Final Project

Jennifer Tan Qing Ni
0333137
Final Project- Cinemagraph

For the final project, we were introduced to something called a cinemagraph and we were told to either recreate or create a surrealistic cinemegraphic piece for our final project. At first I was really confused on what this assignment is about. Then, our lecturer showed a few examples to us and I was really fascinated by it. Here are 2 examples created by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg.

Figure 1.1 Cinemagraph #1

Figure 1.2 Cinemagraph #2

Cinemagraphs are actually still photographs in which minor movements are made. Our lecturers told us to watch a music video called Up and Up which is by Coldplay. The video has been my all time favourite video since it came out because of the cinematography. Its really just mindblows me all the time of how the video is edited.

At first I wanted to recreate a surrealistic painting called Departure of The Winged Ship by Vladimir Kush but I didn't have enough confidence to do so.

Figure 1.3 Departure of The Winged Ship by Vladimir Kush

So I decided to recreate my own surrealistic piece. I rewatched the Up and Up music video by Coldplay. While I was rewatching it over and over again, there was a few scenes that caught my eye.

Figure 1.4 Inspo #1

Figure 1.5 Inspo #2

Figure 1.6 Inspo #4

                                                                                                                     

                             

Figure 1.7 a rough sketch of how my cinemagraph will be like

The process
First I needed a moving train. I then remembered about my trip to London and I remembered I took a video of the subway when it was arriving. So I went through my gallery and I finally found it.

Figure 1.8 moving train

After that I found a galaxy background, a time-lapse of a sunset and some jellyfish.

Figure 1.9 my own video of a  time-lapse of clouds at golden hour

Figure 1.10 jellyfish

Figure 1.11 Galaxy

Figure 1.12 Sunset video (stocks)

Then I started to compile them together in after effects. I had a quite a few attempts and mistakes as I was quite new to the after effects application.


This was my first attempt in after effects. All I did was just mask out the video of a the train that I had and put the blending mode to lighten. But I was quite happy with the results

Figure 1.13 1st attempt

After that, I was thinking about what else I could add. Then I came across a time-lapse of the clouds during golden hour that I took like 5 months ago and I decided to add it to see how it'll look like. once again I set the blending mode to lighten to kind of let the clouds blend in with the galaxy background. I was quite happy with the results but it still wasn't there yet.

Figure 1.14 2nd attempt (added sunset clouds time-lapse)

Figure 1.15 3rd attempt (changed composition of the clouds)

Figure 1.16 4th attempt (changed the sunset to a better one)

Figure 1.17 (freezed the sunset time-lapse as there was too much going on in one scene

I decided to add the jellyfish but then it looked much more complicated and it kind off covered up the galaxy. Also I decided to freeze the time lapse of the sunset as I thought that they're will be too much

Figure 1.18 process

Figure 1.19 Process #2

Final Outcome

Figure 1.20 Final Outcome