Initial Music Research

Recently I have been gathering various examples of music with my group's feedback in an attempt to help our group to decide on the musical direction our project will take. The tracks below come from a range of sources, and I have chosen them since music with elements of these tracks or of a similar style may suit the mood of the short.

I had initially swung towards an ambient/electronic direction as in my opinion it suits the atmosphere, which is dark, psychological and mysterious. However, due to common conventions, we may use acoustic instruments such as a piano to convey the mood of emotive situations. Currently, I am planning to create the music for our project, so I'm hoping that surrounding myself in music earlier into our projects development will lead to much better results. With our previous opening sequence, the music was an afterthought, and whilst I believe that it fits well with the sequence I did not get a chance to develop it as much as I would have wanted.

After the results of our audience research to considered choosing an alternative genre of music as this may appeal to the audience my group is targeting, however we have since decided that this choice may not be appropriate for the mood of the short film. However some elements of alternative music, such as lesser known instruments may play a subtle role in the soundtrack.

Electronic/Ambient examples

Post Processing Research

Timelapse Compositing

The Boardwalk Empire introduction demonstrates a few special effects which are constructed in a similar manner to what I have already planned for our groups short film. The main effect that I am aim to recreate a recurring motif show's intro, and is shown at 0:17, 0:31, 0:52 and 0:55.

The special effect is comprised of a composite between two layers, the foreground  in this circumstance the figure, who was presumably shot against a blue or green screen and chroma keyed and lighting adjusted. The second, background layer is a timelapse of the sky. The two are combined resulting in the character looking out towards the ocean as a normal speed, with the footage of the sky behind him playing at a much faster and contrasting rate, with rough and dramatic clouds rapidly moving above.

In this example, the effect is used to show the character's power, almost portraying him as the god Neptune, his internal moral conflicts and emotions and the rough and brutal nature of his life as a gangster, and generally create a foreboding atmosphere. In my groups short, I would like to use a similar effect to demonstrate the passing of time and the character's thoughts of reliving his attack as a he slowly walks away from the scene of it.

Cinemagraphs

The initial inspiration for this time-lapse composited shot came from Cinemagraphs, short and often very simple looping animations in which most of the frame is still, with the remainder subtly being animated, such as moving hair blowing in the wind of a still person, or a man shuffling a newspaper amidst a still city.

I had initially thought to separate the character or a part of him from the scene to in a couple of shots to show that he is deep in thought and isolated. This would also show the transition period between the real world and his thoughts.

Cinemagraphs are commonly found in the format of looping animated GIFS, which has made them easy to distribute and view across the web, this format as well as the use of the web has near wholly allowed them to gain the small following that these images currently have.

Some examples