Montage of Beautiful things
Throughout this module I have leant many new techniques, how to use different equipment and improved creatively. I used new techniques in editing such as split screens and improved used a variety of editing software I would not usually use. For example, at one point I was forced to use Windows Movie Maker, I had never used this before but it was very simple to use so it was fine. I then managed to get hold of my copy of Adobe Premier Elements 4.0 from home to upload onto my laptop. Unfortunatly my new laptop had been sent away for repairs so only had my old laptop which struggled whilst I was trying to edit and kept crashing every ten minutes. I managed to edit my symmetry project on it, but not to the best of my ability because it kept crashing. I also used final cut to edit and was hoping to use this for the final montage. I used new equipment such as a D90 with a 50mm lens. I would have not been able to know the differences between the lenses before this module and can now tell the differences. I have done quite a few photography projects because it is an aspect of media that I am interested in and wanted to learn more about it by practising. I now feel very comfortable using a D90, I have learnt how to change nearly all the settings by using online tutorials. I became comfortable with using the Z1′s and Z5′s and learnt how to do slow motion on a Z5. I learnt how to adjust dedo lights without burning myself and the process of lighting in a dark room.
On Tuesday I was planning to edit on Final Cut Pro in the basement of Ellen Terry but the room was booked out. So I went in at 5pm planning to stay there until it closes at 9pm but as I went in I met a few others off my course who had just been told to leave the basement and it was now locked. I then went to the Graham Sutherland building because I had been told a few computers had Final Cut Pro on them. unfortunately the room with these computers in was locked therefore I decided to use the other computers and edit on Premier Pro. I know Final Cut Pro the most out of all the editing software so it will be good to be able to gain much more knowledge in another program. I started off my looking through what I had created for my words and inserting the best parts of the raw footage into the timeline. I then cut it down so I only had the best shots in the timeline. I did this with every piece I had. I was unsure on how to fit the photographs into my montage. Pete had shown me how to make them pan on Final Cut Pro but it was different on Premier Pro. Luckily Laura Garwood knew how to do it and showed me how to. The photographs looked like they were more about to fit into my piece once I had applied the markers into the motion section and changed how the photograph moved. On most of the photographs I had to make them fit onto the screen because they were too large by going onto clip, video options, then scale to frame size. This made then fit on the screen which was much easier than having to click and drag it into the correct position. After I had done this and applied motion to all of the pictures, I realised I had one of my videos missing. This was my favourite video out of them all and I could not find the raw footage on my hard drive. I hoped that it was on my other hard drive and it just did not transfer over properly. When I got home I checked and thankfully, it was. This was my animal piece which has some of my favourite shots in such as one of my friends horse looking out towards a field. I looked through the raw footage of this and put my favourite shots into the montage. I had a problem with this because I had filmed it on a D90 which was an .avi file but Premier would not accept this file type so I had to save it as a .mov therefore loosing out on quality. I was not happy about this but there was not much I could do about it apart from started editing again on Final Cut Pro.
After cutting up all my clips into appropriate lengths, I put them into a random order. I watched it through to see if it worked but it did not. The clips did not flow together and it just looked jumpy and odd. I then pulled it apart to arrange it into a more appropriate layout. I had a few shots that did not really go with anything but I managed to incorporate these by using transitions and overlapping by changing the opacity. Once I was happy with the layout of the clips, I graded all the shots. I mainly used different colour changers, brightness and contrast and sharpen. It looks so much better now it is all graded. Next I needed to choose a soundtrack. I decided to use ‘evening morning’ by Bombay Bicycle Club. I am not sure why this was my choice but whilst I was thinking about what music to put to it, it kept coming up in my thoughts. I decided to listen to it whilst watching the video and it seemed to fit well. I went through the video and arranged certain bits to make then fit better with the music. I changed some of the transitions to go with the beat of the music which I think worked well. The music also sounds like it finishes just after the video finished which was good timing. After this break the song picks up again but I used the razor tool to cut this end bit off.
When I came to export my montage, I changed all the aspects correctly and put it into widescreen but when it was exported, it came out with the sides cut off and black so was not wide-screen at all. Brian Mansi helped me to try to change the ratio and pixels. The programme was trying to keep the aspect of the video so once the ratio was changeable, I would try to change it to 1024×576 but when I would change one number, the other number would change to match it. After playing around with it and exporting it using a few different settings, one video came out full screen without
If i was to improve my final montage, I would make sure all my shots are steady. I have quite a few shaky shots from using s D90 with a 50mm lens without a tripod. The music I have used is copyrighted and if I wish to distribute this, I will have to buy rights or find a soundtrack which is not copyrighted. I was unsure of how the montage flowed and could not tell because of watching it so many times. If I was to do this again, I would ask for feedback from my peers and mentors. Although I am going to do this anyway to see what I could have improved and what I can improve about it in the future. I was hoping to use Motion for my text but again, I could not get access to it. This has been my main dilemma whilst creating this because montage. Although I do like the text aspects I have used because it tricks your eyes into thinking the writing is there for longer than it is because of the contrast between the black and white. I feel like my montage of beautiful things reflects me quite well in the way that the majority of shots are of animals or nature. I aspire to be part of the wildlife film industry and this reflects this. Looking back on my montage of beautiful things, my least favourite shot is the shot of the sheep when I pan up towards the sky. It is one of the most shaky shots and it is needed to be done slower to see the sheep. I put it in because I liked how it ended on the sky and the long shot of the sheep but now when I see it in the montage, I do not particularly like it. I have a few favourite shots, the first one is of the horse, Rene, looking out on the fields. I changed the depth of field here and I think it came out with a really nice effect. My other favourite shot is of the goose in which I think it yawned. I was not zoomed in and was actually that close and the goose did not seem to mind and I like the other ducks and Willen lake in the background. In my montage I have used every word given apart from time because it was part of my walls project. I think this is good because you can see everything I have done, but is not good because I have put everything in, even if it does not particuarly fit. I really like my dirt pictures but feel it looks OK in my montage of beautiful things but does not fit fully. I decided to overlap some of my original sound with the soundtrack for more detail but the balloon pop is slightly after it pops but because it is in slow motion it is not really recognisable. There is also one part I should have cut out when the goose has its mouth open because you cannot hear the other ducks, you can only hear the wind.
Overal I have enjoyed this module. I feel like I have gained a lot personally and creativly. I worked on many of these projects on my own and now feel more confident with this. As I said earlier, I have gained in technical ways and enjoyed learning about the equipment by being hands on and using it. I have improved with keeping to deadlines, it was quite hard making a video a week but most weeks I managed to get atleast part of it completed because I knew it would be so much harder if I fell behind.
My montage -
Analysis
Time
Above is the video I created for time. I filmed this with Laura Garwood and it went quite well. Our aim was to create a slow motion video with normal, reversed and overlapped footage. By the video above, you can see we achieved our aims. We filmed using a Z1, which was our first mistake because the Z5′s have a function where you can record in slow motion. We recorded a variety of things such as glass smashing, balloons popping, a pump spray, water balloon exploding and putting a variety of spices and sauces into water. This was filmed at my house and we had many glass bottles and one broken glass to smash. It was fun smashing the glass and the effect of it worked really well. In the edit we decided to only use the glass smashing because it was what we had the most footage of and we captured the glass smashing well. The sound came out well because of using a boom mic and we thought the glass would be good to play around with. Our editing session went well with Laura doing the editing whilst I input ideas. Our final piece came out quite engaging I thought. It is interesting to watch the glass smash over and over then be reversed so it is fixed. My favourite part of it is when the clear glass is being reversed. It looks like it is repairing itself and because it smashed quite spectacularly, the pieces of it came from all directions. I do not like how the light changes halfway through, in the edit we tried to fix this but we were unsure of why it was changing. We managed to change it a bit but it is still noticeable. I think the sounds work well with it but it would have been better if it was a bit longer. Yasmin Muat gave us a good piece of feedback about filming it from different angles. I would have liked to do this and will bear this in mind for future reference. Overall I am happy with how Laura and I worked together and how the final product looks.
Walls
Originally, my walls video was meant to my observational footage of my housemates cleaning the kitchen. Amusing things always happen so I was going to speed up all the footage then slow it down for the good bits. Whilst the camera was set up in the corner, our builders came in and peered into the camera asking if we were making a movie and my flatmate smashed a glass along with other entertaining happenings. Unfortunately, this took a while to upload and when it was uploaded, it said it would have 6 hours to render. I cut the footage down so rendering time was only an hour but once it was rendered it was really jolty so decided to use my unused footage from ‘time’ to create a wall montage because I feel like Laura and I filmed some good footage that we did not use in our time video.. It is related to walls because everything that is in this video on in a wall. For example, water in a balloon, air in a balloon and the wall of a beer can. The only thing that is more free is the candle but this is still in a wall because it can only burn when there is wax in the silver wall. I edited this by speeding up parts and slowing parts down. I did this to show the beauty of slow motion. I do not notice small things such as how the water droplets ripple and splash unless I actually think about looking and you can see in this video how good they look. If I done this again, I would film it on a Z5 slow motion mode because it will pick out the slow motion in really good quality which is far better than slowing it down in post production. I think the shots of the candles in and out of focus are really pretty and think it would be nice to use one of them at the end on my montage. I like how the water balloon refuses to pop and I would have liked for it to be really slow motion when it did finally pop but when I experimented with this in editing, it did not look right. I think the shot of putting things in water is far too long and gets boring. After you have seen the herbs being dropped into the water once, you do not need to see it any longer.
Dirt
For my dirt project, I wanted to do a photo shoot because I have not done one before. My flatmate has experience in modelling so she was happy to be the model for me. I wanted to show how dirt can be good for you because if you are not exposed to dirt as a child, your immune system will not be as well developed. The photo shoot went well and I will be doing one again soon. For the edit, I just entered all the pictures into Movie Maker and found the soundtrack ‘Dirt.’ The soundtrack worked very well because of the lyrics ‘I’d like to live beneath the dirt.’ My favourite photograph is the one below
I was trying to get her in as many normal places as possible to represent her being dirty in places being normal but all the photographs on the stairs were not coming out well so I asked if she could lay on the stairs upside down and she did! I like how vibrant her eyes look and they match the stairs. From looking back on these photographs I have noticed that I need to think about the photograph more as a whole including the background because this photograph would be better if there was not a chair in the background. In the final piece, a few of the shots are quite over-exposed. I edited them to make them less over-exposed but they are still a bit bright. This was because I was not experienced with the camera so it took me a while to pick up the settings. I am now more experienced so this will not happen in the future. I would have liked to add in a bit of video from the shoot for more variety or perhaps a separate piece of my model being very happy and child-like whilst covered in the dirt. My favourite part of my final piece is how well the visuals fit in with the music in the background. Although watching this back, I feel I needed more of a narrative. It would have worked well if I had more photographs from the beginning of her being clean and unhappy. Although doing a piece like this was experimental for me, I could have been more experimental by doing my abstract or close up pictures of her in the shower going through the transition of clean to dirty. I think this would have added a lot to the piece in terms of visuals and would help develop the narrative.
Symmetry
This was one of the videos I enjoyed creating the most. It was fun to film the skateforcancerMK team training for their skate from Glasgow to Milton Keynes in July. I enjoyed chasing them round with the D90 and once I had told them what I wanted them to do, they inputted their own ideas to use. The downside of this video is definatly lack of a tripod. In some of the shots I managed to rest it on something but most are shakey. Also, in all the shots outside the multi-story, the picture has lines of lights on them. I think this is because there was not much light and the light that was there was orange and artificial. The orange tint to the shot can be changed in post production but I do not know how to change the effect the light had on the camera. I used the soundtrack Perfect Symmetry by Keanne because I found it in my research and thought it would add to the fact that it is a video based on symmetry. Many of the moves on the longboards are hard to do symmetrically because they are differet boards and different people. I like the shot where theyare standing out of focus then longboard towards me and the closer they come, the more in focus they get. I needed to record more atmosphere sounds of them skateboarding to overlap with them talking.
Symmetry
Our word for the week is symmetry.
Definitions of symmetry on the Web:
- (mathematics) an attribute of a shape or relation; exact reflection of form on opposite sides of a dividing line or plane
- balance among the parts of something
- symmetric – symmetrical: having similarity in size, shape, and relative position of corresponding parts
- symmetrical – harmonious: exhibiting equivalence or correspondence among constituents of an entity or between different entities
- Invariance of equations of motion under changes in condition.
When I think of symmetry, the first thing I think of is an image being mirrored with different patterns (fractals) like when you look into a kaleidoscope. This is a line of symmetry which is symmetry like using a mirror. I use to love making and using these as a child. I found this hypnotic video below to show what I mean.
You can see from the video that there are 12 separate parts which are all symmetrical which creates the symmetrical effect. This means the image is always symmetrical no matter what shape is put into it. This is called radial symmetry -‘the property of symmetry about an axis; “the starfish illustrates radial symmetry”.’ It is like a circle, you can cut it up in any way that goes through the axis in the middle and it will be symmetrical. This creates a variety of strange shapes and reminds me of maths at school when we had to draw symmetry lines on shapes like below. We also use to do rotational symmetry which was when we pinned the shape down by the axis and counted how many turns it took til the shape fitted into itself without turning it over the 360 degree point. For example, you can turn a square four times.
This is called planes of symmetry and is about finding the mirror image. We use to have small mirrors to put along the dotted lines to see if it was symmetrical or not. Although this was my first thoughts, I would not know how to execute this idea well and was unsure how to progress to come up with another idea. I decided to research different kind of symmetry to help my development and give me inspiration.
There are many different words related to symmetry such as bilateral symmetry. This is ‘the property of an organism or part of an organism such that, if cut in only one plane, the two cut halves are mirror images of each other.’ If I relate this to human beings it would be putting a mirror down the middle of the body because both sides look mostly similar. Although if you hold a mirror down the middle of your face or use a symmetry effect on a webcam, you always look different when you have your face symmetrical. I did this earlier to show what I mean.
This beginning of this video shows the mirror down the middle of the person in a comedic way. I like how this works and it looks like he is floating.
The human body looks symmetrical but it is only when you look hard you notice it is not. This website says most people have one foot bigger than the other. To me, this shows how symmetry can be hard to achieve in certain situations but when the lack of symmetry is apparent such as the loss of a limb, it stands out. I would say that animals are similar to humans in this way, they have the same aspects of symmetry but have differences such as different markings on either side or like our house rabbit who always has one ear up and one ear down. I would have liked to create a video where I film our bunny, Sparticus then use the mirror effect on Final Cut Pro to create symmetry. I would have liked to filmed Sparticus looking in a mirror to show the effect of symmetry but because we had building works in our house, our bunny was sent home so this was not possible so more development on my idea is needed.
There are other less obvious forms of symmetry such as Origin of Symmetry which is the second album from the band Muse. This reached number 3 in the UK and is now a platinum album. The band formed in 1994 in Devon and has three group members. Their music is alternative rock and including Origin of Symmetry, they have released five albums. Muse is a very popular band and have won many awards such as a mercury prize, 5 MTV Europe Music Awards, 8 NME awards and many more! Their album Origin of Symmetry experimented with different instruments such as a church organ and an expanded drum kit. It was around this time that Celine Dion tried to buy the rights to the name ‘muse’ because she wanted to call her Las Vegas show ‘muse.’ She offered to pay $50000 but Muse declined and she had to drop it. The most famous song on this album is the video below.
The music video is very strange and I interpreted as the women being plug-ins in the way that you can plug-in each part of the woman to get them to look how you want. It is like the woman is a machine, there is no connection between the woman and the man because the man is just getting her to look like what he wants when he wants because of a bad relationship. Maybe even the women were past relationships that did not last, I thought this because of the first verse – ‘I’ve exposed your lies baby, the underneath’s no big surprise, now it’s time for changing, and cleansing everything, to forget your love’ . That is how I interpret it!
I would like to create a music video to these songs but this will take far longer than a week but it is something I am interested in making anyway so will create a music video in the near future but unfortunately not for this module.
Another album released is Perfect Symmetry by Keane. This was their third album released and was a change compared to their other albums. It used different instruments like the album Origins of symmetry did. They used guitars and synthesisers and their sound changed from their original piano-pop sound. Keane are from East Sussex and formed in 1997 with four members. One of these, Dominic Scott left in 2001 and is now replaced by Jesse Quin. The difference between Keane and other rock bands, is that they are piano led instead of guitar led.
In the music video, perfect symmetry, symmetry is actually used. Line of symmetry is used to reflect words into a mirror and there is a shape similar to what you would see in a kaleidoscope. I like this music video, it held my attention well and it made me look at forms of symmetry I would not have seen before. For example, there is a bit where the camera is in the middle of the wave so it is a circle shape. This is symmetrical but I would not think of waves as symmetrical but I guess they are. They are symmetrical in the way that they have similar patterns and do the same thing. This relates to surfing because surfers have symmetrical aspects such as they paddle out to see, then try to ‘ride’ the way back to shore on a surfboard. They have similar aims when surfing such as staying up and doing it well. I would love to go and film waves and surfers but unfortunately I do not have the time or funds which leads me onto the next best thing, longboarding. A longboard is a big skateboard used for more long distance skates or carving which is basically turning. If you type longboard into google images, some surfers will appear! Here are some pictures of longboards
I know about longboarding because my friends own longboards. There are a few pictures of them on their longboards below.
These two guys are going to be riding their longboards from Glasgow to Milton Keynes to raise money for cancer research UK. I made a documentary about why they are doing it and really enjoyed making it. I would like to film them to see if they can do symmetrical movements whilst on their longboards. I think doing this has appealed to me the most because I enjoy filming them and they look like opposites. This could work in my favour for symmetry because of bilateral symmetry. They are symmetrical to themselves and symmetrical in the way that they have the usual human features but look different but they are doing the same thing. They both have symmetrical aims which are to do the same tricks and to improve their longboarding skills so they can complete the trip well. I have put the documentary I made below.
They have allowed me to film them along with another person. They will all be wearing the same skateforcancermk hoodie to show symmetry in clothing. I am planning to have them all skating along towards the camera together and trying to do the same tricks together. I would like to do this in a place that has some symmetry such as bollards in a row so they can change the symmetry by skating through them. I would like to play around with focus whilst filming on the D90 with a 50mm lens.
By using forms of research available to me, my idea has progressed and developed into something much more complex than my original idea. Each one of my pieces of research has led onto a new piece of research which eventually led onto finding my final piece. I enjoy this form of development because you will never know what your final product will end up being. I have learnt many things about symmetry that I did not know before. I did not realise there was that many types of symmetry because I have not had the need to research it. In this process I have learnt these new types and came up with a better idea than my original idea.
Shape
Our word for the week is shape. What even is shape? I like the video below because it shows how shape can be changed and gives me the impression of how hard it is to define shape.
Definitions of shape on the Web:
- any spatial attributes (especially as defined by outline); “he could barely make out their shapes”
- the spatial arrangement of something as distinct from its substance; “geometry is the mathematical science of shape”
- human body: alternative names for the body of a human being; “Leonardo studied the human body”; “he has a strong physique”; “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”
- a concrete representation of an otherwise nebulous concept; “a circle was the embodiment of his concept of life”
- form: the visual appearance of something or someone; “the delicate cast of his features”
- determine: shape or influence; give direction to; “experience often determines ability”; “mold public opinion”
- condition: the state of (good) health (especially in the phrases `in condition’ or `in shape’ or `out of condition’ or `out of shape’)
- make something, usually for a specific function; “She molded the rice balls carefully”; “Form cylinders from the dough”; “shape a figure”; “Work the metal into a sword”
- Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe: the supreme headquarters that advises NATO on military matters and oversees all aspects of the Allied Command Europe
- give shape or form to; “shape the dough”; “form the young child’s character”
- form: a perceptual structure; “the composition presents problems for students of musical form”; “a visual pattern must include not only objects but the spaces between them
So shape can be many things! This is not much of a progress because it is so broad.
My first thought was about how shapes are formed in sports such as cheerleading, rugby, gymnastics and football. I participated in cheerleading last term which must be why it was my first thought. The forming of shapes is beneficial to these sports such as in cheerleading all the stunts make a shape. All shapes have a name and in cheerleading this is also applied to stunts such as libs and baskets. A lib is when the flyer is being held up in the air on one leg and a basket is when the bases hold onto each others wrists and throw the flyer in the air then catch her. Whilst the flyer is in the air, they make shapes with their bodies to make the stunt look good.
I thought of filming the Coventry Cougars cheerleading squad but we have to include shadows in our piece this week and doing stunts in bad lighting conditions would not go well!
I have researched shape artwork and found a German artist called Marc Franz. He worked with shape and animals mainly with oil on canvas.
Marc Franz is one of the popular impressionist artists because of the colour and the use of nature in his work.
In December 1908 he wrote a letter to Reinhart Piper:
I am trying to intensify my feeling for the organic rhythm of all things, to achieve pantheistic empathy with the throbbing and flowing of nature’s bloodstream in trees, in animals, in the air.
Marc Franz gave an emotional meaning or purpose to the colors he used in his work: blue was used for masculinity and spirituality, yellow represented feminine joy, and red encased the sound of violence. His work is full of shapes and in the picture below, there are barely any curved lines, just lots of points. I think it gives the animal a wild feeling about it because it seems sharp and frozen like it is waiting to pounce. The surroundings are shaped in a similar way but it is still easy to tell what is the animal and what is the background because of the way the shapes link together plus the colour varies.
Shape is part of everyday life, everything has a shape! I have been researching the Bauhaus in Germany. This is a school that combined crafts and the fine arts to teach art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design and typography. I read through the Bauhaus manifesto, I found it difficult to read at first but I understood it when reading it the second time. They talk about the split between the arts and craftmanship, this is what they are trying to prevent by this school because it teaches students to link them together creatively. This manifesto begins with the sentence – The ultimate aim of all visual arts is the complete building! The first thing I thought of was linking visual arts to architecture although in the manifesto it links to fine arts. I normally think of fine arts as drawings but this is not the case as the Bauhaus manifesto shows. Visual arts need to be linked to craftsmen but the manifesto states how art cannot be taught but those artists should learn a trade because ‘art is not a profession.’ This join of artist ad trade creates the ability to achieve great architecture and sculptures. They will be able to create everything to do with the building including furnishings. From this one school, they have shaped our world today. The shape designs they came up with are used in all major cities.
Shape is drummed into our society in terms of looks, although I feel like this is trying to be changed. Everyone is a different shape although many people do have an ideal shape. I think this is mainly due to the ideas drummed into people’s minds, especially girls it seems. The ‘ideal figure’ is shown through the media in the form of role models. Actual models are usually size zero, a size I would personally not like to be. Although this seems to be slowly changing for example, when carrying out research I found this article. This talks about how Australian fashion industry is preparing to reject skinny models. It talks about how these models influence people to be like them which sometimes causes diseases such as anorexia or bulimia. I think it will be a good influence if all models are not a size zero but am not sure of the effect this will have on society. I do not think there is an ideal size, everyone has a different idea even if the changes between ideas only differ slightly, they are still different. I do not know how much it will change society if size zero models were no longer used because those who want to be that skinny will not get put off by this instantly. This would have to be a long progress but could gradually work and will hopefully reduce the amount of people getting anorexia or bulimia. I have been researching how the media affects eating disorders and found this website. It talks about how the media may influence people into having an eating disorder because of the images shown through in the media such as beauty and dieting. 1 in 11 billboards have a direct message about beauty and there are always new diets advertised. I think the media shows it is good to be skinny but whenever I see anorexia in the media, it is not encouraging it, in fact, it is usually talking about the negative side of it. Anorexia could be causes by being bombarded with the message of how being skinny is good but I do not think it is the main cause of anorexia. This article backs up my ideas by saying it is more the genetics/environment that leaves the person open to getting a disease like anorexia and there are many factors that go into it. I found the video below when researching anorexia and it explains the disorder well. It is a more mental disorder than an eating disorder because the person does not see themselves for what they actually look like.
Leading on from this research, I have decided to look into being double jointed because this changed the generic shape of the human body. Being double jointed means you can bend joints further than most people, it does not mean that you have an extra joint. This website has an easy way to explain being double jointed and some pictures that may make people with a weak stomach queasy! The website explains that the shape of the bone and the ligaments that join it determine the flexibility of the joint. Double jointed is also known as joint hypermobility, this basically means the joint moves more than it should but is more likely to be called this if the hypermobility causes problems such as joint pain, back pain and dislocated joints according to the NHS website. I decided to research this because I am double jointed in my fingers and knees, members of my family are also double jointed in their hands so wanted to find out if it was hereditary. On the NHS website, it has confirmed by suspicion and says it runs in families.
My research so far has developed and I have decided to use the human body to create shapes. We rented out dedo lights and a Z5 to film us and the shadows we created. I used my joints to make different shapes so you could see it in the shadow. Here is our final shape project -
I thought this turned out quite well, but if I were to do it again, I would make sure you can see the shadow more clearly. We found it quite difficult adjusting the dedo lights to create a shadow without the person being in the way. We did not have enough time in the studio to play around with it anymore which would have improved the shadows. I like the shot of the bird shaped shadow because you cannot see the persons hands, I would have liked to do more of just shadows. I received feedback from Steve Dawkins who said this shapes video seems like it could be two separate videos, one about shadows and the other about shape of the body in gymnastics. I agree with this, some of the parts that are put together look quite random and are only related by the shadow and background. Steve also said about how it could have looks better visually with a black background with the lights instead of blue. I enjoyed doing the gymnastics and the shadows looked good during the front walkover, especially in slow motion. It was good to do at least one project in a larger group because it can be more fun. I certainly enjoyed myself even though we were only in there for an hour. I took the tape and completed the editing with the help of Lydia. We had nearly forty-five minutes of footage so it took quite a while to cut it down to an appropriate size. It was fun to watch back because I had not been behind the camera so did not know what any of it looked like. I am happy with how it turned out, it is a happy piece which reflects the fun we had with it such as Lydia’s failed handstand!
Light
Today our word for the week is light!
Here are a few definitions of light on the Web:
- of comparatively little physical weight or density; “a light load”; “magnesium is a light metal–having a specific gravity of 1.74 at 20 degrees C”
- (used of color) having a relatively small amount of coloring agent; “light blue”; “light colors such as pastels”; “a light-colored powder”
- characterized by or emitting light; “a room that is light when the shutters are open”; “the inside of the house was airy and light”
- (physics) electromagnetic radiation that can produce a visual sensation; “the light was filtered through a soft glass window”
Light is
- Fast, bright, dark, faster than sound, lighten up, got a light, light at the end of the tunnel, shadow, let there be light, light/heavy, moon light, light of my life, be enlightened, spark.
Johnathan talked briefly about the age of enlightenment, I decided to research this because I did not have a full understanding of it. The age of enlightenment, also known as the age of reason, was understanding the world in scientific ways, that are not to do with religion. It took place in the 17th and 18th century and conflicted greatly with religion. They wanted to show the truth about the world and get rid of any religion and superstitions because of the amount of deaths caused by them. This website informed me about the age of enlightenment further by bringing in a man called Rousseau. He questioned the royal families right to the throne, he said how the Gods do not choose who has the right to the throne, but in fact the people do. Rousseau said the people could also remove the Kings if they want to. Art also changed during the Age of Enlightenment, this website talks about this change as well as this website from earlier. It has taught me how art changed from being mainly about the Gods to a more naturalist approach. Art began to be focused on everyday people to provoke an emotion. More women began to paint but they were not allowed to work with nude models which hindered them. Instead they focused on still life and portraiture but only few were admitted into academies. The style changed into ‘neo-classical’ style with neo meaning new and classical meaning a long time ago. Below is a painting from the 18th century of a ‘normal’ rich family and a portrait piece. This was a optomistic time but clearly went again religion. After my analysis of the age of enlightenment, I have decided to not create a video linked to it so I continued my research.
We looked at painting with light in the lecture. I have always found this interesting but did not know how to do it, I thought this was a good opportunity to experiment with it. I researched light art and found this website which had some interesting light art on. I like all the big swirls and would like to have a go at drawing light people like this one.
I found the above picture in this article. It talks about an artist doing light art in a variety of locations. ‘Welsh artist Michael Bosanko creates the amazing light graffiti effect using only five coloured torches and by leaving his digital Canon camera on a long exposure.’ I find it so interesting just looking at what he has designed and I cannot wait to try it! I also found this article which talks about the picture below. The artist stays anonymous and goes to abandoned buildings to create her light art, she says she finds beauty in decay. When I first saw her light art, I was unsure as to how she had created it, but it says ‘Each image is created with the help of light boxes lined with silver foil and given a lid, which is carved with patterns.’ The butterflies looked too precise to be drawn individually so this makes more sense.
The use of light boxes reminded me of this video we were shown in the lecture.
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I rented out a Nikon D90 after the lecture. I googled how to make it work because apart from the shutter speed, I did not know what else to change. Once I was in the correct settings it was easy to use. I got my flatmates to use a torch to draw things and after some experimenting, we started coming up with some good light painting.
I did this one by changing the torch settings to SOS.
This is my favourite picture that was taken. It reminds me of one of my favourite childhood films, Fairy Tale: A True Story. This is about two young girls finding fairies in the brook at the bottom of their garden. They take pictures of themselves with the fairies and these are released into the press which makes the fairies leave. I loved this film as a child mainly because the name Faye means Fairy.
Filming my light art went well. My flatmates were willing to help me which instantly made it a lot easier because I could either draw or take the picture without having to make sure I have set up the camera in the correct place. I did a few by myself by putting the camera on a flat surface and putting the timer on for longer to allow me to get in front of the camera and then start drawing the light art. It would have been easier if I had a camera timer remote but I do not have access to one. I spend two evenings playing around with the light art but could have done another evening to do more experimental art. Although doing light art in the first place was a big experiment! From doing this i feel so much more confident using the Nikon D90. Not only did I learn how to create the correct settings for light art, I also learnt other uses and settings for the camera such as depth of field. I tried a variety of different drawings such as a garden, swirls, ears on people and tracing people. The one I enjoyed doing the most was drawing people, I like how it can come out completely different if you do a slight thing wrong which could make the person no longer look human. Some come out so good and some just do not work at all and this is what I like about drawing human shapes. I had roughly 100 photographs because I really enjoyed playing around with it.
I done this at the weekend and had no access to my normal editing software because the buildings were closed and my laptop has been sent off to be fixed. My old laptop only had Windows Movie Maker so I edited on this. I have not used this software in quite a while but after a bit of experimentation I picked it up and found it very easy to use. I chose the pictures suitable to use and put them in a separate folder then imported this folder into Movie Maker. I arranged these into the order I wanted and imported the soundtrack – watch the sun come up by example. I chose this because it is about the sun, which is the main source of light, and people. It is also upbeat and I feel like it matches the drawings of people well. I like how it is upbeat because it feels fun and I had fun creating it. If I re-created the sound, I might be more experimental by having a narrative in the background such as a poem about light. I received feedback from tutors and others on my course. They said the background lets it down because it is just around my house. They would have liked to see it in a different location. I also had a comment saying the music is too happy and because it is dark it should be more slow and unhappy although someone else said the music fits well with the piece.
Here is my final result.
Time
Our word for the week is time. I have been seeing people play around with slow motion and in our workshop we were taught how to make the Z1′s and Z5′s capture slow motion. I enjoyed this workshop and its crazy how the camera made the image go in slow motion so much! For this week I would like to continue playing around with slow motion by smashing glass, popping balloons and ripples in water. I will spend time in post production making it reverse and re-smash.
Last week, Laura Garwood and I filmed a variety of items that we can play around with in post production. It went well and we found a variety of objects to use such as glass bottles, a balloon, a water balloon, different sauces being put into water, someone whipping their hair and crushing tin cans. It was interesting to do and it made me think about little things you miss when you don’t look closely enough such as how strange balloons look when they pop. I had watched this video while reseaching and took some inspiration from it.
Photoshoot
I have now completed my first photoshoot! I think it went quite well, I took 250 pictures! I have now managed to cut it down to roughly 15 and am going to edit them slightly then put them on a slideshow. I had planned a few shots before hand but as we got going, a few more cropped up with input from others. I wanted shots inside and outside to show that dirt is not all bad where ever you are!
I am having issues with my wall project and have still not managed to edit it. The mac would not pick up the camera for some reason but hopefully I can get it sorted out soon.
Dirt
Our word for this week is dirt. From this I got
Childhood – wellies, mud pies
Buildings – actual mud houses
Life – crops, snails, worms, earth
Germs – OCD, mouth, illness
Dust
Dirt is good for you – clensing, mud facemasks, builds immunities as child
Festivals – mud
Perspectives – personal opinions on what people find dirty
Cleaning – person, products
I have never done a photo shoot before so thought about how I could incorporate that into something to do with dirt. I decided to ask the question ‘why is dirt shown as bad for you?’ To show this, I asked my housemate if I could make her look dirty by using facepaints and do a photo shoot with her. I thought of having her getting into a shower clean and coming out dirty to resemble how dirt can be good for you. Body mud wraps and face masks are popular for cleansing and relaxation and when you are young, dirt can help you build up immunities which can help for later on in life.
Wall
Last night it was my housemates birthday so he had some people round, I thought I would use this to my advantage by getting them to make a human wall but had an issue of where to do it and how to get them all to participate. I went into where they all were with my camera and thought about how I had never done observational footage before so decided to just observe. I am planning to observe them further over this weekend and will edit it on Monday. This observational footage of my housemates links to ‘walls’ because we all live together in the house which is made up of walls! I then decided to set up the camera while my housemates cleaned up the kitchen. There is always something interesting that happens so hopefully it will be interesting enough! I will then speed it up and slow down any interesting bits.
First word
Studies suggest that the key to success in any field has nothing to do with talent. It’s simply practice, 10,000 hours of it — 20 hours a week for 10 years. Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Stories of Success (2009)
This term we are creating a ‘montage of beautiful things’ and are given a word each week.
Our word for the week is wall. When I heard this I felt like it was very limited, but as you start thinking about it, you can do so much with it. I did a brain storm for all the things I can think of that relate to walls and here are a few things I came up with -
- Builders – man-made, can be destroyed
- Free running
- Climbing wall
- House – warmth, comfort, family, friends, comfortable, fun, wall of people
- Obstructions – can’t physically get past, trapped, horror, escape, freedom
- Personal restrictions – not being able to complete something, ‘hitting the brick wall’
- Ownership – rich, poor, control
- Division – groups of people, race, stereotypes
- Cat on a wall
- Graffiti
- Protesters
From these, the main ideas I picked out is firstly free running. I was going to do the opposite of a stereotypical free runner by either getting a girly girl or a grannie to do it. I do not know any grannies in Coventry and the girlie girl will not do it because she will probably hurt herself! So I thought about house. I thought of having a pile of people in my house as a wall and then talk to them about what it means to them to live in a house.
Getting Ideas- Becoming a Cultural Detective
How engaged are you with the world around you?
- How connected are you to the communities of practice and the issues that interest you?
- Where do you draw your inspiration from?
- How to you record and evidence your ideas?
Xfactor
This is our task for week 6 260MC. We had to film ourselves watching Xfactor with some critical comments. Thought this was a bit of a strange task because even when I went to watch it back, I got bored of watching it quite quickly. Although I like Xfactor so I didn’t mind! Kayleigh, Anna and I went to Yasmin’s to watch this and managed to find a place where the camera could pretty much see all of us then used the remote to record ourselves. We could have been more critical but it was quite hard to just talk about the Xfactor in critical ways while watching it! I have actually followed this series, I am not sure why, but when watching the auditions for the bad ones, I geuss I liked the good ones and just carried on following it! I can understand why some people do not like it. The winners normally disappear and it brings out some bad things in people such as the girl who punched her ‘best friend’. Typical that they were from Coventry!! It seems to have saved ITV and you can see that this is where they get their money from mainly because of all the adverts. Them slots are far more expensive than any other channel at that time because of the sheer amount of viewers.
I am also part of the debate team for ‘the Xfactor is the savior of contemporary television. There was a meeting on Wednesday but the doctors said I swollen appendix which was hurting so I couldn’t go. There is a facebook group where I have told the others my ideas and where they told me what they discussed in the meeting. I will post our points after the debate and evaluate how I think it went then.
Genre 2!
John Fisk make a diagram of codes which has 3 different levels and said that anything that is televised is encoded by social codes.
The first level is reality. This is what we see such as clothes, speech, etc which is how he person presents themselves.
The second level is encoded by technical codes such as lighting, editing and sound. This transmits the conventional codes which shape narrative.
The third level is ideology such as individualism, race and class.
I also learnt a new word today, diachronic analysis. This is comparing a new program to an old program. I am going to do a diachronic analysis with Xfactor and The London Palladium. On the Xfactor live shows there is usually a catch up of who went last week and shows the contestants and judges comments. This is not on The London Palladium although they are both talent shows. Their opening credits are similar because of the objects moving towards the camera. On the Xfactor it is the X moving in from the sky into London where it is stars moving towards the camera in The London Palladium. The London Palladium also has the floor moving to give the impression that the audience at home are walking into the building. They both do this to make the audience feel more part of the show. The camera then movies into the studio and you see the studio audiences clapping which shows their enjoyment and excitement about the upcoming show. It is here when you meet the presenters but Xfactors presenter, Dermot, is introduced through a voice telling the audience whereas The London Palladium just shows the hosts. They are quite similar just obviously better graphics on the Xfactor as the London Palladium was produced in 1973.
Another word I learnt was synchronic analysis which is when you compare things from today such as comparing Eastenders and Hollyoaks.
We then went on to talk about media institutions, I obviously wanted to write everything down for this because my notes get messy and I have arrows all over the place!! Media institutions either own or control the media and can be public or commercial. There is not just the media piece that is the institution, there is the physical parts of it too such as the studios ownership, the office, etc. The media is therefore always consumed in difference places to where it was created. Media institutions power seems to be dropping slightly because of all the user-generated content that is taking place so they are having to do this kind of stuff instead as well.
This brings us to the idea of ‘is the power shifting over from the institution to the public?’ I still think it lays with the institution but time will tell! We were given a few people’s names such as Fredrick Jameson who talks about postmodernism. Bricolage who talks about hybridity and how weird things happen on the internet.
Its annoying because I cannot get onto the tasks on the online blog from my laptop so will read the article soon.
Genre Questions
OK so I have decided to try and tackle these genre questions.
- How useful is the notion of genre for explaining the full range of modern media texts?
Genre is useful for explaining most of the media texts of today even though there are hybrid forms. These hybrid forms can still be understood in terms of genre because you can single out the genres that have been merged together. For example, ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ by Quentin Tarintino is a merge between horror and crime. You can tell it is a crime movie because of the generic conventions of how the people act and the whole hostage thing. You can then separately tell it is a horror because of the mythological vampires in a pub. When the vampires appeared I was so confused. This is because the audience know what to expect straight away because of the generic conventions so automatically relate what they are seeing to other things they have seen in that genre and expect it to be similar to that. When it isn’t it is confusing but you can still figure out where the different generic aspects of the film have come from. Genre has been imbedded into our brains and we pick up on genres without even thinking about it.
- Which types of cultural production appear to be the most generic and why? Which appear to be the least generic and why
The first thing i thought about when I read ‘most generic’ was magazines such as ‘thats life’ and ‘pick me up’. You always know what kind of stories you are going to read. They are always going to be shocking, life changing, and normally personal stories about some kind of bad experience someone has survived in their life. In general, magazines are quite broad but in each individual genre, they are quite similar apart from the fact that different news papers are aimed at different people so are different. Soaps are also very generic although they always have some kind of twist, you know what to expect which is usually some kind of conflict whether it is between two people or between someones morals. Recently, game shows have become less generic I think. Computers are being used much more and so many new game shows have been shown recently. The Cube is a new game show that is different to others and if you compare it with a more original game show such as Countdown, it has hardly any similarities. Documentary’s are usually quite different to each other mainly because of the broad range of topics. They all seem to have different approached and it is usually hard to predict what the documentary will look like. For example, if it is about a children’s home, the lighting could be dark to protect identities or to show the mood, or it could be really bright and uplifting!
- How do these reflections tie into the work you are doing on your optional modules?
I am doing documentary so it ties in with the last question. I have a lot of freedom of what to do visually with the documentary and I am finding it hard to find something that will fit it well without under or overpowering it. There are so many different approaches I could take and need to watch some similar documentaries for inspiration.
- Does the notion of genre aid our understanding of newer forms of cultural production such as online production? Does Adorno’s thesis still hold true given the ‘democratic’ nature of the internet?
Essay
OK so I have three essay titles to choose out of and have no idea which one to choose. Right now, I do not feel like I could write 2500-3000 words on any of them, probably only 1000 so I’m not feeling good about it at the moment.
I have read through all the questions and thought about what one I understand the most and decided on this question. Here are the bullet points I made about it.
The context of current media production is that user-generated content of little real value or worth is eclipsing more traditional forms of media production. To what extent do you agree with this statement?
- Growth of internet meant more user-generated content. Youtube mainly.
-Youtube – best bits shown on tv. Talked about, people famous off it.
- TV putting their shows on youtube, harry potter premier.
- Define traditional – tv, radio, newspapers
- All traditional forms are still popular – figures from tv shows and cinema – illegal downloading
Here is a more structured plan of my essay.
- Introduction
*The growth of the internet has changed the views of media by user-generated content.
*This has affected the other traditional forms but they are still popular despite this.
*How will this affect the future
- Paragraph 1
*Youtube was created in 2005 – grown so rapidly in 5 years.
*information about how and who it was created by.
*Statistics about users.
*Lots of personal stuff – not important to some, but is to others
*Entertainment is ‘worth’ and there are many entertaining things or ‘how to’s’ but some stuff is completely worthless
*Youtube shown in traditional media – tv, radio, newspapers
Paragraph 2
*Traditional media still popular
*Figures of how many viewers for various forms
*Media industries still making money
*Still get talked about
Paragraph 3
*Although youtube is discussed often
*People get famous through youtube
*Not as professional, very strange. Other websites – college humor
*User generated such as you’ve been framed has been created before
*Censorship on youtube – copyright issues
Conclusion
*Was restricted to only media officials getting their view across – view points more open
*It has grown but not taken over, not eclipsing but has made a big change in media because of personal views
*Some of it has no value, but most is valuable to that person – their opinions, loved ones etc
I feel better now that I have wrote down all the points, much more positive!!
260mc feedback
I was one of the few who managed to show their video in front of the class and gain feedback. I was told that the shot of the ducks was good because animals can be hard to capture on films. The only other feedback I got really was that I could have experimented more with the shots and editing but I wanted to keep it quite simple to represent childhood. I got told that I had quite a few good shots throughout my film. I was told the music was a bit like the beginning of a children’s program which I agreed with but quite liked the effect. I liked the reference of Courtney looking like a princess of nature because of the white coat she was wearing! I did not get many negative comments so am quite happy with the comments.
What Matters To Me :)
My what matters to me has changed and developed as I have gone along. This has shown me how apabtable you need to be due to things out of your control such as weather, seasons and availableness. At first, I wanted to interview someone who is involved in animal conservation so I looked for contact details on the internet and emailed the Warrick animal conservation. I had no reply so was just going to do opinions in a household about this subject but when I had a meeting with Johnathan he said about doing something different rather than just an interview. This made me think about how I could be more creative and do something different for this peice of work.
It was originally going to show how my love for animals came about, but because there are not many wild animals around at the moment, I decided to get my cousin to wonder round Fuzton Lake, which is where I spent the majority of my childhood. With all these linked together, my ‘what matters to me’ is Furzton Lake, childhood memories and my cousin, Courtney. My first issue with filming it so close to the deadline, was the weather, but that was the only time when I could make it home when Courtney was free. I was pretty sure that it would rain and ruin everything BUT it was so lovely, one of the best days in a while! Bright blue sky and sunshine. I met up with Courtney at 10 and we started filming. I did not come across many problems when filming, in fact, I am finding it hard to think of even one problem right now. The closest thing I had to a problem was Courtney looking at the camera but I had expected that and I think some shots of her looking at the camera look good. It shows she is not just round the lake on her own, but with someone like I always was. I had a problem with the white balance because it kept making everything orange but that was soon put right. The autumn trees looked so pretty around the lake and I was originally going to make it sepia to look like a re-enactment of my childhood but the colours were too nice to change! The lake was pretty much empty so looked even better.
The music I found fitted perfectly into the images such as when Courtney gets off the slide and smiles at the camera there is a tinkling noise. Also when she picks a flower, the music slows down then picks up as soon as the flower is picked. I wanted upbeat happy music to show happy times around the lake. After watching it a few times, it begins tolook like the beginning of a TV program with that music but I think it fits well with the feel of the video. I chose this music because I wanted something upbeat and happy to show how enjoyable Courtney is finding her time around the lake. It represents the youthfulness and carefree times of childhood.
If i changed something about the video, I would film it in summer so there is more wildlife and it wouldn’t be wet so could have some sitting down shots by the lake or Courtney rolling down a hill. Although it would be much busier then so others would be in shot. In the summer, Courtney and I went to the lake in the video where you see her reflection and found about 20 baby frogs. This would have been good but I will put a few pictures on here of it anyway. I really enjoyed filming and spending time with Courtney, my mini me! The editing process went well, but I had a few shots that did not really link to any others and just looked out-of-place when I put them in so they were deleted. I kept the editing simple to show how simple it is for a child to enjoy themselves like this. Overall I am happy with how the video looks and how the process went!
Same old, same old
We talked about genre today and had to list what is genre. We came up with generic convention which means similar styles of filming, a category, a type of something, media concept and genre is comfortable for the audience because they know what they are going to get. Genre is a way of classifying media output into different categories that the audience can recognise.
We watched this advert below which I really like 
It is a comical advert that contradicts the stereotypes of farmers. It is a parody of a rap video in which the audience needs to know the original genre to make sense of it. This advert was produced by Little X who actually makes music videos for people like Usher. This advert used props to show how organic their products and how they care for their animals. The visuals clash with the rap because they do not normally go together but the rap informs the audience about their product. It is similar to other adverts of its genre because it is showing their product in natural but I have not seen an urban rap in an advert like that before! The audience should be aimed at those who buy their own food but the rap makes it feel like it should be aimed at young adults.
Genres are categorised by sameness and repetition. They have a repertoire of elements such as audio-visual, narratives, characters, ideals, composition and lighting.
- How useful is the notion of genre for explaining the full range of modern media texts?
- Which types of cultural production appear to be the most generic and why? Which appear to be the least generic and why? How do these reflections tie into the work you are doing on your optional modules?
- Does the notion of genre aid our understanding of newer forms of cultural production such as online production? Does Adorno’s thesis still hold true given the ‘democratic’ nature of the internet?
OK, so I am meant to answer these questions, but to be honest, I have nooo idea what they mean. Will look at them some more later and try them in my next post..
Something important to me
For this assessed piece, I could not figure out what to do. All my other work has been about conservation so my first idea was the email the Warwickshire conservation team to see if anyone was available to talk to. I did not get a reply so thought I could do a ‘opinions under one roof’ kind of thing with the people i live with. I had a meeting today and have now decided to re-enact some of the reasons why I think I love wildlife now. I am going to go home and use my cousin in the video with some voice over. There is a picture of me and her below! I need to think about the specifics, I know I am going to use Furzton Lake as I spent a lot of my childhood there.
Wally
In the workshop on Monday we had to come up with an idea to do with semiotics. We decided to play on the idea of wheres wally and reverse it and make wally look for children!
Interview
We had to do an interview about inequality. We found it hard to think of an available person who has been affected by inequality. We thought of my friend in the LGBT – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, but were not sure what angle we would take on it. The other inequality we thought of was inequality between siblings. When speaking to our tutor, he said how we are all thinking about it in terms of humanity and if we had an animal we could do it like that. As it happens, we have a bunny So we decided to film the rabbit called Sparticus and dub an interview about his experience of animal cruelty over it. The filming went fine and we ended up with 20 minutes of footage just because he is so cute. We then wrote the script and need to edit this all together. This has related to my subject of animals earlier and it is suitable to show my voice because it shows my point of view of animal cruelty. The visuals are all of Sparticus to keep the focus on him and the interview is done as if he is talking. This personifies him and makes the audience be able to relate human emotions to him such as empathy.
Finding a Voice
In our last lecture, we talked about finding a voice. We were asked to write down 5 facts from the Holocaust.
- Hitler controlled it. – Was about oppression and killing. – Ended in 1945. – There were many concentration camps. – Based on an ideology of a perfect race.
We gain most of our views of the Holocaust from images shown to us through the media, it is hard to believe that some people who were affected by it personally are still alive! There are many different ways that the Holocaust is presented to us as an audience, is it such a huge issue with many different people wanting to show their different opinions. There is journalistic which shows a recording of what happened with evidence, there is objective which is in the style of a documentary and ones that show understanding for the audience. We were given a few films we could look at such as Night and Fog, Banality of Evil and work from Marcel Lozinski. Marcel Lozinski was Polish and born into the Holocaust just before Paris was taken over so he was directly affected. There were strict rules about what can be produced and what couldn’t so Lozinski use to get around this using subtle ways. He is a significant film maker, he had been nominated for Oscars and has made 22 films. Instead of using conventional documentary ideas for the character, narrative etc like Propps idea, he used a transcendental narrative to explore life and death which requires the audience to look at it in a different way. Lozinski likes to be known as an aquarium film maker, he likes to shake up the aquarium!
In the workshop we answered questions such as ‘why do we view media?’
I personally view media because it is always there, I have been brought up with it and could not imagine life without it! I enjoy watching and learning from it and it is entertaining. I make media to entertain, inform and to interest others. I enjoy making pieces of media and it is a form of expression to provoke thought. We had to consider one of our passions and answer a few questions about it. I chose animal conservation! I am passionate about animal conservation mainly because I love animals. I want to be part of the wildlife film industry to help prevent certain animals becoming extinct. Animal conservation should affect everyone, if an animal died out, everyone would be bothered about it! My passion personally affects those closest to me because they have been forced to see my opinion. There are different view points on conservation, there are hunters who want to kill animals for their own gain who do not care about conservation and there are those who abuse animals or just do not like them. I could show them my point of view through a documentary about my passion for animals to try to show them that they should try to be involved in conservation or at least stop killing or abusing animals.I have looked in the internet to see what I could find in the media about animal conservation and the only things I found were supportive of conservation and talking about how the conservation is happening etc. I think they have taken this possition because more people are realising animal rights and how bad it would be if certain animals became extinct because of humans. They could have told the story throught those against convervation eye’s but I think this will not please many of those in the audience. In the articles I have read, they have usually interviewed those involved which I think is good and those opinions give the audience an understanding of how conservation works and why they should support it. There is a lot at stake in this project because if they do not carry on with conservation then many animals will become extinct. The issue can be solved by promoting conservation as good and as a needed thing. This way, others will back conservation and no more animals will become endangered or extinct. If I was to make something about this, I would make a documentary about someone who is involved in conservation and try to get some shots of the animals they are trying to save too. It would involve what they do for the conservation and why it is important to them personally.
After this workshop we watched the film Anything Can Happen by Lozinski. The colours in the film were extremely bright and colouring, this is to show youth and it contrasts with the subject of death. All the old people shown were quite generic in their clothes with walking sticks and reading on a bench in the park. The sound is fast paces and quite happy to reflect the child’s mind. Even though he is talking to the old people about being lonely and death, he is still quite happy and innocent. Religion is shown as important when one of the men tells him he ‘has to’ pray and believe. They slightly talk about the swasticka and how the German’s ruined Poland and had to rebuild it all, this is the only time I heard the nazi’s being mentioned specifically. There was one guy who said he was a janitor in a ‘housing cooperative.’ I guessed from his body language and the way he avoided the question was that it was in a camp for the killing of jews. I find the use of a child instead of an adult very effective. The child can be open and get away with asking pretty much anything but gets closed off answers because of his age. There is no linear narrative and you can tell the child has been asked to ask some of the questions and you can tell when he is talking from himself. It is shown as a discovery and fun task for the child and his innocence is cute. Many of the camera shots are far away and I did not see anyone look directly at the camera, this makes it seem more real life and not staged. I really enjoyed watching this, the innocence of the child contrasting with the loneliness of the old people worked really well.
My street art video
Here is the video I created to help show my manifesto. I had a few ideas for this so done a spider diagram to get all my ideas out on paper. I decided to use my point in the manifesto of ‘carry our youth into the future.’ I wanted to show this by having people talking in sepia to represent the past and have a hand appear in the frame to pull them into colour which represents the future. I got my housemates to do this for me! In the last part where they are all standing together, they did not realise i had started filming. I done this on purpose because I wanted them to act like they normally do, I knew they would change when I told them I was recording. This worked really well and I only told them halfway through that I was recording them. I like the effect of how natural they look until I tell them to all look at the camera. I decided to show a few key words in different places around my house to enforce the idea of my street art manifesto. I could have done more actions to show the words I was holding. The only one where I really show what I am holding is ‘youthful’ when I am jumping on the sofas. I enjoyed making this video and use Final Cut to edit it. The editing went well and I am pleased with how the effect from the sepia to colour turned out.
Street Art Manifesto
- We will express ours views where we like
- We will be symbolic, iconic and rhetoric
- We will deal with the real
- We will stand for anti-establishment
- We will carry our youth into the future
- We will create our vibrant art to provoke change
- Bring peace, love and spray paints
- They will gander at our slander
- We will create art for our expression only
- We will sway others to see our views
I found this blog with various pieces of street art. I enjoyed looking through the variety of street art on this blog.
Street Art
We went to the Herbet museum to look at the street art expedition that had on. I thought I would find it ok, not overly interesting but I actually really enjoyed looking at all the different street art they had. I found that similar themes and issues were appearing, these were;
- Freedom, justice, death, war, national pride, imprisonment, technology, youth, innocence, control and mother nature.
Anything created is affected by what is going on around that particular creator. I could see many links between these pieces of art and contemporary society. There are many CCTV cameras, especially in Coventry, there is more here than anywhere else in Great Britain! I can see the themes of control, freedom and justice stemming from the impact of CCTV. I saw one picture of the infinity symbol with army tanks, this showed that the artist is affected by war and how war will never end.
I wouldn’t have thought street art would be in a gallery but it made me look at it more. If there is loads of art on the street I will look at it, but normally I pass it by without looking unless it catches my eye. In the gallery I looked at it much more closely and shows the rebellion of those who do street are, as good! Street art is usually shown as a bad thing, it is graffiti which you can get in trouble with the law for although others see it freedom of expression! There are varied opinions on it which causes different issues to be at stake such as disapproval of the art on a public space but others think they should be there as they show how freedom should be worth fighting for.
One of the pieces of art that caught by eye was Napalm by the famous street artist, Banksy.
Here is an article about the original picture in the middle.
This shows control from America by using friendly faces that are usually shown to children. They are ignoring reality and the contract from the happy figures to the girl, Kim, is so clear. They look like they are parading her around and the black and white shows the lack of feeling. From looking at the street art in the gallery and from looking closely at this one, I have realised street art is much more serious than I first anticipated. There are much more hidden meanings and rebellion.
