Maps and Networks | CIRCUIT
As I mentioned in previous posts, our installation is presenting the result of evil behavior. It is about the communication nowadays... The source can be completely innocent so as the speaker, but the messenger is the one who makes the rules. Particularly in our installation, the way of changing the message is cleared in three ways.
Still playing with the spread of information we wanted to base the piece on the passing and delivery of words, how things said by others can’t be monitored nor controlled. In the piece, you are viewing five separate screens working as a vocal circuit. Four of the Screens act as distributors of information. Starting from the left (Screen 1) something is said, moving along it reaches the middle screen, upon receiving the news the middle screen reacts, the reaction is later heard/seen by another passing on the story. The middle screen acts as a Breeder and Target for gossip it plays a victim of rumor. Shocked by the words it has come to hear, it addresses the viewer with the words “just between you and me” in hope to seal the spreading; in natural fact, nothing stays private. The circuit loops again, middle screen reacts with anger “Beat the shit out of a pillow” yet making another headline.
CIRCUITHaving in mind this interesting video I look for another. Each video took my attention more and more.
After a good research, I found out what is Morph Motion - Still to Still. Soon I had a RE:Flex plugin on my Adobe After Effects.
I run few tests and realized that on trial version nothing is going to work. It put a huge cross over the image - watermarked.
Having this problem made me think of ways around it. So I came with a solution to generate huge pictures, edit them with the watermark and then just crop needed frame in Adobe Premiere.
I ended up with 11.5K footage on my computer. All videos and sequences were about this size leaving portrait area for FULL HD resolution. 1080x1920p PORTRAIT!
I watched tutorials how to use RE:Flex motion morph for different files - videos, still images and animations. I was very into this technique and I am glad I explored it. First tests went bad, but I got use to it. One portrait took me about 4 hours to turn sideways and open its mouth.
What motion morph does is basically takes the points defined by me and blends together with the image next. I have to go frame by frame and move shapes that are different for two frames between.
Here is a video that is taken for 4.5 hours.
In total, I made fully 6 portraits. Morphing and later on exporting through Adobe Premiere in .MOV H.264 1080x1920p 25fps.
After generating motion from still, it was time for motions. Each motion was trimmed separately like sequence. It was more like a sequence of the sequence of the sequence. Files on files.
As you can see. For each face, I had approximately 22-30 masks and each mask has to be keyframed. Well, that would be easy, but each mask, like layer for hair consisted of 200 points which need to be separately moved because masks are changing their own shape.
In my opinion, we set roles very clever. Ivan was in charge of characters. As soon as he finished one face I began to draw shapes and move pictures in After Effects. I think his process was not easier, all layers and texture took a long time. Meanwhile, I was working with different sizes, trying to figure out pixel ratio and frame times in certain seconds.
We had issues, particularly my Adobe crashed for like 5 times.
I would say that I was excited by the process learning a new technique... but closer to the end and I got very tired. Every single point needs to be checked in all frames, keyframed every single second and because of different drawings, all shapes changed their form every single frame.
It was challenging, even more, because of something I have never been aware of. I got new experience and a feeling of great teamwork.
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