#creative heroes

But enough of that. Where’s this going?

Last weekend I animated my Creative Heroes short film. I basically played with toy cars and wax crayons for hours on end and it was brilliant. Then it had to be edited which wasn’t as much fun to begin with.

Our session with resident Premiere Pro guru, Jason, was a month ago and I’ve done about a hundred million things since. I took to lynda.com for a refresher. After a few tantrums and battles, through brute force, sheer ignorance and a few lightbulb moments, I managed to fudge together a first edit. I put it straight on Vimeo and Facebook and invited feedback. It stings at first but it’s always worth it. I try to remember this every time I release one of my babies (creative works) out into the wild (public domain).

First edit: https://vimeo.com/146154653

It made a good first impression but the consensus was that there was not enough time to read all of the text. People also thought it needed more demonstrations using the skidding car animal depictions. I’d actually made another such sequence which didn’t fit into this first edit, so that was ready to go. In summation, play text slower, add more animals. EASY! But keep it to 60 seconds. NOT SO EASY!

I stripped out superfluous text which created necessary space and became one of my Manifesto Good Habits: if it’s not needed, lose it. I was able to extend text scenes for improved readability and include another skidding car animal to give the audience what they needed and wanted. I also tested my fledgling Premiere Pro abilities (and my patience) a little further and made two variations of this second edit: one with narration, one without. Some people had thought a narration would help digesting the text onscreen. Others, myself included, thought the duplication would distract attention.

Second edit without narration: https://vimeo.com/146413948 Second edit with narration: https://vimeo.com/146413949

These experiments were a good use of time. Feedback was unanimous: without narration is better. It was nothing against my deep, mahogany tones blundering their way through the film like a childish PowerPoint presentation, but the version without voiceover encouraged the audience to actively watch, rather than be spoon-fed information that they could passively chew and immediately spit out. Of course, the concept of how positive and negative space interact with each other, especially through an abstract racing car metaphor with animal shaped skid marks by way of a demonstration isn’t going to ring familiar with everyone, but this just added value to the feedback. The fact that I agreed with most of it was a bonus.

Below is the third edit which involves minor yet crucial edits in the first 16 seconds and some basic colour correction and enhancement throughout. I’m starting to see the light at the other end of this project, which I have genuinely found creatively and technically challenging from the start.