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SUMMARY OF STORIES AND SPACES UNIT

Seven weeks are enough to become skillful in the new medium. You just have to have an entrepreneurial spirit. Curiosity drives your learning and also make you learn something about yourself. In addition, when you go through this kind of a journey with people, say as a group, your learning process becomes fast and diverse. I figured out at the end of this unit that communication plays always a key role in our professional, academical and personal lives. As long as one has good communication skills, he or she is going to be very successful in life.

We had artistic people in our group who all created the whole of the mapping and the loop. They were so emotional or hard to get in the mood to work sometimes. This does not mean they are lazy or unmotivated to create something. I figured out that our artistic group mates have an aesthetic concern more than I do and they need me to listen to them. As much as they dislike something and mention it, they come back with an even more creative idea to fix it. As a production manager, I have learned that I should not make artistic people who I work with feel uncomfortable by reminding them about deadlines. I should give something to think about and keep them busy to fix things more creatively or scratch build something. It is obvious to me that artistic people have great potential to finish work before deadlines if they do not bother with the idea they race against the time.

Critical people are important as much as artistic people in a group work. They increase the quality of the work and keep what they say clear what and brief. The realistic approach that they have helps us to see what is weak, what is irrelevant, what is unnecessary for the project. Sometimes when you work on something so intensely, you can be so emotional about critics. Somehow those critical people can be so persuasive and they are really good at killing darlings, discarding ideas accordingly to brief behalf of you.

My job was basically about making them achieve and work in balance: If artistic people customize the mapping, let critical people make some constructive criticism. As much as I provided this giving and taking environment I observed that member of group laid claims to the project. They became more and more problem solving on their own even when I was not there. They were always motivated to keep going. It was really good to not feel alone while solving the problems for me. I was just responsible for being sure everything was going on in time and that the conditions that they were practicing as identical as the possible to the presentation day. My role was also to make sure what we were going to show Lizzie or asking for advice.

On the other hand, our working process was very planned. We arranged our personal deadlines besides this project’s deadlines. Almost everybody had done their work before the deadline we had arranged and helped others in their spare time. This situation caused that almost everybody contributed efforts in many parts of this project and it made us so patient with each other. For instance drawing the footages took a long time compared to editing the footages on Resolume, so when Larissa had finished the colour correction of these footages she gained Justin time.

Additionally, our shooting day was so good. Everything went well as they should have.We did our shooting like in 3 hours because everybody worked on prepared the shooting scene the day before. We met earlier the shooting day and we were waiting for the equipment to cover it with cling film. When eight of us divided the workload we were ready to shoot before the contributor arrived. It gave an idea to the contributor that we took our job seriously and she had to do her best accordingly. We had so much fun during the shooting and it was a pleasure to edit each footage.

To sum up, the stories and spaces unit was a new medium for me to learn. Sometimes I felt scared, depressed, confused. To be honest, we were in a quandary when the presentation day was approaching. Until last minute, we had technical problems. Shooting a color powder dance performance was quite risky, we might have got in trouble. Besides everything hazardous, we created a really interesting projection mapping and we did a really good presentation. Even though our mapping was not been chosen to be presented on 18th March, I pretty sure we met and satisfied the Old Fire Station’s expectations.

Stories and Spaces: The Week that every To Do Became Ta-da

March 17th, The presentation day just finished. I could not believe it has been seven weeks. In seven weeks we built a projection mapping from scratch. We had no idea what it was, who was going to do what and why. We did not even know each other. We all come from different backgrounds. From an external perspective, it can be seen as a disadvantageous situation for us to work collaboratively. That was not going to happen. We instantly accepted our differences and focused on what each of us is good at being favor of the group work, our projection mapping. I am proud of my group, D2 and appreciate that they picked me as production manager of this project regardless that I come from a different country and university. They were always there when I fulfilled all paperwork that I am actually a stranger to in Bournemouth-ish way.

Before we started our presentation there was one thing on my mind: we will be doing something really precious at least for us. Maybe the jury would not like it, criticize some parts of our projection mapping that they would think were weak and need to be improved or would, disagree with us about our projection mapping aims at the Old Fire Station’s Lollipop night target audience. These were all important matters that we would get. Regardless these could not change what I have learned from this project about myself and about the people who I was working with. While I was playing some chart music to help the projection mapper’s practice for the presentation in the next 10 minutes, I thought about what we have been through for the last seven weeks. When Lizzie said they were ready to watch us, I volunteered to be the DJ as well. I had never done it before but it did not bother me. We had done a really good job and it was nothing compared to what we had been through in order to be ready in time. I could not see our projection mapping performance because I was facing my back to the reflections. I just saw Larissa’s sign to turn off the music and prepared myself for the presentation speech.

During the speech, we basically mentioned that we based our projection mapping appropriately on the fitting layout of the stage. The projection mapping supports the DJ’s performance by enhancing the chart music and the target audiences’ experience. The middle projection is a bit small than the sides because of the position of the DJ booth. We turned this disadvantage into an advantage. On this projection, we mainly project the Lollipop logo to promote the Lollipop Night. We created 4 packages containing 5 clips each. Each package is unique to its creator but similar in style and mood. One of the packages contains a set of logos that are appropriate and fit Lollipops character and theme. We created our own logo as well. The logo’s font was changed, however, we didn’t want to change it that much so it wouldn’t be unrecognizable. We adjusted it a bit in a playful way to make it fit into our style. We chose the colour powder because it is getting more and more popular. Following trends closely would help us gain an advantage with the audience. The reason why we chose a dance performance is that we are obviously dealing with a nightclub. We think it would create a chance for the audience to identify with events. The last and final package contains footages with drawings. We thought drawing some footage conveys a more energetic atmosphere. We also drew some classic items from the 90s to make the experience more personal and nostalgic like Gameboys,Yoyos and a cassette recorder.

When we were done, THE JURY SEEMED AMAZED! It was a really big moment for me. We made it through this unit successfully and it redounded so much to our professional development. Before I came to Bournemouth I had no idea about projection mapping, even I had even not heard about it. But now, I was standing in front of the owner of a nightclub, trying to sell my idea and measuring up that I am a good production manager who had the chance to work with very creative, diverse and hard working people.

Story and Spaces: The Week We Were Literally Against Murphy’s Law

One week before the presentation I realized that this was the most path-breaking project in my academic life. I literally discovered my new skills about production management. I had never solved problems that fast and cold-bloodedly before. For instance, we had a problem about rehearsal time. I observed many groups had more than 2 hours for each workshop days at Old Fire Station. However, there was not a rehearsal schedule at that time we had our workshop such that we just had a short time we had our workshop such that to test our videos and decided how we were going to reflect them on the screens. That’s why, we did quick work sharing.

Skeye, Saini and Francesca dealt with software, put all the footages we decided to use for our projection mapping and arranged the measurements of the reflections. Justin, George, Larissa and I put the cortex on the scene but unfortunately, there were not any zip ties to hang up the cortex and we decided to lean them against the wall. It made me a bit nervous because we already said what we were going to use zip ties in order to present our projection mapping two weeks in advance. As a production manager, I felt responsible to not have exact tools for rehearsal. All of our project mappers had done their job very well and they had to test it with the exact same conditions as when we were going to present our projection mapping. I asked them to lift the cortex a bit but they thought it was unnecessary, given the absence of a DJ desk! We all knew that the DJ’s placement would affect our projection mapping reflection. When they pointed this problem I found Alec within 10 seconds and asked kindly to tell me approximately where the DJ desk is supposed to be.

While they were working I was pretending to be the DJ. I was acting like I was playing music, doing mash-ups, bringing the beat and arranging the reverse. I did it on purpose because I knew that it made them laugh and it enabled me to reduce the general stress in the working area. My moves helped to Francesca as well because she could figure out all the possible reflection of the DJ’s shadow on the screen. In this time, our testing process picked up speed and we just took the ladder and arranged the projector’s height.

While Francesca arranged the footage position and provided integrity between them, Skeye realized that the barriers of the stage were not there. I hadn’t realize before that there was a fence that which surrounded the stage. I thought maybe they had removed it because they were planning not to use it during our presentation. But I was wrong. After pretending to DJ, we all placed ourselves like a fence in front of the stage to help Francesca arrange the frame, the size and the wideness of the footages. Honestly, it was quite hilarious because I remembered a scene, when three of us became a fence, two of us VJing and the other two of us were dancing and checking the stage in different angles to report to Francesca about the mapping i.e. that it could be seen as clearly as possible from anywhere in the room.

When Francesca said she was done with scaling the footages, we all got away further from the stage and watched our projection mapping. At the very first time, it seemed to me that there was a problem with content integrity with three footages on the screen. It did not seem to me as a loop as well. I felt that there was something missing about this mapping and we needed to solve it in 5 minutes because that was the time left before our rehearsal finished.

When I am stressed out I always croon. I was crooning this time and suddenly realized the mapping seemed to me much more attractive. I asked Saini to play Justin Bieber’s song, called “Sorry”. In that time, we saw that our projection mapping became really cool with the beats. For the next rehearsal, I told them that to I am going to music playlist to practice our project in a more realistic environment.

#projectionmapping #final #almostdone #oneweektogo

Story and Space: The Week We Tried to Create Lollipop’s Coolest Night Concept Based on a Story Written by Color Powder

In my opinion, this has been the most difficult week we ever worked. We have ever had already done with the shooting and the rough cut was about to finish. So we asked ourselves what is next? Does Justin have to start to doodle some footage? Or do we need to wait for Larissa to finish all the colour correction? When and how are we going to create a loop on Resolume? I had, as the production manager, no idea how we were going to start collecting what we all had and put them in order then create a single piece for Lollipop. I was afraid and was thinking about what would happen if I couldn’t manage the group to finish our projection mapping even though we had marvelous footages.

The first thing that I did to get rid of the stress out was going to the Old Fire Station. I got in the room we were going to release our projection mapping. I was looking for an obstacle that could treat my potential loop ideas. Maybe it gave me inspiration how to start it. The new placement of the Dj set was going to be a problem because its existence affected the mid projection machine’s reflection. I did not want to see a shadow on our footages. However if we don’t use not using the mid projection it will be awkward if there is just a black background behind him. I asked Skeye what she was thinking about it and she said maybe we just use the mid projection machine to reflect the Lollipop Logo that we had designed. It was a good idea because while the Dj performed the Lolipop Logo can ripple above him. Nevertheless, we needed to achieve a content integrity by using the three projection machine to reflect our footages.

When I got back to the Engine room, I saw Larissa showed our rough cut to Olga and asked for her opinion. She said she liked it but she also agreed with us that it needed color correction. She suggested to us maybe to try to put texture on the footage also. It was reasonable because we are going to have diverse footage as well. Also, the footages seemed more garish because color powder could become so flashy due to color correction with a texture. The dusty appearance of our footage had made us worry a bit and the texture adding beat this problem. Francesca and Skeye showed what they have done so far on Resolume. They fiddled with footages’ speed and added some filters. The contributors seemed more vivacious, sophisticated and colorful. Like a Lollipop comes to life as a dancer and performs to express how wonderful being a Lollipop in this world for fifteen years is;and then pours the color powder to show what kind of magical situation she lives in. This idea should be our projection mapping narration.

So at the end, we decided to edit our footages using many different textures and color correction methods to have diverse options. We are going to reflect them using the first and the last projection machine and create content integrity by arranging the movement of the Lollipop Logo which is going to be reflected above the DJ. The target audience will experience a magical environment which is included dance, color powder, 90s object drawings and Lollipop.

Story and Space: The Week That Understanding Pre-Production is The Security Blanket of Production

Such a laboured week, but it was worth it. We had pitching and shooting every other day. I think it was a good idea to do pitching and shooting the contemporary dance performance using colour powder during the same week. We had started to work Friday until, Sunday, the day when our pitching presentation took its final form and we were all ready for the pitching session. I had pitched many times my ideas to professionals while I was working in a production company in Turkey as a scriptwriter but this would be totally different for me. It was going to be in English, a professional and at the same time academic pitching presentation because Lizzie would be there with the Old Fire Station’s manager, the person in charge of Lollipop’s night, Alec and Olga. In other words, I had to do more than my best.

Luckily we were not the first group to pitch so I had a chance to compare our presentation with the rest. Generally, each group had great ideas which included Lolipop nights’ concept. I think the Old Fire Station will have difficulties when choosing which projection mapping would be on the stage on March, 18th. Anyway, there are three things that I would like to say about other groups’ ideas. The idea of creating a Snapchat logo for Lollipop was really great. Snapchat is a really popular application now and many people use it. Lollipop can collect photos of its nights when people send snapshots by using this logo. However, this idea doesn’t serve the purpose of projection mapping. Additionally, it can cause the not experience of projection mapping for the target audience because people put their attention on taking pictures for Snap chat. The idea of D1, make target audience design for the Lollipop night and put all of them in a row, is amazing. They agreed with us about the fact that target audience should find something personal in the projection mapping. Also, the guy who did his pitching presentation with a lollipop and using it as a microphone was very interesting for the sake of presentations.

Our presentation went well but Lizzie thought it was not a first class pitching. The only thing that the jury didn’t like about our pitching was putting a ballet performance using color powder video in our presentation. Even though we explained that we weren’t going to shoot a ballet performance, this video is just an example of how color powder appears when using it on a dance performance; they cannot make sense of why we showed them a ballet performance using color powder. According to this feedback I’ve learned a pitching presentation must include exactly what you are planning to do; there is no room for connotations.

Lizzie had some concerns about our shooting progress for fair reasons. She refused our risk assessment twice; because we couldn’t convince her about how we were going to protect the equipment we would use. We asked Alex, how they did that previous year. She advised us to use cling film. Lizzie liked that idea but she warned us only half of in jest if color powder brings damage we need to pay the cost of the equipment; which is approximately 8000 pounds.

Before the shooting day, we went to Asda and bought some black sheets to cover Skeye’s living room walls. Her place needed to be protected as much as the equipment and black background brings colour powder into the forefront. It took us approximately two hours. When the set up was done we thought about where we were going to place the lights because we couldn’t cover them with cling film. Lights can get heated so fast and covering it with a plastic material is an fire. We decided to place the lights, behind the camera and turn their heads towards the wall. Thus, we protected the lights from the color powder. We just covered the stands with cling film.

The shooting day we came to Skeye’s home around like 9.30 a.m. Before the contributors arrived we covered the floor, the ceiling and the camera. Initially, we hesitated to cover the lens because it affects video quality. We didn’t have much choice so we tightened the cling film as much as possible and fastened it with some tape. After some test shots, we saw that cling film didn’t affect the video quality. Besides, when we covered the lens we could ask the contributors to throw some color powder towards the lens and we had some footage, which makes the audience feel that the contributor is aware of their existence and wants them to join her. We basically used two cameras. One of them for wide, medium, low and high angle shooting, and the other one was in charged of shooting of close ups and extreme close ups.

Shooting went smoothly and took a shorter time than we expected. We spent an hour to cleaning the living room and the equipment. Even though it didn’t get any colour powder we used wet wipes to clean the equipment. That’ s why I don’t understand why they charged us 10 pounds for improper return. The equipment could have been dusty but if we were shooting outside it would get dust as much as we shoot the dance performance using colour powder.

#bournemouth #projectionmapping #week three

Directing is a serious liability..but can be customized. 🎬 (Bournemouth)

Story And Space: The Week that We Have To Discard Some Good Ideas and It feels me like Killing Darlings

While working on projection mapping; the understanding of creating an experience is quite tricky and important. I needed to discover it by myself as a target audience. Last weekend I went to London to go my favorite DJ’s, Paul Kalkbrenner, concert on the 6th of February. I thought I am not a fan of Lollipop nights but there is another kind of night out which strikes my fancy and includes projection mapping to create an experience. In fact, I hontesly didn’ like Paul Kalkbrenner’s performance’s projection mapping. It seemed to me to be a slapdash and even projection mapping is not the be-all and end-all of his DJ performance, it affects very much to the performance. The show didn’t motivate me to go another Paul Kalkbrenner concert again even though he is my favorite DJ. It was good as a one-time experience. At this point, I understand that creating an experience using projection mapping needs to be focus on maintaining getting the target audience’s feet under the table.

When I went back Bournemouth, I shared my experiences with others to keep the team working on ideas according to this factor. We figured out that we needed to discard some ideas because we realize no one actually will watch the projection mapping that we are going to create for Lollipop nights. We were also concerning C about what if our video clips ideas are going to be too artistic for the Lollipop concept also.For instance, we imagine to create a pole dance performance video to refer to the sticks of Lollipop but it seems to us extravagant for now. Most likely the target audience wouldn’t understand the idea. The video doesn’t create an experience. The target audience should identify themselves with video clips or find something personal in video clips to experience the Lollipop nights through projection mapping. Discarding the idea of creating a pole dance performance ideas made me feel bad. I believe our project will seem cheezy and slapdash and need the challenge to motivate myself and be creative.

Anyways we have to make them watch our mapping that’s the brief. We analysed the target audience’s behaviours during the Lollipop nights. They are usually drunk, congestedly dancing, having conversation just a few seconds. We think that we can swap their conversation time by making them watch projection mapping. In other words, the mapping can just take their attention for a few seconds. Those few seconds have to be really attractive, I know it because I’ve experienced it. If our projection mapping has a narration we gain time few more seconds we thought. The mash-up face and dance battle ideas pop up at this time. However, we need Lizzie’s supervising to create and edit the mash-up face videos.

Lizzie liked all of our ideas but she criticizes that we don’t need a narration for them. Lollipop is supposed to be the narration, she said. She suggested talking to Olga or Alec about our idea to see if our ideas are accordance with Lollipop nights. We actually agree with her. Before discarding another idea, we need to ask them some questions such as do they prefer to use narration, does projection mapping supposed to be less artistic to perfect for Lollipop nights etc. Lizzie warned us about the possible technical problem while filming dance performances with colour powder. The previous year a group was working on the same idea and they needed more time than that they had thought initially. We should have definitely talked to someone else who makes the videos with colour powder and ask him about the possible technical problem: how did they protect equipment, which background color would be great, how long does it take to set up, shooting and, clear up? Can we cook the powder or buying it is more practical?

So at the end of the second week; we have done our risk assessment according to Olga’s friend Alex’s suggestions, who is the person who used color powder for her dance performance video. For instance, we decided we needed rain cover to protect the equipment. We decided that we would cook and also buy the color powder at the same time not to leave it to luck. Alec liked our ideas and he said it fits Lollipop concept in many ways. Olga warned us not to be too artistic, just to focus on loop and make the few seconds mapping worth to watch. For example, we should give more time to draw on footage instead of shooting very complicated videos. Projection mappers begin to focus on logos and it motion on the video clips that we gonna use. Also Sanini edits a simple of dance performance with color powder and we gonna use it on pitching to show our video clips to be.

#projection #mapping #bournemouth #second #week

Story and Space: The week in which I realised projection can be used as an artistic tool rather than reflecting PowerPoint presentations in class.

Ever since high school, I have been familiar with the projection machine. Most of my instructors give their lesson using it. When Lizzie mentioned projection mapping the first thing that came to my mind was that; it is kind of a presentation, and that maybe it is reflected on the sky, by using projection and it is seen by a massive crowd, like a whole city. Just after Lizzie did a description of projection mapping by giving the visual example I was really confused as I could not estimate do I completely turn out to be in the wrong or not. My confusion is not caused by the content of the description of projection mapping, it is about because I had seen many times these visual appearances in festivals, during my favorite DJs’ performances as a background and I had never realised by virtue those projection mapping.

Soon after the lecture, I met my teammate, and we started to discuss what kind of projection mapping we can create to promote Lolipop’s Friday night events. The very first time I was stuck on the idea how we can reflect different visuals which move completely or partly with each other just using three or fewer projection machines. Resolume as software seems to me just the program that enables to edit video for projection mapping in the right way. Even so the main goal of projection mapping is to create an experience for the target audience which makes the events memorable, worth going and routine. After a while, I decide to forget about the technique of creating a projection mapping and started to think about the content.

We all went to Lolipop events at least once and we all agree it is a cheap night out. The target audience is generally freshers or new international student who do not know where to go in Bournemouth yet. Although the music is quite mainstream and easy to consume the events apply to almost everybody. In this point, we stopped to underestimate the events’ current contents and focus on what we like to experience instead.

Brainstorming about what lollipop reminds us of is a good way to start. Sweet. Big. Cannot chew. Colour. Different flavour. Stick. Candy. Chewing gum.90s. As it can be seen above “lollipop” takes us to our childhood but since then the music has really changed. As a consequence, the night clubs are different as well. Brainstorming about 2000s night-clubs recalls many things such as shots. DJs. Bass Drop. Remix.Twerk.Shuffle. Pitbull featuring everybody. Wristbands. VIP lodges. Challenges. Sneakers. Jeans. Ripped jeans. Caps. Crop top. Cellphones. Share. Like. Check-in. Neon lights. Piercings. Tattoos. Coloured dyeing hair. Many venues. Festivals atmosphere. Considering all the above features of lollipop and night club, using dancers in our videos it sounds like a really good idea to make a connection between them.

I think the dancer’s choreography should seem as new as protection mapping. That’s why I like Skeye’s “let’s use colour powder while they dance” idea. Colour powder is a quite new thing. Becoming popular thanks to running organisations. Colour refers to lollipop definitely. And it looks great. After the lecture, we kept talking and found some examples of performance with colour powder. For instances; Beyond Slow Motion’s “Explosion of Color Skateboarding in Slow Motion” (2th February 2016,https://www.facebook.com/BeyondSlowMotion/) and

Thirty Seconds to Mars “Up in the Air” songs’ Color War Scene(19th April 2013,5:00-5:52, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9uSyICrtow) are quite inspiring. However, slow motion shooting techniques should be searched if the colour powder is going to be used in while dancing performances.

Even if it seems we can make a connection between a lollipop’s features and clubs by dancing performances; some points are still missing. In my opinion, the target audience should find something personal. Justin shows us in his previous project which gives me an idea to fill this gap. He doodles on every footage of his film production projects. To be clear, I can give an example of one of the Justin Bieber’s “Where are Ü Now” video clip. (29th June 2015,1:10-2.16, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nntGTK2Fhb0) In this way, we can doodle 90s icons on some footage such as Nickelodeon cartoon characters, the illustration of toys like Furbys, Barbies, Tamatgohci and so on.

According to the above creative examples and ideas, we need dancers immediately. Our action plan starts with a Facebook post which calls the dancers to have a part in our project. Then we need to makie contact with BU’s dance society on freshers day and ask the BU Sports Center the pole dance instructor would like to take part in our project also.

REFERENCES:

1)Beyond Slow Motion,2016. Explosions in Color: Skateboarding in Slow Motion. Explosive colors and crazy skateboarding tricks! So stoked to finally have this out! Been working on it for Neons.https://www.facebook.com/BeyondSlowMotion/ [online] 4 February 2016. Available from: https://www.facebook.com/BeyondSlowMotion/ [Accessed from: 2 February 2016]

2)Thirty Second to Mars, 2013. Up in the Air [video,online]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9uSyICrtow [Accessed 2 February 2016]

3)Skrillex and Diplo with Justin Bieber, 2015. Where Ü Now [video, online] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nntGTK2Fhb0 [Accessed 2 February 2016]

4)HEWLETT, S. 2016. Facebook Post for Calling Dancers. Avaible from: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206528131295280&set=a.2038733481213.2105643.1030537136&type=3&theater [online] 4 February 2016 [Accessed from: 2 February 2016]