Music Video Mockup

Since the acquisition of this powerful Dell XPS (thanks again Kaz), I'm sad to say that the only time I used the full power of this machine was to play games. My original intention for wanting to use this machine was to be able to do stuff on After Effects. I've always wanted to use the program to create simple music videos hoping someday to be good at it, but I was afraid that my laptop would explode upon running AE. But nowwith a more capable computer, I am finally able to play around with the program.

I'm not really planning on doing this to be able to make money making music videos for bands...although I'm not ruling it out. I see this more as a hobby and a form of practice. I've always created images and events in my head whenever I listen to music, it's just something I tend to do. This is a way to see what I see in my mind's eye and how it would translate with the music. It would also be nice to share what I see in my head. The other use of this exercise is to get acquainted with AE, for I might someday use it to create my own videos for integration with flash.

So this post is more of a documentary on my first foray into After Effects. I will be doing tests and putting together a mockup of a music video from a song by The Decemberists called "The Mariner's Revenge Song." I'll also be showing the resulting footage that comes out for every piece of progression that I make.

The Waves Test

Basically, this test is just to get acquainted with the tools and the techniques that I need to build this thing. I immediately discovered that After Effects 7.0 (the program that I was working on during this test) cannot import SWF files. I was planning on directly putting a SWF of an image of wavy water just moving in a circle, but discovering that I can't I had to convert the SWF into a MOV with alpha channels on. But the video is basically just a few of these wave movies that are flatly stacked on top of each other. The only type of depth generated in this video is made using a bunch of drop shadows.

Ah, but this is not what I wanted to do. I wanted to add two-dimensional objects into a three-dimensional world. And in order for me to do this, I would have to go to the step: the camera.

The Camera Test

Creating a three-dimensional setting is as easy as clicking a button. Virtually each layer that you add to the composition can be turned into a 3-D layer. And once you've designated a layer a 3-D layer, you can then adjust it's z-position. With the camera, the chosen image or video footage can will be interpreted according to it's position. So objects that are really far from the camera will look small and closer ones big, add a depth of field and you get some blur to the objects who are in within the area of focus. It seems pretty simple, until you start moving the camera...

Moving Camera Test

I had a lot of trouble working the camera mainly because I know nothing of actual movie cameras. There are a lot of things you can adjust in terms of camera settings, and I jumped right on it. I basically adjusted every setting that I could and got really bad results. I learned that the most minimal adjustments are all I need after a whole lot of frustration. All I finally did was adding depth of field and adjusting the aperture along with the zoom and position of the camera.

I added the music so I can match the length of the animation along with it. Ultimately, the only animation that I did was the movement of the camera and the slight movement of the boat. Moving the boat was another choking point and a whole heap of trouble. I had to animate the man and the boat in the program because I wanted to be able to control when things started moving. It would probably easier if I animated the movement of the man and boat in Flash and imported the SWF to After Effects. I thought that having the camera so close to the object would be troublesome if that object was moving independently from the camera. So I just used a motion path for the man and boat layer to follow and I can adjust when and how fast the animation can occur. Even in the video test above, I still don't know why at certain points the object just remains stationary even though it's supposed to be following the motion path still.

I think I've thought of this before, but I realize now that doing the actual animation in After Effects should be minimal (at least maybe only for me.) The program shines more in putting different types of media together seamlessly. So finally, I came up with something in the last minute.

Conclusion

After finishing the moving camera test, I took that composition and blended it with this footage of a film leader. And the best thing was it was just like blending images in Photoshop. And it made it look old and dark.

So there it is, it seems like a ton of work just for that simple movie, but I learned a lot from it. Next time I will do more experiments that involve more of After Effects' more advanced features. I was thinking of some of them already when I was working on this one.

Fin.