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Federation House – Private View and Invigilating (14/05/15-15/05/15)

From 6-9pm the Private View was being held. Fortunately the lift was working so my dad was able to come, he did have to walk down to the lower ground floor so anyone who wasn’t able to walk at all would have struggled but my dad can walk for short periods. It was very busy which was great, everyone was enjoying the work and the atmosphere in general was brilliant. Also my Super 8 film was one of the few to be picked to play at the entrance of the exhibition, which I felt very proud of.

On the Friday I was invigilating meaning that I needed to look over the work, make sure no one damaged or stole anything, I did this with a group of people and we were there from 11.15-12.30. This was an easy job as nothing happened during that time period and it was very quiet. It also meant I could have another look around at the work while there were less people.

As my first exhibition I felt it went really well and it’s made me think more about what I would like from an exhibition in the future such as enough space for me to present my own work and how its presented. The white cardboard looked good but with the projectors being waist height when people walked past it blocked the view, with it being so busy this was constantly happening and sometimes people didn’t even realise they were stood in front of it. Even so, we dealt with the space we were given and I still think it looked amazing and gave all of our work justice. I’ve also thought about ways to fundraise for next year when we need to arrange it all ourselves, things such as a photo-shoot day where people can come to the studio for an hour and give say £10 and get say 5 pictures. Also simple things like cake sales, throwing a party with an entry fee, a raffle draw for the chance to win a photo-shoot day with a MUA etc.

#FederationHouse #Exhibition #PrivateView #UnitX

Federation House (11/05/15-13/05/15)

Our private viewing is on Thursday the 14th so it was our job to get everything set up and tidied before then. After my first visit I was told our floor had changed to the 5th floor from the 3rd. At this point in time it seemed likely the lift was going to be fixed for Thursday but it was not guaranteed.

On the 11th Lizzie and I boarded up most of the windows using cardboard with help from others. This is because many people were using projectors to show their work so it had to be dark in the room.

The next day we were making something for the projectors to project on. We used big pieces of cardboard and covered them in white paper; we then hung them from the ceiling using strings.

Our short film was put onto a DVD with other films, which were played on a loop. This was because there was not enough space for everyone to have their own space so to overcome this problem we looped the films together.

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Nomophobia (08/05/15)

Here is the final edited film. We decided to call it Nomophobia, which by definition is the fear of being without mobile phone contact.

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Filming (06/05/15-07/05/15)

We originally planned to start on the 4th but a team member fell ill so had to rearrange. Filming went on for two days in total, on Wednesday it was raining all day so we decided to do all of the indoor shots during that time. On Thursday the weather was great and we completed the filming that day. We worked well as a team, the actors were brilliant at taking direction and looked great on camera.

As we only have one filmmaker, Joel Porter, in our group he was in charge of filming and he also helped with direction. Me and Lizzie Daniels also directed the film and I was in charge of organising props and places to film. Praewa Bulthaweenan was in charge of photography and took photographs behind the scene. All of us produced the film as a whole and we also all shared any errands that needed to be done. We left Joel with the footage to be edited.

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Key Post Three - Planning the Film (02/05/15)

We took this time to create a storyboard for our film. We wanted to make sure we had every detail planned out before we started filming. Here is a quick note form list of our plan:

1. Start – Wake up, turn shower on, brush teeth and leave the house.

2. Didsbury bump scene – Film two scenes one buming into stranger (Alex) and keep walking looking at phone (Alternate Girl 1), second bumping and apologising (Alternate Girl 2). In both scenes will knock coffee out of hand. A fast pan will be used to go between both scenes.

3. Café Scene – Alternate Girl 1 (AG1) will already be sat in café, Alternate Girl 2 (AG2) walks in with stranger with drink sit down and talk. This will be shot to have both girls in the scene using the crop edit to do so.

4. Hair Cut Scene – AT2 will have a fringe cut in so the two girls can easily be distinguished between. This will be shot at CJ’s studio on fog lane, just a quick scene of her turning around to look in the mirror.

5. Proposal Scene – To be shot in the park, AG1 sat alone on phone on the dating app “tinder” while AG2 walks in with Alex he proposes, they hug and sit down then slowly fade from scene representing that they are not the real reality.

6. Scene of AG1 walking past Alex on phone with no recognition.

We also want some scenes to fill between the café scene (3) and the proposal scene (5) to show the relationship bonding between AG2 and Alex while AG1 stays alone. Ideas such as:

· Home watching a film – Using optical illusion AG2 and AG1 in same shot

· Home dinner date AG1 and AG2 in separate shots. Compare to AG1’s life alone.

· Stood at bus stop together compared to AG1 stood at bus stop alone

· AG1 going to cash point while AG2 and pass by together using optical illusion.

We have also decided we will have no talking and no music to this short film. We feel that it would be much better to have the focus just on the video and music could potentially be distracting. It would also be extremely difficult to pick music that would sum this up it would most likely have to be an instrumental.

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Finding Actors (30/04/15)

For our film we established we would have two actors a male and female. We decided it would be the female who would be the main character as a good friend of mine on the course offered to be a part of it. We felt that having her, as the main would be best as she is trustworthy. As we needed a male actor now I decided to post on facebook as I have many friends who are actors and models. I’m happy to say I got a fast response and a reliable actor to play the male role.

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Key Post Two (29/04/15)

After our group tutorial with Chris we discussed some further ideas. We watched Kylie Minogue’s music video “Come Into My World” where she is cloned multiple times in the same scene, starting off on her own and every lap she makes a new clone is introduced. This video is a perfect example of a well-executed illusion, this is done by shooting the video in a circle and when she makes a lap her sequence changes and by editing the first lap in she is repeated in the video many times. I like the way it’s almost a dance and the smoothness of the video is ascetically pleasing. It’s also enjoyable the way she interacts with herself without actually acknowledging or touching the other.

We also viewed Zbigniew Rybczyński’s “Tango” which in 1983 won the Academy Award for “Best Animated Short Film”. I found this video extremely interesting; to create this effect he separately filmed people doing different actions and eventually strings them all together. I think the film is amazing and the fact it was shot on 35mm is incredible. I enjoyed the fact that the people almost interact with each other, not one of them touch or acknowledge each other but because they move around each other adds this interesting idea that they are almost interacting.

After watching these videos our group got talking, feeling inspired by what we had just seen. Our first thought was to create these optical illusions but add a narrative to it, we could create a morning routine using the illusions for example, wake up out of bed walk into the wardrobe and walk out fully dressed. Another idea was to have the person wake up and get out of bed but also have them stay in bed playing on the idea that no one wants to get out of bed in the morning.

We liked this idea and then it sprung on more ideas about having alternate realities, what happens if in one realty the person stay in bed and the other gets up and goes outside. This is the same kind of concept of the well-known theory of the Butterfly Effect, which is a scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the course of the universe forever. This idea has been used in films such as “The Butterfly Effect” and “Sliding Doors”. With this in mind we decided to brainstorm ideas in which we could create two alternate realities. We decided to have our “Butterfly Effect” to evolve around a mobile phone, the reason being so many people nowadays spend so much time on their phone they don’t seize the opportunities life gives them. Our main scene would be someone bumping into someone else, in one reality they continue on their phone and don’t pay any attention and in another they stop and apologise to the person.

Our next question was what is going to be the life changing opportunity this person has missed in which we had two answers, it could be a job of a life time or the ultimate falling in love. We decided falling in love was the better option as it would connect with a larger audience, we felt more people would pick love over a job.

After deciding the two main parts to our short film we though about ways to show the couple falling in love and how we could compare and contrast that to the other reality in which they don’t. We really liked the optical illusion idea and decided it would work well to have both realities in the same shot to compare them, we also thought about switching between shots too where the optical illusion part wouldn’t work as well.

I feel this is a really strong story and it will connect with our viewers and even if it makes just one person think about how their phone is affecting their life then our film has completed its goal.

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Optical Illusion Experimentation (24/04/15)

Today we took some videos to experiment with the technique’s to create optical illusions. As this is just experimentation we didn’t feel it was necessary to bring real actors in so we were in our own shots.

The in the first video we decided to re-create the optical illusions ones of walking to one area and coming out another. I like this technique but I don’t feel we thought this video out as well, you can see it’s a new shot as the curtain changes places when I went into the photo booth. For future we would need to make sure it stays exactly the same, if I had ducked underneath it would have solved this. When playing with optical illusions every detail needs to be thought out or it will not look right.

The next video is of Binky, we took a photograph of her stood on one side of the wall and videoed her walking in and standing at the wall. Our idea was that she would be in the same shot as herself. This didn’t really work, I think the main problem is we picked a wall that was bricked meaning when lining the two together it had to be spot on which brings out the next problem that videos and photographs are different sizes and resolutions meaning they cant be linked up as well. These two problems mixed together resulted in it being very unrealistic. I also think using a photograph doesn’t work very well as it’s a still image and in that sense looks unrealistic too.

In our last video we had Binky walking from behind a pillar, in one she walked one way and the other the other way. This was a complete success, the pillar has hidden the crop well, unlike the brick wall one, as it is plain and there are no patterns to link up too. I’m pleased with the outcome and I feel these experiments has helped our group understand that composition is very important, we need to constantly think how we are going to edit the video.

Joel in our group is mainly in charge of editing as he is the only filmmaker in our group. So for the editing process we went up to our University Mac’s and discussed what we wanted from it. Joel went through the steps as he was doing it to help us understand what was being done.

#Experimentation #UnitX

Key Post One (22/04/15)

Today I met up with my Unit X group to discuss the project and express our ideas. I had earlier told the group in the on going Facebook chat we had going and explained it further.

I liked the idea of doing a camera obscura again as I was inspired by my workshop. I had also thought about combining the oldest technique from photography with one of the newest, moving a still image. To do this we would take a camera obscura photograph and edit it in after effects to move it. I also thought it would be good to experiment with different ways to use the camera obscura, the most common way projecting onto light sensitive paper and developing it. We could also film it, take photographs of the projection, try using it with and without a lens, different papers, the list could go on.

Binky also mentioned she liked the idea of surrealism and incorporating that into our project. As the group showed an interest in this idea I decided to show them my Super 8 film where my group and I had created optical illusions and Jenny Baines video which originally inspired me. The group liked the concept so we decided to start there, as we will be using a digital camera and will be able to edit using a software this will open up a whole new platform to the optical illusions.

I really enjoyed doing the optical illusions so continuing this was something I look forward to. Our plan is to try and create different illusions and to even try having the same person repeated in one shot using software to edit.

#KeyPost #UnitX

Super 8 (22/04/15)

Today I was able to see the results from my Super 8 workshop, which had to be sent of to Germany to be developed. I’m over the moon about the results as I feel it went really well, even though a couple of the illusions didn’t work as well for example when she leaves the room and the camera stops too soon resulting in the door suddenly shutting, I still am very happy with the result and feel it is all just a learning curve. I also feel some of the illusions came out extremely well and I think as the film goes on it gets better through understanding and confidence. I also think the part where she moves around the screen on the chairs came out really well and helped strengthen the link between “The Still and Moving Image” within our piece.

I mentioned in my first post about the ending of the piece and the feeling the model had jumped too late and I had released the shutter too early. I feel this scene still came out great and still gives the powerful impression I wanted to make.

When we finished with the camera none of us knew how to take the film out so to avoid ruining it all together we requested someone else to do it. Unfortunately, some how a hand was recorded at the end of the piece accidentally with no idea how. I decided to have this removed from the piece as it looked very odd, this did mean we didn’t have the flicker ending like the film usually would have but I felt the con of the hand outweighed the pro of the end. This video is slightly out of focus, when we watched it through the projection it was in focus, as this is done by digitally recording the projection I think the camera may have been slightly out of focus when recording.

#Super8 #Workshop #UnitX

Visit to the Federation House (08/04/15)

I visited the Federation House to get an idea of our exhibition space for our final pieces of this project. The space was nice overall but smaller than I imagined. With there being so many people on our course this just confirmed to me that we needed to make sure our final piece is sorted before the 11th so we can get in early to choose our space.

This photograph is showing most of the space, this side is south facing so if our final piece is a projection we need to take that into consideration. On the other side of the room projections have worked well by putting bin bags to cover windows.

Seeing the space has got me more excited for the project and I look forward to presenting my groups work. Unfortunately when we went the lift was not in use, with the exhibition being on the 3rd floor I will need find out if it will be fixed as my dad is disabled. It will also be useful to know incase there are other students who also require the lift to work. It is things like this which always need to be taken into consideration when planning an exhibition.

#FederationHouse #Exhibition #UnitX

Spinning the Primary Colours Workshop – Alexandru Modoi (23/03/15)

Inthis workshop with Alexandru Modoi went through his project “Spinning thePrimary Colours”. He took two spinning tops; on one he painted the threeprimary colours (red, yellow and blue) and the other he added secondary colours(red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple).

When spinning the tops to the naked eye we just see a mixed of browns and yellows, this is the way the eye picks up the colours. When photographing or videoing the spinning tops the sensor picks up different colours, when using the primary colour top the sensor even picks up the secondary colours that aren’t even there. This is because the sensor records light differently to the way our eyes do.

Here is an image of the spinning tops taken on my iPhone while they were spinning. Even though one has primary colours and the other has primary and secondary colours they both look the same and the camera picks up secondary colours in both. These both have a shutter speed of 1/33rd of a second, on the iPhone these settings can not be controlled so it is just the speed the phone automatically set.

We then experimented with different shutter speeds using the camera Modoi had brought using the spinning top with only primary colours on. First off we did 1/60th of a second, this looks more along the lines of what the naked eye would see. The shutter speed is too slow for the camera to pick up any colours as the spinning top is moving fast.

Below is a 1/125th of a second, we can start to see the colours more clearly and even a purple colour that is not actually on the spinning top.

Here we have 1/250th of a second, as the shutter speed is getting faster the camera is picking up the real colours present and not picking up any secondary colours.

This is 1/500th of a second and looks pretty much the same as 1/250th of a second.

We then went back and did 1/30th of a second, here is pretty much exactly how the spinner will be seen through eyes.

I think one of the things that is interesting is this image below is taken at 1/30th of a second on the iPhone and comparing it to the one above taken at 1/30th on the DSLR there is a huge difference. You can see the same kind of effect on the iPhone as you would if the camera was set on 1/125th.

I also took some videos; first I took a normal video of the spinning tops on my iPhone. You can once again see colours that aren’t actually there, I found it quite bizarre recording this as I would watch the spinning tops and see a yellow/brown blur but then would look at the screen and see these colours appear.

I then decided to try using the slow-motion option on my iPhone, this one was done at 120 frames per second.

This one was at 240 frames per second. To me, the more slow-speed the video is the less colours are picked up and becomes more of a blur.

This last photograph is a piece by Modoi himself, he took photographs of the spinning tops and overlaid them in photoshop putting them down to about 10% opacity each. This resulted in a yellow-orange outcome, which is actually the kind of colours that would be seen to the naked eye.

This workshop was really interesting, I knew that the sensor picks up colours differently than we see them but I didn’t realise it was to such an extreme in some cases. This has made me think more about how the camera will pick up colours and how its important as a photographer to understand this and understand why it is happening. This could also be interesting for a project idea, using the way sensors pick up colours to my advantage.

#Workshop #SpinningthePrimaryColours #UnitX

Photography and Film Lecture – Jenny Baines (23/03/15)

Baines showed us a 45-minute video by Hollis Frampton called “Nostalgia” made in 1971. The video consisted of Frampton’s photographs placed over a hotplate that would burn the photographs before our eyes; Frampton would speak over the image talking about his relationship with the picture. I feel this is Frampton’s way of removing all the images he didn’t like that he produced from the world and in doing so, made another piece of art.

#PhotographyandFilmSeries #UnitX

Image, Space, Projection Workshop – Paul Proctor (19/03/15)

Inthis workshop we looked into projecting images, shapes, text or moving imagesin an interior environment. When doing so we had to make sure the place wasdark enough and to think about the people around us that we were not projecting anything offensive. Paul Proctor went through some examples with us such as Mulackstrasse 32, James Turrell and one that really caught my eye was Sebastian Stumpf his “Installation performance”.

We set off into groups, my group and I found a room that was out of the way and we were able to have a bit of control over the darkness. The shape of the room was a small rectangular shape with a high ceiling which reminded us of the kind of cages Dolphin’s in captivity are kept in. With this in mind we decided to project a video of Dolphins in captivity to represent this issue.

We did the same things with Whales, projected a video into the room of Whales being forced into doing tricks.

We liked this idea of using this small room to represent the hard conditions animals such as Whales and Dolphins are kept in. Unfortunately due to the lack of resources there was not much further we could take it.

As a random thought we decided to project “Sit on me” onto a chair. This was done onto an orange chair using white writing and a black box.

The style reminded us of Barbra Krugers so we tried using a red box instead as she does.

On the orange chair we decided the red didn’t look as good so tried it again using a black chair, this outcome was much better.

We decided to explore further into this idea, the use of the words sit on me are literal but also have a double meaning. It can also be interpreted as rude in a sexual nature, this idea of an inanimate object essentially flirting with the viewer. It did remind us further of Kurgers work as she does raise points and issues in her work in a strong manner. We wanted to take this further so we decided to repeat it with different objects and creating this odd sexual concept in the work.

I found this workshop fun and inspiring. As we are producing an exhibition in may, its useful to have a better understanding of projection in interior space if we decide we want our final piece projected. If my group for Unit X decide to go down the film route this will be especially helpful. Its also inspired me to use projection to get a point across in a way you can necessarily do just through camera. Another idea could be to do contrasting points; a nature projection could be projected into a large industrial factory room. I could go on all day with different routes this workshop could take me and I think it will definitely benefit my future work as well as this unit. I also really liked our flirting inanimate objects and I think there is defiantly scope for a project there. I regret not having my DSLR camera to hand as I feel the images would have come out much better, unfortunately I had to use my iPhone to document the pieces.

#ImageSpaceProjection #Workshop #UnitX

Inspire Talk – Le Gun (Neal Fox and Robert Rubbish) (17/03/15)

LeGun is made up of seven people; Neal Fox and Robert Rubbish are members who came to talk about Le Gun to us. It was established in 2007 where they all met in college, their main source of inspiration was artists such as Robert Crumb and Art Spieedman. This common ground bought them together to start creating a magazine. Up until this day they have created 5 magazines, they weren’t published at a particular time but when they had enough money to do so. For their first magazine they hosted parties to help fundraise the money. The content of the magazine isn’t just Le Guns work as many people are able to send their work in to be part of the magazine. When deciding what goes in they like to look at all the pieces as a whole, the magazine will be seen as one-piece not individual pieces, the aim is to create a “Visual Poem”.

They also did a lot of large paintings and when this started they came up with LeGundon which is a world they created in their pieces. LeGundon is inspired by London with places that they recreated into LeGundon. Soon these paintings turned into 3D art such as a life size living room, they still continued using black and white theme in their work.

Thoughts:

· Interesting

· Complex

· Sometimes crude

· Wacky - the work reminded me of a TV series called The Mighty Boosh.

· Funny

· Contrasting - the use of black and white

· Almost Comic-like

I found this talk interesting, the work isn’t my usual taste but there was a lot of content and many pieces I could relate to. I am really interested in LeGundon and I think this fantasy world is really inspiring, its as if it’s how London is seen through Le Guns eyes. It could be a future idea to create my own fantasy world based on the real world.

#InspireSeries #UnitX

Camera Obscura Workshop – Alan Jones (17/03/15)

Thiswas one of the workshops I was most excited for and it definitely lived up toits expectations. Alan Jones had set up a camera obscura in one of the sectionsat the Holden Gallery. To do so he used a lens that was fixed onto the wall andthere was a curtain up to get in and out, when the curtain was shut inside thecamera obscura was completely black.

Aboveyou can see the lens and behind it you can see the board the image will beprojected on, this space is where the curtain lies.

This is theprojection from out side the room onto the board, it is upside down because the light travels through at an angle. Our eyes are the same but our brain knows automatically to switch it round. I also took a video of the board while people were outside. I didn't really know what to expect and it was really hard to image how it would project into the room, I was pleasently surprised by how sharp and bright it came out onto the board.

To start the process off we needed to figure out a correct exposure, we all took a turn with the first person starting of with 10 seconds and the next going up in intervals of 5. We went back to the dark room to develop the work and came to the conclusion that 40 seconds was the best exposure. We all then went back down to create our final outcomes. I chose dale to be my model and because the photosensitive paper is negative the picture came out negative. I could have corrected this in the darkroom but because the workshop was short I used an app on my phone called “Negative Me” which does that for me.

This is the original negative version.

This is the positive version using “Negative Me”. As you can see there is a line across the picture, I am unsure to how this happen but it did happen to a few people. It could be some kind of light leek but I am not entirely sure, this could be something I could look into if I decide to continue this into Unit X. You can also see a bit of motion blur, the models arms are pretty sharp but because the exposure was so long there is a slight blur in the face.

Here is the exposure that I modelled for, I chose to put this in also as I managed to stay still enough for the whole image to stay sharp. Also, this image does not have the line that most people got. I think this is a good example of one that went very well.

This is the converted positive using the app.

Overall, I thought this experience was really good and I am very pleased with the outcome. It was very exciting and its definitely something I would like to experiment with.

#Workshop #CameraObscura #UnitX

Photography and Film Lecture – Mary Stark (16/03/15)

MaryStark started off her lecture by saying she uses Film as a measurement of space and went on to show us how she experimented with the use of fabric with film. She laid out fabric such as ribbon, lace, etc… and placed the film on top of it in the darkroom and exposed it using a torch. She would develop and then pierce holes where the patterns are resulting in sound when the film is projected, the sounds were harsh and mostly unpleasant but it was interesting that this was the outcome. Other things she spoke about were:

· Weaving film strips together and enlarging onto photosensitive paper.

· A clear film lead still has marks and scratches.

· A black film lead is closer to no image.

Stark also showed us some videos and it interested me the say she showed it. She projected the videos over each other, I thought the effect looked really good and it could be a perfect way to project work. It would work well for two films that compliment each other or even two completely different, contrasting videos. She also projected light onto the Film stand that then created a beautiful shadow and an almost water-like effect. This is because of the way light bounces of the negative.

#PhotographyandFilmSeries #UnitX

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