We all have at least one or two crazy idiosyncrasies, right? I am no exception. There are two things in particular I do, and both are applied to this 9-second video project.
I signed up for a 30-day UI challenge. Because Chris and I have been playing with video so much, I decided to take the daily challenge topic and morph a video into it. Basically, it seems I’m always breaking the rules to find a way to push my current area of focus. Surely everyone does this too! As long as it isn’t dangerous or hurtful to someone. The second personal focus I applied to this challenge is doing everything from the iPad. Because, I promise, one day I will work exclusively from the iPad. Fingers crossed.
Start by picking your app(s) you want to use. It is extremely important to know the apps inside and out. For instance, with the video app I know I can keyframe left and right motion, but I cannot keyframe color effects. Also, I know I can only add two other layers of elements to display at one time. If one of those is text that only leaves one layer for graphics. Yikes!
Now it’s time to do a little hacking to make something a bit more unique that fits into the day’s challenge topic. In the early 2000’s when I was really digging deep into photoshop and slideshows, I was constantly in awe of the creators that came up with really cool tricks. I purchased countless books and magazines with headlines “25 Tricks in Photoshop You Need to Know.” Minimized fear to jump into the creative hacking space. Chris (the husband) thinks i’m crazy, but I think deep down he wants to be just like me when he grows up.
For this particular video, I went into Affinity Photo and created a canvas that was 7680×1080 and divided the canvas up into four areas using guidelines. That gives me four “screens” in width, in just one file. Yes, I could have made four individual files … blah blah … but I simply wanted to use the keyframing feature in LumiFusion (the video app). The point of these challenges is to experiment, right? Not worrying too much about which way is ultra efficient or best. Just do it and learn something!
Click below to watch the video.
Let’s dissect the elements of this video:
Layer 1: video with audio
Layer 2: 7680×1080 image with key frames applied
Layer 3: four text elements (only one displaying at a time)
The video was taken in Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego one afternoon when we (Chris and I) were walking around doing some street photography. It was kinda cool to repurpose a random video for this challenge. These UI challenges area a great excuse to get back down there for another afternoon of meandering with a camera, shooting video. AH! It’s the best!
So we’ve learned:
1) It’s okay to make your own rules.
2) The iPad workflow is limiting, but …
3) Hacking tricks of your own is a great challenge.
4) You can never have too many random videos in your collection.
5) It’s time to end this blog post, go outside, and play tourist with a camera!
