‘Remember Me In 1983′ (Exhibition Video)
It’s over a month since I last posted a video, I’ve been pretty distracted by After Effects for the past few weeks; watching endless tutorials and reading anything I could understand.
The possibilities are so huge that it hurts my brain, I’ve been slowly but surely getting the hang of it. I’m also delighted to say that I’ve received a FilmBase training bursary, thanks to Artlinks and I’m really looking forward to doing some After Effects training soon.
The above video contains my first attempts at using AE; a quick and simple animated title sequence, for a video I shot of the awesome ‘Remember Me In 1983‘ exhibition by local artist Mick Minogue. The exhibition opened in the Coach Road Studio on August 7th as part of the Arts Festival 2009 and ran for several weeks.
I’ve known Mick for many years and his artistic skills have always amazed me, there’s no denying he has a style (he’s also a snappy dresser) but this was the first of his exhibitions that I felt was really Mick’s work; a nostalgic trip back to Saturday mornings in the 80’s, where you got up before the sun did, to overload on awesome cartoons while you stuffed your face with toast and sugary cereal. He even had a Saturday morning Cereal & Cartoons Opening.
As a child of the eighties and a big kid at heart, ‘Remember Me In 1983′ featured all of my Saturday morning favourites; the Thundercats, the Turtles, Ghostbusters, Defenders of the Earth and more, surrounded by 80’s toys and gaming systems to help set the mood. My favourite had to be ‘The Boss – The Final Showdown‘; an awesome 3D piece featuring Guile and M.Bison from StreetFighter 2.
I shot the exhibition video (above) about two weeks after it opened; I didn’t have any particular cut in mind when I was shooting the footage and the delay came due to two failed edit attempts. I tried using the different theme tunes but it just wasn’t working out so I ended up cutting the video to an awesome track that Mick gave me; made up of Super Mario sound effects.
Neither myself or Mick have any idea who this track is by, but if anybody knows then please let me know so I can add it to the credits. It was kind of tricky for me to cut this together, given the limited focus abilities on the Canon HG10, I had to keep the shots simple and I hadn’t cut anything like this before so I played around with some different cutting patterns.
As I’ve said, the video also features my first attempts using After Effects; beginning with an animated title sequence using one of many awesome promotional posters for the exhibition. I separated elements of the poster into different layers then animated various properties to make them move.
Check out the ‘Remember Me In 1983 – Exhibition Video‘ and as usual all feedback, comments and criticisms are welcome.
Don’t forget to check out Mick Minogue’s blog for more of his awesome work. I can’t wait for his next exhibition, I hope he includes some M.A.S.K stuff next time (these guys not this guy!).
