FINAL PROJECT

EVALUATION & PRESENTATION

My two final pieces 

RESEARCH AND FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

My final project for this years unit went down a route I hadn't anticipated but was pleasantly surprised with the turnout. My original first idea for fields and frames and experimental film, first based itself on water and the openness of the sea. Influenced by Guillermo del Toro's latest film 'shape of water.' Then after a while working onwards, It transitioned into fluidity and movement which then found its way to science and the Biology of the body, what we are and what we are made of, before then opening itself to the ideas of material and then industrial cycles.

So a recap of what I did recently. I delved into the biology of a human being and looked at themes of fluidity through our blood, DNA and structure and worked to make a silent piece which emphasised these components.

I became fascinated with marble paints mixed in with acrylic during the making of the previous piece 'Fluid Science.' So made an extensive development that consisted of these qualities which again emphasised the flow of life and the materials our bodies absorb and consist of.

After this, I decided to take a field trip to the Science museum in London to see if I could get any more enlightenment to help me with my project and eventually, came across the biology section to do with molecules and materials.

The question that popped up to mind was what is materials?

well, it is solids, liquids or gas - every substance on earth, even you are a material. However, the nature and properties of a material depend upon its structure. How its atoms and molecules are arranged and joined together, these properties of a material determine the ways in which we can use it.

It took me down a route of industrialisation after exploring the area further and brought me to this particular short film based around the necessities of materials that fuel our resources and consequently provide us with the access and comforts of today. 

It also touches base with a common environmental issue we face today about deforestation and how it may impact us as a whole because of the industrial cycle.  

EDITING

After my filming had finished I then took the footage to post-production to have it developed, using the skills I've gained throughout my term time and the workshops to help enrich my projects overall look and give it a polished look.

 Adobe Premier pro

Adobe Audition

    Media Encoder                                                                                      Adobe After Effects

Most of the filming a good chunk of it 80% was edited through Premiere Pro then 10% each for VFX and sound did in after effects and adobe audition. Overall it took about two days of solid working in the library and editing software rooms to see it completed. I then spent the last few days polishing it off ensuring that I had abided by the assessment criteria.

The project consists of many video transitions and effects such as overlaying footage, mirroring, glitching where it could be seen with the marble paints and acrylics but mostly in my tree film piece I did this so it could almost be emanating a sense of dreamlike state. A psychedelic rendition of reality to show that something that was real is now becoming more of a fictional dream. I back up this with the fading of the colours during the end where it is nothing but dark and foul smog. Into darkness, a metaphor for death and this is the moment when sound can be heard of a lift-off sequence. 

what helped me edit the piece and perhaps be an anchoring point to help me with my idea was the cycle of life and death, rebirth and resurrection. These ideas could be seen metaphorically in my film piece but the intention was to purely focus on the materiality and the before and after.

All the different effects used in my final piece were achieved through collective research from both Lynda.com and Youtube. I found using the editing software to be challenging, and I have identified that much more learning and practice needs to be done in this area. I frequently kept hitting one problem after another and at times had to restart from the very beginning. However, this being said I am very proud of the work I managed to produce in such a short space of time. My particular favourite was the effect I managed to create at the moment of travelling into space and also creating a moving environment for the appropriated images (all royalty free) used to create the space background effect. 

The soundscape was tricky but finally managed to create a piece that suited to the piece nicely. Looking for the right music I had to do a bit of extensive research online and found a few royalty free sounds that I then processed through an audition to deepen the sound or manipulate the sound to give it a more ambient space feel. This was a combination of both sounds made by me in and those royalty free that assisted with me in creating the sounds I couldn't such as the steam and the grinding of metal gears as well as the factory ambience.

Overall I am pleased with how it all came together successfully, better than I had originally expected. During the beginning of this project, I hadn't given this second unit much thought as my mind became distracted with other commitments. Including my first intention to make a dance film and then deciding it felt best to discontinue this and progress on with what I had already made for fields & frames. Despite my concerns and doubts, especially when using After Effects, I was pleasantly surprised with my own abilities and the experience has motivated me to do more in After Effects but also has greatly increased my confidence in post-production and my level in editing is better than it was when i started off. I will say that I wish I'd had more time to produce and improve my film for example, during editing and reviewing my footage I had noticed some mistakes, some large. If it hadn't been for the lack of time I would've of most likely mended the mistakes and increased the quality of the film, however one thing I have learnt about individual projects involving Adobe After Effects, is to ensure timekeeping is kept efficient and consistent. I am happy I managed to amend some mistakes such as the quality which is now high-quality thanks to external help.

Experimental media

DEVELOPMENT




So leading on from my last piece where I experimented with colour and visual techniques it became clear that I was interested in what was internally inside or within, in this case, it was to do with emotions and it gave me the incentive to look further at biology and so I began taking a look at art videos with possible links visually or other. which then, I came across  'Landmark.' By Akito Sengoku and Domingo which at first gave me the ideas of fluidity and materials in our DNA inside our bodies. This influenced this short piece below.

It is a silent film that emphasises the aspects of the human body and the intricate mazes of delicate flesh and passagways for air, blood and water. Although I was tempted to put sound to the piece it works with my intentions of silence, an idea I wanted to keep throughout my work for this unit of film experimentation.

FIELDS FRAMES RESEARCH

FIELDS & FRAMES
EXPERIMENTAL FILM



After doing further research, I began to look at examples of experimental media to better my ideas and conceptual designs for the piece. That I wanted from this was to explore different techniques, ways, I could communicate my project to the audience and perhaps for me to learn some new tricks!

I came across this particular art film that is an experimental short film called 'Colouring Love.'  This short film is a political digital art by Nino Fournier about the Anonymous workers who died -and die - at work in horrible conditions.

It drew me in with its overlay and vibrancy of warm and cool colours and its psychedelic use of editing to compliment the scenes of romanticism in the short film. Giving off connotations of love lost and paused in time or perhaps colours in which could symbolise life and death, two ends of the spectrum that meet together in natural harmony. This may not be accurate to its purpose and design but naturally invoked other meanings to me, which then inspired me to create!

It gave me the motivation to work with more video effects in premiere pro and After Effects. Such as exploring mirroring, horizontal reflection, zoom, colour distortion, overlay and multiplying etc...

And so with my first experimentation was to be a continuation or a follow up of this piece done so in my own style. focusing on the

My intentions for the piece was to draw you in by the familiarity of faces. I did this, instead of using less known people as this possibly would've had a stronger backing to my art film in terms of visual strength in this film.But,  I wanted the audience to relate to people they can identify with, To get the audience as a whole to sympathise with the people visually and more intimately, celebrities seemed to fill the gap of communicating these emotions to the viewers on a large scale and in some way, strengthen the feeling  allowing them to share the moment with them. As we often can feel more when those closest to us are hurt or in pain and this for me was the best way of conveying this point.

More importantly, this was my chance to explore my skills in post-production and elevate my understanding of art film!

VFX

VFX INTRO SEQUENCE

For this units professional toolkit we were tasked to;

 Plan and deliver a title sequence for a major film or television series. A title sequence is a delicate balance between text and audio visual aesthetics.  One could argue that the function of a title sequence, as being a sequence of titles, is paramount.  However, a title sequence is often a component of the narrative body and form of the film, and must flow between scenes or adequately play on the excitement/trepidation of an audience – a gateway into the temporal space generated within that particular narrative construct.  

For my idea, I began looking at some of the most well-known film intro sequences such as: 

Vertigo (1958)

Superbad (2007)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

North by Northwest (1959)

Rocky(1976)

Gold finger(1964)

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Psycho (1960)

The breakfast club (1985)

Monty python holy grail (end outro)

This gave me ideas of what kind of intro I’d like to do and consider the visual aspects of what I’ll be creating in adobe after effects. The length of the piece was set to be 30 secs long (minimum) but for personal achievements, I wanted to create a piece that had a length of a minute long. Throughout the workshops, we began to work on text in AE with animation manipulation then moving on we began learning how to animate objects in AE and creating behavioural patterns for them to follow, movement and bringing figures designed by us to life by animating them and also puppeteering characters to life.

My first idea came after doing a little bit of digging around on YouTube and came up with an idea that could work with the intro for ‘Interview with a Vampire.’ (1994) by Neil Jordan.  Using glitch effects and cutaways, using imagery and also film graded overlays to give an eerie effect to the intro sequence. as well as some colour filters, too to imitate blood and redness to symbolise it as a whole.

 As much as I did like this piece and the idea itself i did not go ahead with completing the intro sequence (adding in the credits.) It was however not what the requirements of the assessment were looking for. As the imagery used was done using free stock imagery and upon discussing the idea further with my tutor I realised that it had to be constructed more so in my own design as opposed to using stock videos found online.

So, I went back to the drawing board and pondered on what I could do next and eventually came to my second idea which was creating an intro sequence for Austin Powers influenced by the 'Catch me if you can.' intro sequence.

The whole piece was done in After effects using rotations, enlargements, slow motion, rapid-fire shots to bring the piece together. The text itself had been taken from a font formatting website online and using it I added in the credits and title in. Much of the coloured imagery you see, such as the colour flashing background was done by me but the pictures of the male sex symbol, the peace sign and the silhouette figures were taken off stock imagery. The whole process took a day to complete and was exported in H.261 at the highest possible quality through media encoder. Estimated a minute long. 

I am quite happy with its overall, although I do wish to have amended some points that didn't seem to correspond with the timings set and I didn't have the original saved data, unfortunately, I had made the mistake of not saving my efforts in AE before exporting the finished piece, leaving the editing rooms in Uni. Adding to this, some of the imagery used had become blocky and not so much in detail which I think ruined the element of this piece a little! Despite all this what I could do with my own potential skills has given me more confidence to try and perfect those area skills.

  

PRESENTATION

DANCE FILM / FIELDS&FRAMES

My first idea for dance film was inspired by the tv series Feud (2017) based on two prominent actresses of the day in the mid-1900s who were locked in a feud to become the better of the two in a high- flown showdown for the limelight. Using this idea I wanted to create a competitive glam foxtrot between two individuals in a space with three spotlights.

We first began with a dance workshop that involved putting together our ideas and create some sort of choreographed piece. The idea behind this workshop was to demonstrate the necessary skills to direct dancers, what would be needed for them to operate and perform in a suitable environment and what to expect and how to guide them through our concepts.

over the course of the day, we managed to actually create a full three sequenced dance for my idea which was a great start to developing my idea. From here I began to think of available space and the sort of look id go for. So with this in mind, I began creating up the dance concept and had someone draw up the storyboard.

What made me choose this topic? 

Well, the reason I chose to work on something like this was because of the recent events that have transpired in Hollywood and the 'Time's Up' movement that is happening now. It made me think, As this is an industry I wish to make a career in. It is vital to stay relevant and active with ongoing affairs and more importantly be an advocate for equality in an ever-expanding industry,  that is why I believed it to be relevant to reflect the times before this movement and what it meant to the women in particular, which then took me way back with this tv series to mid 1900s, what it meant when equal rights weren't yet on the mend when ethnic and minority groups were still being ignored. Which then subsequently brought me to the tv series about two of those fighters in a Hollywood styled brawl.

Moving on. After, came the tutorials, in which we discussed the basis of my idea and it was concluded that the idea needed to fit in more with the basis of the theme and be more defined in visual richness with the idea of incorporating experimental elements into the dance piece instead. Unfortunately, the tutorials didn't have the desired effect and inevitably threw me back to the drawing board, unsure of the next approach to the dance,  I postponed my development on my dance piece and began looking at Plan B, An experimental film for the theme of fields and frames.

Beginning with my first idea which was titled 'Elementals of the deep.' was almost like serene tranquil sounds of the deep concept inspired by Guillermo Del Toro new film 'shape of water.' To begin a creative flow I first took to mind mapping the common features under the sea and for experimental film purposes, try and interpret that in a unique way. The most common theme I found doing the mind map that appealed to me most of all was 'Isolation.' A powerful concept that I wanted to base my film around. 

Isolation for the large part could be lost or found, you could lose it in a crowd, a group or even with one other, and find it again by let's say, going to the highest mountain in the valley or to the loneliest parts of the forest. It gave me the idea that isolation is a place we go to, Often to reflect or to unplug from the world we live in. This led me to my second idea for fields and frames. Creating an almost inspirational film that had similar qualities to a fast-paced Nike advert. 

So far the idea is still being developed with a third concept on the way. A concept reverting back to the environment mixed in with ideas of isolation. 

I wanted to do dance film originally, for the purpose of trying out and testing my ability with this new category of film art. This is something I haven't done before so wanted to initially do a traditional dance piece, to begin with, to better know my strengths.Hence the piece that I've chosen to do was loosely based on these two individuals. However, at this moment in time, I've only begun conceiving the idea of a second version of the dance film project. But due to impending deadlines its uncertain if time will allow me to pick from where I left off but I keep my fingers crossed.

INTO ISOLATION RESEARCH

ISOLATION VIDEO 
RESEARCH

Pocket Piano MIDI - Art Video

https://vimeo.com/31126604

LANDMARK” by AKITO SENGOKU and DOMINGO

https://vimeo.com/110661182

Story Of O” -An Improvised Collaboration- Dance, Music & TIME PAINTING

https://vimeo.com/26729784

Tilda Swinton x Gentle Monster

https://vimeo.com/204336605

TIM WALKER - STRANGER THAN PARADISE

https://vimeo.com/148575334

THE BOX

https://vimeo.com/64303738

I managed to find a corrosponding link between these short films into my idea which I'll be focusing my experimental film on (Fields & Frames.) Although these short pieces are randomised they are in the natural order I found them in. Leading me to one another all carrying one particular element that correlates with my ideas and thats of course isolation. But, not just lonliness, these few videos also show the importance of refelction in isolation, which is something many of us will do when we have time to oursleves. To me this was interesting to see and even more to see where it could g in my reasearch development. 

FIELDS & FRAMES EXPERIMENTAL FILM

RESEARCH




As part of our course units for year 2, we were given the theme title 'fields and frames.' This was given to us as well as the unit 'dance film.' To extend our knowledge of experimental media and dabble in new forms and pave a direction that could potentially make us our own pioneers in film technology and new digital media.

Here I started to look at a few short films dated back before the 21st century as inspiration and to grapple onto the idea of what experimental film was back in the past and what it could be today.

Although there are a vast array of short films I've discovered perusing the internet, I've only selected a few to show. As the rest, They can be found in the link below that should direct you to Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC4213D45BE7740ED

MY WIFE'S RELATIONS

By Buster Keaton & Edward F. Cline. The year 1922.

Although a more satire approach to short film it certainly was a forefront for new media in the early 1900s.  This is a three part series and the one I've selected is the last of the three. What I like so much about this is its physical and humouristic approach. The early forms of stunt performance and visual effects could also be appreciated in Keaton's work.

LE VOYAGE DAND LA LUNE

By Georges Méliès 1902

Widely known by many and one of my favourites researched so far. Its strong use of effects offers the short film a visual richness in terms of media technology, enhancing the viewer's film experience on fictional based stories. 

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

By Lewis Carroll -1903

A classic tale told, in short, is something to marvel.