Lav Alice Wood

Visual Communications Arts University Bournemouth

[lav-awd]

Major Project

I also made a poster for this film.

I wanted it to look like a polaroid, looking into my life, you're getting a little snapshot.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

Evaluation

This project has been a rollercoaster. I cannot sit here and say that I am not terrified to submit this. I haven't had the best time here, and partly that is my fault. I feel like I didn't think everything through before coming here, and I'm using this to be open and vulnerable and that scares me.

I really like how the video turned out. I know my time management and everything hasn't been the best but I think I found something I made at university that I like! Im going to have to go back and change the script!

In all seriousness I have learnt so much from being at university, good and bad. It's three years I will never forget. Mainly if Im ever thinking of going back to uni or school I can remember these years and thing absolutely not!

I really enjoyed this project. I loved coming up with the idea and when I actually got an idea flowing I loved making it! Premier Pro is definitely a program I will use again, if I can afford the subscription.

I really enjoyed every part of this project which is kind of mad for me.

Thank you. :)

[lav-awd]

Major Project

I went on to add in all of the different clips where they would be going and editing it all to make it work.

I also spent what felt like 50 years adding subtitles in the font Dolly from Adobe Fonts.

After putting everything together it was done!

[lav-awd]

Major Project

Now I have all the clips filmed it was on too editing.

I knew how I wanted this to look in my head and now its time to make it happen.

I love the look of old film of VHS tapes and everything like that so I wanted to make it look like that

The look of Alienation by my friend Liam really inspired me.

He used an old camera to film different locations in his home town in Sweden, and I love the grainy effect.

This is a shot from his film, I love the style so much.

For mine I don't want to be so much blur, so I had a mess about until I found a look I liked for mine.

This meant adding Channel Blur, Noise and Faded film effects

With these together I got this look

I am so happy with how this is looking!

[lav-awd]

Major Project

I wanted to add music, but I didn't want to just find a song to put in the back I wanted something more personal.

I love music and I have written a couple of little riffs on the guitar which are my favourite things on the whole planet.

I took one of them and transposed it onto the piano and recorded it to add in the background of my film.

Visit Original Link

I have had this little riff for quite a few years now and I feel amazing to be using it for this piece, this piece means so much to me and using it for this piece in particular means everything to me. The way that this is coming together makes me feel really happy.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

Now I have the character I need to start filming.

I first recorded the VoiceOver for the whole thing so I had something to match the puppeteering to.

The file is too big to post on here!!! but I did it!

I then started to film

This is the stunning set up for the first thing I filmed, the interview point of view.

Here is what the camera saw.

Puppeteers but have insane core strength, I tell you that for nothing, because this was a challenge. I had to film it twice because the first time I was shaking like a leaf! No one tells you these things..

After that intense ab workout I got the final video

I then moved on to film the other angles.

I have two different views of the desk and a view of Leslie, in bed surrounded by lots of mess.

I then went outside (yay!) to film the clips that would be added in later in the video.

The first two shots are in my garden, the daisy are gorgeous right now and I felt they needed to be included because of how beautiful they are.

The second two are in a local park, with these shots I was careful not to get any buildings in or anywhere that would make it obvious as to the location.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

I then went and crocheted somethings that I wanted to have in the film. I crocheted a small laptop with an empty photoshop document on it and a small phone with "headphones"

These are really cute!!! I'm really happy with how this is turning out so far!

[lav-awd]

Major Project

I then started making Leslie.

using my trusty ol' 4mm crochet hook, some purple yarn and my beloved "half-double stitch" (which is different to a single stitch) I got to work.

I had a lot of fun making her, seeing her come to life was pretty spectacular.

I started making the mouth which I used a deep red and a pinky peach colour to make the tongue.

I then moved onto her head and worked the shape around my hand. I love crocheting its when I feel most creative and I have not found a lot of creativity In myself these past three years so I was nice to have that again.

I then worked on her body fitting it round the shape of my arm. and sewed her together

Here she is!!

I think she's really cute, I added some eyelids too her to make her look sad, as that is the message I want to get across in this, I am sad if you couldn't tell.

Next I thought about clothes, there is one big dressing gown snoody that I wear all the time and I started to recreate that, but then I found an old teddy bear with clothes on that I thought would work even better than that.

I saw this and I knew it would be perfect. As this is something my course bestie Holly and I always say to each other, A little easter egg for me, but a motivational top for people watching this video.

The "We Can Do It' message really does speak to me because I can and will do it. Might not be amazing but I can do it. I will never be perfect and I can't do anything about that except live with it and own it.

There is also a dressing gown, which I knew would be ace for this too.

Here she is!!

I love her. I think Ive done really well in creating her. My crochet is lovely and neat and I feel like she conveys the mood of the video really well.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

With the script done I started to think about visuals I knew the kind of look I wanted to go for.

I know I want an Interview point of view and that be the main focus of the piece because it is essentially an interview with me (Leslie).

The main part of this will be the interview pov.

Just a video of an interview can be a tad jarring and make people not want to finish the video, so I need to have some other clips in it to make it exciting and stimulating to watch.

As I have written in the script I know I want a pov where Leslie is sat in a room and its dark and messy, there is mess everywhere, as that is what my room is like.

I dont want it to be like that but my brain gets quite bad and I just can't clean it. I try too but I can't.

Sorry that got a bit depressing, but my life kinda is. So Im going to apologise now for all the previous depressingness and the rest that is yet to come.

Anyway, I tried to do a thumbnail layout for what I wanted this to look like but I couldn't fully draw it.

Here are my ideas for the visuals, They will be flipping between them.

For the scenery part, I want to add that into the more positive parts of the interview, as I feel most positive when I am outside, which I don't do as often as I should, but every time I go outside I feel better.

Some days I can't make myself go outside and that is where the views of Leslie sitting on the bed would be, as that is what I do all day. Again sorry for the shitty mood.

I don't know how I want these clips to be interlaced just yet, I know that will have to come when I am editing it at the end. And I know that's not really how you are supposed to do it but that is how I work best which is one reason why I think I haven't done well with this course. I should have done a different course.

Anyway enough with the dramatics I have more dramatic things to do.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

I started to think about my script next.

I really wasn't sure how to start this. I thought about which approach I wanted to take for this.

I haven't had the best time at uni. I haven't enjoyed myself. I have made amazing friends, and I want that to be part of this but I wasn't sure how to think about it.

I knew I wanted it to be an interview style, so I thought of some questions I could ask myself,

Why did I come to university?

Why is a train ticket home £90?

How's my time management?

Trying to think of scripted answers just wasn't cutting it, so I just started to write, as I wrote I started to see what it would look like.

I sat there and just wrote and let it out, not all of it I held back but It felt good, I wanted this to be vulnerable and real and trying to think of perfect answers to the questions was just not doing it for me. so I wrote and I got this

I didn't know that I had all of that hidden inside me but finding it was so therapeutic and it gave me a second wind to get this project finished.

I decided to call it Up and Down and Up and Down, as that is what my time at university has felt like.

[lav-awd]

Major project

Im stripping it all back.

An interview with my puppet talking about my time here.

I was being too ambitious with my idea, which I feel I do a lot and with the way I am, I know I won't be able to finish it.

So we're toning it down.

I started thinking about different puppet designs.

These types of puppets Im most inspired by.

Some initial designs of my puppet, I was trying to think about different hair styles that I want this puppet to be.

The colour was another think I thought about, what colour do I want the puppet to be? There was only one colour that I could really be and that is purple. So I designed the puppet with those colours from now on.

I started thinking about what different hair styles I use in my real life, and I thought of one that I use a lot and that I like. The hairstlye is two buns near my ears with parts sticking out of them, very 2000s.

Ignore the cringy selfie but look at the hair! This style is one of my go to's and I think it'll be a cool looking style for the puppet.

Here is my final design for my puppet.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

So Recently Ive been going through some shit, family shit and I feel like I won't be able to finish this project as is.

This idea really spoke to me I really love the idea of it but, It was seeming like there wasn't going to be time to complete all of this. Maybe in the future I could go on with this idea.

I love this idea but I feel like I want to make this even more personal.

I had an Idea of how I wanted it to be and I think that if I tried to do this in the time space that I have I don't think I have the time to do it.

And my time management isn't always the best I will admit, so I know my limitations and I feel that this is something that I would love to do but in the time that I have I know that I won't be able to do this.

I am fully aware of how much I can take when doing a project, and I haven't been at my best recently, I went two weeks without even thinking about this project.

I had a breakdown and I know that Im going to have to change this project. It will still be puppets, still be mockumentory style but it won't be a fully fleshed out plot that I first thought it could be.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

I started thinking about ideas, I wanted this to be a completely fantasy world, with made up people. I also want this so people don't think im trying to shit on university as a whole.

I started to think about the flatmates idea that I had, I made different identities for my different flatmates. I talked to them to see if they would want to be involved, and they would love to be.

SO with their permission I started to think about different ideas.

Here shows my initial ideas.

I used a Ai name generator to come up with a place name, Gequeenkespa (pronounced Queens-spa)

I also came up with different characters for my flatmates. There would be the character that represents me, Leslie.

The name Leslie has a lot of meaning in my family. its my mums and my sisters middle name, and we have quite a few different ancestors with that name, so I used that name.

For Liam, I came up with the character, Levi Svenson. Then for my other flatmates Elsie, became the character Echo Cook. And for Cal, they became Corin Cadwalledar.

So Leslie, Liam, Echo and Corin would go on some mad adventure inspired by my time at university.

Now to start brainstorming ideas for the plot!

[lav-awd]

Major Project

After writing my learning agreement I decided to think more about my ideas.

I know I want to do a mocumentory style video for this project.

I love What We Do In The Shadows, a TV show about Vampires living in Staten Island.

This TV show quickly became one of my favourite shows. I love the humour and the idea of following these four vampires around while they get into their different shenanigans is hilarious to me. If I could make something that is inspired by this show I would be very happy.

What We Do in the Shadows

Following four vampires who have been roommates for hundreds and hundreds of years.

I had an idea of making this video about my flatmates, all three of them are actors and some of the things that I have overheard or walked in on while they have been practising is made. Deserves a full tv show to be honest.

Walking in on my flatmate and their boyfriend on the floor in the kitchen rolling around acting like gorillas with Clair De La Lune on full blast was definitely a thing I walked in on.

It was part of a performance they were doing and I wasn't aware of it at the time but I was made aware when I walked in.

A scene like this could be quite a funny scene in a mocumentory video.

Another way I could take the video is more of an interview style video. Along the lines of creature comforts.

Creature comforts is a show where basically, they interview human people, and have plasticine animals speaking the words.

It really is a comforting show like the name suggests and I think that this would be an interesting way to get my story across. but using puppets. out of all these ideas I know that puppets is going to be a definite style choice. That's definitely happening.

How or what these puppets will be doing or what they will look like is still miles away from being finalised but the puppets will be part of this.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

[lav-awd]

Major Project

After a lot of deliberation, I decided that I was going to make a short film. I thought about different things I could make the video about.

I thought about writing a letter to my younger self basically just apologising for all the shit little me will go through.

But then I thought about making something about my time at university. I will say now upfront straight up, I have not liked university. There are many factors, one being I think I chose the wrong course. I don't enjoy it honestly, the course its self isn't bad, like if you want to do this stuff then its pretty decent for that, but I have found that I don't want to do a lot of the different elements that are included under visual communications. I thought about different ways I could go about this.

I know that I want to make something physically for this project, I love stop motion animation which I know is a bit for stretch for a project that Is only a couple of months long.

I love crochet, as shown in the week project so I thought what about trying to find a way that I could add this element into my video.

I decided to make puppets. I thought this could be a cool thing to do. An interesting outlook for a way that I could make this video.

[lav-awd]

Major Project

okay I'm a bit lost. I don't know what to do for this project. it has to be big. why could I do.

I know I want to do some sort of video. I like animation but I don't know if I want to do that just now.

some ideas:

Dantes Inferno

I love Dantes inferno. I have this idea in my head that has been here for years since I first learnt about this poem/story. There's something about this story that I absolutely love.

For this idea I would animate a section of this story.

I absolutely love the visuals from this story. The different layers of hell and all the creepy horrors in this story appeals to me. That makes me sound like a psychopath but I am not I promise!! I just like horror.

I don't know whether this would be a project that I could do in the time that is given to us. This is a project that I would want to spend a lot of time on and I don't think that I want to do it just now. So maybe not.

When I am An Old Woman I Will Wear Purple

I love this poem. For this idea I would do another video, animation, to this poem. I chose this poem because my entire wardrobe is purple now and this poem speaks to me.

Being 25 with my classmates being 20, even though it isn't that many years, I feel so much older than them and I feel like the old woman wearing purple is already here.

I could create some really cool visuals with the main focus being purple. I love purple, although it's not my favourite colour, which you wouldn't think if you saw me but I promise my favourite colour is green.

Doing this I could use my different outfits as inspiration for the outfits in the video. If I decided to do this, I could even make a Dress up game type thing where I digitalise my wardrobe and put have a game you can dress the avatar up in my wardrobe.

I don't think I'll do this one though.

Personal video

So I say personal video because I don't know how else to call it. I went to my besties acting performances where they created different pieces that were monologues going into some deep topics for some of them but then some of them were more fun, and I really like the idea of creating one of my own.

One of my Besties, Liam Nissborn made a video where he writes a letter to a younger him.

I actually created the poster for this film. He said he needed one, and he was struggling to make one so I said I would make one for him.

This is the poster I made For it, I really like the look of it. I pulled the colours from the film. I love the graininess. It think it looks pretty nice.

Making a video could be something, not just a cool outcome but it could be theraputic, for me as well.

Out of all of these ideas I like third idea most.