Reflections 24 Video - Video Evaluation

For this project I have thoroughly enjoyed the time working with my group, although the video isn’t perfect and there are many improvements that could be made, I enjoyed the process. My group were reliable and had a professional attitude throughout the whole time working together.

As a team, we boosted each other when feeling unconfident and what others lacked in, we contributed and improved our skills through doing this.

For one of the final projects of our first year it has been a great one and I’m looking forward to hopefully working with my group again for another project.

Reflections 23 Video - FINAL PIECE

This is our final video:

Reflections 22 Video - Feedback and Improvements

When we showed Rosie our first rough cut of the film, she wasn’t too keen on it because it was too boring and not enough happening. She also said that is was difficult to understand because everything kept changing without any explanation to what the purpose of this was in the first place.

Wel originally had the 4 split screen idea but Rosie suggested we change that to a 2 screen. This will give the audience less to focus on and keep the attention to what is happening in shot rather than panning 4 separate screens all the time.

As a group we felt this worked a lot better and made the process a lot easer on us throughout post.

The feedback was very helpful and insightful into helping out film become better and more likeable for the audience watching.

Reflections 21 Video - Edting

With regards to editing, having two people at once is not a practical idea. Therefore Laura did the rough edit and I did the final edit.

This made the editing process easier for both of us whilst Hannah and Laura were left to get on with sound and colour correcting.

When I edited the final part, there was a lot of problems with keeping the footage in sync with each other and the original clip we used from the film bridesmaids. I had to chop and change around lots of clips to make sure in was all in time and correctly put together, if I didn’t get the timings completely coronet then the while film will be out of sync and the original idea we had won’t make any sense.

After a lot of time and careful cutting i managed to make sure that that all 4 video clips were in time and ready to put into one project file. This came with more problems regarding timing but they were easy to fix as they were in blocks rather than individual clips.

I really enjoyed piecing everyones individual films together and I think the end result isn’t bad for the encounters we had on the shooting day.

Reflections 20 Video - The Shoot

For the shoot we decided to film at Leannas house to get away from the typical 'student village kitchen'.
This gave us more space to expand and creative better shots.  The kitchen lighting was a slight problem but we used extra lighting to balance the contrasts.

I feel that with the space provided we recreated the original film pretty well considering the layout was completely different.

Overall the day was long but we got a lot of great shots to editing in post.

Reflections 19 Video - Preparing for the Shoot

Props Needed for Shoot:

White frame
Pink card
White 
Green card
Dollar 1
Dollar 10
Cake logo
Stripe tee
Plain tee
Article
Pic of kate
Pic cake tumbs up
Apron
Tray
Bowl spoon
Cake mix shit
Blue food colouring ( amy )
Yellow food
Pink ( Hannah )
Brown ( leanna )
Ice cream scoop
Different colouerd bowl
Spoon
White case
Pink case
Blue case
Oven glove
Ready roll
Rolling pin
Leaf cutter
Nail varnish
Pin
Paint brush
Tiny bowl
Butter cream
Piping bag
Cake box
Tea towel

TO BRING TO SET
Amy and Hannah have the camera kit

Amy - bring the card , print out 1 dollar, 10 dollar , cake baby logo ( big ) , stripe tee , plain t , pics of cake, a news article, nail varnish

leanna - apron , tea towel

Hannah - cake tray , green bowl spoon whisk , cake mix shit , cakes weve made, cupcake cases ice cream scoop , piping bag , rolling pin , paint brush , tiny bowls, cake box

Laura - glass bowl , spoon , oven gloves

Reflections 19 Video - Research and Inspiration

When coming up with the idea for our split screen film, these were the main videos we looked at for inspiration.

Reflections 18 Video - Job Roles

Scripts – Hannah 

Story boards and shot plans ( VIDEO 1) - Hannah Park
Story boards and shot plans ( VIDEO 2) - Amy Louise Gwynne
Story boards and shot plans ( VIDEO 3) - Leanna Saul( or me if you don’t wanna direct )

Risk assessment - Laura 

Location permition ( finder (can we use your house )) - Leanna
Release forms – leanna ( we need 4 1 for actor 3 for voice over artists )
Shooting scedual *** - Laura
Call sheet – laura

Find and actor – Amy and Hannah
Find voice over people – Hannah and Amy

List of props we need – Hannah

Reflections 17 Video - Final Idea

IDEA: Hannah Park

THEME: How people recall the same thing differently, highlighting how memory works and how people focus on different things when recalling a memory.

INTENTION: My intention is to film an event and ask 3 people to write a report on that event. Then using those reports reconstruct that event to emphasise my theme of how people remember things differently. Then by using their reports as voice-overs show what they remembered and what was similar and different about each recollection.

STRUCTURE: The film will take the structure of multi-screens. It will be in a 4 square grid with the video of the actual event in the top left and the reconstructions filling the other spaces. At first the only one shown will be the real event, then once that has played through once the reconstructions will start. So that each one gets enough attention the voice over’s will follow along with each video. Whenever there is a similarity all the voices will be at the same level to highlight that the same thing has been remembered. (All voice-overs will be played at once but the 2 that aren’t the focus at the time will be at a lower level – this will be done to create a better stereo field)

STORY: As this film isn’t narrative based I have focused more on the style. If my idea was to be picked the first order of business as such would be to decided as a team what the narrative of the event will be. As it would need details big enough for either all 3 people to remember or just 1 person to remember it will be easier to come up with the event as a group and communicate it as a group.

STYLE: This idea relies on pulling the audiences attention.  So the style of the reconstructions will be heavily mediated in that they will be basically black and white and the key things that are highlighted within the report will be in colour and in regards to the focus the only things in focus within the reconstructions will be those that were recollected. However the original event will be filmed normally to show the contrast. With the reconstructions they will have a blurry dream like effect to show the uncertainty of recollection and how a lot of things are forgotten when remembering something.

CHARACTERS: The voice over’s are an important part as they can technically form characters for those reporting. As the reports will be the basis for scripts for each reconstruction they will include elements of the witnesses character and they could be considered characters within the film. However as this isn’t narrative based and it relies heavily on the reports no character building is needed.

Reflections 16 Video - Groups

I decided to join group E, this was the group for Hannah’s initial idea which included Laura and Leanna. I’ve wanted to work with them for a long time as we get on very well so this project will be interesting to see how well we do!

I liked the original idea of the memory split screen effect and I thought this would be a creative and different way to portray memory. I hope we can pull off the idea and bring it to life on screen!

Reflections 15 Video - Ideas

Reflections 14 Video - Brief

FDSA4004 REFLECTIONS

PROJECT BRIEF 2013/14

An investigation of human/machine memory in the digital age

In this unit you will explore the theme of memory. This could be through its relationship to the archive – the images, films, objects, documents and traces through which we recall and revisit individual and shared memories and histories. You could also consider or imagine possible futures and how these may link to the present and the past. For example you could choose to examine life cycles: replenishment or regeneration, the old constantly being replaced by the new, or even the young usurping the old. From seed to harvest, a cake baked and eaten, the repurposing of old things into new, the passing of genes to new generations and so on. The possibilities are endless.

Through film screenings, presentations, workshops and seminars we will examine the complex and, often conflicted, relationship between memory and its representations. 

1) Working in groups of four you should make a digitally shot and edited video of 5-10 minutes duration. You are asked to make a fact based film using an experimental approach. Meaning should not be overwhelmingly reliant on synch dialogue and other forms of language should be considered such as voice over, think track, overheard voices, body language and so on. You are not encouraged to use a formal narrative structure. You should use this brief as an opportunity to experiment and try to adopt a more fragmented approach to moving image and sound.

2) Each student should produce a set or series of five still images around the themes of the unit. The images could incorporate found images and other media with your own digital stills. The project should also have a textual component and a considered design for presenting the work.

Each student should keep a blog journal that should evidence of a wide body of research using library, internet, newspapers, critiques of films, visits to galleries, museums, and include personal reflection. Technical notes, visual references, permissions sought, storyboards, location notes and so on, should also be included. Instructions have been posted into MyUCA for you to open up a Blogspot and paste the address into a Google Doc. All posts for this unit should be tagged Reflections so we able to access easily for GreenLight Reviews – dates to be announced.

A basic set of shooting equipment will be pre-booked for you and you will be notified of your allocation. You are free to book out equipment at other times if it is available, provided you have completed the necessary training workshops. Edit time will also be prebooked and it is important to work to the given schedule.

Reflections 13 Photography - Evaluation

My photography project for me was a difficult one, I struggled to come up with a sound idea for this until quite late. The thing is, you can’t rush ideas and expect things to come automatically. It just doesn’t work that way.
I feel that throughout this project I have developed my work, and as a person. I look into the meaning behind images more instead of the technical side and explore the more ‘experimental’ side of photography than the cliche portrait style. This will help me develop my own work further and give it different layers and texture in my future photographs.
Overall I’m very proud of my final work as I’ve never done anything like this before and I will defiantly be adding this piece to my portfolio of work.

Reflections 12 Photography - FINAL PIECE

Reflections 11 Photography - Printing

To print my work, I needed a printed that would cope with the different size of my work.

I decided to use the Inca s70 printer (worth around £300,000) that I have access too.
This standard and quality of this printer was outstanding and really brought out the clarity of my images.

Reflections 10 Photography - Presentation & Layout

Before sending to print, I accidentally did the canvas size too small so my final prints would have been completely blurred and out of focus. 

I needed to adjust the size to a higher resolution to cope with the printing scale.

Even though the editing of the images are done, the layout of them is very important.

I had to create separate layers to make sure I could align them up correctly. It took me ages to get all the measurements right and exact.

Reflections 9 Photography - The shoot

Most of my shoot was in one location; The Walpole Bay Hotel in Margate which was built in 1914 and not changed since!
For me this was an ideal location to do my photoshoot as there theme of memory is very apart in this building. I couldn’t have chosen a better location to show the haunting message through my images.

Reflections 8 Photography - Alzheimer's Research

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive condition, which means the symptoms develop gradually and become more severe over the course of several years.

The first sign of Alzheimer's disease is usually minor memory problems. For example, this could be forgetting about recent conversations or events, and forgetting the names of places and objects.

As the condition develops, memory problems become more severe and further symptoms can develop, such as:

• confusion and disorientation
• personality changes, such as becoming aggressive, demanding and suspicious of others
• hallucinations (seeing things that are not there) and delusions (believing things that are untrue)
• problems with language and speech
• problems moving around without assistance

I managed to get in contact with someone from Kent police and rescue who deal with dementia and he send me a powerpoint with lots of information.

Reading through this I could really see what it would be like to have this. I was able to empathise and understand which helped me choose the locations and the style of images I wanted to capture.

Reflections 7 Photography - Memory loss

Memory loss, also called amnesia, occurs when a person loses the ability to remember events and information they would normally be able to recall. This could be something that happened only seconds or minutes ago, or a memorable event that happened in the past. The memory loss may have started suddenly or may have been getting worse over the last year or so.

Memory loss can be distressing, for the person affected as well as for their family. Relatives may fear the worst and assume it's caused by dementia or alzheimer's, but this often isn't the case.

Reflections 6 Photography - Inspiration

The inspiration behind my work is my nan.

Suffering from memory loss and struggling to keep up most of the time was the perfect idea for my project. It happens to so many older people and it’s become a normality now when really they need help and patience.

This was also a personal project as well as factual and the meaning behind it is very strong in my eyes.

I am proud to show the reality of this and my nan was the perfect lady to show this through her expression.

Reflections 5 Photography - Artist Research

Sally Mann - These sets of images completely jumped out at me whilst doing research. They’re absolutely simple but stunning and very powerful.
I love the concept and the high contrast black and white used.

For my own work this will be my main inspiration behind my own meaning. I’d like to set out my work with a similar theme.

William Utermohlen

When he learned in 1995 that he had Alzheimer’s disease, William Utermohlen, an American artist living in London, immediately began work on an ambitious series of self-portraits. The artist pursued this project over an eight-year period, adapting his style to the growing limitations of his perception and motor skills and creating images that powerfully documented his experience of his illness. The resulting body of work serves as a unique artistic, medical, and personal record of one man’s struggle with dementia.

Reflections 4 Photography - Creative Writing

Today Rosie asked us to do a creative writing task. This involved in pairs cutting out random words from newspapers and magazines combining them into strange sentences.

'We started my escape from Ringo the super, fresh, rich, bald zombie. 'I canny run with a red hot ear sugar' tweets Sir Nicholas Browne. Over the road in France power-flick ponies die fast. Decision to bash codswallop in case of emergency. The shadows stop the cycle for the intestinal labour. Old fashioned pensions keep the noise down! It's all about getting away overseas ignore an emotional storm.' - Amy Louise Gwynne and Hannah Park


This was such a fun and interesting exercise to do, it was unusual and I think that's why I enjoyed it so much.

Individual Task 

We were then asked individually go through newspapers, close our eyes and randomly point at a word. 
Whatever that word was we would use 3 words either side of it for our sentence. From these and were told to write solidly and whatever came to mind became a story around this sentence.

Line: 'are not rich enough to take advantage'.

They are not rich enough to take advantage of the things they could experience in life if they had a better money situation. Everyone should have the same opportunities in life as we are all equal. We are all the same. No one should be forced to miss out on experiences that are potentially life changing while others do not appreciate what they have been blessed with.

Life is not fair. We need to learn to make the most of what we have because there is always someone worse off than you are.

Reflections 3 Photography - Images From Rosie’s Lesson

Images Rosie showed us in class - make notes.

Then and Now:

These are examples of images that were taken from childhood and recreated many years later.

I think this is an amazing idea, even though similar in comparison, it shows the viewer how far that person has come. How they’ve changed and grown. The concept and message behind it is really beautiful.

“Two years after losing his wife to cancer, a man re-created his wedding photos with their young daughter.”

Reflections 3 Photography - Advertising Project

Reflections 2 Photography - Christmas Project

Over the holidays we were asked to think of things we’d like to remember in the future.

I find it hard to come up with ideas that are overly personal and meaningful, so this was tough to think about. I looked at the cliche ideas behind memories such as family, friends, pets, loves etc.
Nothing inspired me, nothing jumped out at me to make me click.

When I need inspiration, I go to the loft. I rummage through old things that were once loved and treasured and explore a world I never knew existed through photographs and objects.

Photographs are precious moments captured in time, to have the moment you shared with a loved one who is now diseased or to see yourself in your younger days, the person that you was in that moment.

It’s magic.


For me, a moment I will never forget is the first time I used a camera. My grandpa was a photographer and had many film cameras. When I was little I used to think it was a magical black box that could freeze moments in time. This inspired me to try it and learn the basics of photography.

First film camera I ever used - Canon 1000F

This is where it all started for me. This is why I am where I am today.

Reflections 1 Photography - Brief

FDSA4004 REFLECTIONS

PROJECT BRIEF 2013/14

An investigation of human/machine memory in the digital age

In this unit you will explore the theme of memory. This could be through its relationship to the archive – the images, films, objects, documents and traces through which we recall and revisit individual and shared memories and histories. You could also consider or imagine possible futures and how these may link to the present and the past. For example you could choose to examine life cycles: replenishment or regeneration, the old constantly being replaced by the new, or even the young usurping the old. From seed to harvest, a cake baked and eaten, the repurposing of old things into new, the passing of genes to new generations and so on. The possibilities are endless.

Through film screenings, presentations, workshops and seminars we will examine the complex and, often conflicted, relationship between memory and its representations. 

1) Working in groups of four you should make a digitally shot and edited video of 5-10 minutes duration. You are asked to make a fact based film using an experimental approach. Meaning should not be overwhelmingly reliant on synch dialogue and other forms of language should be considered such as voice over, think track, overheard voices, body language and so on. You are not encouraged to use a formal narrative structure. You should use this brief as an opportunity to experiment and try to adopt a more fragmented approach to moving image and sound.

2) Each student should produce a set or series of five still images around the themes of the unit. The images could incorporate found images and other media with your own digital stills. The project should also have a textual component and a considered design for presenting the work.

Each student should keep a blog journal that should evidence of a wide body of research using library, internet, newspapers, critiques of films, visits to galleries, museums, and include personal reflection. Technical notes, visual references, permissions sought, storyboards, location notes and so on, should also be included. Instructions have been posted into MyUCA for you to open up a Blogspot and paste the address into a Google Doc. All posts for this unit should be tagged Reflections so we able to access easily for GreenLight Reviews – dates to be announced.

A basic set of shooting equipment will be pre-booked for you and you will be notified of your allocation. You are free to book out equipment at other times if it is available, provided you have completed the necessary training workshops. Edit time will also be prebooked and it is important to work to the given schedule.

Time Art - Evaluation

Time Art 15 - FINAL PIECE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kavPfda4wOY&feature=youtu.be

Time Art 14 - Editing

Time Art 13 - Time Table

To help keep myself organised I have made a timetable for the things I need to do. This will give me plenty of time in advance to get done the work I need to do.

Time Art 12 - Equipment Test

To start of my equipment I will use a steady tripod, being that I’m in the shoot I won’t be able to check for shakes so can’t afford to have any of the shots to be wobbly or the whole composition will be like that.

Next, I will have to adjust the white balance using the kelvin setting. If I leave the camera on Auto White Balance then the colour will keep changing due to the lighting.

Doing this will keep the temperature constant throughout the entire time I shoot.

Because the sky is naturally more over exposed than the foreground I would normally use a setting called Exposure Comp/ Automatic Exposure Bracketing.

By using this setting the camera will take 3 separate images. One under exposed, one correctly exposed and one over exposed. (shown by the image above)

By capturing 3 separate images at different exposures I can combine them in Photoshop or Lightroom to get a perfectly exposed image, also known as a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image.

Unfortunately because I am using an Intervalometer Remote the images will be taken at different times so this technique will not work for me.

Another way I could get around this is to use a Neutral Density Graduated Filter (pictured below)

This would do exactly the same job but without any editing in post.

Unfortunately I do not own one of these but I will defiantly be using one for any future time lapses.