Liquid Paint Abstractions (Chroma Key and Channel Mixing)

[bryanedmondson]

Hello everyone! I am new here. My name is Bryan. I am an unpublished writer, and creative person who would always like to learn more about digital multimedia

This video has a Modernistic Art Quality to it, maybe a cross between Warhol and Pollock? It is basically a video of dyed liquids thrown into the air. The editing and timezone in Adobe Premiere Elements 11, marvelously slowed the motion down a great deal. The colors are not really so vibrant. The Adobe Premiere Channel Mixer Effect and Key-framing altered the saturation and hue a great deal artificially. I am color blind so I tend to like really bright colors that I can better make out visually.

The "Nous Film" Lead in came from a lot of chroma and luma key fiddling. I do not own "Nous Films" nor do I have the right to said name legally. It is just a moniker I made up. Does anyone know an inexpensive way to claim a trademark or name. Maybe creative commons? I have no idea. Thanks and nice to meet everyone.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D4CCEvCY5Y[/youtube]

[Peru]

Nice piece of video.
The music was well done.

This may be useful:
http://www.how-to-branding.com/Trademark-Logo.html

[Steve Grisetti]

Gorgeous video, Bryan! Amazing that you could do that in Premiere Elements!

[Dave McElderry]

Very well done! The time keyframing was awesome and the choice of music was perfect. My favorite moment came at 1:15 when one strand was bisected by another.

[sidd finch]

Very neat to see all the liquids splash around. What was the frame rate of the original video?

Sidd

[bryanedmondson]

Hi Sidd. Thanks for the kind words about my video. The HD camera's recording frame was 60 f.p.s. I borrowed the camera. I sure wish I had the money to own one.


I like your signature about the Romans. I love History and the Roman Empire was fascinating.
Have a good day.
Bryan

[momoffduty]

Loved the abstract and music. Very nice edit! Care to share your set up to capture the liquids? I see in your signature that you are a certified Photographer. I am a noob at photography, may I ask you some questions some time?

[bryanedmondson]

Care to share your set up to capture the liquids?

Hi, Mom*, it is good to meet a photography protege. I came from the days when people actually heard of film and put it in cameras.

The whole nature of the "liquid neon paints" was that they were not house paint, or tempera paint per se. They were experimental research pigments used in developing reflective road marking materials.
My friend worked at DuPont and brought home plastic jars of granulated colorful powders. You mix them with water and even then, what you got was not really paint, nor was it food coloring. It was non-permanent when in water alone, and did not really exist as "paint" whatsoever without adding some specific clear agent to it. This clear chemical made it permanent road coating paint. We definitely did not want to that. So what we had was basically a lot of runny finger paint that washed off with soap.

Imagine the inside of a garage covered in plastic. That is where it was filmed. The entire concrete floor was lined with large clear plastic painter's sheeting, then duct taped to the floors. The inside walls had plastic roll sheeting stapled to them.
Several Heavy cut strips of rubber sealed and covered the light stands' long electrical cords, and extension cords which ran across the concrete underneath everything.
The lighting umbrellas were on stands about head high. The light and the power pack were all bagged; sealed tight by enclosing them several times with a white hefty trash bag taped around them. The trash bags were cool and did not burn and turned out to be the perfect diffusion filters to prevent hot spots on shiny liquids. The only thing expensive was the camera (which was borrowed) and this was wrapped in a cocoon of tight cellophane to keep it dry.

There were these two kids, the most important people of the whole shoot. They worked for pizza. Decked out in disposable slicker ponchos with bread sacks on their feet, they were the paint magicians. They had turkey basters, ear irrigation bulbs, a super soaker water cannon, pieces of cut garden hose, various plastic cups, soup ladles, and everything else we could think of trying to use in order to throw liquid dye into distinctive flying liquid patterns and stream types.
It turned out that the super tall Ozarka plastic drinking bottles with adjustable-flow nipple-tops make pretty darn good paint throwers-provided you "squeeze,the bottle,and move your arm along an arc to sling a killer stream of paint."( one kid's words). It took most of a day to get it right. Only minutes of the filming really "came together" and worked. The rest was just mistakes, and wet kids laughing.
The only let down is that the road pigments react to a black light, but there was just no way to have both fluorescent lighting and black lighting. And no one would want anyone to attempt to hand hold a black light close to liquids while also standing in puddles.

The paint did not really seem so great, or vibrant, as shot. So a lot of the color is just from a channel mixing effect in premiere elements. Also creating color matte segments and playing around with the opacity "blending" modes with the video 1 track underneath does magical things that I do not completely understand.
I think the whole thing only became something I loved, after hours of video editor tinkering with key frames, blending modes, effects, and just plain luck. No, I think it was the kids having fun that made it all worth it.

[bryanedmondson]

Very well done! The time keyframing was awesome and the choice of music was perfect. My favorite moment came at 1:15 when one strand was bisected by another.

Thanks! Two kids threw the paint. I am totally unable to take any credit.

[bryanedmondson]

Gorgeous video, Bryan! Amazing that you could do that in Premiere Elements!

I don't think it can be done in Premiere Elements alone, can it? I did not intend to imply that by posting it in the Elements showcase. I am using Premiere Elements but I am lucky to have someone who is slowly teaching me the workflow of dynamic linking between premiere pro and after effects. He has a lot of patience and basically helps by showing me how to do compositing basics, how to use frames back and forth between adobe programs, and then has me do what he did so I will learn. Besides what I am shown, most of that work is really way beyond my scope. But in the end it was all imported back into premiere elements where I am did most of the channel mixing, key framing, and opacity blending of matte colors on top of the video 1 track.

My learning is here and there. No degree.

[momoffduty]

Thanks Bryan for sharing your setup. I really enjoyed reading about the whole process. Sounds like a lot of work, lots of planning, some fun, and a little darn luck.