Second Meeting with Tim

Unfortunately due to time constraints my planned second meeting with Tim will have to be done via email. I emailed him a list of what I've done so far for his opinions before I started to assemble the clips into a final intro:

Final Zoom Sequence

To get something to show Tim at our next meeting and give him a better idea of what I was working on I exported the zoom into Brighton from space sequence and added a test bit of footage to the end. Below is what I am going to show Tim for feedback:

Music

So far I have had very little luck with music. The theme for the News intro is apparently being composed by Diana Frangi at Latest, but all I've had from her is an unfinished clip that is impossible to edit to. She has also refused to accept the specified time of 15-20 seconds and went with 29 seconds because she said it sounded better. I have emailed her a deadline of this weekend to have the rough version sent to me by despite her promises of it being with me a week ago. If I don't get it on time I will have to find and alternative clip to use as the News theme or compose one myself.

Using NASA WorldWind

In order to get some copyright free satellite imagery I used the WorldWind Java applet to access data from Landsat and NASA Blue Marble servers, for some reason this works far more efficiently on a Windows XP Virtual Machine. I started zoomed all the way and then began to capture images at regular intervals until the whole globe was visible:

Using parenting I scaled them down together in After Effects and keyframed in a zoom. The speed of this was corrected using the exponential graph function to account for the percentages be too large at the beginning of the scene.

Copyright Free Images

Tim has asked me to have a zoom from space into Brighton as the establishing shot for the News intro. After looking for some high detail satellite images from the obvious sources (Google Maps/Earth and Bing) I discovered that if any of there material is used for broadcast, several notices of where the content has been sourced from must be provided. This would be very unprofessional looking for a news intro. I consulted a relative who works in an agency that provides motion graphics for TV channels and he recommended I use a program provided by NASA called World Wind. Fortunately all NASA imagery on the software is royalty free and can be used for commercial purposes with attribution.

After Effects Experiments

For the second weather sting I produced I ran into a problem with how the graphics were looking. The weather logo was displayed above a puddle with the reflection of the pavilion and I masked in a reflection for the logo too, but it didn't look right with the way the water was moving underneath it. I first used mocha for After Effects to create a tracked plane the the text was fixed to:

To better fix the logo into its environment I decided to try and simulate what I could see happening to the reflection in the puddle and apply it to the logo's reflection. To do this I found an effect called 'turbulent displacement' which sounded like it would have desired effect:

To get a proper simulation of the waters distortion effect I combined 2 Turbulent Displacement modules and one for Gaussian Blur. I used one to create very sharp, high-amplitude ripples from left to right as it was what I was seeing in the puddle. The other one was used to create a much more gentle ripple from top to bottom to add some more detail. The Gaussian Blur was used to make it look VERY slightly out of focus, as the focal plane was actually just behind the reflection.

In order to animate the ripples I used the 'Evolution Seed Number' which determines the starting point for each ripple. This was key-framed to increase from 0 to 76 (the number of frames in the composition). This means that the pattern for the displacement shifted by one step for each frame, creating a natural water-like movement. The intensity of the displacement was also key-framed to match the patterns of the breeze blowing across the puddle.

More Test Sequences

I plan to meet with Tim again early next week to chat further about content so I made a few more clips as examples to show him. These versions are what will most likely be used as the stings and introductory portions for each section as they have been edited down to 3 seconds each. Below is what they look like:

Motion Tracking Test

Once I had filmed a few shots I decided to put together a single example of what I intend to create the whole intro from. For this I took my shot of the Ferris Wheel on Brighton seafront and brightened it up with some colour correction. This was necessary because I shot the footage with and extremely flat colour profile to preserve dynamic range, as well as a circular polarising filter to help control the intensity of the sky and in-shot reflections. The resultant footage when shot like this tends to look very grey a washed out but provides an excellent base for almost any style of colour correction. I then imported the latest News logo and used the built in motion tracking in after effects to fix it to one of the pods on the wheel. Below is how it turned out:

Overall I pleased with the result and will continue in this vein unless it's not what the people at latest News had in mind.

First Filming

Today I went out and completed a few of the shots on my register to use for preliminary testing and approval from Tim. Below is my progress so far:

I will probably have to re-film a few of the shots due to the weather looking very depressing.

Research Into Text Motion Tracking

Seeing as I plan to use a lot of motion tracked text elements in my final design I decided to do a bit of research into the various ways its done. Its seems like almost everyone uses -in order of complexity- one-point tracking from within After Effects, mocha for After Effects or a program called Boujou. The tracking built into After Effects generally deals with a single point on a 2D plane which is useful for simple shots not requiring and perspective changes. The program mocha for After Effects is much more useful for shots where perspective needs to shift with the camera as it deals with a planar surface in '3D' space. Boujou is full 3D and introduces far more complexity to shots. I will decide on what route to take on a shot-by-shot basis depending on what I need to achieve, although mocha will most likely be used for the majority of them.

Latest TV Font

After a bit of analysis, I worked out that the font used for the latest TV logo is Frutiger, more specifically a mix of 66 Bold and 66 Bold Italic. I will try to use this font for all of the stuff I do for latest TV, unless it isn't working visually in a specific situation.

Shot List

To get a more detailed breakdown of the shots I need I drew up a full shot list. To make sure I don't miss anything I've printed it out to take with in my sketchbook. Most of the footage wont be in the final intro but I think its best to cover all bases in case I change my mind.

Designing Shots

I have started to sketch out some shots so I can remember them all as well as the composition plans for each location in preparation for shooting in the break in the weather tomorrow. Its essential that I get everything filmed looking cheerful and not all wintery like it is at the moment.

First Meeting

I had a meeting with Tim, the head of Latest News today to discuss my ideas. I pitched a combined version of the zoom in from space and landmarks of Brighton ideas but I also plan to include some motion tracked text that displays the names of the segments (News, Entertainment, Sport and Weather). Below is a good example of what I want to achieve with the text elements:

Overall he seemed pleased to let me run with it as long as check-in regularly to make sure I was on the right track. I'm happy to carry out the project in this way as it gives me plenty of scope to be creative with how I tackle the brief.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for the news intro is going be produced by Diana Frangi, the in-house composer for Latest TV. So far I have been sent a very rough version of this by her which seems to work well, although it still has quite a bit to still be completed. She is composing to a 30 second time-limit which is double mine, I intend to get around this problem by cutting out half the intro and having it loop over the Headline summary. Overall I'm very pleased with her work so far and cant wait to see the final product.

Style Guidelines

So far I have been provided with minimal branding guidelines for the news, they only really specify colour and size of the logo. This is pretty much what I expected given that there is nothing produced for the show yet, its going be up to me to shape a determine the finer aspects of the graphic style for the news. Below is the information I've received so far:

An issue I have noticed with the guidelines is that the size of the logo seems to be specified for print rather than screen display. As all the software I will be using for motion graphics work in pixels I decided to calculate a relative size that will be much easier to use.

The average screen resolution works out to around 72 pixels per inch, or about 28.34 pixels per cm (1"=2.54cm ∴ 72/2.54=28.34ppcm). This means that the logo should always be displayed at around 30 pixels or more in height (10mm=1cm).

Ideas from Tim

So far I've received 3 ideas for the main titles.

Idea 1:

MG: Slow Spinning, Pulsing Globe, a bit like this (but latest colour pallet, pulsing and no blue lazar scanners) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N_G6fT4YQ0 with each pulse a major city name pops out, (c TEXT) then we see giant arrow in space earth bound (a bit like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB_c7TrNn9g 0:38-0:41) then arrow jettisons towards earth (Arrow has Latest News written on it) passing over major cities of the world. Then Passes major landmarks of Brighton, ends up at the latest music bar which transforms into our logo (Style Slick).

I quite like this idea in principle but the main problem is that its almost exactly the same as the BBC news intro, mainly because of the colours.

Idea 2:

http://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=G_yCXHqJgh4
In slick modern motion graphic style. We’re propelled inside a clock to see the inner cogs ticking, we come out and a person is looking at their watch, the second hand ticks and we see the graphics etc...

Not sure about this one as it seems like its strong on concept but doesn't tie in with the theme of news that solidly.

Idea 3:

Camera sweeps into brighton from outer space, zooms in on the world, then zooms in on UK, then zooms in to Brighton, where we see lots of Brighton Landmarks such as The Pavilion, the pier, the wheel, the Amex Stadium, The lanes, The theatre Royal and some Hotels.

So far this is the strongest for me as it would be very engaging to the audience, given that it is going to be a local news show. People can relate to locations and feel like the programming is very close to their daily lives.

Production List

My first thoughts surrounding the list of things I need to create are that its going to be quite a lot of work to do. Thankfully we have a slightly longer time-frame to complete the work than previous projects as well as a more relaxed structure surrounding crits and pitches. Although its a fair list of things do, most of them are only 2-3 second pieces of motion graphics that can be produced very quickly once the main style and ideas have been established.

Latest TV Brief

For our next project we have been sent to create motion graphics and footage for the soon-to-launch TV Channel Latest TV. Soon after the initial briefs were released we were divided up and assigned the section of the channel which we would be working on, I was assigned the news. At first I thought this would be a slightly boring and stale program to be designing for in terms of visual style, given that it's one of the oldest existing TV formats. However, the main thing in favour is the amount of exposure me work would get.

I'm very excited to get started of this brief as its a live project where we get to liaise with actual clients. This should provide an excellent chance to gain experience and build my skills for entering the professional environments. Networking opportunities should be plentiful too.