euzonyimajortwo2022

[euzonyimajortwo2022]

Reflection

This work reflects the tired soul that wants to escape the overstimulation of urban life. The journey of finding peace and harmony in the quiet music of nature serves as a reminder to slow down and take care of our needs. With it I encourage audiences to take some time to reconnect with nature, do nothing, feel as the world within synchronizes with the world outside.  “Song of Nature” is about exploring the ways in which we are all connected to the Earth and each other, and proving we are not living in the Universe, but we are one with it. Once we realize that, going into nature to heal ourselves makes a lot of sense.

Working on this project taught me a lot about time management, organization and how to trust my intuition when it comes to creative decision making. It was different to work with the camera and a small crew compared to my previous work that focused on 2D digital animation and only involved myself in the making. I found the experience exciting, tiring and fulfilling. I enjoyed organizing the people and scouting for location for the shoots, it showed me how much I’m capable of when I set my mind to do something even if it involves lots of energy. Working with a musician and an instrument I barely knew about proved to be very insightful, I learned that the harp can’t stay outside for too long in humid weather and had to change plans and reorganize schedule to work around that which led to building a whole prop harp.

Directing multiple people within limited number of shooting days and following a strict time schedule on set was quite new so I made some mistakes. I didn’t have an establishing shot to introduce the location in some cases and ran out of time which resulted in not having enough footage from different angles. I used my storyboard as reference to create animations in between shots that didn’t flow well and ended up tying the scenes together while adding a new layer to the narrative in subtle way.

I’m very excited about using an acoustic harp song for the video. This project marks the first time I was able to work with a musician and it made me sure I want to continue connecting my visuals with music in the future. About sound design, my focus was on making everything sound as organic as possible, I used nature ambiance recordings and dry leaves and twigs to create foley sounds.

This project is a good reflection of its creation process, as it helped me process my feelings about living in the city and craving the silence and freshness of nature. I hope it will translate my feelings well and assist the audience in finding peace through it.

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Song of nature final edit

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Recording of the installation

One screen overhead projection with two speakers placed in each corner mounted on the ceiling on the side of the projector.

The dried flowers cast a shadow on the projection adding more texture and another element of bringing nature into the gallery space. To make the experience more sensory based, a few drops of organic cedarwood essential oil is added to the flowers. 

A rug for sitting to offer a more comfortable and relaxing viewing experience.

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Japanese ikebana-inspired clay vases for the dried flowers in the installation

My initial idea of bringing potted plants into the exhibition evolved into only adding a few pieces of dried flowers to create a more simplistic and harmonious composition.

As this project is heavily inspired by the Japanese philosophy of connecting to nature (Forest bathing or Shinrin-Yoku) I found it fitting to follow a similar ideology in the presentation of the video.

Ikebana is the centuries-old Japanese art of flower arrangement to express emotion in a few elegant and carefully organized compositions.

Reference:

by Takahasi McGil

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Foley, surround sound, music score recordings

Gear: Zoom 4H recorder, shotgun microphone, HD headset

All sounds are recorded or digitally created by me with the exception of one track titled

“479206__smilecat77__sing-bowl-wave-bird-relaxtion-meditation-music”

https://freesound.org/people/smilecat77/sounds/479206/

This sound is sourced from Freesound.org and made by the user called “Smilecat77″ I have permission to use this sound in my project as the work is licensed under the Creative Commons 0 License.

“The person who associated a work with this deed has dedicated the work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her rights to the work worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.You can copy, modify, distribute and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.“

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/

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Test projection in the studio 15/05/23

This is a test recording of the projector setup for the installation. 

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Test export

Things that need to be fixed:

Finishing audio, adding foley and checking levels

Finishing the two animations that are now in animatic form

For the installation:

Projection test on the 15th of may

Making small ikebana vases, adding dried flowers, getting rug

Setting up installation and recording for submission deadline

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Test for title card and end credits

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Animatic for the second scene connection

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Animatic for the animation that will connect two scenes in the middle

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Animated establishing shot to show the location of the nature scene

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Blooming faces animation inspired by a moving image piece by Javier Olivera about a man laying on the ground slowly being overgrown by grass and another video piece, the music video for the song “The River” by Aurora, Norwegian musician

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Animation layout test

I am going to put a short animation about the character’s faces are grown over by plants to reflect their journey from the disturbed and noisy environment to the peace of nature.

Version 1

Version 2

I chose to use version 2 as the composition is more compact. The formation was partially inspired by the music video of Bohemian Rapsody by Queen (1975)

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A reupload of the scene/location test video from Stanmer park due to the previous link not working

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There are some blank gaps in this version which will be filled with animations following the journey of the pine cone,

The audio will be completed with more textural elements and natural surround sound in the harp concert scene.

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Video editing workflow plans

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Backing up footage