Final Outcome and Evaluation

Project Review

Research Methodologies:

Within my research I have looked up artists, watched videos, read articles, and asked questions from people around me.

Ideas Development:

From looking at my artists I was inspired to think of several possible outcomes. I got the idea of creating double exposure pictures using Photoshop. Joachim Schmid gave me the idea to use two separate photos to show hidden emotions. Penelope Umbrico gave me the idea to use a series of photographs of a person dressed differently or pulling emotions to show different personalities. David Lynch and Janet Cardiff gave me the idea to use audio and video within my work to produce something that might be seen as disturbing.

Materials and methods Explored:

I have explored a range of different things within my media project such as: Premiere – editing Audio and Video, Photoshop – editing to create a moodboard, Recordings, Audacity – editing software, projector and a smartphone projector, camera, polaroid and a hand scanner.

Evaluation and Reflection:

I have produced a short film that is meant to be engaging with the audience visually and with sound. I focused mainly on using premiere for my final outcome. I have used primary and secondary (public domain) audio and videos to put together my film.

I like how the film had turned out, it makes me feel somewhat uneasy watching it. I first created the Audio then adapted the film and pictures to fit in with certain sounds. This way I could make it so the viewer has to keep watching the man talking so they don’t miss any flashing footage.

Some areas within my audio could have been better, as well as the general video. I think if I were to produce another video I would keep the same method of making it but alter the types of videos used by either just using old footage or just my own instead of the two.

Intention:

My intention was to produce a short film that will make the viewer feel uncomfortable and draw them into the video. I want to get a reaction from the viewers. I want to make the viewer create their own story behind the audio, although it has imagery, I want the viewer to look deeper within the film.

Audience:

My audience are people above the age of 15.  Anyone with epilepsy should not watch the final video as it has flashing images and watch it at their own risk.

Theme:

My theme in this project is horror/thriller and the mind.

Videos

I have put up some of the original videos used within my project.

Polaroids

   Rad

Yui

Yui

Using a Polaroid camera I have taken some photographs in colour of people. I love the outcome of how it makes pictures look, instead of it being in full colour, it is reduced and only shown slightly. 

On my second two photographs, I found the background of the window looked really nice in contrast with Yui. One photograph I had the flash on and accidently took the picture when it was facing away from her. The other I did without the flash focusing on her face. By joining them together by overlaying them, i find they compliment each other and my first picture of Yui was a happy accident.

I find if i need to take photographs for any project in the future, I will use a Polaroid camera as the outcome is not always perfect which may make the outcome how i want it.

Hand Scanner

I have used a hand scanner and distorted my joker cards. I love the outcomes all of  these as even if you do it again in it will never be the same and they are all individual.

Janet Cardiff

Paradise Institute 2001

Contemporary Artist

Janet Cardiff is a Canadian artist who works with sound and sound installations, especially audio walks. She consistently collaborates with her husband and partner George Bures Miller. They are recognized for their immersive multimedia works that create transcendent multisensory experiences which draw the viewer into often unsettling narratives.

As I want my outcome to be a short video clip, I want to focus on how I could make the viewer feel using the right audio and further ideas on how to create a surrounding environment for it to be displayed. Their sound work with choral and instrumental music with speech, nature sounds, and Foley-esque effects, they also know how to play with visual environments.

I love the idea of interacting with the audience, find that for it to be displayed I should most likely make an interactive seating area with headphones, It casts more of an effect than it would without. As well as it drawing people in to want to find out what is going on rather than passing it by. I would use black out curtains around the installation to make them solely focused on watching and listening.

 <https://www.google.com/search?q=Janet+Cardiff&oq=Janet+Cardiff&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.783j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 
<http://www.luhringaugustine.com/artists/cardiff-and-miller/bio>
<https://news.artnet.com/market/janet-cardiff-george-bures-miller-hit-right-notes-luhring-augustine-477095>
 <https://news.artnet.com/market/janet-cardiff-george-bures-miller-hit-right-notes-luhring-augustine-477095>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Cardiff 

End of week Evaluation + What Makes People Fell Visually Uncomfortable

I understand that we have tested out things such as Premier, photoshop within the first week to see if we like the software.

In the terms of Media I see myself looking at possibly producing either a photography outcome or a video on premiere. Whilst doing this week I find it has given me an insight into the fact that I like producing videos.

I think I have used my time in the studio to the best of my ability. I have used the software on the computers which aren’t available in other areas such as the library.

I don’t find the skills developed in the drawing week have been useful during this week as I have mostly done thing digitally.

I find the artist references have helped me to produce the right outcome to the brief.

When working on premiere and photoshop I didn’t write down notes for photoshop as I already had a basic understanding of how to use it and have used it in more advanced methods. I wrote down notes on how to use premiere as it was my first time using it, it will be helpful to look back at notes if I use it in future. 

Next week I could continue to explore a range of material and media to expand my insight on media.

Visually Uncomfortable 

In Films like horror/thriller visual and sounds work together to create the right atmosphere for the audience to feel scared.

Horror films are best at manipulating our feelings.

They use disonet screeching sounds and chords that emulate animals that are in distress (inharmonious and harsh sounding tracks).

Infrasound is one of the sounds used to make us feel effects such as: chills, anxiety, depression and nausea.

When creating my next short film I want to add infrasound to the background to make the viewers feel more uncomfortable hearing the soundtrack.

I have asked people what they find uncomfortable to watch in films, or in everyday situations. I have created mindmap and will use it to help inspire my film.

David Lynch

 David Lynch is an American director, screenwriter, visual artist, musician, actor, and author. He is known for his surrealist films and has developed a unique cinematic style. The surreal and, in many cases, violent elements contained within his films have been known to "disturb, offend or mystify" audiences.

David Lynch first gave me the idea to try and make an audience feel uncomfortable by what they may be seeing, I also want to try and make a better video than my current film clip. I will be using my own videos, sound and pictures as well as the free sources online.

I have seen a few of his films, lost highway and rabbits were two of them. I found myself feeling uneasy throughout both at some point. I want to create a situation where the viewer feel uneasy and I like the way Lynch has shown this in his films.  I am going to take my own videos and pictures using a variety of different angles and trying out the fisheye lens. 

From <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000186/bio?ref_=nm_ql_1>  

From <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000186/bio?ref_=nm_ql_1> 

Joachim Schmid

Joachim Schmid is an artist based in Berlin who has works with found photography. Most of his projects have involved gathering and re-presenting photographs, both prints and digital, taken by anonymous public.
Schmid has created an ‘Anti-Museum’ of forgotten, lost and disused photographs to challenge us to not only consider our assumptions on photographic worth, but also how photography ad collections function as cultural practices.

I love the idea of using old photographs in a new way, I find that his photographs of two different images put together, has given me the idea to use old and new photographs. I could either use images of the internet or make it personal in the sense of taking old pictures from photo albums, then put them with photographs from the past few years. This will give a sense of time and age to the outcome as well as a almost contemporary outcome. 

From <http://www.nowseethis.org/invisiblephoto/posts/678/essay/13>   

From <http://www.nowseethis.org/invisiblephoto/posts/678/essay/13>

http://www.wikipedia.org

Penelope Umbrico

Penelope Umbrico is an artist and photographer best known for appropriating images found using search engines and picture sharing websites. she then manipulates them to construct large-scale images or installations per a minimalist aesthetic.

My favourite work she has produced is the series of broken TV screens and sunsets. I like how she manages to gather together images so simple and turns them into something new and interesting.

I had the idea to use some of my own items that I have collected throughout the years and show them as a series of things in an order like Penelope Umbrico uses. Some of the things I could use are Birthday or Christmas cards and use the imagery or just the written message inside, I could also further select one word in the text such as happy birthday as the handwriting on each card is always different.  I also have a series of wine bottle lids, playing cards, and my personal favourite collection that is ever increasing which is my collection of joker playing cards.  I love how they are always so different in every stack of cards. 

The Joker is a genuine one of a kind card, only to be accompanied by one similar to him in all of a deck. For every 52 cards, there are two that are often removed from play and either set aside, or thrown away. If we are to look at a deck of playing cards as a population, we can see that there are many suits and numbers that find a way to balance each other through out play. However, the Jokers do not fit into this category because they are not assigned a value. They have no designated suit and there is only ever two. Why is it then that there can be 4 Aces and 4 Kings with matching Queens, with 4 Jacks and only 2 Jokers? Perhaps because the role of the joker is to express the deck. To show what the other cards cannot. It’s perhaps not because of being unvalued, or unwanted, but because that is simply not how you play the game. Jokers have a role in playing cards most definitely. Yet, there role is to express the deck, not play the game. So if I were to take a collection of jokers from multiple decks, I am collecting expression and uniqueness and without a joker…the deck now looks like every other.

I have also scanned in some pictures of cards to try and think of an order in which I could show them, either as a jumbled mess or as a series in rows and columns.  

from<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penelope_Umbrico

http://penelopeumbrico.net/index.php/project/sideways-tvs/

https://www.artsy.net/artist/penelope-umbrico

Mindmap

I have created a mindmap of ideas and how I could try and produce an outcome and theme within the Media project.

Moodboard

Using a word generator website (map.what3words.com), I have created a mindmap of different words I found linked to known, swim, and thigh. I googled sci-fi/fantasy and anatomy, what caught my eye was Christopher Stolls digital artwork. He has taken cute Pokemon and revealed the anatomy, as well as producin the structure of mythical creatures anatomy. 

I have taken some of these images and placed them into Photoshop to produce a moodboard. i have saved several versionsas i editied and moved things around on the moodboard. i have used the crop tool, paint bucket, altered the size offf the images and used layers, using levels-hue/saturation/brightness etc.

After piling up the pictures into photoshop i organised them into a proportional layout and adjusted the sizes to fit them all in. I found using black and white within as a background colour both over powered or blended with the pictures. The grey background did a better job at displaying a few images but almost made it so three of the pictures blended with the background too much.

To make the pictures stand out i have used the gradient tool, the colours used fit perfectly as they allow the pictures to take attention within the moodboard.

I played around with the hue/saturation colours, I love the outcome of the first and third outcome, one has a very high saturation meaning its primary colours radiate off the page whilst the hue of other one is changed leaving so that all of the images have a form of pink in them. I dislike the grey one as it makes it look dull and rather boring compared to all of the other outcomes possible.

  

I have selected an image then added a shadow on it, i then decided to select all of the page and add on the shadow effect. I dislike the effect of it being on all of the page but i see how it can be used on one photo alone. I have made sure to use layers throughout using Photoshop so its easy to adjust images and have backup ones ready if i decide to change my mind. uing a circular shape i have cropped off the edges of all of the pictures.

I disliked the outcome when i had all of the images with the crop effect. So i combined the layers I felt looked best for the moodboard.

Film Edit 1

Original Video :).

Film Edit 2

Using found film and sound I have created a short video. My aim creating this video was to make my viewer feel uncomfortable by displaying images that if combined together would tell a story to the viewer but not telling them fully what was happening. I used Premiere to edit it, then used a Smartphone Projector to get a more creepy effect.