Time Art

TIME ART

BRIEF

Every week on Fridays our lessons have consisted of After Effects Training with our tutor Simon. Now being kept back a year, I had already done this unit but over the course of this year I feel like I’ve come out of hiding and really got stuck in!

After Effects was very daunting to me, so many buttons and methods to create one simple effect. It honestly scares me the output you can achieve from it, but this year I’ve dipped my toe into the pool of possibilities with this amazing piece of software. Bearing in mind I’m still a beginner with this, I feel like I’ve given it a good shot and tried my best at understanding this complicated programe.

In each lesson, we have been taught about green screen,  tracking, keying and so much more. (too much for me to remember in full detail) but never the less, I dived in and found to quite like it.

Everything appealed to me and I’ve been eager to keep testing my skills and put forward more ideas for future me to create one day (when I get better at this).

I really liked the sound of keying and tracking, creating objects that could do anything around actual fooatage.

This is when my idea for our unit came to me. We were given a brief telling us to exp exploration of the relationship between the Human Body and the Digital world. You are free to interpret this brief in any way you choose;lore the relationship between the Human Body and the Digital World and interpret this in any way we choose.

RESEARCH

This is when I started looking in to other idea, work other artists have created based around this subject or things similar. Everything I found looked seriously complicated. It put me off for a while, thinking I’d never be able to create anything moving or tracking.

This time, I wanted to try it. I stayed well clear of anything like that last year and I really wanted to try and see if I could do it. So I got tester shots and tried it out, with a little help I got there in the end and I’m really proud of the outcome. It’s not that impressive, but it’s a big step for me into the world of After Effects and I’m glad I actually tried it out instead of playing it safe.

POTENTIAL IDEAS

After all the attempts and tries at the keying and tracking for fun, I wanted to take it more seriously and hopefully incorporate it into my own work.

I came up with the idea of having a 3D social media system that we see with our eyes, and I could track people showing different moods and profiles. I looked into this further and tried out an experiment on my peer Farez, who was kind enough to be the subject for most of this project. 

I created a 3D Sphere and tracked it to him. This kick started my idea of a real life social media. Where people would walk around with phones that created holograms of their texts and if you were online, people could see your mood by your Emoj icon rotating above your head. Yes, I may have been playing sims at the time for that inspiration but it’s all relevant.

AFTER EFFECTS EXPERIMENTATION

After visiting websites such as Lynda and Video Co Pilot who helped  me a great deal with tutorials and special effects downloads, I realized how much more comfortable I was with After Effects.

It got to the point where I wasn’t referencing my workbook for notes on how to track the subject to the null.

I realized I’m getting the hang of it!

- Flying Arrow 

- Bouncing Ball

- DFSA Squiggle

- Bouncy Ball 2

I wanted to focus more on getting the hang on tracking, so I created a fishing swimming around under the sea for practise. I really enjoyed creating this piece because it let me explore what I can do without any tutorials in class.

Firstly, I used photoshop to make separate layers of the coral. This makes at 3d effect when the fish swims behind each of the layers and really brings it to life!

SCRIPT IDEA

My first idea consisted of wearing my gopro strapped to my head with a head mount, recording my day to day activities and animate over the top. 
I went out with Jorn and Farez and did a shoot to see how well it would work.

 As much as the effect of the wide angle looked almost robotic from a POV shot, it lacked any story or meaning behind it which made it boring after the first minute.

So, I went back to square one, but still adamant on using the 3D social media idea. I decided to write down a mind map, scribble any idea that came into my head. As much as I filled the page, nothing jumped out at me and everything seemed too similar.

The day after, I went to a café for lunch. I noticed how everyone of a similar age to me, was constantly on technology. It’s become the norm in society to be absorbed like droans and robots, gawping at screens while beautiful things happen around us.

So, this was my idea.

I wanted to show the contrast between living and virtual reality. Yes, communication is important but it’s not essential every moment of every day. Just some people can’t seem to live with out it.
As we have to use a split screen, I thought why not show the contrast between using technology for everything and living without it for a day.

I thought this idea was relevant to the brief because technology is constantly changing, we use it every day and it’s shaped around us as people. We have become so dependent on it that we can’t seem to live without it.

SHOOTING

I decided to use a DSLR instead of the gopro, because I felt it gave my film a more cinematic feel. We shot most scenes twice, once with the use of modern day technology and one with out to show the real difference that it has on our lives.

We shot on several days which was fun! Jorn and Ferez helped me and I feel we all worked well as a team. I wasn’t too worried about the shoot as the animation was making me quite nervous.

EDITING PROCESS

Before I started editing, I had to create icons in photoshop of all the Emojs and any other effects I wanted to use. This was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed being creative with this.

Once I learnt and became confident with the process of tracking I kept making new symbols to try. I tried my best with this and feel really happy with the results I managed to achieve. Being new to After Effects, and having to mostly learn this through trail and error I’m glad that I gave it a shot.

My process for organisation was editing the clips I wanted got animate first. I did all the effects I needed to and imported them into premiere after in a separate bin away from all my other footage. This kept all the clips separate, organised and available for when I needed them.

Overall, I really enjoyed making this film. Although I encountered quite a few technical difficulties and problems along the way, I finally feel more confident with After Effects and I'm able to animate things fairly confidently.

Experimental Sound

Brief 

In this task, we had to create an experimental sound piece based on a chosen artwork for every individual in our class lasting between 1 to 2 minutes.

The picture I was assigned was The Broken Column by Frida Khalo.

Research 

I thought this image was very unusual and powerful, as there clearly is a really dark message behind it. I did some research into  the artist Frida Kahlo and found a lot of inspiring facts that she based this artwork on. 

When she was 18, Kahlo was unfortunately involved in a violent bus accident. Her serious injuries caused her a lot of pain which effected her life. She needed lots of surgery and was unable to have a baby.

When researching into her other work, i noticed a reoccurring theme based around pain and suffering, visably and mental. Her psychological pain are shown through her distorted boy which is split open and containing non human elements. The Broken Column was painted shortly after Kahlo underwent spinal surgery. She shows herself constrained by a cage-like body brace. A cavern of missing flesh violates the integrity of her body, exposing a broken column in place of her spine. The column appears to be on the verge of collapsing into rubble. Metal nails pierce Kahlo’s face, breasts, arms, and torso, as well as her upper thigh, hidden behind a swath of cloth. Tears stream down her face. Set in an open landscape, the artist-sitter is exposed in more ways than one.

Recording - 

Sebastian gave us an introduction into the sound studio and we learnt house to use all the equipment necessary to record. We used a back and fort speaker system to talk to the subject we were recording in the booth which was so interesting.

We used a condenser mic to record the sounds we needed for our project in small groups which made the process a lot easier. I recorded the sound of me crying, breaking sticks to represent bones snapping and the sound of cloth blowing in the wind. 

In the studio with Jorn

Feeling inspired by my image, I took a trip down to Margate beach. In the image, the woman in standing in a wasteland/desert. So I wanted to really get inside her head and feel my surroundings mirroring the image.

I recorded the sound using the Zoom H4 of the wind blowing over the beach which really created the atmosphere I needed for this.

Editing

When it came to editing, I was a little daunted. We had learnt Adobe Audition in class with Sebastian so I was fairly confident at using it.

We had to make an experimental sound piece with a clip of a man speaking so
I chopped up the sound an made a rhythm track with it. This was very enjoyable and gave me the chance to get used to the program more.

I layered each individual clip on top of each other to get a more distorted sound. The main clip I used was the crying woman. This shows the real pain she was experiencing and puts forward to the listener  her situation. I decided to use a lot of the reverb effect, because she is in a wide open space this comes across that she is exposed and vulnerable.

I wanted to keep this sound slightly minimal, because I felt that by creating this more simply and using my most powerful sound as a baseline it would be more apparent that this has a story to tell, instead of a lot of jumbled up sounds.

I'm not very good at sound but I enjoyed making this clip. As I really grew to know the artists story and express it through the power and creativity of sound.

FINAL WORK: