October 30, 2007

• A MikeVideo Internet Movie: "Skyline"

  

  "Skyline" is my latest MikeVideo internet movie, and it lasts 3 minutes and 37 seconds. Please leave comments for the video itself HERE. If you have trouble viewing the embedded video hosted by Xanga below, then perhaps you can view the video streaming from YouTube.

   I hope you enjoy my latest "internet movie", "Skyline." This is the first actual "movie" I've made using the Morpheus morphing software. It took a couple of days, a hard drive that went "missing", a major software breakdown, innumerable computer rendering delays, you know, the usual, to get this online in the first place.

  Let me know if you see  "your" cityscape in the moviemorph when you comment. I might even have a "contest" to see how many cityscapes can be identifed. The person with the most correct guesses would be able to tell me what "subject" to use in my next "moviemorph".

  There are at least 35 urban centers from around the world represented. While making this I got a thought to create a "historical skyline" morph picking only one city skyline and then beginning in the last century and proceeding to the present. MFN/ppf

   

  DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: 
  On October 9th, when I presented my very first "morphing" image, a common first morph of me "aging" using photos of myself, I "announced" two morhping movies I had planned, including the "Skyline" project. I began collecting images online almost immediately. Using both the Yahoo and the Google image search engines, I searched the words "cityscape", "skyline", and "skyscrapers", and collected about fifty high quality large images of city skylines. It took a while to get images with which I was pleased. I had to be able to 'remove' the backgrounds, and of course the buildings would have to morph into one another. I had no idea what the finished product would look like, but in my mind's eye, I pretty much "saw" what I finally was able to create. The idea for "Skyline" was an uninterrupted morph between most of the world's great cities. I wanted to present the morph against a green screen, so that I could insert footage of billowy clouds behind the buildings as they changed.

  Each skyline image to be included in the movie was masked and the background removed in the Picture Publisher program. Although the original images were of varying sizes, I attempted to size them similarly in the computer program, so that each image would morph somewhat seamlessly. After masking and resizing, the next step was to  arrange the images so that there wouldn't be any problem inserting and moving the morphing "points". For my "MikeMorph", I ended up with over two dozen "points". Each time I added an image, I had to adjust all the "points" in the subsequent images. I learned pretty quick that the best way to create the morph using the Morpheus program was to complete the "timeline" of photos, before adding the "points". For "MikeMorph", I eventually deleted all the original mophing points and added new ones to the completed timeline.

  The version of the Morpheus software I had purchased was not the full featured package. It rendered to flash files or animated gifs. I knew that I needed to be able to upload the morph into my Sony Vegas editing suite for titles, backgrounds, and layers, and I read on Sony's software site that the latest version of Vegas could import .swf or flash files, which is what the Morpheus could output. Forty dollars later, I still couldn't upload the flash files into Vegas. A call to technical support confirmed that Vegas only can import text files in flash format for titling. This was a major disappointment. Animated gifs only contain 256 colors, so there is a quality loss when rendering. What to do?

  I solved my problem by downloading the more expensive package from Morpheus' online "store". The full featured program output to .avi, which is an uncompressed movie file, with full color. I could also draw "lines" instead of just "points" on the morph. Since a skyline is a series of lines, I was easily able to arrange the morph to my satisfaction, as the earlier "tests" I made over the past couple or weeks were not satisfactory. 

  I began the creation of the video in earnest this past weekend. I kept starting over until I had a pleasing sequence of morphs. When the morph was completed, I output it as an .avi, and imported it into Vegas. After eight hours of work on Sunday, I only had to add the music track and end titles, and I would have  my latest "movie" in the can. Sadly, while making some final tweaks, the program froze up. Vegas doesn't crash as often as the Pinnacle software I used to use, which is notoriously unstable. I rebooted my computer after the program froze up my system, and when the puter came back to life, it didn't recognize the external hard drive where my files, including the main the program file, were located. This meant that I couldn't save the recovered file, and I lost about an hour of work.

  Repeated connecting and disconnecting of the drive didn't help. Rebooting with the drive attached, and then with it unattached wasn't working. I switched from firewire to USB and back again. Nothing. I joked to my roommate that the computer didn't "see" my drive. But I could see it. It was right there hooked up to the puter. Sunday night I went to bed devastated. Would I ever "see" my movie again? Not to mention all the other files on the external hard drive.

  At work on Monday, I asked our engineer, who doubles as our IT man, for suggestions. He mentioned re-installing the drivers, which I hadn't thought about on Sunday. When I got home, I looked for the installation CD. I couldn't find one. I save the technical manuals and information for every computer peripheral I add to my system, and soon found that the software for the drive was not included on an external disc, but was on the drive itself. A Catch 22 occurred. I can't connect the drive becuase the drivers might be corrupted, but the drivers are on the drive itself. I went to Western Digital's website, and downloaded the drivers from there. Immediately the computer recognized the external hard drive.

  Monday night I completed the "movie". The background consists of cloud time lapse photography I gathered from YouTube after searching for "clouds, time lapse". I wanted to shoot my own time lapse clouds but there haven't been any around lately. Lots of smoke, but no clouds. I didn't list or credit the various cloudscapes or skyline photos I used becuase I did a lot of repoisitioning and rearranging of the original videos and photos and their creators probably wouldn't recognize them now. I never deliberately attempt to infringe on copyright, and usually give credit if I utilize a complete sequence from another's work. 

  Each cloudscape has been chosen for the morph carefully. It's more dismal over London than over San Diego, for example, which London  morphs into. The photo of San Diego, by the way, is the only photo of mine in the morph. I also arranged the morph so that the sky becomes dark and the latter part of the morph is at night. I didn't notice until I got this online, but the "stars" were supposed to be brighter and the night sky darker. The cloudscapes in the night scenes should have been more transparent.

  As usual, I had to spend a lot of time rendering and then uploading. The first rendered video didn't have sound. The upload to Xanga took three tries before I got the video online.

  This was a lot of work for only four minutes of video, but I think you'll agree that it is worth it. I really think that there is almost nothing to hold back creativity anymore. The tools we have at our disposal at the consumer level are astounding. The only thing which holds us back is imagination and time. The more time and the more imagination, the more creative we can get. I have a few days to decide if I want to spend an additional $299.00 ( a discount from $599.00) to upgrade my Vegas software to the professional version. The best video editing suite is still Avid, which is used in the "real" movie industry, but Sony's Vegas is the best I've used, and the pro version would give me unlimited video layers, compared to the four I have now. (If I want to add more than four layers, I have to save the vid as an avi and then reopen as one layer, adding three more, etc. It's time consuming , to say the least.) I'm not getting any younger, either. I plan to create double the amount of videos in 2008 as I did this year. If you are new to this blog, then I invite you to check out the "video" tab above. I've got 21 videos on Xanga alone. There are 37 videos on my YouTube Channel. If I could do this full time, I certainly would.

  • 12:17 am
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