One of the tasks that I was put in charge of was to create the typography for our 2 minute film opening. Since the narrative of our opening is largely based around fire and the title is 'Incinerate', I decided to use a parallel theme of fire also; to show my diversity in terms of skill set and creativity, I attempted to create a moving background for the title. Attached below details the steps carried out to create the title.
Creating the Template:
Using PowerPoint, I created a rough template for the text that would be used, adding a textbox onto a black background and typing the title in the chosen font.
Importing to Photoshop:
Once I had imported the .JPEG file into Photoshop, I highlighted the yellow area of the text using the Magnetic Wand tool; I then deleted this layer and removed the background so that the moving image background would be visible through the text.
Once I had exported the file and attempted to layer the image over the video of moving fire, I discovered that the centre of the text was not removed and hence, the video could not be seen behind. Back in Photoshop, after carrying out research, I discovered that by merging the highlighted yellow area of the text with the original background image, I would be able to remove the background for the text, leaving the outline of the writing on a black background. To do this, I selected the 'Merge visible' button shown in the screenshot above.
The image attached above shows the title template image in Photoshop once I had removed the background. After merging the yellow area with the original background, the fill of the text appeared as white and grey chequers, identifying that the background had been removed.
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| I then exported the Photoshop file as a .JPEG and this image shows the final text outline. |
Creating the Moving Effect in Final Cut Pro:
Firstly, I downloaded the chosen video of the moving fire from YouTube; I chose a video which had a black background to make layering the title image and the video together easier. I then imported the video into Final Cut Pro.
I then imported the .JPEG file of the Title template into Final Cut and layered it over the video of the fire. Using the Blade tool, I then cut the clips down to the desired length so that the title sequence did not play out too long.
However, once I previewed the video in the preview mode, I noticed that the fire from the original video did not stretch far enough to cover the text and thus, some of the text was unreadable. To fix this, using the Free Transform tool, I stretched the video to cover all of the text.
The last step involved exporting the finished video to enable myself to import the title sequence into our completed 2 minute film opening. To do this, in the right hand control panel was an export option and from this, I selected the 'Master File' option, which saved the video into my documents ready for import into our film opening.
Importing the Title Sequence into the Film Opening:
In the top left panel are previous projects that as a group we had produced in Final Cut Pro. Once I had opening our our film opening project itself, I was able to drag the 'Incinerate' title project onto the black screen allocated for the title at the end of the opening.
I then removed the black screen initially created to shorten the length of the sequence. Additionally, I copied the sound of crackling fire previously imported for the fire flashbacks in order to make the fire in the title seem more realistic and adhere to our genre and narrative further.
Finally, I added a 'Fade to Colour' transition from the actions panel on the right hand side in order to make the transition between the final scene and the title smoother and more professional looking. Since the final scene included the lighting of a match, whereby the light from the fire takes up the entire screen, I was able to successfully create a seamless transition between these two clips.
Evaluation:
Overall, I feel that due to my skill and knowledge of the different software required and my creative flair, I was able to create a professional looking and innovative concept for our film opening title. Although there were a few complications initially, I was able to resolve any problems by researching different solutions to produce the successful sequence that was created. I believe the typography that I produced captures the narrative of our film opening successfully and I am very pleased with the end result.
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