Music Video Production: Part 2

As I said before, there were a lot of asset to be built for this project.  Some included sketches which developed into inked illustrations, which were then scanned and edited digitally for animation.

We needed a fish:

that one was a bit ugly, so it got a makeover:

Looking better, but we'll need to add some color for the final.

After we finished the storyboards, we made a very rough animated version called an animatic.  The goal of the animatic is to time out all of the shots, with a basic representation of all major camera moves.

Here's a short excerpt from the animatic:

After the animatic was done and we listed out our shot list (a numerical list of all scenes needed for the story), we began the green screen video shoot both for the band and for our pop up book.

To elaborate on my previous blog, the concept behind the video is that we are going to have live action hands turning the pages of a pop up book.  The hands will pull tabs and turn wheels that will trigger the animation composited on top of the book.  We bought a photo album with removable pages which we then attached paper tabs, etc.

In order to have the camera perpendicular to the book on the green screen, we laid the book on the ground and placed the camera above facing straight down.

This also meant that the people pulling the tabs had to lay on the ground.  Not too comfortable!

In order to have things timed out properly to the music and animation, I had to watch both the full animatic and the monitor while calling out the action.  Here's how that went:

Once we had the footage, we could then begin work on our rough draft.  Here are a couple test shots that eventually made it into the rough draft.

This is a more developed version of the scene from the animatic shown above, using live action video with the motion graphics composited on top:

Here's another short clip.  The blue squares were placed on the pages of the book so we can use them as reference points for motion tracking.  That way, if the pages move, the animation will move as well.

Currently, we're working on finalizing all animation and editing the live band footage with Final Cut Pro.  I haven't worked with the program in awhile, so this is a great refresher for me.

More updates soon!