Showing posts with label reflections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflections. Show all posts
I stuck to my idea pretty well throughout the process. I found making the dream catcher was not as hard as I had previously thought, however adding the photos proved to be a very difficult task that I spent a very long time on. Each photo had to be glued precisely to very thing string and then left to dry before moving on to the next ones. The strings would often get tangled and it was very easy to get confused and lost while doing this. I really enjoyed using the polaroid camera as an alternative to my normal dslr and I had a lot more fun with experimenting with it. My final photos could be better, however I think the simplisticness to them makes them seem more realistic and relatable which is the style I wanted to go for. I intended to add more of life in through the photographs, but this proved hard for me to re-create and I should have timed myself more accordingly for this. Overall I enjoyed the design of the set up and making it into kind of a 3D art piece was a lot of fun and something I didn't really think I would get to do again during my degree.  To me the polaroid style makes it a bit more unique and original and it's a style I would like to delve deeper into the future possibly.





The body of the dreamcatcher is blue while the web is white, representing the sky and clouds as if the photos are the stages of life to 'look up' or aspire to be/ have. The photos show pre made assumptions as to what uni life should be like and what the majority of us think uni will be like. Feathers were made out of materials associated with the polaroids to maintain the feel of the piece. 


From the pitch, I was never very confident about what direction my film would go in and to be honest I never really thought I'd get chosen to actually make my project. However the experience has taught me a lot and being a first time director, as I tend to lean more towards editing, made me learn a lot of new skills. I adapted a lot better than I thought to the role, as I'm not a very outspoken person generally. I think I would definitely consider going down a directing path in future.

Key skills that I learnt from being director:

  • Listen to others ideas and not just focus on how you want the film to look
  • Be understanding to the others in the group
  • Be more assertive to ensure everyone is doing their jobs properly
  • Remain positive and keep the other member's spirits high - an unhappy crew could ruin the final outcome
  • How to work with interviewees and get my ideas across to them so as they understand the project
The Group

I really enjoyed working with Shahid, Lydia and Josh and together we had a lot of fun during the whole process. Of course as always, there were stressful times and moments where we got a bit confused about where to take the film, but we worked through this together.  I feel we worked very well as a group, Josh and Shahid present at all times when asked and Lydia being there when she could understandably to us all and I feel we bonded very well. I learnt to appreciate any hard work done by my group and seeing them help to bring my project to life, whenever it was not their own, made me recognise and value their effort and skills that they brought. Special acknowledgement to the extras that helped us, such as Thomas Doukinitsas, Rosie Coutier-Dutton, Harry Clarke and Rob Campion, who stayed around even when they didn't have to, and this taught me even more about team work. My favourite part of being in the team was seeing them light up when Anne and Leah said positive things about the rough edit, as we were all very nervous, and seeing them become more confident made me happy. 

The Film

The final version didn't really come out anything like I originally imagined when pitching, however I do think we created an interesting piece. I intended it to be a little more experimental, particularly with sound as it was meant to be remixed into more of a musical piece. In the end we chose a different route as we felt it worked better with the footage we got. I feel the strongest part visually of the film are the moments when the photos are held to the camera, as you can view the emotions in the people before their memories appear and this kind of sets a tone for what is to come. The sound was a little grainy in the interviews and little could be done to improve it as much as we tried, but I am looking at this as a learning curve to improve on this for future reference. Being present with Josh the entire way through the edit, I saw the amount of effort he put in to get it the way we wanted and this made me appreciate the editing a lot more throughout it, as I understand how hard it was to get it finalised as there were so many ways we could go and it wasn't always a clear end. Overall I am happy with what we produced, even though there are definitely areas to improve and ways to move forward with our skills. If I had to do the film again I would make sure everything was a little more organised and that I was more strict about what had to be done for when. I thoroughly enjoyed working on the project however and it has been a lot of fun. 

Group G group photo :)


To keep updated on the film's progress I have been talking with Josh on skype regularly. I have been able to view what is going on through screen sharing and keep a watchful eye over the edit to make sure everything runs smoothly and too offer a second opinion with advice to Josh. We've both found this to be really helpful as being in different countries could have made it hard to communicate. Everything appears to be going well and I am happy with the film's current state. Excited to see the final draft!
Today I began to make the dreamcatcher, which is the base to display my photography work.

The hoop's material was wooden as I thought this would be sturdy enough to hold photos and anything else going on it. Blue suede lacing was then wrapped tightly around the outside.  To create the web in the middle, waxed nylon string was used as to maintain the structure and design, the string has to be strong but thin.

Stages for Creating a Web

Tie string on outside. Place three fingers on side of hoop and wrap string around the them. Then remove fingers and pull the end of the string through the loop left to create a knot. Continue this around the entire outer edges.

Nearly done
Final web

After the main body of the dreamcatcher was made I decided to create some weights using beads to hold down the photos and make them less flimsy but still movable. 

"Invisible" blue string for hanging photos and weights.

Now that the dreamcatcher base is finished all I need to do now is mount the photos and think about designing some feathers out of the polaroid materials. 


The clips have been organised and are just being re-arranged now. Thomas worked with me and Shahid to create a title sequence and credits with a glitch effect as shown below.




All clips have had their background filled in and replaced the green screen. 

Original green screen footage


After effected final version

We have also been working on adding filters and grain to make the donated footage seem old and and give a vintage effect.





I chose to look at Native American Indian art forms for my GCSE Art and since then I've always had a fascination with the design and background of it. The dreamcatcher obviously originated from Native Americans and were used to protect sleepers from negative dreams. They believed that the night air was filled with both good and bad dreams and that as the individual was sleeping the dreamcatcher would swing and catch positive ones, passing them down the feathers and to the person below. Negative ones would get trapped and perish with the first light of day.

Structure

Dream catchers traditionally consist of a hoop, leather, string, beads and feathers. Native Americans thought highly of the symbol of hoops, because to them it represented strength and unity and this then flowed into the deign of their dreamcatchers. String used to create the web in the centre was often white, light brown or clear, while the leather surrounding was typically brown like a lot of Native American fabric/ clothing. 

Modern day times have seen the dreamcatcher develop into a variety of different shapes other than a hoop and become much more colourful and stylistic. 

Traditional Style Examples





Modern Day Examples










Update

We have almost finished the sound editing on audition which will be used in the final piece. Going through everything and cutting it down to the keywords was a lengthy process, but I feel like it was worth it and I can hear the soundtrack really coming together nicely. We've all decided it's best to make the sound flow softly rather than editing it fast paced and scratchy, which was a previous idea.

An inspiration for the fast paced sound editing


Inspiration for final sound

We've also began editing in after effects, putting the memories behind the interviewees with the green screen. We have a lot of archive to go through, but I'm confident that as long as we are organised we can carry through successfully with the editing. 


Group photos: ready to take on the big editing task!

My original idea was to show real memories that weren't fabricated but I've decided to do the opposite and take a different approach instead. Sticking with the dream catcher idea, I wish to show how people assume their memories are going to be like, in this case pre - assumed ideas before actually getting to uni. The photos will dangle from the dream catcher in a waterfall like style, beginning at the top and up high and finishing at the bottom down low. The last "photo" will either be a drawing or picture of the protagonist looking up towards the rest of the memories.


The style of the dream catcher: horizontal

I still would like to stick with the polaroid style for the photographs, as I feel it makes the piece feel a lot more raw and represents memories in a stylistic way.  I've played around with taking my own polaroids.

Examples of polaroids I have taken recently





We had booked room G27, a green screen area, from 9am - 8pm to film RAM in. We arrived on time and immediately set up the equipment so that we were ready to shoot as soon as the interviewees showed up. A lot of time was spent testing out different lighting techniques until we found one that we agreed worked, without casting shadows.
Josh standing as a test for the lighting and camera
(ps they taped my mouth cus I was being too much of a demanding director haha)


We gave each person a set time to come to be interviewed at 20 minute intervals, allowing us to prepare the set and them to get ready to be in front of the camera.  

The shoot went very smoothly and because we had the studio for such a long time we didn't feel under pressure or rushed at all, even when some interviewees were late or if we ran into small problems.  A few extra sets of hands were offered to help when needed which was appreciated as some of the interviewees were intrigued and wanted to see more into what the film was going to be about. 

Group photo with helpers Tom and Harry

Lunch time with the crew. Pizza!

Attempted behind the scenes with Tom and Josh

Overall my group and I are very happy with how the shoot went and we are looking forward to seeing how we shall edit and prepare the clips for the showing. 




Background

My idea for the film is that it will be about how people change and develop as they move away from home, such as to university.  This is a very significant period in a lot of young people's lives and I feel it could make an interesting piece to look at their emotions and feelings on the subject. Moving from Northern Ireland to England for me was personally a very big change that has effected me in many different ways and I've had to learn to do a lot of growing up in such a fast period of time. Generally in NI not many people leave and having about 98% of my friends stay back home has created a whole new reality for me. Personally I know that I am a very different person to what I was like before I moved and I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel like this. I have an interest into how others have coped with this transition and whether or not they feel they have changed at all during the process. 

Film

The film will consist of many different interviews from our fellow students and friends, about how they have grown and developed in their time away from home (if they have at all).  The interviewees, one at a time, will hold a photo up to the camera. Behind them a clip of their memories (footage they have donated) will be playing. This will then cut to more memories without them standing in front of the camera, creating a nostalgic feel. We will create a soundtrack for it out of their voices : the plan is to cut out keywords from their interviews and only put these into the film. For example if someone answered with 'I feel I have become more confident over the past few weeks' we would use only the 'more confident' part. I'm hoping this will highlight the main emotions more and make the piece more interesting than if we simply placed the entire interview over the clips. I got inspiration from this from one of the screenings when we were shown the short BBC2 documentary Blight which featured a collaboration between a director John Smith and a composer Jocelyn Pook.

Blight (1997)


Idea

I think the idea of memories should be raw. For this project I don't want to have to fabricate anything other than reality and my theory is that the work will mean a lot more to me if I work like this - work that means more to me will allow me to put maximum effort into it and allow me to be proud of what I produce at the end. My plan is to take photos to document my first year life at university - parties, birthdays, events, class - things that I can look back at and say "yup that represented my first year." The photos will look like polaroids to make them look even more raw but to achieve this effect I want to use photoshop along with digital images. Underneath each image will be a word or phrase to describe the picture, or something that represents or relates to whatever is happening within the photo.  



Display


Inspiration for displays:





I don't want to display the photographs on a mount board as personally I don't find this as interesting, as I learnt from the last photography project, so I have looked into other ways I could display. I feel like dream catchers represent me to a certain extent as they are one of the only things that I have been collecting for many years, owning about 20 different types and looks and I thought seeing as my project is personal maybe I could incorporate them into the display. I've been looking into tutorials into how to make them...



The photos would then dangle beneath the dream catcher. Throughout the strings, just like the one displayed I would place mini items that represent the memories. 





Article Task 


Mine and Tom's  creative writing task where we made up a short paragraph out of different articles in magazines. 




"Books have taken a battering recently but professional advice is invaluable. What turns me on, the joy of extremely violent acts of dado-masichism or Gordon Ramsey. Where art thou? It's here! Britain's best T, everything you'll never need ritually buried"

Individual Task 

We went through newspapers, randomly pointed at a word and then noted the word along with the 3 others either side of it. Then we formed sentences from these and were told to create our own little story in relation to the line we chose.

Line: Game is not one in which you take risks

The following is based (loosely) on true events.

I looked at the hungry hippos set. I had to win. The English had promised me a sack of potatoes. A WHOLE SACK. Probably from lidl but whatever, a potato is a potato no matter of origin. I had promised Nachos that if I lost I would do a parody of "What does the Fox say?" for his video, an obvious joke from my name. I told myself not this time. The suspense of waiting for the balls to emerge, glistening like silver pools of icy water in the gleaming moonlight was too much. There was too much at stake for me to mess this up. I had one chance and I wasn't going to waste it. Suddenly, like a beam of lightening across the sky the balls were released and my heart skipped a beat with the tension. The group watched me intently to see what would happen and how I would react. Would I be fast enough? Only time could tell. Katherine gazed on at me with the vacant stare of the typical essex twat that I'd become so accustomed to since starting uni but I wouldn't let this put me off...stop me from achieving my goal of obtaining the most balls. My hippo nom'ed for what seemed a century before finally all balls had vanished, and the board returned to being as deserted as the sahara desert. All of us had beads of sweat forming on our foreheads from the intense work out and Josh gave the nod to begin the counting, whilst trying to release the tension."Do you want a finger?" he asked. He handed me the chocolate which had been reduced in sainsburys to a fairly decent price which I thought was pretty reasonable indeed. I lifted each ball slowly from the compartment...one...two...three. Time had slowed down and everything was spinning as if I'd been put in a giant bingo wheel. I couldn't take anymore. I got up in silence and stumbled to the corner where I sat down rocking back and forth, tears streaming like a waterfall down my reddening cheeks. Suddenly strange people, dressed in suits burst through every hole in the room...doors...windows. They came closer encircling us and I screamed as I watched them carry my friends from the room. "Kaaaattt! Tooooooommmm! Someone help us!" I yelled as loud as my lungs would allow. I tried to run but they closed in grabbing me by the arms. Everything went black. I woke up, heart beating fast. Had it all been a dream? I sat up and realised I couldn't move. I was restrained by something...what was this? I looked down at my struggling body and realised the hell that was containing me. The straight jacket was too tight, yet felt cosy and snug. I looked across the padded white room and noticed everyone from the game was also there. We all looked at each other and then all at once began to chuckle, the sound of insanity playing like music in our ears. Haha I remember now. We're dfsa. We're the crazy ones. This was home. We were finally back where we belonged.

And that folks is my beautiful story.

We created an audio book for it as well which you can listen to here. Tis v dramatic. Enjoy!



PAPER MEMORIES from Theo Putzu on Vimeo.
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I've done some research into how memories have been represented in previous works to gain some inspiration for my own work and hopefully to inspire some ideas. 

Drunk// Ed Sheeran


About the 3.00 mark the camera swoops towards the selection of polaroid photos that are on the wall and then cuts to a moving image scene of the same photograph, transporting us into the 'memory.' I really liked this effect and might see if I can incorporate it into my own. 

Moments// Will Haffman 


I've mentioned this video before in relation to Time Art but I still thought I could reference and re-look at it for the Reflections project as well. While not really directly showing memories, I think it could be cool to maybe incorporate the idea of smaller moments in life that are not necessarily remembered/ appreciated very often but that are quite important in making us happier during our day. In my case the smaller things would be focussed on hugs, being able to chill and coming home to see my dog bouncing round my feet as he greets me (when I'm back home in NI that is - didn't appreciate that until I left!). 

Twinkle Lightly// Nanalew


My friend first showed me this during the first few weeks of uni cus he thought it was very relevant for us. It kind of blurs the past, present and future to show different memories between the main character and her friends and there is an effective use of overlaying the images to merge them together . One of my ideas was to maybe show the difference between my life back home and now after starting uni in another country and this is a technique I could look into applying in someway between the 2 projects.

Paper Memories// Theo Putzu


This video uses stop motion which really gained my attention as I love this form of animation. I thought it was a very innovative and intriguing way to film the video and I really liked the idea of how the actual photos within the film appear to be moving, such as when the woman is shown walking along the beach in an old picture.

Memories// Hampus Karlsson


I like the old, vintage style colour correction in this video. I also thought the use of sound proved to be very effective, following a similar old style which makes it flow nicely. This brings me back to the idea of doing something with polaroids etc to represent the past.

Memory By Design// Nathan Punwar


This has possibly been my favourite piece so far as I love the use of sound and how it creates a slightly uncomfortable feeling. I like the fast paced nature and quick editing and I think it shows memory in a different unique manner. 
We were asked to make a re-enactment of a historic event of our choice and as a person from Northern Ireland I think we all instantly came to a collective decision for me to do the potato famine. I thought I would lighten the tone up though and make it mildly humorous and a wee bit ridiculous, as it's been definitely a mocking point surrounding me from my friends since I've been in England.


The History

The beautiful, glorious specimen that is the potato seemed like it was made specifically for the Irish, thriving in the cold, damp environment and being surprisingly easy to grow, creating a high yield in such a small plot of land. Between 1780 and 1845 it doubled the population in Ireland from four million to eight, but this resulted in a sudden increase in demand in both land and food and thus the potato became a reliant resource because of the previous reasons mentioned. A third of the population ended up totally dependent of the potato for food by 1840 which meant if anything were to happen to it there would be dire consequences. In September 1845 that's just what happened when the potato blight arrived, brought from the cargo hold of ships. Within three years 3/4 of the potato crop had been diminished causing starvation along with susceptibility to diseases like cholera and typhus. The reaction of the blight lingered for many years until 1852 and by that time up to 1.5 million people had died as a result, with over a million more emigrating to places like America and by 1911 Ireland's population had return to about 4 million. 

Research

1800s style 







I'm aiming for a typical look more like the last picture as it will be easier to re-create and appropriate for a more farming look.







The Five Obstructions// Lars Von Trier and Jorgen Leth 






The idea behind this documentary style film was that Von Trier was to set his mentor, Leth, to remake his move The Perfect Human five times, with a different obstruction for him to overcome each time. 

The Perfect Human// Jorgen Leth (1967)



Obstructions
  1. Leth must remake the film in Cuba (but with no set) with no shot longer than 12 frames, and he must answer the questions posed in the original film; Leth successfully completes this task.
  2. Leth must remake the film in the worst place in the world but not show that place onscreen; additionally, Leth must play the role of "the man". The meal must be included but the woman is not to be included. Leth remakes the film in the red light district of Bombay, only partially hiding it behind a translucent screen.
  3. Because Leth failed to complete task 2 perfectly, von Trier punishes him, telling him to either remake the film in any way he chooses, or redo obstruction 2 in Bombay again. Leth chooses the first option and remakes it in Brusselsusing split-screen effects.
  4. Leth must remake the film as a cartoon. He does so with the aid of Bob Sabiston, a specialist in rotoscoping, who creates animated versions of shots from the previous films. As such the final product is technically an animation but not a cartoon. Nevertheless von Trier considers the task to be completed successfully.
  5. The fifth obstruction is that von Trier has already made the fifth version, but it must be credited as Leth's, and Leth must read a voice-over narration ostensibly from his own perspective but in fact written by von Trier.

Thoughts

At first the documentary style was a little confusing but I soon picked up the pace of the film. I liked the way it cut to show both directors' meet ups in between each obstruction and found it interesting to see the ideas and viewpoints each of them had. It was both funny and intriguing  to see Lars' reaction each time to the finished pieces that Leth produced. At times it did seem rather random/ odd though...I also had some trouble keeping up with the dialogue and watching the screen at the same time which is something I don't normally have a problem with when watching foreign films which was weird! Overall was an enjoyable and interesting watch. 



My original idea was to find the most random adverts and compile them together to show just how ridiculous many ads have become, however this didn't really have much of a thought process or meaning to it. I then thought about getting together clips of a good school report and editing in clips of students drinking, doing drugs and generally contradicting what would be being said. However this proved difficult to find adverts for and after some research decided to take a different approach. 

For my final idea I gathered lots of adverts for reality TV shows such as Keeping Up With The Kardashians and Next Top Model and mixed them in with extremely cheesy infomercials. The concept was to imply how fabricated and fake reality TV has become, comparing them to the obviously contrived, badly acted and overly ridiculous ads. I understand that this wasn't exactly clear in the end of editing, however I think maybe my generation may find it easier to get as many of us have grown up watching similar things. The beginning may have been confusing for some as I didn't put the static in as my thought process at the time was to kind of do a quick scan through the infomercials before beginning the main focus of the reality TV shows. However after viewing the final thing it now seems like I was a little rushed which is not the impression I intended to give off. Editing is very important and I think maybe I could have thought of a more clearer way to get my message across, however I do find it funny to watch which I guess was one of my personal aims for the exercise. 


Over Christmas we were asked to do a little project in which we had to find a memory we wish to remember in six different ways. I chose to do my memory of going to Florida over the summer, one of my favourite places in the world.

Firstly the word 'reinvent' stood out to be in the brief and in true Christmas spirit noticed old, plain baubles that could do with a little touch up. In Downtown Disney they have a Christmas shop that my mother always liked to browse around for decorations for the tree (In summer - I don't know why?), but a nine hour journey home with highly breakable items isn't the most ideal for them so I thought it'd be cool to have a go at making my own now. Something we can use on the tree next year I guess.


At first I grabbed the acrylic paints and worked out how to draw the Disney castle logo using references from pictures online. I kept it traditional with the light blue.


Fireworks are a big part of Walt Disney World, holding them in front of the castle each night, and definitely one of my favourite parts as I have never found another display quite like it anywhere else yet. It seemed only fitting fireworks made an appearance around my version of the castle. Trying to be creative as well as resourceful I used a variety of media to create a firework illusion, such as tinsel, glitter, jewels and paint. 


Imitating the classic Disney signature was done entirely out of glitter which proved harder than it looks as it got everywhere! I swear I kept finding flecks of it for the next week on me. 


A closer look at the variety of fireworks.



Going a long with my desire to make things from different items, still trying to be resourceful and after messing around so much with the fireworks on the bauble, I decided it might be fun to make my own firework. So rummaged around the kitchen to find supplies.


The final outcome,


The top was meant to be as if the firework was about to explode, using tinsel I created the beginning of a spark like effect.


I wasn't sure how I was going to give an effect of the firework in motion but luckily I managed to find a lot of party poppers (which I then had a lot of fun popping) and added the confetti string to the end, as if it was taking off. 






I wanted to show my trip in some kind of story like sequence and this got me thinking about how we show things in pre-production. I liked the idea of creating my own story boards of the major events that happened on the holiday, reminding me of all the things I got to experience.






The storyboards were originally done in 2b pencil and then coloured using acrylic paints. While storyboards aren't usually coloured and are not traditionally too detailed, I thought it'd be an interesting way to shake things up a bit and make it more interesting. This also could have been just a way to display a sequence of otherwise seemingly unconnected paintings.

From all my trips to the theme parks I have gathered an extensive amount of maps and after thinking they would come in handy some day they finally did (take that non believers)!


I created a map of the state of florida, cutting out sections of the maps such as certain rides and areas that meant something to me, or that I particularly enjoyed.


I added the seas to give off more of a feel, however the main focus was on the actual state collage.






This was done using an outline of the state and placing it on a piece of card which was then stable enough for me to stick the images on to. 


As a film student, a video was alway going to make an appearance at some point in this and admittedly it was the first thought that popped into my head when I heard the brief. I took clips that I had taken and made a short display of memories from the entire trip, the ones that I really, really wanted to remember. The song used is by a Northern Irish musician Foy Vance, and this was used due to my constant playing of it almost every night on our journey back to the villa. It also felt like it meant I could put a little bit of Northern Irishness into it and relate it back to me a bit...just a personal touch I guess.



Lastly I created a playlist on youtube, a simple idea but one that I can connect with and brings back a lot of good memories which is the true point behind this. Originally I thought of creating a music playlist with all the songs from the different parks etc however I changed my mind and decided to go a bit of a different path, making one consisting of all my favourite roller coasters. As a bit of a roller coaster junkie this allowed me to briefly feel like I was back and made me long to go on all of them again! You can view the playlist here if you want.