https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7xbfUycPXqYm5zQzBZX2c4MGs/view?usp=sharing
Blog 16: La Fin
Kim Yea Joon
Progress: La Fin. The End. We are officially done with editing. Now all that is left for us is to put my part and Joshua’s part together and make minor tweaks only if absolutely necessary. The video will be shown during the 20% Time Presentation and will be uploaded on this site after the presentations are over. Though it may not be perfect and not as professional as some of the higher-grade Youtube videos, I hope that this video could be used as a basic introductory to the history of WWII. This will be the last update we post on this blog.
Reflection: Everything is now coming to a close. With the video wrapping up and us preparing for our presentations, it feels like I’m ending a journey. There are regrets that I have and wish I had worked harder, but the past is the past so I want to make an ending that I will be proud of and not regret. Throughout the entire project, I learned many things from WWII history itself, shortcuts in editing, new and better techniques for animations, and also felt once again the importance of teamwork. I am so glad that I was able to try out new programs and skills that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to get my hands on if it were not for this 20% Time project. I also want to thank the people who took the time to read this and kept up with our updates. Merci beaucoup et au revoir.
Joshua Huh
Progress: Glad to say that editing is pretty much over now. I managed to get my part done and it wasn’t easy. Of course, I had a fun time doing it. All that effort and determination put into the editing was worth it and I am satisfied on how my video turned out to be. Now all we have to do is merge my video with John’s and we should be in business!
Reflection: Can’t believe it’s already the end of the 2nd semester. It feels like I just started this project last week. Time just flies doesn’t it? I had a great time doing this project and I will have a blast doing it again next year. I also learned new things about editing and about World War 2 that I didn’t know about. John and I made a great team and had no issues at all. We both had laughs and smiles as we progressed further which is something that I haven’t felt in a long time. Of course, it wasn’t easy doing this, but it’s the experience and fun that counts for me. I have absolutely no regrets in doing this project, it was an adventure every step of the way. Thank you to everyone of you who followed our progress till the end and to those who gave us great ideas! We love ya and we’ll see you next time!
Blog 15: Coming to an end
Joshua Huh
Progress: Nothing different from last week, it’s all still the same. However, I think I’ll have to work on both the presentation and the project at the same time. I won’t be able to finish the whole thing just on the weekends due to church and other assignments. But I’m positive that if I work on both of them simultaneously despite being more difficult, I can finish both at the same time. I also have John to back me up whenever I need help.
Reflection: I found out that I’m going to have to put most of my focus on this project above anything else because of the deadline which is coming fast. As I was working on this, I thought back to week 1 where we just started to think about our idea. And this blog being the 2nd to last, it kind of feels like a whole journey just ended. I also felt lots of pressure since I need to squeeze all of this work into one week including other assignments. Let’s hope everything turns out alright!
Blog 14: Let’s Kick It Up a Notch
Kim Yea Joon
Progress: It was another great week for editing thanks to the days off we had due to Korea’s national holidays. I mainly played with green screen with the time I had. Although its very fun and easy once you get the hang of it, the preparation for it takes quite some time and ideas don’t automatically pop up in my head so it gets pretty annoying. Thankfully, youtube had great resources of all sorts of green screen stuff so it helped me reduce the time I would have spent otherwise. Currently, I have all the footages and files I need, but I’m struggling with how to put them together to make it look cool. The general idea was there, but it turn out so great so now I’m testing out different combinations to find the perfect match. I hope I could set this straight real soon.
Reflection: The ending date to this project is coming real close and our project is a bit over halfway there. Our progress is not too satisfying, so I really think that we need to work much harder. I honestly didn’t think that a 10 minute video about history would require much more than what I was already doing with my other videos. But now that I actually started editing, and realized that it took a lot of work and planning beforehand. I only wish I was more skilled to be able to munch down easily on videos like these. However, we will do everything we can to make sure the video is ready for the due date.
P.S. We decided to help out our colleagues, Gyu Rin and Joy, with their video tutorial on make-up so we’ll be working on that as well with them. To learn more about it, be sure to check out their website. <https://minnie62847.wixsite.com/beautifulworld>
Joshua Huh
Progress: Everything is going according to plan so far. I think I need to step up the pace, however. I still have a LONG way to go and it’s probably going to take me some time to work and finish the whole thing. I guess it’s going to take a lot longer than expected. Thinking about the ideas of what I should put in the video required a lot more thinking and it’s not really coming to pieces.
Reflection: I thought this was going to be an easy process, but I guess I was wrong. This takes a lot more than just trying. I thought I was going at a reasonable pace, but I’m going to have to double that time. But despite all this, I still love doing what I do. While I was doing the subtitles, I found out that it’s tricky and a little annoying because I need to find the exact spot where I start to say so that everything will flow correctly and seem much smoother, but it’s going so fast I can’t pinpoint it accurately. I can still manage though.
Blog 13: Beep!Beep! Blasting Through!
Kim Yea Joon
Progress: We had tremendous advancements this week. Utilizing the time we had during Easter Break and the weekends, I was able to finally decide on the music, background, and the overall theme of the video that is uniquely mine. We were lucky enough to finish the character animation in time, so it was applied right away before it was too late. The project files were immediately moved to After Effects for further green screen techniques and animations. I’m aiming to finish half of the video by next week and completely put the clips together the following week after that so we can make minor corrections to it on the final week. Also, I learned quite a few short-cuts in the video editing software from Joshua which could save me a ton of time, so a shout-out of thanks to him for that.
P.S. Recently, I got a comment separately from a classmate that the character looks somewhat similar to our other classmate, Ryan. Hence, the character will be called “Ryan the Dinosaur” in his honor.
Reflections: While editing, I just could not have been happier to have a partner with me who also is very talented and passionate about editing. Even editing 1 minute takes several hours, especially when fine-tuning, and if I had to edit the full 10 minutes of the video, I am pretty sure I would have been overloaded. His creative ideas and styles of editing continuously push me on to innovate as well. We might not see eye-to-eye on everything, but I’m still very grateful that we are an efficient team. So the lesson I learned first-hand this week is the importance of teamwork.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12New International Version (NIV)
9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Joshua Huh
Progress: I am pleased to say that I have done a decent amount of work on the video this week. I still have to do a lot of work but if I manage to put more time into it, I might be able to finish more than half of it during the next week or so. So far I have been working on subtitles and adding in some effects which are going well and is much easier than I thought, only there is a lot of it. I also found out that I’m going to have to finish the video a bit faster so that John and I can work on the 4th quarter presentations.
Reflection: During the week I found out that doing the subtitles was faster than I thought and I was going to finish them in no time. Which is great because then, I could focus on making the video better. As always I had a fun time working on the video and I am excited to work on this during the weekends. I really hope we can finish this project as soon as possible so that we can work on more important matters. I wish John and I could work during the weekends if we had time. I guess time will tell when we can finish.
Blog 12: So far so good
Joshua Huh
Progress: This week for 20% time, I worked on my part a lot more. It’s not like a crazy amount, more like a decent amount of work done, only on the introduction. The rest is going to take a long time, so I’m going to have to work on this more often and try to complete about half way point. So far as always, progress has been good as there are no issues and everything is going smoothly. I just need to organize the time I’m putting on this.
Reflection: While editing as always, I found new ways of editing. I keep finding better replacements to be put on the previous idea I had. While I was editing I had loads of fun trying to see which sound effect, music, and pictures would fit the best to make it seem funny and serious at the same time. I think I am going to have lots of fun as I continue to do this project.
Blog 11: Don’t Worry.
Kim Yea Joon
Script (left side) covered
Progress: I am pleased to announce that I finally got my hands on Adobe Character Animator. For those who are unfamiliar with Character Animator, please look at Blog 6 where we go into it deeply. You have no idea the lengths I have gone to download that specific version. Since the program was a trial version, I only have 7 days to film everything which is pretty intense. However, I did try some not-so-recommended ways to extend the time from a week to a good amount of time, which is infinite. I’m not completely sure if it succeeded though, so we’ll have to wait and see. I spent the majority of this week looking at tutorials on how to use the program and the photos above are the screenshots of me recording with the character I plan to use. I still need to do some more editing to get the graphics just right so the following week would be the perfect time for that, because it is spring break for us. Also, while we (Joshua and I) were examining each other’s editing style and progress, we were able to catch a few tips and short-cuts within the editing softwares that I was quite surprised I hadn’t known earlier.
Reflection: One thing I felt this week was how helpful some compliments could be. I was pretty worried that we wouldn’t be able to use Character Animator for our videos and I was just about to give up, but some students during a meeting said that they really wanted to see cute little characters ravaging about the war, so that made me try harder to find the ‘cracked’ program. While I was happy that I got it, I felt like my recordings were far too bland and monotone during the editing compared to Joshua’s, so I will try to get some advice from him. Looking at the work that awaits us, it seems like a real big struggle and it is, considering that I have to learn an entirely new program, but I am still proud and glad to be able to edit what I. To me, I think that is the most important part of this project. In conclusion, I think I should try to get feedback and advice from people more often and take things one at a time instead of worrying too much.
Joshua Huh
Progress: During this week, I have started working on the subtitles and so far, they turned out to be fantastic! The subs look nice and they sync well with my narration, but it’s still a stepping stone and there’s much to do. I am excited to see what the final product will turn out to be! However, I still have a lot of editing to do and I have to sync every word with the narration. There’s a lot to do and it’s going to be tiring, but it’s going to be fun at the same time
Reflection: I had a lot of fun doing the subtitles and thinking about how I was going to edit the rest of the video. I have a lot of things in mind on how I was going to make my part comedic so I’ll be sure to apply those into action. Also while I was editing, I found out it was going to be a bit difficult on how I was going to make my part. There are some ideas, but every time I think, there’s always an idea that surpasses the next, so I’m going to have to choose which one suits it best. Overall it was another good week and I had loads of fun!
Blog 10
Kim Yea Joon
Progress Report : Unfortunately, in my perspective, we weren’t able to do as much as we had hoped to finish this week due to a heap of tests and projects that needed to be turned in. Yes, Joshua’s recordings are completed and my recordings are getting done as well, but we couldn’t edit as much as we had hoped. Character Animator needs to be paid for monthly, which is something we can’t simply afford, so we need to try to find a different program or compromise the entire plan of animated characters doing the narrations. If we can’t find a replacement, then we only have the option to fill the gap with other actual clips of WWII. Therefore, I cannot say I am pleased with our overall progress this week. I hope we will find a replacement for it soon and speed up our editing pace.
Reflections: All I have to say is that it was really intense this week with the things we had to do. I wouldn’t say that we were slacking. We were honestly trying our best to be on time with what we planned, but things didn’t run as smoothly as we expected. Finding a replacement for an advanced program such as the Character Animator is not an easy feat. I felt too physically and emotionally drained, which is never a positive thing. However, I will try my best the following week to double the amount of editing I would normally do to makeup for this week’s rather slow progression. My goal next week would be to finish 30% of my part of editing.
Joshua Huh
Progress Report: Hello everyone! I have some good news and bad news. The good news is that we have started to edit our video and so far there is no major problem. The bad news is that we barely did anything this week. We still have a long way to go if we want to catch up on schedule. During the week, I managed to organize my narration as you can see in the screenshot above and put them together so that it will sound and flow more fluent. I also inserted a bit of music and the intro that John made a while back into the video. That’s pretty much all we did this week, hopefully, next week will be a bit more successful.
Reflections: As I was editing the video, I found out some new ways on how I should make the video more entertaining and fun to watch. I’m planning to try and apply these ideas and see if it will work out. I am sad that we had such a short amount of time, but perhaps I can work during the weekends. Despite being a short amount of time, I still enjoyed editing the video and I am expecting the following weeks to improve my editing skills and have more fun doing so!
Blog 9 : Precautions
Kim Yea Joon
Progress Report: It is a new quarter, which means that this is our first blog for the 4th quarter. This week, we were editing and finishing up our recordings, looking out for the occasional hiccups we would find while listening to it. Also, we spent the past few days collecting actual WWII footage that would allow the viewer to at least grasp the idea of how the war was like. It was mind-blowing for some of the footage we were able to find like the footage of the remnants of the Nazi death camps from the Holocaust. After reviewing our narration script and Joshua’s recording, we found out that the video is most likely going to be from 10 to 15 minutes, which is a little over the 10 minute mark we were aiming for. We will try to keep it under 13 minutes, but we cannot guarantee it. We are going to start incorporating the footage and the tools with the recordings the following week.
Reflection: The progress we made this week may seem minor and somewhat boring compared to the rather advanced editing we were doing the previous weeks, but I believe that this week’s process of collecting most of the required materials before-hand would help us out big time for the coming weeks of editing. I was glad that we were able to take this step of preparation before the editing, because I was able to put to use of what I learned on Week 7 when I had technical difficulties. For example, precautions were took not to find out later that something isn’t compatible. Through this process, we can be ready with extra tools or imagery to switch with each other if some doesn’t seem to work for reasons unknown. I felt proud that I was actually learning from my mistakes and took action in preventing the same mistake that might happen in the future. I learned to always stay on top of the game. For the coming weeks, I am looking forward to using the pre-checked materials for adding animation and visual effects for Joshua’s recording.
Joshua Huh
Progress Report: After one whole week, we are finally back in business! During this week, I have finally finished with recording the narrations for our video and all we have to do now is edit it out! I will say that it was another successful week. Judging by how long my narration and Johns narration is going to be, the whole video will be about 10 minutes. During the week we were looking for some footage of World War 2 to put in the video and we found a good number of them. Progress so far doesn’t seem to be much of a problem, but were going to have to work an extra week to catch up.
Reflection: Doing the narrations had no problems and I enjoyed doing them! I had to take many takes of it because I messed up a couple of times along the way, but everything worked out in the end. This is actually the 2nd narration recording I have made because the first one I recorded using the computer and it had some unwanted noise and was too low quality. For this recording, I learned that recording on the phone is much more convenient and has a higher quality. Since I’m done with the recordings, I can finally get to the fun part and edit it! I have been thinking of some ways on how I should edit the video. There are some ideas that I have been thinking about in order to make the video perfect, but I still need a little time. Hopefully, everything will turn out great!
Blog 8 : Signs of Progress
Kim Yea Joon – Title Sequence Finished
Finished Intro : <https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_7xbfUycPXqcGxqcF9hMDdkVVU>
Last week was a terrible week for us, but I’m glad we were able to catch up to our schedule. We did manage to finish the short clip either way. However, it affected the length of it. The unfortunate sudden change of events last week proceeded to shave off 5 seconds of the planned 20 second Title Sequence so now it is only 15 seconds long, but nonetheless it is still a masterpiece that I am very satisfied in. Some of the animations featured in it was inspired by Apple’s own ads and the Youtube channel I used for the tutorial this week was Easy After Effects. If by any chance you start learning After Effects, be sure to check out their channel. Sadly, I must be the bearer of another somewhat bad news. Two weeks beforehand, we said that we are looking forward to using Character Animator. Unfortunately, the Adobe Community changed the policy and we are now required to pay for it which we can not afford. In the future update, we will announce which program would replace it or how we are going to do the narrations.
I’d say that this week was a mediocre success. I’ve finally felt like the project was coming together piece by piece after finishing the Intro video. It’s something that I’m positive people wouldn’t at least hate. While the making this short clip was a struggle, it actually gave me the opportunity to play around with some new features I had yet to see. I was grateful that we were able to finish it, especially during the busy past few weeks that were filled with tests and projects. We felt really proud of ourselves. Through dealing with obstacles and finding ways to solve technical problems, I now feel way more confident in punching my through the next course of editing. I am looking forward to see what else lies ahead of us.
Blog 7 : Hindrance
Backside
Final render
External & Internal shots
Blog 6 : Step Up
Kim Yea Joon
Character Animator
Adobe After Effects : Title Sequence
I am proud and very pleased to announce that preparation for the recording of the narrations are well underway and we have begun editing our Title Sequence video, so thankfully we are on schedule. In the last blog, we said that we would report on what programs we would using. After reviewing different techniques and programs, we have decided that we would be using Final Cut Pro as our main editing software, Adobe Character Animator for the narrator characters, Cinema 4D for rendering 3D objects, and Adobe After Effects for more advanced and custom animations we must create. The first and second photos(all credits to the Adobe community) are great examples of Character Animator. The built-in camera on your computer will recognise and translate your face movement into the character; the results are exciting, interactive characters and we can not wait to start recording. For Cinema 4D, we will get more into detail once we get to the part where we must use it. The third, fourth, and fifth screenshots are photos of our progress and shows some of the aspects of the editing process and how tedious it could be. The program used was Adobe After Effects CC. I daresay this week was by far our most successful week thanks to our first step on the editing section which we have been perpetually talking about for weeks now. We had tremendous progress and the resources available on the Internet astounded me. It was thanks to Youtube’s plentiful tutorials that allowed us to edit with ease. More on whose tutorials we used would be further described on the annotated bibliography. By next week we plan to finish the Title Sequence and begin the initial first stages of using Character Animator.
Since it was our first week editing the video, I was pretty worried that I wouldn’t be able to do much. I had to spend some time getting used to certain features that I didn’t use as much since the need called for it. However, after spending about an hour, familiar techniques started to pop up in my head. The process of creating each and every key-frame was annoying and very time-consuming, but I was glad that I was back at editing. As soon as my brain got familiar with the controls, I dashed right to learning new techniques from the tutorials. I was pleased that I could finally apply what I learned from GFXfarm to the video, because that was the latest tutorial I found. Whenever I finish editing for that day, I always get the feeling that I found one of my greatest passions and that feeling is tremendous.
Joshua Huh
Hello everyone! This week was a success again! We were a little late on schedule, but we managed to fill up the gap and back on track. This week both me and John had talked about how we were going to make the animation and how we were going to narrate the information. What we decided to do was split the work. John will work on how we are going to do the animation while I work on the narrations. We also agreed to use the editing software Final Cut Pro as our main editing application while we use Adobe After Effects to make small effects and animations that we can put in Final Cut Pro. For narrations, we are going to have a bit of a comedic tone to it and split the narrations. As said before, the narrations and the video will be in the style of an educational video. The tricky part though is to figure out how we are going sync the narration with the animation video. We are going to have to take multiple attempts to sync it perfectly. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be fun and interesting!
J.J. 20%Time 