vexercises | Vexercise 4 Drops: Lyrical Play

lola posting in

Hi all! It's time for Vexercise 4 (wow, time flies!) This one is focused on working with incorporating lyrics conceptually and as text. (For those of you who did the vfxercise 3 on typography, you got a little taste/head start on this one!) Here are the details:

Lyrical play/no lyrics (3 versions):

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.

Advanced Version: Lyrical Play with Key Frames & Masking

Follow the guidelines for the OG version, but try using key frames for moving text or text masking.

Keyframing in Da Vinci Resolve
Keyframing and masking in Premiere Pro

And here are some useful resources & tutorials:

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!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

extrapenguin

I am interrupting the usual schedule of SWTOR because I had a terrible, terrible idea. And terrible ideas must be shared. So! Star Wars Prequel Trilogy time it is. I also think it works better if viewed in reverse order:

instrumental music
text, original music
original vid

(Side note: I found an instrumental that had the same BPM as my original, which I think worked really well. The original was also cut in a more "leave space for text" fashion so I think it's a bit blah, while the betexted one has some direly necessary pizzazz.)

Also, Blender is amazing for text.

From:

colls

That evolution was great!
And I'm LOL'ing at your terrible, terrible (wonderful) idea :D :D

From:

extrapenguin

Thank you! And yes, sometimes the worst ideas are the best.

From:

absternr

I only realized what your original song was once it hit the chorus, it's perfect. (Really nice work with the text too!)

From:

extrapenguin

I'm really glad you got the song! And yes, when I got the idea, I absolutely had to do it.

From:

lizardjay

It's a BEAUTIFUL idea :D

I love all the different animations and movements you had for the text.

From:

extrapenguin

Thank you! I wanted to make something that was fun, above all, to go with the song, so: maximalism on the text animations.

From:

colls

Hi!
I thought I'd drop a couple links here that seem useful for Final Cut Pro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aANQq021wIo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlD_aLgEk1U

From:

colls

do what you want to
Fandom: Solo
by

colls

So... I may have gone straight from 0-60 down a rabbit hole playing with texts and effects (and ignored housework today). \o/
The comic effects absolutely don't fit the songs or the source, but they were fun to play around with. I think vid #3 doesn't exactly line up well because I didn't really match the lyrics with my clips as well as I could've right out of the gate.
Overall this experiment was more fun than I anticipated - so thank you for that!

From:

lola

This was so incredibly fun and fabulous, especially version 2, which is just perfection! I loved it!
What editing program were you using again for this?

From:

lola

Oh I see you were using FCP... ah, I miss FCP! This makes me wanna go back :) <3

From:

colls

haha - thanks!
And Final Cut Pro!! FTW!
*cough*
I'm slow to change. I went from iMovie to FCE and only to FCP when I couldn't run FCE on the latest OS any longer.
I did really like figuring out how to do more text stuff - I have always liked opening titles with more movement and this feels like it'll get me out of the rut I was in with that. :)

From:

alba17

Same. The demise of FCE was tragic for me. Kind of wandered in the wilderness awhile after that.

From:

alba17

The text one is awesome. Love the little comic effects.

From:

colls

haha - thanks!
What did you land on after all your wandering? (what program do you use to vid now?)

From:

alba17

FCP

From:

colls

FCP twins! *fist bump*

From:

lizardjay

I love all the text, it's super fun and dynamic!

From:

colls

Thank you!

From:

marah_sarie

Got there in the end!

[Vexercise 4] - This Is What You Up Against

Incorporating text is a challenge in itself, it felt like -- it really impacted on how I chose clips, because I needed to think about how the lyrics might fit on the screen. So I did focus more on visuals than interpretation for the lyrics (and I didn't even bother with a "clean" version of the original song). I was also really inspired by

caramarie's The More We Change from the original round of Vexercises, and wanted to try for something where the second song gives a very different feel to the original lyrics, so I hope that came through!

Edited Date: 2022-07-22 02:13 pm (UTC)

From:

absternr

I *love* these, wow. The masking on the text is so good!

From:

lola

Ahhhh these are fabulous!! The first one especially is *chef's kiss* but the second one works really well too!
This brought back all my Miss Sherlock feels. <3

From:

alba17

These are really great. I love the text one, works really well. The orchestral piece works so well too. Very different mood but it totally works with the text and the clips.

From:

colls

These are so fun! I enjoyed Miss Sherlock <33#

From:

lizardjay

The high energy of these is SO good. And the mood change as well! Love the masking effect :D

From:

the_wavesinger

Three vids for The Lord of the Rings! Pun intended.

original vid
lyric video
new video

a playlist of all of the vids

The last video is definitely ignoring instructions a whole lot, haha, but I'm proud of how these turned out thematically.

(Kdenlive is annoying for text--I ended up doing most of the text in GIMP and importing images to Kdenlive. I should probably find the time to learn how to use Resolve.)

Edited Date: 2022-07-24 09:29 pm (UTC)

From:

lola

Ahhh these are fabulous!! I love the font (and that flickering effect you used) in the second one & the overall aesthetics. And the third one -- that's one of the best videos I've seen made for the 3rd bit of this challenge!
But yes, Resolve is definitely worth the time and pretty intuitive to boot!

From:

the_wavesinger

Thank you very much! I did debate the flickering but kept it in in the end--I'm glad you liked it.

(Once I get a bit of free time I will be attempting to learn Resolve.)

From:

colls

Your 3rd fit works incredibly well! Nicely done

From:

the_wavesinger

Thank you. The third vid is not strictly within the rules of the challenge, but I really wanted a vid that was somewhat different thematically but where the text and clips still made sense; I'm glad it worked for you!

From:

alba17

These are really beautiful. Enjoyed very much.

From:

the_wavesinger

Thanks!

From:

lizardjay

These are really nice! The text and the font looks so classy.

From:

the_wavesinger

Thank you!

From:

alba17

Amazingly, I actually completed this. Probably because the base video came together really fast.
All 3 in this post: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40655838

From:

colls

The music buildup on the 3rd worked so well with the clips and lyrics - especially at the 'true north' and 'fighting for' bits. If I hadn't known the exercise, I would've thought that was the inspiration and original! Nice!