Ten Second Film Festival - Planning (Part 2)

Welcome back to the Ten Second Film Festival! This post is the second stage of the planning of my project.

The previous post thought about the idea and concept of the movie. Now I have to look at things like frame resolution, music track, set design etc.

I have found a suitable music track (Cahill featuring Nikki Bell - Trippin On You) and have edited it to the desired length. I have edited it so that I have an introduction for opening credits and titles, a middle section for the actual movie (this section lasts ten seconds) and then a final part for the end credits. To listen to the edited track, click below:

Click Here To Listen To Soundtrack

Note that a WAV version of the file above will be used in the project to maximise audio quality. The file has been compressed for online hosting.

I have designed my set using a virtual lego designer, which will make it much easier to create the real model. Remembering my idea to include a bar, dj booth, and dancefloor, my model will look (hopefully) similar to the following (click for larger view - requires Quicktime Player):


As you can see, the set design is not complete, there is still quite a bit of work to do, but now both yourself and I have an idea of what the animation set is going to be like. Several features are still missing, such as loudspeakers and lights. This is due to the software I used not having all the bricks I needed within it.

The frame resolution of the animation is stil undecided. I am going to have to work on a project at 25fps (the PAL standard), which means that using a 12fps rate for the still images might cause problems. For this reason I might end up doing the entire thing in 25fps, which will mean taking 250 stil images for the full ten seconds, but I am going to try do some research into whether I can create the animation in 12fps, and use 25fps for the beginning and end credits. I will update this post when I have come to some decision.

Referring to the Gannt Chart in the previous post, if the project stays to schedule I will begin filming next week. The filming will take place one day and I will hopefully be able to shoot the whole movie in one session because I have taken good care over the planning. Using my storyboard I will be able to shoot scenes quickly and efficiently.

That more or less concludes my planning, although this post may get updated in the next week with any changes that I might make to the film. The next post looks at the production stage of the project, and will give a detailed explanation of different camera techniques and shot types that I will try to demonstrate in the short space of time I have got to present something spectacular.

Ten Second Film Festival - Planning (Part 1)

Welcome to Part 1 of my planning stages for my Ten Second Movie.

As mentioned in the previous post, I have decided to choose a challenging Animation theme. The idea which I am working with is as follows:

I will construct a nightclub out of Lego, with a DJ booth, bar, and dancefloor. This will allow me to use a variety of different settings in my ten second movie. The sequence will be cut quickly to a thumping dance track. Cutting scenes quickly gives the notion of a fast paced environment, which is what I am going to try and portray in my Lego Club.

I thought about vital information I needed before I could start the production process, and can list the following:

MOVIE NAME: A Visit To Club Lego
CLUB NAME: Club Lego
CHARACTERS: Lego Men. A Large Crowd, Bar Staff, a DJ
SETTING: Custom-Built Club (See Design Later In The Planning Posts)
MUSIC: Dance Track with a Driving Beat

I have created a Gannt Chart, which outlines the production schedule in details, and gives me a time scale to work to. This can be seen below (click on the thumbnail for full view)

I have also finished storyboarding the film, and detailed shot types (I will be posting about different shot types later) where possible. Again, click the thumbnail below for a full view of the storyboard. The storyboard was designed by imagining actually creating a film of this idea. This enabled me to better show camera movements between frames. This storyboard will be used to create the animation and will aid greatly when shooting the images that will be sequenced to create the film.

That's all for Part 1 of the planning. Check back for Part 2 early next week.

Ten Second Film Festival - Introduction & Ideas

The time has come to start thinking about Assignment 2 - The Ten Second Film Festival. The task is to design, plan and prepare a Ten Second Movie for considered submission to www.tensec.com, a website for hosting ten second films.

The first step to creating the movie is actually coming up with ideas of what I might use for the film. After thinking carefully about what would be physically possible in ten seconds I came up with the following ideas:

Timelapse Movie
Animation
Narrative

Timelapse

A Timelapse movie is one where a long piece of footage is sped up so that it fits inside a shorter time bracket. For example, the easiest way to create this idea would to be find a nice big open space and film the sun setting or rising. This of course takes a lot longer than ten seconds, and could involve filming for nearly two hours (or sometimes longer!). With the camera recording in the same position for the duration of the sunset, the footage can then be edited to create the timelapse scene. The editing process isn't all that complicated. It is simply a case of trimming the clip and than time stretching it to fit inside ten seconds. Easy peasey! And it created impressive results.

Animation
A difficult choice to choose, but one that also has the potential to demonstrate a lot of different production and post-production (shooting and editing) techniques. The number of frames in one second (frames per seond, or fps for short) is between 24 and 30 (depending on which part of the world you're in and what format you're watching on), which means that do create an animation I would have to shoot between 240 and 300 still images, and then edit them together in quick succession.
Animation is very effective and I could create an impressive end product, but it means a lot of work. However, I have not ruled out this option just yet!

Narrative
My final idea was to create a narrative film. This would most likely be a short sketch with just two people. It would be very hard to create a good, catchy sketch with more than two people in the short space of time I have got to present it. By doing a narrative film I could demonstrate a range of different camera shots and techniques, and could vary my shots from wide shots to close ups. I could also use advanced editing techniques in post production, such as split screen, transitions, overlays etc.

My Choice

I have decided to choose the Animation idea, and I will be cutting the movie to a fast paced audio track. I am going to use Lego to create a Lego Club, and I will choose a variety of shots from different angles and shoot enough images to be able to cut the sequence to the beat of the music, which will be chosen at a later stage. Shooting will probably take place over a week period, because it will be hard to take all 240-300 images at once. I have thought about using just 12 frames per second, as this might be enough to create something effective. I will however decide the frame rate during my full planning stages, which you will be able to read in the near future.

Keep checking back for developments on the planning of my film! Hopefully within the next week I will have a storyboard completed, and know exactly what I want to film.