#creativeactivism

[sonny-layton]

Creative Activism Research - Diet

One of our key points in our campaign is that a well maintained varied diet plan can lead to a happy and healthy mind. Since our campaign is aimed at students, we decided to look at the food that was on offer for them in the college. We soon saw that a majority of the food and drinks sold were high in sugar and salt. In fact the only snacks offered in the vending machines, the closest items available to students, were unhealthy such as crisps and chocolate. 

We decided that this was very wrong and that through our campaign, we could help make a change to this, possibly encouraging the college to consider adding more fruit or nuts to the machines. 

[sonny-layton]

The script for our presentation. The lines have been colour coordinated to each Member of the group so not only is it easier to read but we can also practice our lines beforehand.  

[sonny-layton]

Contexts of Practice - ‘Babylon (1980)’

Babylon is a 1980 film directed and written by Franco Rosso. Set in Brixton, it follows several young black men in a changing, multicultural Britain. Overall I really liked the film, in particular the cinematography. It was shot on film and uses a range of wide angles. The film was so well shot and lit that during the start of the film I believed it was a period piece and that it had been released recently due to the stunning visuals. The colour palette used was very pleasing to look at. it managed to incorporate vibrant energetic colours into the dull grey/brown setting of South London. I liked the pacing and how it slowly developed its fun-loving easy going main characters, following them until they commit heinous crimes in a dramatic climax. 

I thought the film felt very real and this was due to several reasons. The first I believe is because of its unbiased portrayal of people and the notion of good/bad. The main characters experience terrible racist abuse. However, they are not shown to be completely innocent themselves and in fact commit many crimes without provocation. The second reason is due to its almost documentary style film making and cinematography. The film  

The film links in well to our creative activism assignment. It features themes of racism, community and police brutality. These are themes worth discussing in a wider context and possibly something to base a campaign on since they are still present in our society today. 

[sonny-layton]

After finding a clear eye-catching style with our campaign posters, I decided to design a proposed website. On the website we would offer cooking lessons and recipes for people who want to try dieting. It would also offer exercise regimes and exercise or sport ideas. Moreover it would include a gallery of our motivational posters and quotes in case they are looking for some inspiration to work out. 

I believe the clear, clean style of the website matches the ethic and key themes of our campaign.

[sonny-layton]

These are some promotional posters I have created for our campaign. 

Although we knew what we wanted to say with our posters and campaign, we did not quite know how we wanted to say it. We did some research on existing healthy living posters and saw that they were very cluttered and unlikely to make someone stop and read them. After some brainstorming Sam and I opted for a simple approach, taking inspiration from advertisements for companies such as Ebay or Ikea who’s posters often include just a few words. Along with an attractive colour scheme, the simplicity helps catch a persons eye. 

The short quips on the poster take an informal tone. Our target audience for the campaign is students and we tried to make them appeal to them as much as possible. This was an easy task as we were able to ask ourselves what would appeal to us in a poster. Our idea is to make the posters area-specific. For example, a poster suggesting you use the stairs might be placed outside of the college lift and a poster reminding you to drink water would be seen next to a coffee machine. 

[sonny-layton]

Creative Activism Campaign - Mini Doc Shoot

Today, my group and I filmed the first of our two documentaries for our Living Proper Campaign. The documentary covers the importance of a healthy diet, specifically breakfast. We opted for a cooking show-esque form, with a simple camera set up and James acting as a presenter. We decided on this style because having a person speaking to the audience it seemed a much more effective way of giving information than a narration. 

 We started the day with a run-through of the script that had been written previously, tweaking the language making adjustments to the structuring. Since the script included large portions of complex information, certain changes had to be made so that it would be more digestible for the audience. below you can see the script with the changes that were made along the way.

After studying some examples of popular cooking shows, we decided to have a static wide shot of James standing at the kitchen island and a separate handheld camera shooting from the side for closer shots of hands and ingredients as  variation and a little excitement. 

The wide shot would be shot on a motorised edelkrone slider and would feature a pull back from a medium close up into a wide shot while the presenter talked to reveal the ingredients placed on the table. 

So as to help filming run smoothly, we loosely assigned crew roles to ourselves. Jess acted as sound operator, and Sam and myself as camera operators. This helped a lot as everyone knew there place in the shoot and decreased the chance of arguments over who was doing what. 

[sonny-layton]

I created the above video for my BCOP100 module in which we are studying creative activism. We were tasked with taking an existing image or video and editing to create a different meaning. In the lecture we looked at vintage ads for cigarettes in which smoking is advertised as healthy and recommended by doctors. I am very anti-smoking and decided to take an advert for Camels cigarettes and mix it with footage from recent anti-smoking adverts. 

[hi-tech-hi-nature]

Beautiful, smart and thought provoking from @mandybarkerphotography - inspired me and Olive this morning for a forthcoming school project #ecoliteracy #creativeactivism (at Bath, Somerset)