at what other people have done for videos to tell stories and also for movies. Below are the links for some of the examples I looked at:
http://www.ireneskayakingblog.com/
http://www.paddling.net/articles/funny.html
http://www.skydogsports.com/kayak/Kayak-Stories.htm
http://www.marcofolio.net/video/15_stunning_motion_typography_videos.html
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2010/07/28/combining-video-and-typography/
