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Projection Mapping in Agra - India

Absolutely incredible

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Showreel 2016 (26/2/16)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfbupQ7X_5E&feature=youtu.be

Here is my current up to date showreel, it includes six of my own films that I shot and edited, and one music video which I did not film but edited the footage together for.

The first is a short film I created last christmas about an untouched winters morning, hence the name ‘Unblemished Morning’. I wanted to capture the purity and stillness of sunrise, before any human activity took place or the sun shone and melted things. I filmed some parts with an unstable hand on purpose to give the point of view of someone there, behind the camera. I added the ice breaking sound effect at the end to inspire the concept of time passing and human activity beginning.

The following film is a short montage of time lapses of the sky, this is only a short film but I enjoy the footage and at the time was very interested in the movements of clouds. I was demonstrating the vast variety in shape, but also how they interacted and moved around the sky.

Following on from my interest in clouds, I then went on to create ‘Liquid Clouds’, which is probably the film I am most proud of. After studying the sky and the clouds movements, I decided to try and create my own, I was first inspired by watching milk disperse into a cup of tea in a cloud like manner. I then experimented with different substances- such as ink and milk in water, food colouring and smoke. Using these three techniques and some footage of actual clouds,  I created a home made storm.

The next two films ‘Legacy’ and CTRL-Z’ are films I have shot and edited within a production team on my course. Legacy is about a journal that was given to a boy, which actually belongs to his friends grand father. They find out that their grand fathers fought in the war together. CTRL-Z is about a clumsy, socially awkward character, Trevor who has the power to re-live situations that he messes up by pressing CTRL-Z on his keyboard.

Among us is a music video that I edited together and the final film is one I created when traveling to Swaziland two years ago as part of a volunteering project.

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14/2/16

A gradual sketch of a man I found in a magazine. His teeth-less mouth interested me.

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14/2/16

An initial sketch of the two teachers in the play house, Matilda with the lipstick and Toby asking for it.

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A script I am working on about the story of Toby and Matilda who you’d think are five year olds, but really they turn out to be middle aged adults and they are the pre- school teachers. They misbehave together and vandalise the playground, then blame the children for it. 

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2/2/16

Some photographs I have taken of people/frames that have interested me. I enjoy taking a photo in which I know will tell a story, so for example one of my favourites is the third one, of the man who has blinked at the wrong time. I like that I have captured him in a very unprepared state, for example he is half smiling and mid blinking, you can also tell from this image that this man is slightly clumsy too as he is wearing his earphones the wrong way round and I enjoy that his bag strap and scarf look quite scruffy. I think this image tells a lot about the man. 

Another favourite is the Chinese man sat at his stall looking pretty uninspired. This is what I like about it though, the fact that he looks so dull and I enjoy the irony of the fact he is supposed to be selling, but instead he is gaming- in his own world. I framed the man at the bottom left of the image because the business of colours and shapes in the background adds more interest to the image.

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Sketch Timelapse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOqd0uUHBbw&feature=youtu.be 

19/1/16

Here is a link to a recent sketch I have finished of an elderly face. The person has no significance to me, I just felt interested in his face- I think because he looks to me quite exhausted, not only because of his wrinkled skin but I think his eyes are telling a lot also. The drawing is not finished on purpose, because I got to a point where I felt happy and content with how the piece looked and decided to leave it (as I am usually one to always add more and then end up ruining it).

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11/1/16

Here are a series of photographs I took when visiting Swaziland last year. People are where my interest lies when capturing an image, I enjoyed photographing different faces, with different stories behind them. Very little of these photos have been posed for -which I think is the easiest way of obtaining the feeling of that moment and transferring it into an image.

With the children I have especially tried to capture them, how they naturally look- as I personally found them very interesting, particularly when they were oblivious of the camera. A favorite is the young 6 year old carrying her baby sister on her back (whom she took to school every day with her) as it is a shocking/peculiar thing to see.  

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Final Evaluation

I have enjoyed this project as a whole, and think I have covered different areas well, before narrowing down to my final piece area. Quite early on in my project I started getting the idea to project my film, and also what the content was going to look like, so I think my final piece has turned out how I always had anticipated it to be and apart from a few changes, how I had described it in my SOI. I began the project on clouds, because I found their movements very interesting and so my intention from the start had always been to try and recreate the movements of clouds, but at that point I did not know how to, so firstly looked into pantings of clouds and Romanticism. I then began playing around and experimenting with various substances/materials, such as cream and milk, because I had originally been inspired by the cloud like shape milk makes when poured into a cup of tea. This is then where my development started happening, and I began to film and edit short films and insert music with the footage. 

As I mentioned before narrowing down into creating my own clouds, I studied the art movement Romanticism and looked into the meaning of Sublime. I then became interested in Sublime paintings and researched painters such as Turner and Constable. After learning about the meaning behind Sublime I think that it then reflected onto my work with my own filming and cloud creating, because I found creating drama and suspense was a great feeling to feel when looking at a piece of art, rather than something just looking attractive or beautiful. 

An aspect I didn’t think through well enough was the problem of light interfering with my projection in the exhibition space. If I had thought it through in advance I would have been able to allocate the appropriate materials I needed and made a plan for how I was going to block out the light, but instead the process of blocking the light out became very rushed and last minute. I had always pictured my film to just be projected onto a wall in the exhibition, but obviously at that point I wasn't taking into consideration how the ceiling lights were going to affect my projection strength. I had never intended to create a booth for people to go in to view my film, but it was the only solution for blocking out the light. 

I think that the way in which I managed my time was good, and I stuck to the schedule that I had created in my SOI quite well. The only thing I could have done better is checking I had the right amount of footage, because in some areas of my film I have had to repeat some shots because I didn’t have a big enough range in shots to choose from. If I was to start a similar project I would make sure I began researching and looking at lots of different areas, so that I could make a quicker decision with that route I want to go down, rather than feeling unsure for a while, which is how I felt in parts of my project. 

I think that I worked hard with this project and I sustained my interest in the topic, which is very important because if you loose the interest you are less motivated to produce any work for it. I learnt more about using a camera and also the importance of synching music well with footage. Overall I think my project ‘Liquid Clouds’ has been a success and feel proud of my final piece. 

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When deciding how I was going to block the light from getting onto the wall I am projecting onto, I realized that if I was to hang material, firstly it would get in the way of people who want to go inside and watch the film. And secondly the material would be difficult to attach and maintain hanging from the two walls. 

So after thinking it through, myself and Martin decided that we needed to add another wall, so that there was just a big enough gap for people to still get inside and watch the film, but so it was still blocking out a big sector of light that would normally be shining onto the wall I plan to project onto. 

Unfortunately I do not have a photograph of what the walls looked like before, but this short film is when we had just attached another wooden wall, to the already existing one. Once it was attached I painted it white (as it was black), so that it was less noticeable they were two different walls and it looked more presentable. 

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As you can see in some parts of the film, you can hardly see any thing that is in the shot. The lighter shots, for example of the clouds (third photo) were more visible, but the shots that were very dark and subtle you can hardly make anything out. 

This is a problem which I am not happy about, because although my film is quite gentle and not that bold in its appearance, I still want viewers to be able to notice and appreciate all the different shots to it.

 I am going to have to find a way to block some of the light from accessing the wall I am projecting onto, by possibly using some dark material and hanging it from wall to wall.

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Now that I have finished my film and is now ready to project, I have been working out the logistics of where and how my film will be projected in the exhibition space. These three photos give you an idea of the space in which my film will be shown. As you can see I found a plinth for my projector, speakers and DVD player to sit on which I have placed in a gap between two walls, so that is not actually visible to the public, but still reaches the wall opposite to project onto.

The second photo is how the projection looks when turned on. As you can see the picture is quite faint and definitely not as strong as it looks when viewing the film on a screen. This is because of the lighting coming from the ceiling, which weakens the strength of my picture.

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Cloud Tank

This film created by Josef Beeby is similar to the work I have done to create my footage for my film. Beeby has not given details about how he created these cloud effects, but it looks very similar to how ink does when dispersed into water. 

The music for the film is soothing to the ear but at the same time quite threatening, as if something is approaching. I find it interesting that in this film the substances being filmed are hardly making any movements, I am not sure if this is because Beeby has used slow motion on his footage or if the substance was naturally very heavy and motionless. This is the difference between Cloud Tank and my film (Liquid Clouds), although the footage is of the same subject...mine is a lot faster, and builds up to a dramatic crescendo. whereas the footage in this film is very much at the same pace throughout the duration of the film, apart from a very subtle increase in speed of the movements made by the ‘clouds’ closer to the end. 

Some may think this film is quite dull to watch, because there is not a lot happening, but I found I became more interested in the film because I was looking harder to see if anything was moving/changing.

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Spider Projection / Araneola

As I am planning to project my film into a space in the exhibition, I have been looking at various different projection artists, like Friedrich van Schoor who created this amazing projection of two spiders. 

Schoor had two small spiders put in a small scale model of the building, and then filmed from the viewers perspective which he then projected from inside onto the windows of the real life size building. 

This is an incredibly thought out form of projection and something I have never seen happen before, Schoor has projected his footage of the spiders to fit perfectly inside the frame of the windows of the building, so to look as if the spiders are actually on the other side of the window. 

I was thinking about possibly making or finding a frame that I could project my film into, but I have decided against it because I think the contrast between the natural rectangle frame my film will have when projected onto the white wall will be enough, and keep the theme of simplicity.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNQI_4d9MHo)

Here is my final edited version of my film. I am very happy with the result and will do a more thorough evaluation after it has been presented in the exhibition. 

I am happy with the length of the film being 5 minutes long, because it is long enough to be able to tell a small story, and perform the transition between storm and the calm that lyes after it.

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Final Edit

I found this footage that I shot ages ago of food dye being released into water. When the food dye dispersed into the water, it did not make the clouds like ink and milk did. Instead it made rain like droplets which slowly sank to the bottom of the container. I used blue food dye, which looked especially good because it gives the appearance of water. 

I then decided to use a gentle rain sound effect to go a long with the footage of the falling droplets. I think this is a great contrast, after the extravagance of the storm I created. The sounds of the rain falling with the footage creates a very gentle and comforting atmosphere.

I changed the color of this shot because these droplets falling were actually red, and did not think a red color would be appropriate- as it reminds people of blood, which would not be relevant to my film...and would be a distraction. 

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Film Evaluation

I think I have made good progress from the first edit I did with the Substance Mix footage, and have definitely captured a feeling of suspense and drama. I think the music that I found that accompanies the first section of the film, enhances and heightens the dramatic feeling a lot, as well as the thunder sound effects I inserted in the climaxes of the footage. 

I am extremely happy with one particular sequence close to the beginning of the film, of the time lapse sky and then the long transition overlapping the sky shot with a moving smoke shot, and then another long transition back onto the sky. I think this three shot sequence looks particularly good, because the smoke enters into the sky shot (when the shots are overlapping) and looks as if it is another actual cloud in the sky- which was a goal I wanted to achieve when making the film. 

Another area I am happy with is the shots of the smoke being released on time with a thunder clap, so that it looks as if we are watching actual weather movements, and the smoke is a stormy cloud. 

One thing I am unsure about at the moment is how the transition looks between the milk with the black back ground and the sky shot- because they are both very different in a lot of ways. For example the speed of the milk circling is quite fast, compared to the clouds moving in the sky, which is slower. The difference in colors too is quite noticeable too, because although I heightened the colors in the sky shot on purpose, it slightly looks out of place when put next to the monochrome shot of the milk.