Not So Ordinary #2: Coffee

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tibfox

Published on Mar 09, 2023

About :

(sources at the veeery end of this post)

Missing the Goal

Let us first cover this:
In my first post about this challenge I had doubts about achieving to create one video each month of 2023. And now here we are 9 days behind the deadline but what can I say? I simply was not able to finish this piece in one month. That's it and that's totally fine. The final result is something I am proud of even though I could have taken 1 additional month to make it even better regarding sound design, pacing and many more facettes.

The whole production took me around 15x4h evenings to write, record, edit, animate and finish this video. I am very glad that I finally finished it even though I know you will not be able to imagine how much work it was when you watch it. But that's a good thing: When the viewer does not recognize the huge amount of work - it was a good work. (or really really bad work haha)

In case you don't know the not-so-ordinary ordinary items challenge by @rubencress: He set himself a goal to create a post every single day of December 2022 to highlight ordinary things and cover their not so ordinary sides with amazing photos and words. I really like this idea and decided to give this challenge a go but in the form of videos.

2nd Topic: Coffee

Every single day I drink at least one cup of coffee (but more like 5 cups). It became an ordinary thing for me and that's why I wanted to include "coffee" into the series. While creating the video I have learned a lot about coffee - the history, use and a few economical things. More in the video! (I am not going to spoil you)

Please make sure to watch the video first!
Spoilers are included and I would like to read your
unbiased opinion in the comments.
Thanks!

Behind the scenes

- Lighting -

B-Roll

Regarding lighting the b-roll clips for coffee making I have used a single hard light source (Godox LC500R) and tried to position it out of frame. Also I tried to let it spread from the same spot most of the time to not hurt continuity too much. Unfortunately I was too rushed to take BTS shots / videos but next time I will remember.

Talking Head

For the talking head shot I have published a little breakdown as a 3speak short:

Stop Motion

For the stop motion elements I have used a big soft box (LAOFAS D90B + Godox SL60W) to eliminate most of the drop shadows on my green background. It worked quite well but not for all elements like the snack bar for example:

Also I did not have a real overhead rig. I balanced my phone from a small shelf above which resulted in a pitched picture. Next time I will go back to my "floor recording mode" so I can place the softbox and camera exactly above the subject.

- Teleprompter -

This is the main issue I have with the video - my wandering eyes in the talking head shots. It is very obvious that I have used a teleprompter to read the script for this video. I knew it would be visible but that obviously is too much for me. Next time I will pick a wider field of view or simply back up more away from the camera to decrease the chances that you can see my pupils following a script.
At first I tried to talk without the script but for me as a non native I made just too many errors and using a teleprompter saved me a lot of time in the edit.
If you have watched the video before reading this here: Please tell me if it was obvious for you as well. When you watch the same clips over and over of course it will be easily visible but perhaps it was not as present when you watch the video the first time.

[show image of teleprompter]

- Stop Motion -

Let me tell you: It was a hustle. The stop motion elements took the most time for this video.

I made >500 single photos in total but the photography was not that hard. The real effort was to cut out the elements before the actual shoot.

Next time I will try to add less elements but with more impact. I think it would have benefitted the result more if I would have used more metaphorical elements instead of displaying what I say in the video. Next time I will try to add this layer of abstraction to the planning of my shots.

- Animation -

Next to the stop motion effects I also made a 40 seconds long animation covering a legend about the origin of coffee. This part was actually the first thing I worked on for this video in the beginning of February because I knew it would be the hardest thing to finish. And it turned out pretty good in my opinion.

Only thing I would do differently would be the movements because I keyframed everything "by hand". The shaking goats for example could have been animated with expressions which would have saved me a lot of time. Some things I still have to learn with Davinci Resolve.

Cinemascope Aspect Ratio

Another video - another aspect ration I wanted to use. This time I gave 2.39:1 a shot even though most of you know this from cinematic movies and short films but I want to experiment in this series no matter what the common "rules" are. And I think especially for the b-roll sequences of me making coffee it worked and gave the scenes a cinematic feel - if you wanna name it like this. I had problems with framing a few shots in post. My camera records videos in 16:9 only and I had to zoom in 1.35x to get the image to fill the aspect ratio. And with the zoom a lot of space of the top and bottom of the shots got out of frame. It did not hurt soo much but next time I want to get better at correct framing.

before fitting the project resolution

after adjusting to fit the project resolution

Audio Stuff

Music

This time I have used music from CreatorMix.com which is a music library you can use for free even in commercial projects. I like that they have a spotify presence so you can listen to the music while editing or recording and put the tracks you like in a playlist to work with later.

Creator Mix on spotify

Originally I had the plan to use chill hiphop music as background music. But in the edit I recognized a missing balance between the speed of my voice and the music. So I decided to use more present but fitting synth wave music. I am happy that I have changed my mind and took this project to a totally different flow with the choice of music. It feels more like an entertaining piece and not too laid back. I cover a lot of facts and slow hiphop would have made it a bit boring. What do you think?

Sound Effects

This time I have used a lot more sounds to underline the animations and b-roll shots. Again I have used the amazing library from freesound.org to find what I needed. This time I even donated some fiat to this project because it saved me so much time and you can really find anything there!

Mixing

My microphone (rode wireless go) does not take so much of the low frequencies of my voice. I tried to get that back with EQing but I really don't know if that worked or not.

Like I've said: The music is faster music than intended but I think it serves the overall pace of the talking parts. I tried to lower the volume of the background music as much as needed while still keeping the "party vibes" going. I don't know if that worked out as good but on my headphones it sounded good. I lowered a few frequencies of the music via EQing to make room for my voice.

This time I did not have used de-esser or noise-cancelling on any of the audio. I think it is good to have some atmosphere in the background even though you will probably not recognize it. De-Esser - a must have of my previous videos which removes hard "s"-sounds from an audio - does weird things to a voice if you are not able to adjust it perfectly. That's why I decided to skip it for this video.

Lessons learned

Now again I want to tell you about the big "I did this and that wrong" for this video. As I have mentioned I am really not happy about how visible the use of a teleprompter is in this video. Other than that there are just a few small things I do not like and/or had to redo for the video:

1. Never animate coffee beans by hand
Because they are round on one side (the side you don't want to show) they are very easily tipped from their position and the whole animation is a waste of time. I tried creating the intro sequence 3 times by hand until I decided to make it in post. This animation was hard for the workstation I am editing on but it saved me many more tries and headache with the stop motion approach.

2. Use blue background paper for stop motion
The green paper creates just too much green spill on the objects themselves laying on top. I had a hard time with keying out the elements in post. That would have not been the case if I used blue background paper. I have it here but did not use it. Next time ;)

3. Imagine the crop in post before pressing the record button
My framing was off from time to time because I did not calculate in the crop in post to fit the desired aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The next video will probably be in 9:16 so it will be super easy for me to frame everything as I want. It would be sooo cool if my camera had more aspect ratio overlays than only for 4:3.

4. Write down the sources while creating the script
For this project I have researched a lot and usually I write down my sources within the script. But this time I forgot to write every source link down and I have also changed the order of paragraphs of the script so often that I lost track of the correct source links. So I had to search and find the links while editing the footage because as you see in the video I show numbers in the top left corner and wanted to give you the sources here in this written post. Not a really bad thing but it would have saved me some time if I kept track of the source for every single fact all the time.

My opinion

It is such a good feeling to finish something you have worked on for so long. Even if it is a 7 minute long video and nobody can imagine the efforts while watching the video. I made a big jump and shouted "I am done" yesterday while watching the final render.

Again I have learned a lot of things and I am slowly optimizing my workflow with all the lessons. Also I have gained a lot of self confidence in accomplishing such a bigger and planned project. The next video will be totally different but I know that I will find solutions to problems I encounter on the journey of creating the next piece.