In the excitement of creating a new film, the first one of most team members, we came up with at least 10 different ideas for what we wanted to do. Upon a long discussion after class, we combined some of them and, taking some inspiration from Middleground and some original concepts, we were set on exploring identity in our film. Thus, Chroma was born. We wanted to create a project that conveyed a message worth sharing and that challenged us to explore and familiarize ourselves with different technologies, pieces of equipment, and software. This bold vision would allow us to do all of this.
Chroma is an interactive video that establishes a connection between identity and color. It is nonfiction and centers around three main characters, each representing a primary color. The white background and theme of the site and the video represent an empty canvas of society. Characters, and the user, add color to this canvas, painting the fabric of humanity. The film is composed of three different types of clips.
- Main (Recorded with a Black Magic Pocket Cinema 4k): A top down shot of the main characters walking around on a white background. They are accompanied by a narrator voice, by Tomás Ortiz and Valentin Josan, that explains the movements and brings the abstract concept of the film into words.
- Interviews (Recorded with a Black Magic Pocket Cinema): Three characters are interviewed and discuss their identity in light of their own colors and the interactions they have with each other.
- Paint Splatter (Recorded with a GoPro): A transition, short clip, that was introduced in an attempt to increase the variety and decrease the monotony of the film (was the audience to watch all clips).
We intend to provide the user with a unique, yet wholesome, experience. We want to spark an inner dialogue on identity while having a fun and interesting video. The clean webpage and interactive elements further enhance this experience. The user will get to be a part of the experiment by answering some questions and getting a color of their own, with which they can paint in the white canvas like the actors did.
In order to fulfill our vision and intentions we had to spend many more hours than expected working on this project. The first actions we took were scripting & storyboarding while planning the main clip shooting. For this scene, the planning took significantly longer than expected, as we had to have long conversations with the Equipment center to get the jib and a shooting studio, find a large white roll paper (that we would later find out is not produced in the UAE), figure out where to store 2 bins full of equipment, and find actors who were willing to help during the final weeks of the semester. We needed to do all of this soon, because we knew the editing process was going to be long.
We recorded on Sunday November 21st and set out to post production. Soon after, one of two big challenges arose: the file with the paint -the original idea- was corrupted. Thankfully, we had done a few other takes with no paint and were able to use those. That, however, implied a much longer process of animation that we expected. Kyle spent a few nights working on the animation, while the rest of the team began to assemble and cut the clips. Then, the second big challenge arose: one of our actresses dropped out. We had to find a replacement for her and organize the interviews as such. Thankfully all actors were fine with spending another whole morning on Chroma. We also recorded the narrator’s voice on this day.
After all this hard work, we still had a long way to go. While Kyle graded the interviews, and Juanma assembled the clips, Cole and Jeongin built the website. Communication was key, as they had to know exact frames where to pause the video and display the buttons. The rest of the time was spent fixing details. A few edits were made to the script, the documentation was written. Exporting the color graded videos in a proper format was also a challenge.
Looking back at the arduous journey, we feel very proud of the final result. Chroma is a very cohesive, interesting and artistic project that we are eager to share in the IM showcase. We decided to make this process a truly educational experience, yet having a learning curve is very rewarding. Most team members will get out of this project dominating two different cameras, a jib, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, an H6 recorded, the intricate booking systems of campus, shoot lighting, scripting and storyboarding. There will always be elements to improve, yet, given the short amount of time we were given, Chroma turned out really well.