Final Project: Swiped

Above the the final project I created based on the dice I received: collage, video editing and storytelling. The video is about a short story of a person whose daily life is totally dictated by "swiping". I was inspired by a short video by by artist Steve Cutts I watched on instagram. 

I started with making a rough sketch of each scene on my sketch book and thought about all the details. The story was planned out thoroughly with the sequence of each scenario in order to keep the process as effective as possible. I spent lots of time collecting different resources online for my collage before putting things together. Then I imported all the images in Photoshop, and played around with compositions, image sizes and combinations to ensure the outcome would be ideal. Approximately 26 pages of collages was printed for this project after careful calculation on each frame.

 

One of the major difficulties at the beginning was that I couldn't find a right tool to place my phone. I bought a new mini tripod with flexible legs and hoped it'd help to hold my phone in position but it failed to balance due to the weight of my Iphone. I also tried to stick the tripod in a vase and thought it might be able to hold up the phone but it did not work out either. Eventually I decided to place the tripod in between books, which was actually a very effective solution. The books were heavy enough to keep the tripod in place. Additionally, I could adjust the height of my camera simply by adding or taking away books. I did not take many photos during shooting as I had to use the phone as the camera for my animation.

The process was fun but also exhausting. I spent the whole night standing while making the stop motion animation. Because of the major element "swiping" that's used in this story, I put in lots of effort to make sure the speed and the movement look like actual "swiping." I used an app called I Can Animate Lite to take the video. It's an app I knew from Dr. Burton's class. What I did not realize was that the free version of this app only allowed 240 frames each project. Eventually I had to make 3 projects in order to complete my story. I had this idea in the middle of my process, that maybe I could break my story into 3 episodes. But the fact that my video was only going to be 1 minute long turned down my thoughts. 

The shooting was completed with 620 frames, approximately 52 seconds. I imported 3 videos into iMovie and connected them into one story. Music, sound and some speed changes were added.

I put in lots of effort for this project and I definitely enjoyed the process, the only regret was that I wish I had more time. The idea I tried to convey would be much more convincing with some more refined details in between the story. Another thing is that because I used the free version of this app, so final videos I created got this app logo appeared on the bottom right that can't be removed, kind of bothered me but I can't do much about it.