The project of my first-year college class in compositing and motion graphics was to plan and create the title sequence (below) to a fictional TV thriller, Manhunt.
The concept and opening scenes of the thriller were planned, shot, and edited in an earlier introductory video production class. The below stills are from that video.
Using the earlier video project as a starting point I began to ideate on the title sequence, considering existing works that could serve as style inspiration, as well as feelings, possible settings, shots, motifs, music, sound effects, etc.
In a mind map, I expanded from the following core branches:
Genre: thriller; Setting: forest; Target Audience: Young Adult; Content: a game in which one character is hunted by another; Feel: isolation and paranoia; Props: character's shoes, a whistle, a stickynote
Mind Map
The source footage, images, and music were sourced online under free licences. For those requiring it, attribution was added to the video itself to fill out its otherwise sparse credits. The course lecturer, Ben Moore, provided a pack of sound effects to use in the class's video sequences.
This project's lesser task of audio editing and mixing was done in Adobe Audition, the most complex task of which was cutting the theme music to length. Some sections were duplicated, others shortened, and the seams were masked with fades, crossfades, volume adjustments, and precise timing. I enjoyed this work, and lamented that there was not a more focussed audio component to the course.
The bulk of the editing, however, was done in Adobe After Effects (the class could be thought of as an introduction to the software). A detailed list of the editing techniques used can be found in the documents below.
Due to some extreme time constraints, I planned and created this project simultaneously, often teaching myself techniques as and when they became necessary. A storyboard was a requirement for the class, which ended up being a breakdown of the completed video made after the fact. An example of more conventional storyboarding work may be found in the "Forest Friend" 3D animation project on my profile.
The video was finalised in Premiere Pro and exported at 1920*1080, 24fps using, if I recall correctly, codec h.624.
