Evaluation//Processes
To make the promotional video: I channelled an urban vibe- drawing from my environment as a reference to conceptualise the theme of class systems. These references can be seen within the video and throughout this blog in it’s earlier renditions.
Taking documentary footage from around Birmingham and Walsall, in the base video layer. Above it, in another video track, is a tripled video of footage I have taken at a political demonstration. On one of the placards, a key visual cue from within the gallery, is a graphic of David Cameron and a large red “GO!”. The original footage was taken from the demonstration against the panama papers calling for Cameron to resign.
This visual cue is layered through the video and I feel is a successful part of this promotional video.
However, over top is a more graphical piece of visual communication. Within the group, it was hard to get hold of more specific graphical material. As I had earlier been steered away from the graphical side of this level of production, I felt confused with my position within the group.
So over top of the video, I’ve used various text layers and shapes to envision a simplistic graphical form. In this this, I’ve used a sans-serif and grotesque style font which I’ve altered slightly on the properties menu, both represent a dichotomy together showing more urban and traditional themes. The visual cues of the text dropping down has been done through exporting various layers of the original psd file, and has been done like this to be eye catching.
The music that plays over top is a loop of percussion that has been automated to close off at the end of the advert. This effectively closes the advert softly, ironically through the more forceful percussion. This loop was chosen to have an urban soundscape and appeal to our audience.
For the marketing material, I’ve set up an Instagram account, an email and a YouTube. If we were to continue into the real development, I would create more social media pages- but I would like to have a more well rounded graphics and marketing approach to be able to achieve this.
The approach that I feel would’ve been more successful was if within my group there could have been more working together. However I found it sometimes difficult to get and receive information of exactly what others would be working on. This left me pretty confused and unsure of how to continue to market the venue or exhibition for a time.
The concept for the exhibition was at times confused within the project, this was evident through the distorted vision of segregating the audience into literal classes and charging them different rates and adding to the inaccessibility there already is to art. This as a marketing concept was firstly way too complicated and generally unlikable based on the conversations I have had with other students.
I was able to effectively communicate this idea and have exhibition marketed as FREE ADMISSION as this would best reflect the environment it would be housed in. This here also shows how disjointed this aspect of our project became. I felt it wasn’t necessarily my responsibility to conceive of the gallery’s logistical information, as I thought it would be more primarily my focus on bringing the gallery into the social sphere and to get people talking about it. Therefore in my Instagram post you can see that the one square reads ‘email in for location’ and previous uploads of material have been labelled TBA. However I did find it strange when the by the end of the project the venue was to be situated in London, rather than Birmingham.
This project has shown me that there are many positives to working within a group. Within a group, you can discuss ideas and hear different perspectives that enrich concepts and processes that can work best for everyone. However, when groups fail to have strong communication links then these vital ideas can get lost in the wind. Which I must admit is partly also my fault, as I have had difficulties during this academic year.