I have completed the finishing touches to my work and have uploaded the my final video here for my teacher to mark. I added some final touches including a heartbeat sound on the amp layer at the end to further utilise the amp, and changed where some sound in the video are heard so that I utilised all the different speakers. I've shown the video to a few of my friends and they all agree that my video is very powerful in evoking grief or sadness.
Here is a summary of what I have accomplished with my finished project:
The scenes change on the beat, or at a vocal cue, which adds to the atmosphere and flow.
The major events (eg, car crashes) that occur are all places at slightly unexpected or syncopated parts of the music, to further shock the audience.
The amp is used twice, once to emphasise a time slowing down sound effect, and again to create a haunting heartbeat sound near the end.
The sound effects come from all different directions, and sound travel from one place to another like they do on screen, which makes the video more real and adds to the atmosphere.
I used audio manipulation to make the King Nat Cole (the singer of Unforgettable) hold one of the syllables ('ble' in 'unforgettable') in the video longer, so that it would fit in with the rest of the video.
I used video manipulation to zoom in and stretch the footage so that there were no black bars down the sides of the footage.
I believe I was very successful in evoking an emotion, what do you think? Watch my video here:
Today I finished editing the footage from the sad car safety ads, the video ends on this scene (a boy in a hospital bed), slowed down, zoomed in on the boy's face with a heart rate monitor playing quietly in the background, and the music fading out. My Unforgettable digital media presentation is almost complete. I've watched through the whole thing in one go and I believe I have been very successful so far in evoking sadness and shock. The next few lessons I am going to spend adapting my digital media presentation to better utilise the surround sound and amp. Next lesson I intend on making these adjustments and testing it on the surround sound system.
Our teacher got the new sound card which allows us to test the audio in our project on the surround sound and amp today, and so I have decided to start development on some of the sections of my digital media presentation that utilise surround sound and the amp today. I have added the sound I'm using for the speeding up and slowing down of time to my LFE layer (which plays on the amp). This makes little to no difference when using headphones, but I'm sure it will when I'm able to use the amp. I'm also planning to do the following to utilise the surround sound and amp:
Have the car crash sounds fly from one side of the room to the other
Have crashes that occur on certain parts of the screen come from the corresponding speakers (this crash would happen on the right speakers)
Have sounds like the screaming and crashing sound effects that I'm adding be at contrasting points in the room
I have gotten up to about 80% of my Unforgettable digital media presentation complete. I have also been going back through the amount of the presentation that I have already completed and been emphasising certain aspects of the originally-almost-completely-faded-out-background-noise from the videos. These particular moments have had sudden sounds that add to the shock of what is happening, or have added to the atmosphere of that time in the video.
These moments have included:
The giggle at the start of this clip (which I had to do some tricky fading with to make sure the singing voice in the background wasn't easily heard)
The couple being hit by the car and scream in the same clip (0:18)
I've also shown my video (or what's made of it so far) to the two students sitting next to me, both of whom felt that it really shocked them and made them feel uneasy and upset (not in a sick way, an emotional way, it wasn't that bad). Discussing with them what they felt has also helped me develop my understanding of the emotions I've evoked. I've come to understand that although it is a small amount of happiness that I'm portraying in the first half, the second half is partly sadness or depression, but also largely shock. Now that I understand that this is the emotion I've been trying to evoke all along, I'll be able to incorporate this into the rest of my digital media presentation.
Today I continued work on my Unforgettable digital media presentation. I have finished adding all of the happy footage footage from the clips, and am now onto adding the sad footage. The first sad footage, from this video, I've made continue on to the last of the happy footage from the other clips, but now the audience is aware of the impending grief of the other situations, so there is a feeling of tension that will contribute to the sadness. I'm also very happy with how the syncing of the audio and video is working, and I believe this improves the effect of the audience. I also added a scream, squealing car brakes and a loud crash to the impact on the sad clip, which I feel emphasises the sudden emotional shock the audience feels. I got the very good squealing brakes sound effects from here, (the ones labelled AUTO-BRAKE-SKID BRAKE are the ones I used).
I've also downloaded some sound effects for going in and out of slow motion which I'm going to use on the sad footage from this video when the car flips over. I'm also planning on muting out the music when this occurs, for added effect.
Today I have begun adding the sad footage from the car safety ads to my digital media presentation, and have started looking for sound effects to go with my Unforgettable presentation. I have begun with the sad footage on the Irish seat belt ad (starts at 0:18) and have been searching for sound effects of screaming, cars crashing, metal crunching, glass smashing, etc to use the scenes when the cars crash to emphasise the impact on the audience. The music at this point is up to around here (1:22), just before the instrumental section. This clip of a girl screaming and this clip of various car crash sounds sound nice, and I have downloaded them to use with my project.
Also, I have been noticing that I've been feeling mildly depressed after working on my project, my heat feels heavy and like it's hammering against my chest. I feel that this effect is the kind of feelings I want to evoke within my audience using my digital media project, and hence believe that feeling these emotions after working on my project is a good thing.
Today our teacher revealed that he was installing a surround sound system in the room in which we do IST, which we will be able to use in our assignment. We looked over how you can manipulate surround sound in Sony Vegas, and I've found out that there are easy ways to make sounds come from certain speakers or move from one 'place' to another.
I plan on using this in my final presentation of 'Unforgettable' by, for example, having the car that crashes across the road in this ad go from the left speakers to the right speakers, as if it's flying across the audience. This manual for Sony Vegas and this video by montagical (at 4:40) helped me learn how to pan a sound from one place to another.
In short, you:
Right click on a layer (it has to be a layer with surround sound)
Select 'Surround Pan Keyframes' (or press Shift-P)
Right click on the bar that has appeared beneath the layer and select 'add point'
Select the point that has appeared and change the location of the orange dot
Repeat adding points until you have the amount of points you want
I may also have to add the sound of scraping metal or car crash sounds to the presentation so I can get them to move from one side to another easier without other sounds from the videos getting in the way. I think this will be a very effective tool for evoking an emotion if I utilise it well.
The surround sound editor on Vegas that I learned to use, the proximity of the orange dot to the speakers determines the volume of the sounds and music from each speaker
Today I continued adding the happy footage from the car safety ads to my digital media presentation. I've been putting my scene switches at the same time that a line in the song begins by slowing down the footage to around 70-90% of it's original speed. The synchronisation of the scene changes with the music adds to the harmony of the footage, and makes it feel happier to me.
I learnt to avoid slowing down the footage too much, because I tried doing that once today and the relatively low frame rate of the videos resulted in too few frames per second, making the footage seem 'glitchy' or 'stunted', which substantially ruined the atmosphere.
Today I've begun work on my Unforgettable/car crashes idea, and begun clipping and rearranging my videos so that it progresses from the happy clips to the sad clips.
The first thing I managed to do was find a better version of Unforgettable to use, because it includes just one voice and no saxophone solo, and the atmosphere I wish to obtain is maintained throughout the song. This song was the adaptation used in the fight scene from Watchmen.
I decided the best way to start the video would be about 2 seconds of silence and darkness, then to begin fading in the music, and then have an especially loud striking of the match (from near the start of this clip) come in after the first set of piano cords, then to try and synchronise the shot changes with the endings of the piano cords, then start smooth transitions from shot to shot as the singing comes in.
The match being struck would occur while the screen is still dark, and would then have the footage of the match lighting the candles just after the match strike fades out, like in the original video, but instead of the couple in a car crash, darkness.
I would then skip all the scenes of the couple in the car crash and leave in all the happy footage, then continue onto the next happy couple, and so on.
I'm liking how this video is beginning to evoke an emotion within me when I watch it, but I'll have to do a lot more editing to be sure whether it's truly working well at evoking an emotion or not.
I've looked into my idea of using the emotion of joy then grief further, and made a list of several effective car safety ads, the kind that came to mind when I first thought of the idea of montaging these to the song 'Unforgettable'.
Two of the most hard-hitting ads:
An average couple at a party get a bit of a shock on the way home
A couple run into a bit of trouble after celebrating the girl's father's 55th birthday
Why do these ads have an emotional effect on me?
The reason I think these ads are so hard-hitting is they set you up with a peaceful or happy setting then quickly change the mood to one of extreme grief, distress and sadness. I also think these would be effective at evoking an emotion with my teacher, as at the start of the term he said that for him, sadness wasn't just a montage of soldiers fighting on a battlefield. It was people who you know, or people you can relate with, going through pain or loss. A very emotional experience with him was when he had to perform CPR on a neighbour, and despite performing it for a long period of time, he was shoved away by the ambulance when they got there, he was told that he had done enough, and the grief he felt at failing to save that man's life was immense. The way the people and situations in these ads are so familiar to myself and other people I know is one of the reasons they create such an emotional response, the same thing could have happened to someone you know, or yourself.
This is why I think going from the happy scenes in these ads to the grief-ridden scenes of these ads with a song that can portray both joy and grief would be extremely effective at evoking an emotion within my teacher and classmates.
Here are my first few ideas for my digital media project:
Idea 1 - The emotion of childhood joy and wonder
Song: Mirror Night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMFcPPe1x2Y First thoughts
This song always evokes a strong emotion in me of joy and happiness, and paints the image in my head of a child or children playing in a blanket fort, or under their bed covers during a thunder storm (see below). This image evokes the feeling of awe, fear, excitement and joy that children feel when they're confronted by something that to them is scary and unknown, but that still feels exciting and fills them with joy to be confronting, the kind of feelings that childhood is all about.
What would I accompany it with?
I would accompany this song with videos and images of children playing, and building or playing in a blanket fort or under their bed covers, like you see in movies. As the music progresses I would add videos of it starting rain, and thunder, then continue with videos of children, afraid but also in that state of awe that childhood is all about. I would sync sections of the song with the footage, syncing the sound of thunder with flashes of lightning, and scene switches with major piano cords or notes.
This is the kind of scene of a child hiding under a blanket during a storm that I want to find videos of
This eerie adaptation of the song Walking Behind You sounds much more empty and creates an atmosphere that puts me on edge. This song was very effectively used to evoke fear in the trailer for the game SCP Containment Breach (see below) and I believe it would be possible for me to mimic this effect in my digital media presentation.
What would I accompany it with?
Accompanying this song I would put eerie footage of abandoned houses and dark forests, etc, with added jumpscares and freaky images, just like in the trailer. A problem with this idea however is the length of the song, less than two minutes. I would need more eerie music to accompany this project as well, so if I go with this idea I would need top find more music.
The trailer for SCP: Containment Breach, that effectively uses this song to evoke fear
This song sounds like a happy, joyous song which could also be used to portray an emotion of longing or grief. A notable time I remember hearing this song is at the start of the movie 'Watchmen', where there is a fight scene to this song (see below). This particular scene also evokes an emotion within me of grief or loss, which I believe to be evidence that this idea could work. The original emotional intent of the song, however, is one of joy and happiness, meaning it that I could start the project with clips of happiness and joy, then progress to clips of sadness.
What would I accompany it with?
The first videos that come to mind when I'm thinking about videos that progress from happiness to sadness are car safety ads, which start with a happy family or setting then progress to a gruesome, unsettling or grief-ridden scene. By montaging the happy, then sad segments of these scenes, I believe I could recreate the emotional shock of these videos on a larger scale.
A fight scene accompanied by Unforgettable, which adds an emotion of grief instead of happiness
This my blog documenting my journey to creating a digital media presentation that evokes an emotion.
I will be using Sony Vegas to compile images, videos, music, sounds, text and special effects to evoke an emotion within my teacher such as happiness, sadness, anger, fear or comedy.
