"Speed of Love" motion graphics piece

Just finished up my first short project for my motion graphics class using Owl City’s “Speed of Love”.

Micah Powers, North Broad Studios, (Columbus, OH)

Here's a short documentary video I made about my brother's recording studio. Make sure to watch in fullscreen 1080p!

Hipster Zombie

This past semester I took an honors course called "Undead: Zombies in Film, Literature and Legend." It was a fascinating class, and for my final project, I did the make-up and photos below. (click to enlarge/see in slideshow format.)

 

 

 

 

This blog was originally created to show my process and finished work for one of my classes, but I'm going to continue using it to post work from other classes and personal work as well. During this month away from school I'll be posting some of my favorite work from this past semester.

1 album, 4 minutes: Taylor Swift's "Red"

Here is the final video! Make sure to watch it in fullscreen/1080p.

Final Project, Week 4: 1 Album, 4 Minutes: Taylor Swift's "Red"

I shot my whole video this past week, and edited over the past couple of days. I ended up scrapping the footage I got last week and starting over. I bought a huge piece of red poster board for a few dollars and it worked perfectly as a background that makes the video pop!

Here's a picture of my set up:

It's a pretty low-budget set up, but it got the job done :]

I'm so pleased with how everything is coming out. Here's a couple of screen shots of my rough cut!

I just have a few minor color correction and type kerning issues to work out on the video, and then mixing/editing some of the audio, and I'll be done! The video will be live on my YouTube channel on Thursday morning, December 13th (TSwift's 23rd birthday!). I'm so proud of how far I've come since my first two mashup videos and I can't wait to share this with everyone.

Final Project, Week 3: 1 Album, 4 Minutes: Taylor Swift's "Red"

This week I spent a lot of time adding harmonies and background vocals to the song.

I also worked on programming rough drums for every section, but they still need some more work, so I did not include them in the version I will showing the class today.

I started shooting the video as well!

I went ahead and laid out all of my opening titles and other text for the video in Final Cut. In my other videos, I have the name of the song at the bottom as it changes, and for this video I put it in the same font as the album artwork.

 

I have a lot to do in the next week and a half to finish up, but the writing/recording was definitely the toughest part, so I think I'll be fine. I need to polish the drum parts, program bass, and mix the song. Then I will just have to shoot/edit the video. I plan on finishing all the shooting this week so I can finish everything by the December 13 due date, which is coincidentally TAYLOR SWIFT'S BIRTHDAY!!! :)

Final Project, Week 2: 1 Album, 4 Minutes: Taylor Swift's "Red"

Despite being away from home for nearly a week for Thanksgiving break, I've made a lot of progress on my mashup. I recorded all the piano and scratch vocals before I left, and then while sitting on planes and in cars I programmed the vocal melody and adjusted all of the tempo changes. The tempo changes were definitely making me nervous, but once I carefully balanced them out, I was so pleased with the final foundation of the song!

This evening I've recorded all the lead vocals, and started recording some of the background vocals. This semester I've really missed singing/recording since I've been so busy with homework... so it's been really fun to have a chance for it to BE my homework!

I really wanted to try doing the stutter background vocal from the title song, "Red," so I gave it a shot and I actually figured it out. It was pretty simple but I'm SO excited about it!!! It sounds just like the effect in the original. I've been wanting to learn how to do a stutter vocal for a while and now I have a new skill :] Here's a clip so you can hear it:

I also recorded a short ukulele part. The original version of the song "Stay Stay Stay" features ukulele, so I decided to use it for that part of the mashup. I might use it in other parts but I haven't decided yet.

This week my plan is to program drums, finish recording harmonies, add some synth/bass, and shoot video of the lead vocals/piano accompaniment. I'm right on track with my original plan, which is quite a relief.

Since her album is called Red, Taylor Swift has been wearing the color red at every performance and appearance. She's even been using a red microphone. I'm planning on getting out every red item in my closet and wearing them in all the different shots of the video.

Final Project, Week 1: 1 Album, 4 Minutes: Taylor Swift's "Red"

This week my goal was to finish writing the mash-up. This was very challenging, mostly because the tempos of all the songs in the album (there's 16 of them!) are of a very wide range. I knew this going into it, so the first thing I did when I started writing was to find out the tempo of each song so I could reference back to it when deciding which songs would sound good next to each other.

Next, I opened up the lyrics to every song so that I could reference them and easily copy/paste to piece the songs together.

Like I said, the wide range of tempos (73-157 bpm!) made it challenging, but I fit all of the songs in. Since I will be away from my little bedroom "studio" for all of Thanksgiving break, I knew I needed to at the very least record piano before leaving, so I can hammer out transitions, create tempo changes, and program melodies/harmonies for recording vocals while I'm away. That way I can record vocals as soon as I get home and start shooting some of the video.

Final Project Proposal

We've been given a completely open assignment for our last Design For Media project, so I'm using this opportunity to work on something that is specific and unique to me that I might not be able to do in any other class.

This summer, I started creating some mashup videos for YouTube. I call these videos "1 album, 4 minutes." I've only made 2 so far, but basically what I do is I create a medley from every song on a certain album, and then perform it. Here are the two videos that I made:

1 album, 4 minutes: Justin Bieber's "Believe"



1 album, 4 minutes, Owl City's "The Midsummer Station"




I like the mashups I made, but I filmed the videos with the webcam on my laptop. They are low quality and uninteresting. Some of favorite YouTube musicians have really nice videos for their mashups. and since I'm a cinematic arts major, I'd like to try and make an awesome video for my next mashup!

Here's a video by one of my favorite YouTube artists, I want to go somewhere like this!



Normally I just record piano/vocals, and program drums. I want to try and another layer of vocals and possibly some guitar and/or ukulele with this one.

The album I want to try and do is Taylor Swift's new album "Red".

Here's my timeline for getting this finished by the end of the semester:

The finished video will be up on Dec. 11!