Jon Ed Davies

Photographer & Film-Maker

[joneddavies]

[joneddavies]

This was a basic first draft I did for my Narnia cover. 

I chose to create this bland basic cover as I wanted to record whether a photography approach would be appealing as the cover. I have decided it isn't. 

The colour palette was also chosen to record the success of the icy tones against the winter background. I feel its too distracting and the cover needs to be more relatable to the story. 

I believe I need to incorporate digitally created illustrations into my cover and have them centre places - also interesting typography might also be useful. Perhaps as the waterfall that breaks when winter ends? 

[joneddavies]

Chronicles of Narnia - Target Audience

Children - different cover for boys and girls 

Young adults 

adults 

Traditional 

Clean 

swords and military related cover for the boys 

lions and female characters for the girls q

montage of illustrations

single subject illustration covers 

maps 

parchment style 

colourful

unique palette - earth tones 

themes: war, violence, oppression, survival, family, kindness, overcoming difficulty. 

[joneddavies]

1984 Target Audience + Visual Communication

Young adults 

Clean 

minimalist 

modern

vibrant 

metal 

political 

flags 

typography mixed with illustrations 

cameras & cctv 

oppression 

text mask 

[joneddavies]

1984

In 1984, Oceania is an omnipresent state ruled by the Big Brother with a totalitarian society and in permanent war, presently against Eurasia, with intention of keeping the proletariat without education and possibility of capital accumulation. People from the upper classes follow the "Ingsoc" philosophy and are under permanent surveillance of Big Brother through the "telescreen" - a monitor that is television and also spies the life of each individual. However, the proletariat is free of the control of the state. The Party has just released the 10th edition of the Newspeak Dictionary, with the intention of reducing the words to make people be limited to express any feeling against the Party. In the "Minitrue" (Ministry of Truth in Newspeak), the bureaucrat Winston Smith rewrites history to control the future of the party and is quite indifferent to his society. Winston is approached by the party member O'Brien that gives a copy of the new released dictionary to him. When Winston meets the brother Julia, they commit "sexcrime" and fall in love for each other. But they are captured by the fearful Thought Police and Winston is interrogated and brainwashed by O'Brien that explains the logic of the party to keep the power. But in the end, the human spirit prevails.

Claudio Carvalho - www.imdb.com

[joneddavies]

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

During the World War II bombings of London, four English siblings are sent to a country house where they will be safe. One day Lucy finds a wardrobe that transports her to a magical world called Narnia. After coming back, she soon returns to Narnia with her brothers, Peter and Edmund, and her sister, Susan. There they join the magical lion, Aslan, in the fight against the evil White Witch, Jadis.

www.wikipedia.com

[joneddavies]

Juxtaposition research 

[joneddavies]

Juxtaposition research

[joneddavies]

Second Draft 

[joneddavies]

Points about the museum I liked.

Points

Modern Interior

Vast Collection

Friendly Staff

Well Preserved

Realisation of how old things were / Experience

Worldwide collection of items

[joneddavies]

The Heritage Project

This week I have started the heritage project. My motivation has been dragging and I haven't not used these past days to the best ability I could’ve. 

I have conducted some research of promotional material via the internet. My research consisted of graphics and posters. I have not written about them but I feel I should probably get on with that. 

[joneddavies]

[joneddavies]

Photography Critique & Evaluation 

This is one of my favourite photos that I took whilst in Scotland. Firstly, because of the technical and composition aspects of the photography. Each portion of the image is split with a different area in each section. So, in the foreground, there is the Loch with a small island, in the middle, a coniferous forest sloping at an angle and at the top portion of the image, the mountainous terrain with snow-capped peaks. I feel this image is well composed due to each section of the mage being filled with some there and that there is no ‘empty space’. Furthermore, I feel that the use of line within this image is strong and the line flows all over the image, with mountains in various different places, not connected to each other. Finally I feel there is depth to this image that is often difficult to capture in one image, the mountains with snow capped peaks in the distance can easily be recognized that it is far away from the island in the foreground. I feel this effect is what makes this image powerful and will allow the audience to study the image more due to what is going on inside of it. 

[joneddavies]

The Final Magazine - Evaluation

I am very happy with the outcome of my ‘Discover the Highlands’ magazine. Even though I went from an aspiration of 44 pages to 24 I am still pleased with the content inside. In addition, I believe having 44 pages would have been too much and the context and topics within would’ve had to of been spread thin to compensate for the extra pages. I believe I responded to my research well, having took influences from both Natural Geographic and Bunyan Velo. 

One positive aspect of the magazine is it minimalistic style and simplicity. I have learnt that you don’t need to fill the pages with extra articles and adverts for it to be a premium magazine. The layout was carefully thought about in my magazine and I ensured that I included photography throughout that reflects the topics I have written about, but also photography that has no relevance to the topic it sits next to. This technique I learnt from Bunyan Velo, which uses mind-blowing landscape photography next to a relatively boring, or tiresome piece of writing to help break up the page a little. 

One element I would improve on would be extending the length of the magazine but having enough to write about at the same time to ensure the magazine layout does not look thin and weak. In addition, I did not finish the magazine in time to have it printed online by a magazine publishers in time for the assessment. On the other hand, I have printed the magazine out on cartridge paper and the quality looks very nice. I have calculated that I will have enough time to print through the online publishes to have the premium magazine printed in time for my exhibition of all my project work. 

[joneddavies]

EDITED PHOTOGRAPHY - SHORTLIST TWO

I have chosen this selection of imagery as my edited shortlist for multiple reasons. These ten images all represent Scotland visually, however it can be argued not all images look like they represent Scotland. Which is precisely my reasoning for choosing them. Unique and bold images such as my reflection photography with the strong teal and orange does not look like it portrays the highlands due to the sunny sky and vibrant atmosphere. However, when juxtaposed next to a photography of a misty, foggy and marshy plain, it can be seen that there are many different ways of portraying a location.

My first photograph (Telephone Box) is a personal favourite. This is because of the technical aspects and connotations of the image. It can be clearly seen this telephone box is placed in an area where not much resides. Even though there is a sign post, judging by the background landscape there is nothing around for miles. Furthermore, the telephone box sits lonesomely, damaged, in need of repair, but determined to stay. This photo gives a message that you shouldn’t give up, no matter what is going on around you, or in this case, nothing that is going on around you.

[joneddavies]

Film - Scrapping & Restarting | I hate everything about it.

I couldn’t get out of my head about what my tutor said about my film, “slightly boring”. I knew I could not ‘change around’ the length of some clips for it to make that much a difference to the whole emotion of the film. Furthermore, watching it back myself I can see that even I am not happy with it and I don’t think i have ever been fully happy with the drafts. I hate the film at its current stage and I am ashamed to say it a piece I created. I will spend the next few days researching new elements that oppose the idea I have been working on currently. I have also decided I heavily dislike the music I have chosen, when I originally chose it I thought it worked well, but the music holds now emotional significance towards the audience and the same lyrics that run throughout don’t and the film in flowing. I am very keen to re-research music composers and learn about orchestral score that is purely instrumental, as I believe a music genre such as that would suit my new film much better.

Therefore, I have decided to start again with the editing of the film, building it up into a full feature documentary cinematic that encapsulates the audience and truly inspires people to want to visit The Highlands. I have some fantastic ideas for this new production but I have a very very limited amount of time left to wrap this project up, my deadline is just under one week away!

[joneddavies]

Final Major Project - Evaluation

When I wrote my original project proposal I did not anticipate a final product that had the meaning and context that it holds now. This is because I did not have a clear pathway in which my film was going. After careful thought and consideration however, I have been able to flourish my idea of promoting travel to the West Highlands. Furthermore, it has surprised me that I have not only explored a whole new avenue of film, but produced posters, business cards, logos and photography that surrounds my 'Discover the Highlands' campaign. I did not think I had the artistic intelligence to produce what I am handing in to be assessed, having spent little time in my first year in graphic design and working with Adobe Illustrator.  

Research has played a massive part within the development of my project. Firstly, primary research has allowed me to take inspiration from other artists to help with the guidance and direction of my film. An example of this would be at the beginning of the project I assumed my project would take the form of a visual cinematic, containing fast paced music and unique, bold and clever transitions between each clip, with a strong emphasis on colour correction. I therefore spent my time researching artists such as Ben Brown & Sam Kolder, prominent YouTube stars who specialize in the area I believed I was heading. Despite this, my project changed at the very end of my ten weeks and took the path of a documentary cinematic. What aided me with this choice was the research and influence I gained from totally different film-makers such as Alfred Hitchcock and his theology of 'less is more' and I feel that analogy applies to my work very well. This is because I have cut back on the fancy transitions and bold, surreal colour corrections and have created a much more natural and engaging film.

I feel some stretches I took during this project were extremely beneficial to my success. One would be my weekly planning. I rarely ever plan my work, whether it is during an essay or project. However, I trained myself to set out a plan each week and cross each task of as I completed it and it was the most sensational thing I have ever done. I never realised the convenience of having everything you need to do down on paper, without having to store it in your head. I feel the steps of planning I took during this project were key to me being to driven to continue working and never having any spells of procrastination. A second stretch that I feel was beneficial to me during the project was my constant surveillance for problems I had and how I could solve them. One example of this would be my battery issue I was worrying about before I left for Scotland. Since I had no way to charge the batteries for my drone whilst in the Highlands, I decided to take the drone with each battery on low life to the Malvern Hills and put myself through a stress test, to try and capture as many quality visuals as possible whilst the drone was on a low battery life. I found this problem solving technique to be unique and extremely useful. This is because whilst I was in Scotland, there were times when the drone batteries had been depleted to roughly 25% and I still needed to capture more visuals, despite this I still managed to succeed thanks to my response to the original problem.

Overall, I feel that I have been a different student from what I normally am during this project. I have felt committed and dedicated to my work. In addition, I have found the structure of the project easy to follow, having concentrated on each section of the criteria to ensure I am following the brief and maintaining a well documented project. If I was marking a student who had produced what I had for this project, I would be looking at a Distinction grade, with emphasis on the areas of Planning & Production and Practical Skills.