Logo and Inclusion in My Video

I've developed a logo for Jack using one of the heads I cut out in Photoshop and saved as a PNG. I created a few circular logo designs which mainly include his head and some varying features. I think that I could include the logo at the start of the final video and perhaps even as a watermark in the bottom right corner in the "black lines". Many YouTube videos seem to include watermarks on their videos, one such example is Vevo's watermark on those it has signed..

First design:

This first design is rather simple and essentially includes Jack's head with some basic sans-seriff font. While it isn't traditionally psychedelic in its lack of patterns and colour, I believe it is a more professional brand logo which can feature in many products. It is simple and to the point, the text is easily read and I think it is my favourite one. The stars included on the side almost act like the converse stars but they're main function is to break up the text around the outside.

I would like to note that the logo includes a white outline around the head to help make it pop out and accentuate the head. The eyes are also coloured out in a very anime style but for no reason other than to fit with the very blocked and low detail design. Jack's beard is the most detailed part of the logo perhaps, this ultimately was because I wanted his silhouette to be very distinguishable with his hair, glasses and beard.

 I did run these by Jack and he agreed that this was the better option, nonetheless I will still include the other designs below.

Second design:

The design idea for this one came from more punk styled art such as that of Green Day, with the Xs acting as the tape that usually features in their artwork. I used it to mainly add some depth and detail to the overall logo. There is possibly some wider message to glean from it such as a comment about music corporations censoring indie artists or at least ensuring they don't achieve success without becoming corporate lapdogs - a message seen within Jack's Shit Music EP. However, I don't see any real reason to forward such a message, it is not one that Jack stands by entirely and it isn't integral to his image as an artist.

Another point to make is the change in the text, I made the letters along the top wonky in order to reflect Jack's individuality and breaking from the mold. The same can be said about including the "Head" in the eyes, however this does leave the bottom rather blank which I feel would not be right.


Third and Fourth designs:

These two designs are similar enough to analyse together, essentially I included some spirals within the glasses but in one design I made one eye red and one eye blue - these colour choices mainly being reminiscent of traditional 3D glasses. I suppose there is some 'alternate perspective' offered by the glasses that could be represented in the logo however I don't think there is any need for the designs at all, the white glasses in the first design help to reinforce Jack's silhouette in an effort to make it more iconic.

Kaleidoscopic Animations

The SoundColour and Synesthesia apps I have would be ideal as they move the visuals in accordance with the beat of the music playing near the phone, however I don't have any means of capturing the footage and recording on a camera would be extremely low quality. The only solution I have come up with - given that I don't have the time to animate my own clips - is to instead use the royalty free ones from the video I made that contained Jack's songs.

Below I have included links to the original clips, I will be including them as background loops in my final cut. They will also likely feature as the backgrounds to some stop motion rotating Jack heads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j66m3SNFDYI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jlVwRcQhvU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgdXbZKFSpI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auV1ovdV7bk

Rough Cut 2 - Weird Sky

Here is my second version of Weird Sky, one contains some black lines to mimic the changing of the aspect ratio:

Weird Sky Second without Lines from Eughan Wooding on Vimeo.


Weird Sky Second with Lines from Eughan Wooding on Vimeo.

Firstly, I would like to point out that I think the black lines are a wonderful addition to the video. They help to make the narrative seem more cinematic and helps to really hone in and focus on the imagery presented. I will likely keep them for the final cut. I didn't actually change the aspect ratio of the clips, instead I merely layered two black bars in Premiere, simply due to the fact that I do not believe I have the means of changing the aspect ratio.

Now onto the video itself. I managed to find a second clip for the opening where my arm is not in shot however it does have a natural blur, I've overcome this by intentionally extending the moment the camera went out of focus and adding a provisional 'Weird Sky' title. I intend on animating the title myself, likely deciding on some kind of typography that will continue within my other products.

At the start, I still am unsure about the action match from the first to the second shot, so I will likely need to revise this. It is too late to reshoot but if I can just work on the editing then I should be able to make the continuity look smoother.

I also added a low angle shot of the clone in the dog mask at 0:44 in order to retain the audience's interest and not just use a repeated long duration shot of the three clones. I do have some more of these shots and create some psychedelic compositions within the later parts of the video - overlaying the shots over one another.

Again the middle section still needs filling in as I have some animation to do still, these sections are taking much longer than I anticipated and I am therefore having to spend extra time on them. There was some issue with loading them on as I decided to link my Premiere file to After Effects, however I will have to relink the media within these files as they aren't appearing in the final video. This is a minor problem that I am sure I can fix but definitely important if I want to ensure the animations appear. Additionally I would like to note that I still have some images that act as place holders to signify when certain parts of the animations come in, these will of course later be removed.

At 1:11 I've redone the overlay and even added a clip over Jack when the video returns to 'reality'. I wanted to better distinguish between Jack's drug induced perception of the world (or the segments that appear in his 'dreams' within the narrative) and that of the real world that is shown before he drinks the milk. I think the use of the overlay isn't the best idea and so I think I will opt for a more subtle difference; I intend to make the segments with Jack's character after drinking the milk more light and perhaps increase the contrast, the other parts that occur in the real world will be darker as to reflect some contrast between the real world and the drug fantasy one during his trip. Additionally, these overlays wouldn't work well with the animations that will be placed over Jack during these clips.

I've added some colour over the close ups of Jack playing the instruments and even added a little dancing Jack by overlaying him into the shot at 1:27. In order to fit the tempo I decided to speed up the footage, this works in making it look very unnatural and surreal as to fit with the psychedelic conventions I've highlighted.

The following few shots are extremely low duration and the visuals are increasingly overlaid and saturated as to indicate some sinister increase within the fantasy world Jack is watching on the television, it is rather reminiscent of the Evangelion opening. This is done as to build up to the moment the animation spills from the television. I even decided to cut to Jack during this section to show his jaded and 'drug-addled' character reacting to the sensory overload.

The shot at 1:40 includes some rotating camera shots overlaid. The dutch angles that appear are in order to reinforce the drug trip part of the video and show how Jack's mind is becoming unstable. This again links back to the StraitJacket video I mentioned in my animatic post, a song that is even about the artist having a poor mental state. This part acts as an indicator that the visuals from the TV will begin to invade Jack's life in the video as it is immediately followed by the section that I will animate fluid pouring from the television.

There is not much to comment on the other shots as they simply complete the narrative that I established within my storyboard and will have to include some animation that isn't there yet. One note I would like to make is how I have not included some parts to my storyboard such as Jack's head coming out of his mouth earlier in the video at around 0:51 nor do I intend to animate my own psychedelic visuals. I am struggling to find the time for the animations currently and will therefore have to resort to some royalty free animations that I will make a separate post about.

Moving on, the last shot shows Jack breaking the fourth wall by looking into the camera as to directly acknowledge he is in a music video, this being done for comedic relief given his exaggerated reaction but it holds some sinister undertones. The character's life has been destroyed and his perspective changed forever. I suppose that this does tie in well with the theoretical side of my course, especially Todorov and his narrative theory - which I may comment on later. Onto the editing of the last shot, I made the footage turn somewhat wavy and added some static as if to mimic the 'tuning out' and reinforce that the character is within a video. This technique is something that I learned during my AS media project in which I made a Dawn of the Dead style opening which contained some cuts just like that.

Inclusion of Stop Motion

Stop motion features extensively within my second cut and I would merely like to cite Django Django,Vampire Weekend and Peter Gabriel as inspiration in this area. It is relatively straight-forward from a technical point but definitely a time-consuming aspect of my editing; if I had more time to do my final video, it is likely I would have included more stop motion in the video - especially during the performance clips as to better distinguish them from the 'reality' within the video's narrative.

In order to do these stop-motion segments, I first had to cut out the images in Photoshop. In fact, this is such a long process that even for my second cut I don't believe I'll have finished the animations as I would like to focus more on blocking the rest of the video. My ability to successfully create stop-motion animations has been displayed previously on the blog and essentially the reason I sought to include it in the final product was just how cool I thought it looked, clearly proving to be a popular technique as seen by the success of the videos below.

Feedback from Rough Cut 1

I received some verbal feedback from peers whilst editing who felt the video looked extremely amateur, something we agreed comes down to the camera quality especially. The school cameras aren't the best at filming in any low-lighting, something I already knew from my AS project but thought could be edited in post - which it seems is quite difficult. Additionally, the overall quality is quite low anyway.

By no means am I suggesting the images and direction I took with the cameras is low quality, I am referring mainly to the overall quality of the images, they're not high definition. This is not an issue for some psychedelic and indie artists however, the Rat Boy videos I covered in the past notably don't use the highest definition of cameras. In fact, Django Django and Tame Impala actively choose to make some of their videos low quality, as seen below in Wor and Half Full Glass.



This is likely done as a means of undermining music video convention which seems to suggest success in the high quality of some footage. With this in mind, I acknowledge that some psychedelic elements can be found in undermining convention in this way, it clearly places more focus on artist capability and even suits the indie aesthetic the artists seem to go for. For this reason I believe that the feedback from my peers is perfectly valid but isn't too much of a concern, however I believe I could change the aspect ratio as a means of emulating a high quality of camera.

Rough Cut 1 - Weird Sky

Here is my first version of Weird Sky:

WEIRD SKY ROUGH CUT from Eughan Wooding on Vimeo.

The beginning is rather awkward and slow, however this is intentional as it contrasts heavily with the later portion of the video. I've had to start it with Jack sitting down as there was very little room but chose to have the milk inside of the microwave to clearly indicate some quirkiness to the video, it's not a serious piece and I wished to reinforce some surrealism in Jack's actions being weird or abnormal within the video, as to suggest some psychedelic undertones. The mise-en-scene clearly indicates Jack's life is a mess within the narrative and perhaps represents the drug-use ideas that appear in psychedelic content.
I would like to note that my arm can clearly be seen on the right, where I was essentially turning on the light on the phone for the shots, I do have some clips where my arm isn't shown but will have to review those as they get slightly blurry during the first part of the clip - something I could mask by intentionally blurring the footage and overlaying the song title.

The action match shots are quite clear in my opinion, the only one perhaps needing editing is the transition at 0:07. The maintenance of continuity here isn't necessarily done for any particular means, other than to maintain continuity and convention. However, it does help to clearly indicate the milk and therefore reinforce it as a key prop that affects the video.

I tried to make some psychedelic and kaleidoscopic imagery with the four sky clips, which I don't believe looks the best. I did consider placing something else within the shot but haven't really decided, but I definitely think the images need to have something else going on or acting as the focus. This part was achieved by flipping the clips in Premiere and I made sure to add some colour overlay. The parts where the colour on screen changes were something I thought of to keep the long duration shots more interesting, and to accentuate the beats in the song. I did struggle to edit this part, given that I can't count beats in songs very well, I therefore commissioned help from Niamh who is experienced with editing to the beat - as she has done on her YouTube channel.

There is a part at 0:43 where I simply continue the shot of the three clones but I feel this is quite boring and might either require some overlay - as seen by the lava lamp earlier. I used the lava lamp in order to conform to psychedelic convention as it is quite iconic in being associated with psychedelia.

The next portion of the video is comprised of some basic animation through images I took of Jack spinning, these images I cut out and saved as PNGs using Photoshop. The backgrounds don't look good currently but mainly act as place holders, in fact some parts reuse the clone sequence but I intend to animate over these sections. I used the images that flash up at 0:55 as references for parts of the animation in the future i.e. when the screen should fill up.

The kaleidoscopic clip that overlays at 1:11 comes from me filming a household painting with a kaleidoscope filter from Snapchat, the edges are rather hard but I have no other means of producing kaleidoscopic clips of my own. However, I believe using some Royalty Free clips from YouTube for the backgrounds and overlays might help to bring the video together. On the topic of Royalty Free, I used a UFO sound effect from Soundbible at 1:16 to add to the drug-feeling Jack's character would be feeling as the audience is removed from the television and back into reality for a moment; the music also makes a very sudden drop and quietens to show that the events aren't occurring within the music video the character is watching (again like the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard video for Cellophane). I don't think I like the sound effect and believe I could maybe try tampering with it to make it sound more jarring and truly immerse the viewer, into feeling how Jack's character is i.e. disorientated and confused. The sounds are also there in order to create a sense of drug-addled since this section will have animation over it, with Jack's hand melting.

The next segments will likely become increasingly overlaid with images and clips to add to the psychedelic imagery, almost as if the bad trip is coming to a head. They seem to remind me somewhat of the tunnel scene from Willy Wonka, which perhaps adds substance to the claim that it establishes a sense of unease within the viewer.

The overall editing stops towards the end of the video however this is mainly because these segments will be filled with some animation and high amounts of overlays. As such, I believe focusing on completing these sections along with fleshing out the other areas I've highlighted will result in a more cohesive video.