JNG

Urban Symphony

Type: Music Video Style: Collage art motion graphic Music: In the midst of traffic

Content: Following the footsteps of a high school student during after-school hours to observe the streets of some big cities in Vietnam and listen to the vibrant sounds characteristic of the city. Collaging together images of the city's landmarks, passing through local eateries with cheers and the sound of opening beer cans, passing by places where young people gather, roadside food stalls with thousands of mouthwatering dishes. Follows her steps to experience Vietnam, its culture, and street food in the late afternoon and into the night through the screen, eventually concluding the video with the streets gradually returning to quietness, with only the occasional sound of motorbikes passing by.

Core quality of the video: Bricolage | Translator This short film blends the creative method of collage with the translation to create a showcase of Vietnamese food and culture. By using the bricolage approach, it’s a combination of images from the internet with personal photography, depicting the scenery and the dishes from many territories in Vietnam. Each frame offers a taste of hustling and bustling market, lush rice paddies and mouthwatering street food. This video aims to promote the diversity of Vietnamese cuisine while encouraging mutual cultural comprehension and respect. 

Credits: Creative Director: Jane Nguyen Art Director: Jane Nguyen Producer: Jane Nguyen Editor: Jane Nguyen Music Producer: Jane Nguyen Sources: from news, free stocks, library available in the internet

Personal Growth This project significantly aided in my personal development. My understanding of the complexities of video production. My capacity to deal with pressure, efficiently manage my time, and maintain flexibility in the face of difficulties all significantly increased.

Areas of Growth:

Enhanced technical skills

Improved project management and organizational abilities.

Creative thinking and problem-solving skills.

Strength:

Developed engaging and original narratives that captivated the audience

Mastered video editing software

Quickly adjusted to unforeseen challenges during the process

Weakness:

Spent excessive time on minor details, causing delays.

Faced issues when technical problems occurred. (After Effects needs a huge amount of ram to render so sometimes it becomes lagging)

I drew a mask inside the layer of scene 7 and set up the keyframes for mask path in order to create the transition tear the paper from scene 7 to reveal scene 8 below

The mask effect also helps me to generate the motion of noodle broth pouring down into the bowl in scene 8.

I turned on the 3D layer of the vector map so that I could manipulated it, especially making it lying down by adjusting its 3 dimension figures

I would like to make an impressive transition between scene 4 and scene 5. Therefore, scene 5 was showed through holes defined by the layer of the vector of a lotus - a symbol flower of Vietnam.

I also took advantage of this video which was downloaded from Youtube to produce some interesting transition. For these 2 transitions, I used the keylight effect to remove the color of green. Then the transition in video would be replaced by the layer above by using Track Matte

Following this tutorial helps me to utilise mask tracker in After Effects to track the motion of the beer so that I can separate the motion of the hand and beer out of the original black background. Then, the image of 333 beer could be blended into the beer can in the video by changing the blending mode into soft light

WIP

Using Adobe Photoshop to cut the image, apply stroke effect, arrange the layout and structure for each scene.

I had to seperate each subject into each layer so that I could carefully create motion for each element in each scene in Adobe After Effects.

After the second presentation, I received evaluations from the teacher and my classmates. Almost everyone has the opinion that the music is a bit fast and it will be difficult for the animation. Therefore, I adjusted the tempo of this sound in Ableton to make it a little slower

Scene 1

Photoshop:

First, I used the Photoshop app to cut and collage the image and arrange it properly, creating a relatively eye-catching layout. For more important subjects, I will apply an additional white stroke to help stand out and create diversity for the collage.

There are images, such as the original image of this tower, that are brighter and more saturated than other images. I also adjust the brightness and saturation in Photoshop so that the colors are consistent compared to the remaining images.

After Effects:

After cutting and arranging the images in Photoshop and clearly dividing the layers, I started creating animations for the subjects. This is how I created the first scene. Since the first scene is the main character cycling through famous locations, I used the camera in after effects to be able to pan from left to right and also create depth for the scene.

I tried to think about the content, scene, context for visuals while replaying the sound several times. Then, I visualized through my sketch of the storyboard with the annotation of the timeline according to the soundtrack

After hearing feedback from the teacher that I should refer to many different sources to get inspiration and have more ideas for my exercises, here are 3 examples that I referenced from 3 different videos about collage art especially about Vietnam. The videos that use Vietnamese sounds and create image movements according to the rhythm of the music are very interesting I can refer to. Because it is collage art with many colorful images, there will be no specific color palette.

Name of project: Urban Symphony Song: “In the midst of traffic” soundtrack - Jane Nguyen

“In the midst of traffic” - Jane Nguyen:  This is the track interpreting the sound in the evening, as people return home from work and school, they find themselves stuck in traffic. The sounds Vietnamese people commonly hear in such traffic situations include the blaring of car horns, the lively chatter from roadside eateries, and the pop of beer cans as colleagues and friends gather after a tiring day.

Although I created a plan and timeline, I procrastinated a little bit. After 2 weeks, I used my own camera which is Fujifilm X-E4 to film my vlog. After trying to use my own camera and producing videos with a quality that was not what I expected and considering the acting and production risks, I decided to choose the second option.

I received feedbacks from lecturer and friends in class after my first presentation. Most of the feedback is that the 2nd idea would be more feasible but the lecturer also advised me to try the 1st idea. Actually, I also wanted to give it a try and step out of my comfort zone to create a video by filming.