Thursday 10 December 2009

Evaluation of - "Decreasing Circles"

In my opinion i have produced a piece that is quite abstract,obscure and Eire it is quite smilier to the mood and effect i wanted to create, however, the shots differed in a way in which they were originally planned, but, it my opinion i think it turned out better than was planned.
Some of the shots i had planned to try and create looked really clever and like they would be great on screen and have an emotional impact which is what i wanted, but, in reality some of them because of lighting and various other reasons just weren't achievable.
The shots i did end getting were amazing for the resources i had in my opinion some of them had to be enhanced in post production but they turned out to be really good. the only shot i wasnt sure of was the one where lizzi (actress in video) is running holding the camera becuase i couldnt speed it up.
the reading by the audience was very much possitive a large majoritry managed to grasp the concept i had in mind when shooting my piece, there is alot of mystery to my piece the only drug related reference was when lizzi was blowing out smoke and that isnt that strong of a hint to i was very pleased everyone understood.
The only thing i would do differently the next time is sort out some lighting with gels for effect and definately spend more time really thinking in detail about my shots and taking in to consideration what is achievable and what is not

Wednesday 2 December 2009

Production Diary - Editing

In the first editing lesson i uploaded all the clips onto the computer this took a while as it wouldn't do it at first. When it eventually did it i put the clips in order that i knew i wanted them and put them in the time line this took up the whole lesson.
The next lesson i watched the clips in sequence and decided were they needed to be split because some of the clips were nearly twenty minutes long for example the one where Lizzi is walking next to the road. This was very frustrating because i couldn't do most of the things i wanted to at first.
The following lesson i decided to put all the different effects, colours and speeds in this took nearly four lessons to get right as the had to all look eeire and go with each other i found this part the hardest especially when it came to speeding up certain clips.
The next lesson i put all the transitions in and repeated all the same clips but over and over again at the end which were spead up eventually this was very confusing and took a long time to get right.
The finall lesson i used to create a track with garage band on the mac computers. I found this the hardest part if im honest i am wuite a musical person however the choices on the software are very limited.
I am happy with the way my piece turned out, the only thing i would do better if i could is the track that goes with itm i think it suits it but its very boring and in that sense because its not exciting it dulls the piece in my opinion.

Production Diary - Filming

When planning my experimental video i firstly thought up a concept which was drugs and how they poison your mind not only your body and how the drug world is a vicious circle.

Day 1-On the first day of filming i was in my friend Lizzi's house and we filmed the scene that was eventually slowed down in post production of her falling down on the floor this shot took about ten attempts before finally getting one that i knew would work in post production. After this shot i filmed Lizzi smoking a cigarette and blowing out the smoke, i wanted this shot to be the most eerie and cold so i tyred lots of different locations for lighting in her house and outfits for her and eventually i got the shot and was very happy with it. I planned to get all the shots done in one day however i under estimated how difficult those two shots were to get and so i got to dark to film so i decided to film the following Saturday as well.

Day 2-The second day of filming was planned to be outside when the day came there was gale force winds and thunder and lightning so we had to wait for a very long time for the weather to settle and then we went out. The first shot i wanted to get was down a little alleyway in singleton just of Lizzi's feet running we got that shot after a few attempts because the tripod was being blown and the camera couldn't hold still this ended up to be one of my favourite shots. The second shot i got was of Lizzi running holding the camera herself pointing at her face this shot went well apart from i would of liked more of her face and not just trees but we couldn't do shot again because the camera would have got wet. Third shot of was Lizzi hand in face screaming and then crouching down i was happy with this shot after it had been edited. The next shot was of Lizzi walking by the road she had to walk extremely slow because it was speed ed up quite a fair amount in post production when i was finished with this shot i absolutely loved it. The last shot i had to get i had to wait till it was dark and go back inside Lizzi's house, this shot i knew i would use as my opening one i wanted to do an ECU of Lizzi's face of her crying i turned out all the lights so it was pitch black in the room and used a candle as my only form of light she put candle underneath her face and it looked really good because it lit up half her face and not the other. This shot did not turn out anything like i planned it to be, however, it was miles better than i planned it to be that is why i have used it in the beginning and end of my piece because i think it is the most power full and eiry shot i was very happy with how the filming went on day two allot better than the first day the only slight problem was the weather but that turned OK in the end.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Experimental video-.....Simon Ellis-Telling Lies

This video is about a man going through serveral phone calls the night after he has spilt up with his girlfriend and had a one night stand with someone.

There was no camera shots in this piece it was text on the screen. The text was cleverly done though because the man who was talking was saying one thing and on the screen came up with what he was really thinking, this aplied as well when he was talking to his friend his ex girlfrienda and the girl he had a one night stand with.

Ther effect of just having words i think is in some cases just as effective as having images becuase its almost as if the artist who made this piece has someone to hide by using words and it keeps the audience watching and thinking something is going to happen.

Monday 19 October 2009

Chapter 3- Narative and non narative structures

The story line of Dollface is a machine with a human face whom is constantly trying to achieve the image she sees on the television. Dollface does have a narrative structure, it has a beginning were the face first sees the image on the television. A middle were the face sees the new image and try's changing itself and an end were the face sees another image but by this point the television is to far away to be able to change and eventually stretches to far breaks the machine and smashes her face.So in this piece i think there's quite a simple beginning middle and end and it is not complex.
In the piece by muto its in an continus animation on a wall of various images and faces, however it does have the idea of re-birth and possibly reincarnation so in a way it does have a structure but it is a more complex one than dollface.
I think that structure is not necessarily important in experimental video you can have jumbled up images and still take a concept from it like in muto for example.This is because an audience member should be able to walk in and out of a piece freely for example if it was in a gallery adn still manage to take a meaning even if they havnt sat through the whole thing.

Thursday 8 October 2009

Experimental video....SamuelChristopher--Angel

This film is very dark and gloomy there is a slight sence of fear when i watched this the music is very key to hoor and thriller films. The piece was about angells and desribing them and what they are like and if you belive.
The lighting used in this is amazing the contrast of white black and just one colour red gives a ghostly effect the camara angles only add to the effect of being dark and gloomy with fear inset in viewers.

Experimental video....Rob Chui--Eulogy for things left unsaid

This video i found visually powerful in the same way that i did with koyaanicasi the camera's were very high quality and made beautiful high and low angle shots, likewise to Koyaaniscatsi. There was a voice over also with a very powerful voice saying things about life whilst these shots were being portrayed.
I think the concept of this piece to show the earth's beauty and how visually powerfull it is.
The context of this piece is like i said before showing how beautifull the world is to us and the voice over to make the watching expierience alot moire powerful.

Chapter 2-How does the use of technology differ think about when they where made was the technology new then.

If you take two pieces for example 'Muto' and 'Girl chewing gum' the technology is vastly different in 'girl chewing gum' the cameras were low quality and the lighting was not very good as it was a plain shot of the street.For the time the cameras used were probably the highest quality and were probably were quite expensive cameras.
In something like 'Muto' its is a very different story they obviously used high end quality modern cameras which were probably HD and they used the technique of stop frame animation which is very high craft where as 'girl chewing gum' there was not a lot of craft.
For example if you look at 'Koynaanisqatsi' which was made in 1982 the camera shots and quality was amazing for its time also the high angle shots which were probably done on a crane.
The reason for this is because they had the funding to do this expensive shots that are brilliant quality for the time.

Chapter 1-Discuss both past and current artists work

There are a huge amount of differences and similarities between 'Girl chewing gum' for example to 'Doll face' for another.
'Girl chewing gum' was made in 1973 and you can see that the cameras a obviously lower quality to the modern day camera used in 'Doll face' which was made in 1998.
In 'Girl chewing gum' there is not a lot of craft involved in making it however in 'Doll face' there is a huge amount of animation involved and modern camera techniques,However, both pieces have the same message that someone is lying and deceiving you in 'girl chewing gum' the narration was a lie as it clearly played out that it was a voice over narrating the scene and no one was there. In 'Doll face' it was the media deceiving and lying to this robot about how it should look. So both do have the same concept in a way.

Monday 5 October 2009

Chapter 6-Audience interpretation

The audience interpretation of 'doll face' was a mixed reaction. The piece is highly conceptually driven there is craft that has gone into making it however it is quite simple at the same time.
Some reacted by saying that it didn't make sense and that it was boring, however most reacted to say that it was incredible and beautifully created and were able to come up with many conceptual ideas for example there comes a price for beauty.
I found the experimental piece amazing because it had such an emotional impact but was so simple and i think that's why it was so effective.
it is not important that everyone in the class has the same interpretation on the piece because everyone takes a different meaning from it, and everyone is different.
The artist may have made this piece with one concept in mind, however, because of personal expierience of the audience they may take very different meanings it could mean someone thing personal to them.Once the artist had published this piece it is completely out of his hands and the audience can take different meanings from it, there is complete detatchment form the artist and the person who is viewing i think this is important because then then person who is viweing can take a much more personal feeling from the piece.

Thursday 1 October 2009

Chapter 5-The effects that the tate modern had on me

The Tate modern did interest me however i found there was not a lot of works there that were abstract which is my personal preference but the works there were amazing even though i found there wasn't a lot there.
One of the things i did see at the Tate was an experimental video being shown in a dark room with only a few seats in it it was quite a power full piece and was very interesting.
The reason i think for there not being a lot there is because the use of space within the gallery was amazing they made sure that each piece had a significant amount of wall space and was lite very well.
The effect that the Tate and its works will have on my own experience are, the use of lighting and post production i will be more aware of these things after seeing the experimental video at the Tate. I will be aware of how put my emotion into the piece so i can draw an emotional effect out of my audience

Tuesday 29 September 2009

Experimental Video:Koyaanisqatsi-Life out of balance

I thought Koyaanisqatsi's 'Life out of balance' was amazing. The use of light and camera angle were incredible.
The different types of images produced in this experimental film range from speeded up traffic through new york to cave engraved pictures and images.
All the images in this film are very powerfull and the camera angles used only help the emotional effect that this piece has on you.The piece almost shows how civilization has delveloped, from cave paintings to huge sky scrappers and traffic with motor cars.
The music used in 'life of balance' suited the imagery down to a key. For example right at the begining 0f the film the first frame is the cave paintings and the music behind it is almost tribal music, and then when the film cuts to the speeded up traffic and sky scrapers the music goes very fast paced and almost angelic with a sence of achievment for what human kind has created.
The concept of this film is that Koyaanisqatsi is trying to create an emotional effect on the audience which is acheived and very well.

Thursday 24 September 2009

Chapter 4 -Use of exibition space

Yesterday when we visited the Tate gallery in London we encountered and viewed a variety of amazing and interesting art, what was more interesting was the space it was displayed in.

  • Surrealism art- Located in a bright white spacious room with works from artists such as Dali and Picasso the relationship i think the space because it is a crisp white colour creates and open mind for such surreal art, it is quite eire walking into a room also which is pure white i think they were trying to achieve that also.The space in the room like i said before was very big small pieces of art had a large amount of space i think this is mainly because they wanted the viewer to be able to focus on the piece of art and nothing else around.

One of the specific things i looked at was a a piece called 'thirty pieces of silver' by Cornelia Parker. The piece was pieces of silver cutlery bonded together hanging from the ceiling. I fund this piece interesting because the use of lighting against the shinny silver was amazing as they had a skylight above where the pieces were hanging from. The room the piece was in was completely separate from the other rooms as it had its own room to be in, which created a lot of space.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

Experimental Video....Andy Huang-Dollface

I absolutely loved this piece it was a very emotional with many of hidden meanings. The video was a face attached to a machine she was staring at a television set constantly changing her image to look like what the television was showing.
This piece is trying to get across a message that everyone works like a machine as the face in the piece is attached to a machine, it also showed that she was chasing a dream and or an image that she cannot ever achieve which is a lot like people in our society today.
The piece portrays what people would do to achieve perfection, and how she is trying to fit in and be and or achieve something that she is not and trying reach an unobtainable goal.
The piece also shows how television in a way influencing our thought process and mesmerises us to think that people on television are perfect this piece shows how following this perception of perfection on television eventually can lead to lead to destruction as at the end of the piece the machine breaks and her face smashes, this could mean all sorts of things for example life issues like anorexia.
Dollface seems like a simple less craft piece,however,there has obviously been a lot of animation and computer graphics in this piece too create the machine and how it works. The piece is highly conceptual for all the reasons i have stated above it has so many different meanings and can be seen in so many different ways. Putting this piece into context, it is obviously Andy's main goal is getting across the point of there is a price that comes with beauty and he shows this in so many brilliant ways in the piece.

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Hello

hello this is my first ever blog!