Well I fiddled, and struggled and worked my little heart out getting to grips with premier. I tried all sorts of filters in Photoshop, and compiled numerous sequences. Not only have I made a complete mess of my neatly organised computer, but I've made my first ever pixilation animation. I went with the sketch effect I talked about, albeit with some minor adjustments. It gets a little hard to distinguish in some sections, but unless I go through each individual frame and edit them I'm not going to make this thing perfect. It would benefit from being a higher resolution, without doubt but nevermind. I'm happy with the aesthetics of the video now. Next up was the sound.

I raided my music library looking for words appropriate to the video, hoping to find something that was lyrically suitable. I found all sorts of songs with "run" or "away" in the title. Playing them over the video never really worked though. They didn't have the right tempo mostly. It's surprisingly difficult to find music to fit in to a clip which is only going to last about 30 seconds. You've got to think about where you want to the music to stop and finish. You don't want the video to end, just as the music starts to properly kick in. I decided I needed something with a fairly lengthy, and simple build up, which was devoid of lyrics, and would suit the video. I didn't want someone singing throughout my video, as it might have detracted from what was on screen. I also wanted something fast, to fit the urgency of the narrative. I tried all kind of dance tracks, but they tended to be too happy. They've also got layer upon layer of sound. What I found, almost by accident was "Bloc Party - Hunting for Witches". It came on while I was working in Premier. It had everything I needed, so I gave it a go. Unfortunetly, some singing kicks in towards the end. If I had any knowledge of music editing I'd create a loop of the guitars at the beginning of the track so that this didn't happen.

I gave it a simple title "GET BACK TO WORK". It's big and clear. It comes up, and instantly you get an idea of what's to come. I thought about having dialog boxes within the video, but realised...no, they're a clever lot, they can work it out for themselves. When you watch your work the first time you think 'blimey, thats a bit fast' and it's kind of a let down. All the work you poured in to it is gone in a blink of an eye, and you worry that maybe it'll be lost on other people. I like it when you watch something and think "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?" you have to watch it again, it creates some intrigue and interest. Brilliant, I love it.

The finishing touches were some simple transitions, just to keep it flowing. I whacked in some quick credits as well seeing as it was a group effort. Credits can be silly at times for something so short. If I'd of done this on my own, I really wouldn't have bothered, but it's nice to recognise everyones involvement. And then it fades to black. It's all over, and we reflect on it (I'll get around to that.)

If you want to see what I've done I've saved it here. I made it in to a WMV, so the quality is a bit crap, but atleast it's about 5x smaller than the original. For those of you on disgustingly bad halls provided internet there's a youtube version here. The quality on this is as you'd expect, appalling. All the detail is lost, including the background image, and the sketch effect falls in to oblivion. Seriously.