Production Log - 28/1/18

Part way through the song, there is a pause, causing a few seconds of silence. The idea was to record footage of an old cassette player being paused and played, by pressing the buttons. Due to the pause in the song, I decided it would be a good idea to have a pause and play flashing in the corner of the screen accordingly, to give the impression that the footage is been played on an old video tape.

To go about making the pause icons, I downloaded the font that the VHS tapes use (VCR OSD Mono) and created a project in Adobe Photoshop. I then typed out play in the VCR OSD font which makes it look like the font in the VHS tapes. I then created a symbol to look like the play icon and placed it next to the text. I then created the same size icon for the pause, creating a symbol to be placed next to the text for the pause too.

I then cut the footage together, syncing the button presses with the timings of the music. I then froze the frame shortly after the pause button has been pressed. This means that the footage pauses on a specific frame before playing again ready for the start of the music. I then imported the PSD files as compositions into AE so I could add effects to the icons and place them in the correct places on screen. I then added the compositions to the main cut, key framing the opacity so they appear on screen at the correct times. I then added a pulse effect to the icons, by key framing the opacity. I then converted the key frames to easy ease, so the key frames were much smoother. I then added effects to the compositions (icons) so they flickered and were distorted as if they were on a VHS tape player.

Personally I think the footage came out really well. The flicker of the pause and play icons look really good and it gives the impression of an old VHS tape player. To make the footage look really good, I would add old style effects tot he main footage so it looks like the quality of the footage is being played on the VHS tape. This would make the aspect look more believable.