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Lydia Kurnia
Australia
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Heartwood
4.674.674.674.674.676votes
Views:305  Favorited:0 Reviews:0 Comments: 16
Heartwood was a poem written by my friend Jens Hieber and our latest visual poetry project. This time, we tried to do something different - playing with stop motion! :)

It started with an idea of photos blending into moving pictures, then I wanted it scrunching up in time with the music before it would dance about the ground. It was later that I thought ah! stop motion could do this. Then when I did the music, there was the harp section where the image of scattering dried leaves just came to mind. So Glenn had an idea to use the blue screen for that.

Anyway, the result of all was... as posted :)

We had a lot of fun making this project. So I hope you enjoy watching it as well!

Cheers!
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Mdsize: 23.24MBwxh: 640x360
Updated:  4 months ago
Short
Duration:  00:03:16
Definition:  This Video is a High Definition (HD) Video
Dimensions:  1280 x 720
Size:  117.53MB
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Credits
Colourist: Glenn Thomas Rating:  5.00 Rate: 1  2  3  4  5
Director: Lydia Kurnia Rating:  5.00 Rate: 1  2  3  4  5
Equipment:
Editor: Lydia Kurnia Rating:  5.00 Rate: 1  2  3  4  5
Equipment:
Final Mix: Glenn Thomas Rating:  5.00 Rate: 1  2  3  4  5
Music: Lydia Kurnia Rating:  4.00 Rate: 1  2  3  4  5
Equipment:
Videography / Cinematography: Glenn Thomas Rating:  4.00 Rate: 1  2  3  4  5

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Comments



Willem Van den Broeck    August 24, 2008 04:16 PM
I'm very interested in how you did the paper effect.

Awesome shots at times, for instance the last one, just sublime.

Lydia Kurnia    August 24, 2008 06:05 PM
Thanks Willem, ah you are always quick with the comments :D

The paper was done in stop motion - we took pictures of every movement, every scrunch and then fit them into frames (as per the beat of the music) <-- a lot of planning went into this one hehe... That's not the difficult bit though, the hard bit was making the blending from picture to motion perfect - because the colours of the pics did not match the video. Glenn did a great job correcting the colours here, so he should get the credits not me :)

We had a lot of fun doing this project :)

Yes I do love the last shot too - beautiful wasn't it? :)

Willem Van den Broeck    August 24, 2008 07:55 PM
Yes, it certainly is.

And compliments on the music. I have reinstalled the sound again on my pc, and have gone through many of your projects again for the music. It is very good. I particularly like the rhythms because they're layered quite profoundly. Well done, in my humble opinion.

Glenn Thomas    August 24, 2008 11:21 PM
Hi Willem, thanks for the comment.

Yes, the paper was pretty simple to do. Just stills sequenced together at 1/8 notes, which then became 1/16's. Although the colour correction was a bit tricky, well to match the paper shot to the video took a colour corrector plugin, levels adjustment, and two secondary colour correctors. One for the sky because the blue was different and another for the leaves.

The only real problem was the shadows from the leaves.. Should have probably used some proper lighting and done that indoors.

Glad you like it :)

Shiv Kumar    August 25, 2008 03:53 PM
Glenn, Lydia,

I think both of you have done a fantastic job on this one. I can totally appreciate the planning and time that must have gone into this. I love the music and the editing. The images are sharp and with rich colors. All of it truly very inspiring.

The images, music and editing are so captivating that I couldn't concentrate on reading the poem itself, so I watched this a few times just to soak it all in. I suppose that's a good thing, huh? Congratulation go out to Jens for the poem as well. Tell him/her to choose someone less capable the next time so the poem stands out :).

@ 0:28 I love how the image pauses and then starts to morph with the music. I didn't quite care for the roll effect though.

I love how you did the stop motion animation of the crumbling paper and then how @ 1:19 the kind of undoes itself and picks up and joins back in with the regular images. Awesome stuff.

@ 1:47 I love how you've used chroma keying and stop motion to produce a transition.

The shot at the end with the credits is really nice. It kind of lends itself to, "the end" in some way.

The poem itself, I'm afraid I don't quite get. I mean I'm not the best at interpreting poems and things unless I have a context of some sort. I'd love to hear Jens' interpretation though. I think it will complete the whole.

Lydia Kurnia    August 25, 2008 05:05 PM
Thank you, Shiv, I am glad you liked it :) With regards to the poem itself, I am not really sure there's any special meaning or anything (if there is, it could be personal for it didn't translate for me either hehe). Jens just told me one day, he had a poem about trees and my mind just went 'zing! I can do trees!' :)

Thanks again for the comment.

Shiv Kumar    August 25, 2008 05:31 PM
Oh, that (not getting the poem) makes me feel a lot better!

So the next subject is "people/humans" - who's writing?

Glenn Thomas    August 25, 2008 05:44 PM
Hi Shiv,

Glad to hear you like it. Are the tilts and pans slow enough? :) How about the SGPro look, are you beginning to see the difference when compared to the look you get from other adapters?

By the way, Lydia posted a few photos of us filming the leaves and paper. They're on her Flickr page here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/33904170@N00/
She'll have to post those here too now ;)

Shiv Kumar    August 25, 2008 05:54 PM
Hi Glenn,

Gosh I did notice the slow pans an tilts. They were perfect. Right in step with the mood of the whole thing too. Even the hand held dolly out was smooth.

I do see the difference in the bokeh. I can't quite pin it nor determine which one I like. I'm not sure I even have a preference, but yes there is a marked difference.


By the way, Lydia posted a few photos of us filming the leaves and paper. They're on her Flickr page here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/33904170@N00/
She'll have to post those here too now ;)


But of course!

Glenn Thomas    August 25, 2008 06:36 PM
Hi Shiv,

Yes, the SGPro bokeh is probably most visible at 00:20 where the car drives past. It's more like a 35mm SLR look, or like the look you get from the Red cameras. In many feature films shot on 35mm film though, the bokeh looks completely different due to the anamorphic lenses they use, which make highlights appear as vertical oval shapes. Quite interesting.

Excuse me for trying to convert a few of you Letus users, but here are another couple of examples Wayne Kinney posted a while back that show the difference :)
http://www.sgpro.co.uk/bokehdifference02.gif
http://www.sgpro.co.uk/bokehdifference.gif

Shiv Kumar    August 25, 2008 07:10 PM
So what do you think of the bokeh in this video of mine?
Story Telling–Canon XHA1 and Letus35 Extreme

You'll see it in the first shot.

Glenn Thomas    August 25, 2008 08:03 PM
Yes, I see it, and a great movie by the way which I remember watching a while back :) Of course the 'orbs' are possible with the Letus and other similar adapters. Normally when using a long lens? Still, normally they appear bright in the middle as I've noticed with a few of Phil Bloom's shots. Although if you look at the scenery around the outside of your car shot and even the shot before it, the look is still kind of hazy. More of a gaussian blur look.

In comparison, at the 20 second mark on Heartwood again it's not just the highlight on the car with more defined edges on the blur, but there are also tiny 'orbs' visible on the out of focus leaves, a tree trunk in the background, parked car etc. There's a shot in your movie at 2:55 with some grass in the background. With an SGPro you would probably be able to see all the highlights on the blades of grass at the back.

Although I guess at the end of the day it's all subjective. A lot of people probably prefer the gaussian blur :)

Craig Stone    August 26, 2008 08:02 AM
Awesome work as always Lydia and Glenn. I'm actually quite amazed at how frequently you post new material. Your choice of subject (I'm nuts about trees), shots, final colour and music consistently appeal to my taste. The stop motion is very cool - I think it's one of the most powerful and underutilized techniques. It would be great to see some more of it! :) I messed around with doing some sto-mo sequences about 2 years ago (clouds, sunrises, people doing weird stuff etc.) - had a blast doing it!

I'm not very fond of the page curl transition. Mainly a personal taste thing, I know. To be constructive : I think it's that the transition felt out of context. Everything else about the sequence is natural, soft and warm. The sharp-edged, animated CG look of the transition seems to contrast sharply with it's context.

Great work! Thank you for sharing it.

Shiv Kumar    August 26, 2008 08:04 AM
Hi Glenn,

I'm glad I don't really care :). I get a shallow depth of field and that's what I care about. Ignoreance is bliss as they say.

I do like what I see here but I guess I'd have to see the exact same images (as a video) for me to be able to compare and actually develop a preference.

Glenn Thomas    August 27, 2008 09:51 AM
Craig,

Thanks for having a look. We were really lazy with the stop motion to be honest. Not much planning had gone into that. Might try some more again sometime. Although we really need to get back to doing some 3d.

Shiv,

Yes, that's good to hear! As long as we're all happy with the tools we're using and can get decent results from them. I guess that's all that matters.

Lydia Kurnia    August 27, 2008 04:06 PM
Thank you, Craig, I am very happy you liked it. Yes the pageroll transition was a bit bland. I wanted it to roll in reality but could not see how it would work.

Bah, Glenn said there wasn't much planning, that's because I did all the planning myself :p I had to make sure they all made sense with the poem and where they appeared to go with the music :) He just did the filming :p There WAS a lot of planning going before hand, he just didn't know it ;)

Thanks again!



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