Vexercise 5 drops! (lyrical play + )

[lola]

Hi folks! We're on to Vexercise 5!  You can of course do the OG version, as follows: 

Produce a 1 minute video edit from your selected source, in which lyrical interpretation ( guides your shot choice. You could interpret the lyrics literally or metaphorically/suggestively. Once you have completed this video, choose selected lyrics to incorporate creatively as text within the video. Then make a version of this video with the text, but substituting the original audio with a different piece of music that has no lyrics.

OR you can do a version with keyframes for moving text and text masking: 

Follow the guidelines for the OG version, but try using key frames for moving text or text masking. (Links for tutorials and examples coming soon)

Here are a couple of short tutorials for Premiere that I've found helpful. If you know of others, for Premiere or for other editing tools, please share in the comments and I'll add them to this post. 
 

Easiest Cinematic Title Minimal & Clean
How to place video within text
Add text behind a moving object
Typewriter effect 
How to Make a Lyric Video

Inspirations for typography (a whole playlist!) And feel free to rec more in the comments! 

Comments

[bonibaru]

This is always the hardest one for me because it's the one I have the least experience in, so perhaps this year I will actually succeed to make one!

[nu_breed]

Quick question - are we able to make tweaks with the second music choice i.e. slowing down the speed of the text? Or should it replicate the original exactly?

[lola]

So.... I mean... strictly according to the letter of the vexercise you're not supposed to edit anything visual from that first video to the second, but like with any of the vexercises, it's also your creative work, and you should do what feels right; I think this one can be especially hard when the timing of the text is so attuned to the first song and it doesn't line up with the second. You are not alone with finding that to be a sticking point, and it would be understandable if you went in there and fiddled!

[nu_breed]

I might see what I can do with the lyrics on the original song - I figured it wasn't quite in the spirit of the thing ;)

[actiaslunaris]

Here's a rec for a Dean/Castiel animatic that uses typography to great effect: "No Light, No Light".

Vexercise 5: 陈情令 | The Untamed - Lyrical Play

[nu_breed]

Both lyric and instrumental versions on AO3.

Re: Vexercise 5: 陈情令 | The Untamed - Lyrical Play

[lola]

I love these! I love the font you chose, the timing, and just also the timing and editing of this vid are *chef's kiss*. In short, love!!!

Re: Vexercise 5: 陈情令 | The Untamed - Lyrical Play

[nu_breed]

Thank you so much!!! I was really pleased with it so I’m absolutely thrilled that you loved it <333

[seasaltmemories_14]

So my original attempt went completely off the rails, so instead I repurposed an older WIP for this challenge, not super satisfied with the typography, but I am glad to have managed to cobble together something

Siren's Song // Undercurrent

[lola]

okay, so I really loved both of these. First off, I thought the editing was beautiful in the first one and I was really swept up. For the first one, I found myself almost wanting a few more words to be text, maybe a bit more first person to draw me in? But then in the second one, the simplicity of "swimming" and "shore" as representing the characters and their journeys really really worked, which I thought was an interesting shift!
It looks like such a beautiful source too!!

[seasaltmemories_14]

Ahaha thank you! I'd be lying if I said the sparse text was all artistically inspired, I shot myself a bit in the foot by not giving myself more time to mess with the text, I had a lot of trouble getting the timing to match up with longer sentences and was kinda tired by that point, so instead I went for like a more abstract, stray thought concept, even though we do have that pool scene, there's not a lot of literal swimming, so I thought it would be cool to have more the motif of water be this ever present reminder pointing back towards their growing relationship

So in the end it was really useful to have that second video to further flesh out what I was going for!

[jinkyo]

The music for "Siren's Song" is gorgeous!

I'd read your comment's here before watching and took the typography for what it was. Dude, just making the vid is the win! I was expecting lyrics over that gorgeous jumping shot at :42, but at the same time, I respect the decision to let that shot stand as is (it's such a good shot!)
"Now I'm sunk" caught my attention because there's a very nice effect on the text and the same with "but somehow".
I rewatched to pay more attention to any effects on the single word text. Initially, I registered those all as fade-ins but on the 2nd watch, I see that there are more complex effects. For me, the effects were more noticeable on the longer lyrics.

Undercurrent - I watched this one second. My initial feeling was that the single words felt random. Gorgeous music and images, but no real connection with the text until "Now I'm sunk". Now the words are beginning to connect into their own water-themed story, especially with the visual of the girl falling to her knees. The splash into the pool and "but somehow" and that big smile! I can't really articulate what the text story meant, but it all came together like poetry and made me feel hopeful.

Thank you for making and sharing both of these - amazing work!!

[seasaltmemories_14]

And thank you for your kind words!! FYI the audio for "Siren's Song" comes from "Swimming" by Florence + The Machine, her catalog is great, in regards to the jumping shot, I feel like that was the perfect place to put some text, but at the same time, I was so attached to the shot and didn't want to distract from it, I'm very interested in movement, and balancing the time necessary to process/read text, with an upbeat, flowing pace can be really difficult

And yeah "Undercurrent" really didn't begin to pull together until I got to "now I'm sunk" and "but somehow" I tend to default to lyric play in general, but "Swimming" worked mostly with metaphor and simple language so I wasn't sure how to make it translate with just instrumental music, but since I was going for a love story of sorts, I thought the motif of water could show this push and pull as the two of them keep interacting/falling for each other, thanks again for your high praise!

[actiaslunaris]

I admire the reticence of choosing only keywords in the first with vocals, but they shine in the second with their abstract nature. It's very effective. Both vids are beautiful.

[seasaltmemories_14]

Ah it is great to hear it works! Thank you so much!

[hardboiledbaby]

This was a great exercise; I learned a bunch and had fun doing it 😊 I don't expect to use on-screen lyrics a whole lot, but it's nice to know how to do it. Learning new things is fab! And playing with different techniques helps to make me more comfortable and confident with the process overall 💖

I Want You [Starsky/Hutch]

(BTW, if anyone is willing to watch my vids in reverse order, I'd be really interested in your thoughts 😊)

[seasaltmemories_14]

Ah it was so fun watching the video go through each stage, I think i really liked part 2 the most, the text ended up adding a lot in terms of movement and directing the eye.

[jinkyo]

I love that you included all 3 iterations of the exercise!

You chose a great song for vid 2. The lyrics are not abstract and fit perfectly with the visuals. I especially liked "The heart" "in me" - a double shot that hit the beats.

That song choice, really served you well in vid 3, I think. Different music, no lyrics, but the visuals very much supported the text (or, the text very much complimented the visuals).

Great work - thank you for making and sharing these!!

[snycock]

I got a really late start on this - I had a bunch of ideas and couldn't decide what I wanted to do, and I figured that putting text in was going to be a steep learning curve in Davinci Resolve, but, surprisingly, once I'd decided on lyrics, things actually came together fairly well. The text wasn't as difficult as I'd thought, it was actually sort of fun to play around with, and I'm pleased with how it came out.

I do only have one vid, though, because 4K Downloader has stopped working for me and so I couldn't download the song I took my lyrics from, and I had to use an instrumental piece I already had (and had used on a prior vid). Any advice? I've uninstalled and reinstalled, rebooted, turned my firewall off, done a virus check, and it just keeps telling me either it can't parse the link or it gives me an error.

Losing My Religion

[lola]

Okay, first of all, I love this version and I really love what you did with the font choices, movement, formatting, and such!
Hmmm for the 4k issues... have you tried with other files? Is it just that file? The only times I've had issues like that it's been specific files that are somehow protected against 4k video downloader (especially things you need to pay for on youtube, but occasionally other things). Then I have to resort to getting it otherwise, buying it on itunes, or some such.
I could try to dl it for you and see if i get anywhere?

[lola]

ohhhh actually i just tried to download some things and this happened to me too! but I installed the update and now it's working... so try installing the current update?

[snycock]

I think that must have been it - it (of course) was working fine when I tried it again recently. But thank you for the offer! And thanks for the lovely comments on the vid!

[seasaltmemories_14]

Ah it was really interesting hearing an instrumental of a song whose lyrics I knew paired with lyrics I was unfamiliar with, felt like it added to this sense of narrative, like you were displaying their hidden thoughts as they fell in love

[snycock]

Ah, wonderful! That's pretty much what I was going for. Thank you for the comment!

[jinkyo]

Oh, this was really good! I'm familiar with the REM song, not the instrumental. I think you made some great lyric choices to put onscreen as text. "bigger" made me smile. I don't know the source well enough to understand what is happening here other than - Dude! big predator cat back there!

"You are not me" perfect text+visual

"I haven't said enough" really caught my attention- heck yeah for mastering masking!! I use Resolve too and have yet to have the courage to try this.

"me in the corner, me in the spotlight, losing my religion". For sources that I don't know, I end up creating my own stories to make sense of what I'm watching. I have no idea why the guy had to give a press conference but everything about his body language suggests it wasn't good. Along with the reactions from the other guy watching - this section felt so satisfying to watch. Like a very strong text+visual story conclusion.

Great work on this!!

** A 4K downloader note - I also got stuck with the parsing error last week. Under the help menu is the link to 4K's Twitter. They knew about the problem and got it fixed a few days later. LOL! too late for the project I was working on and I ended up screen recording the YT vid I needed. But, if you ever run into a 4K downloader issue again, check the Twitter because there's a good chance it's not just you and more likely a YT change that broke the software for a while.

[snycock]

Thank you! I'm so pleased that it worked for you! It was fun to think about which lyrics I was going to choose as text that fit what was going on. You are pretty much spot on about the press conference. :-)

The masking was SO EASY in Resolve. There's just a menu of things to choose from, and it will preview what it will look like on the screen.

And thanks for the note about 4K Downloader - that's good to know. I thought maybe it was just because I had reinstalled it. But I'm glad to know about their Twitter and I'll use it if another issue comes up.

Thank you again!