Thursday 18 February 2010
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Presentation - After
I enjoyed the presentation. There was a deathly silence when we we setting-up and it took a little longer than we'd hoped for but when we got started everything went as well as we had expected. I didn't mess up my speech despite doing so many times during practices, Laura was nice and friendly but was also honest and fair with her opinions on what we had produced. We should have 'broken the ice' and said hello to our audience, shook hands, etc.
She commented on the packaging saying she really liked the book idea; the dust jacket, bookmark ribbon and the image in the middle and she really liked our logo but she thought the pages with the song lyrics on we too whimsical for her - too fairy tale. she said she wanted it darker. I was quite annoyed at the Hive guy whose first words were in response to this saying they were 'cliched'. He then went on to talk about the Radiohead album Kid A saying we should have looked at that for a book idea and I explained we had looked at the Amnesiac album with its book style.
Ian Mitchell commented on our decision on the layout of the lyrics pages. He thought it felt forced and wasn't too keen on our intentions. For me the lyric pages were an experimentation after briefly looking at and being inspired by Vaughan Oliver's works. Ian was fair and made some really good points that I've taken on board. He also didn't like the chosen font Edwardian Script. This was interesting as we had feedback from other tutors and they liked the choice (I think they may have actually had a hand in the choice). I didn't want to start pointing fingers of complaining as it was ultimately our decision to use the font and I know that the tutors have very different opinions of such things. I recall in first year Ian really liked something I had done for a project but than another tutor came along and said they didn't like it at all. As I value the opinions and input from both tutors I am trying to find and develop a style that perhaps will touch on some middle ground.
Mike asked us questions about the decision not to make packaging for a vinyl. I told him that we thought a vinyl was 'too big' to which he gave me the answer a 'little voice' which I couldn't have said better myself! I had to think on the spot at this point as I too did want vinyl as our format but it was overall voted against within the group. I do recall tutors telling us that we needed to be realistic in our ideas and approach and not go too OTT with the packaging as in the real world an album like Laura Grove's wouldn't have massive expense spent on the packaging (unless they did some limited editions?) With our packaging I think it would be reasonable cost to reproduce.
There were 2 comments made by the Hive guy, Laura and also the tutors that stuck in my mind and still bug me now. They wanted to see it as a vinyl and for our book to be more bookish. I also wanted these two things. But unfortunately I wasn't able to sell this idea to the whole group which is a real shame. I do recall there were times where members of the group wanted our packaging to be less bookish and there was a point where the dust jacket was almost thrown out. Thankfully, this didn't happen.
Unfortunately, the lyrics pages did take a beating and this is down to me. For me, it was an experiment and trying something I wouldn't usually do but ultimately it was, I'd say 100%, successful.
She commented on the packaging saying she really liked the book idea; the dust jacket, bookmark ribbon and the image in the middle and she really liked our logo but she thought the pages with the song lyrics on we too whimsical for her - too fairy tale. she said she wanted it darker. I was quite annoyed at the Hive guy whose first words were in response to this saying they were 'cliched'. He then went on to talk about the Radiohead album Kid A saying we should have looked at that for a book idea and I explained we had looked at the Amnesiac album with its book style.
Ian Mitchell commented on our decision on the layout of the lyrics pages. He thought it felt forced and wasn't too keen on our intentions. For me the lyric pages were an experimentation after briefly looking at and being inspired by Vaughan Oliver's works. Ian was fair and made some really good points that I've taken on board. He also didn't like the chosen font Edwardian Script. This was interesting as we had feedback from other tutors and they liked the choice (I think they may have actually had a hand in the choice). I didn't want to start pointing fingers of complaining as it was ultimately our decision to use the font and I know that the tutors have very different opinions of such things. I recall in first year Ian really liked something I had done for a project but than another tutor came along and said they didn't like it at all. As I value the opinions and input from both tutors I am trying to find and develop a style that perhaps will touch on some middle ground.
Mike asked us questions about the decision not to make packaging for a vinyl. I told him that we thought a vinyl was 'too big' to which he gave me the answer a 'little voice' which I couldn't have said better myself! I had to think on the spot at this point as I too did want vinyl as our format but it was overall voted against within the group. I do recall tutors telling us that we needed to be realistic in our ideas and approach and not go too OTT with the packaging as in the real world an album like Laura Grove's wouldn't have massive expense spent on the packaging (unless they did some limited editions?) With our packaging I think it would be reasonable cost to reproduce.
There were 2 comments made by the Hive guy, Laura and also the tutors that stuck in my mind and still bug me now. They wanted to see it as a vinyl and for our book to be more bookish. I also wanted these two things. But unfortunately I wasn't able to sell this idea to the whole group which is a real shame. I do recall there were times where members of the group wanted our packaging to be less bookish and there was a point where the dust jacket was almost thrown out. Thankfully, this didn't happen.
Unfortunately, the lyrics pages did take a beating and this is down to me. For me, it was an experiment and trying something I wouldn't usually do but ultimately it was, I'd say 100%, successful.
Presentation - Before
Before
Today Jade and I rehearsed. I wasn't particularly nervous at this point but I knew I would be when I was in the room with the tutors and clients. I had re-written my speech since earlier that morning so I was very rusty and I kept messing up the middle part.
At this point I began reflecting on the project as a whole. I enjoy thinking about the journey, the ups and the downs and how differently our initial ideas were to our final product. I was confident is what we had produced but it was only Tuesday where I had almost given up hope!
I thing I did notice was that all the other group had a large amount of work to show Laura Groves and we only had our CD package and website. In saying that, there is a lot of depth subtleties in ours and it wasn't all instantly noticeable but we'd have the opportunity to explain and show this during our presentation and the Q&A.
Today Jade and I rehearsed. I wasn't particularly nervous at this point but I knew I would be when I was in the room with the tutors and clients. I had re-written my speech since earlier that morning so I was very rusty and I kept messing up the middle part.
At this point I began reflecting on the project as a whole. I enjoy thinking about the journey, the ups and the downs and how differently our initial ideas were to our final product. I was confident is what we had produced but it was only Tuesday where I had almost given up hope!
I thing I did notice was that all the other group had a large amount of work to show Laura Groves and we only had our CD package and website. In saying that, there is a lot of depth subtleties in ours and it wasn't all instantly noticeable but we'd have the opportunity to explain and show this during our presentation and the Q&A.
Late Night in the Library
The uni closed at 9pm and we all went home but then met up again at t10pm in the library. We still had to photograph the booklet, create a slideshow and write our presentations.
I got the projection working and we were able to put our slideshow on the big screen. At this point it was only Jade that was speaking. Eventually I said that I wanted to speak also. I said this because Jade had quite a lot to say and I wasn't actually doing anything and what Lauren and Sarah was quite minimal - Lauren the slideshow and Sarah was simply handing the CD out.
Here an interesting revelation arose. Lauren didn't want me to speak because I was male. And Laura Groves was female. There was also a comment that all of the other groups would have male speakers so it would be nice to have a female in our group speaking. I said that this was quite a sexist comment and it was then commented that all girls knew it was sexist but no-one really cared. I was astonished. I'm not too bothered about sexism as I know it exists even though people say they aren't. It was the hypocrisy. If it had been 3 guys and 1 girl I can imagine there would be hell to pay. Also that the decision had been made when I was out of the room. After heated discussion it was decided that I could speak although no doubt this was simply to keep me happy.
From here I constantly made little jokes and stabs about the sexist attitudes in the group but I couldn't help myself.
We stayed at the library until 2am. We had the slideshow complete but our presentation still needed polishing. We decided to call it a night and we were going to meet up at 1oam that morning and continue rehearsing the speech.
I got the projection working and we were able to put our slideshow on the big screen. At this point it was only Jade that was speaking. Eventually I said that I wanted to speak also. I said this because Jade had quite a lot to say and I wasn't actually doing anything and what Lauren and Sarah was quite minimal - Lauren the slideshow and Sarah was simply handing the CD out.
Here an interesting revelation arose. Lauren didn't want me to speak because I was male. And Laura Groves was female. There was also a comment that all of the other groups would have male speakers so it would be nice to have a female in our group speaking. I said that this was quite a sexist comment and it was then commented that all girls knew it was sexist but no-one really cared. I was astonished. I'm not too bothered about sexism as I know it exists even though people say they aren't. It was the hypocrisy. If it had been 3 guys and 1 girl I can imagine there would be hell to pay. Also that the decision had been made when I was out of the room. After heated discussion it was decided that I could speak although no doubt this was simply to keep me happy.
From here I constantly made little jokes and stabs about the sexist attitudes in the group but I couldn't help myself.
We stayed at the library until 2am. We had the slideshow complete but our presentation still needed polishing. We decided to call it a night and we were going to meet up at 1oam that morning and continue rehearsing the speech.
Monday 8th - Wednesday 10th
Monday - Interviews were taking place today s we set up shop in Studio 4. We had all of our designs (except the dust jacket) completed and this week it was a case of making it and putting it all together. Lauren and I went to town to get our paper/card, etc whilst Jade stayed at uni to complete the website and Sarah stayed to work on the postcards.Lauren explained that she had to go to London tomorrow (Tuesday) for Professional Collaboration so she made two card wallets before she went.
We bought the paper, card and some blue ribbon although we weren't too sure if we wanted white of champagne. In the end we bought both but we did really struggle with what to do for the dust jacket. The original paper we wanted that was textured we could only get in A4 and would be too small to fit right around the CD. At one point Lauren suggested we forget the idea but I was insistant and this was the one thing that I refused to budge on. Realizing we couldn't get what we were after for the dust jacket we decided that the dust jacket should just be white or champagne.
On our paper hunt we also came across a florist that was selling Blue Roses and I bought one.
Tuesday - Today I had booked an appointment to use the laser cutter. We had played with the idea to have the logo embossed on the card wallet that would be hidden under the dust jacket.
I got the logo on wood but I decided that because it was so small and fine and that I'd have to make another CD wallet I wouldn't use the emboss idea. I was becoming very frustrated at this point as I still hadn't printed the inner booklet for the CD and I wasn't happy with the dust jacket just being white. I thought it defiently needed something more. Also, the CD had come from the dusty scene in our main image therefore the jacket should look at least though it was dusty.
I couldn't sleep the night before as dust jacket problem was on my mind so I was very tired and aggitated. I tried many ideas and none of which were working. I scanned in the wooden logo I had lasered covered in dust and it look quite awful.
I gave up on this in the evening. I was really worried about the way things were looking at this point. Jade had gone for a collaboration meeting and it was just Sarah and I left. I had finally printed the booklet and so I sat in the studio trying to stitch it all together. Because of my frustration I found it very difficult to stitch. It took me much longer than I expected after much cursing and hopelessness I finally got both booklets stitch and attached to the CD wallets.By this time I went home and had my tea. I still wanted to get this dust jacket completed so I quickly came up with an idea where I simply lightly sprinkled the fake dust onto some paper and scanned it in and this time is actually looked good. Not too murky or overdone. I then went to the library and stayed until I had completed the dust jackets and bone folded them and fitted them to the CD wallets. I left the library just after midnight but I was very happy and relieved.
Wednesday - We all met up and I showed the group the CD wallets. They liked what I had done overall but Lauren wanted to change/add a thing or two - a border on the dust jacket cover, changes to the blue ribbon bookmark, etc.
At this point, the website was cmplete and all we had to do was the postcards, the CD sticker design and script & reherse our presentation. I knew we had a lot to do but I knew we could do it in time tomorrow if we all worked at it hard all day. One thing I was concerned about was that the postcards still weren't complete. I did get annoyed at this but I understood that Sarah wasn't too familiar with Photoshop so editing and printing was quite a challenge for her.
We spent most of the day designing the CD sticker and then I went to Hobs to get it printed onto a CD sticker. I thought thus would be simple enough but in the end it took Hobs 2 hours to do. They couldn't get the design to match the circular shape and I had to put the designs into Illustrator and then into InDesign and then eventually we had something that although wasn't perfect it was close enough.
I got back to uni with the CD stickers and the card for Sarah to print the postcards on. When she showed us the finished postcards we all noticed that some things still were not right. So we had to spend another hour correcting the postcards. Although it wasn't any one person's fault I just couldn't believe that it had taken 3 days to make 3 postcards.
Thursday 4 February 2010
Thursday 4th February
John brought in his Vaughan Oliver book and I was really inspired by his work. I loved the way he combined many different elements and fonts into his designs. If you tried to explain this style to another design person they would probably think it would turn out to be a mess but with Vaughan's work is somehow works!!
I read this book with our lyric pages in mind as I am usually reserved when it comes to choosing fonts and layouts. The book showed me more adventurous and fun ways of laying out text that wasn't falling into Neville Brody/ David Carson territory which I was very afraid of doing. I don't want to mess around with text/layout just for the sake of doing it and the same time I didn't want some boring page full of text that wouldn't really entice anyone to read what was written.
I have listened to Blue Roses music but I cannot remember the beat or rhythm each song so I based my experimentation with the text what I read on the page. I emphasised certain words/lines, etc and generally just tried to make the page look a little more interesting also having a different font for the title of the track and a different font for the body text.
The team were pleased with the lyric pages and agreed that it was much better than our original boring pages.
Jade and Lauren worked really hard on our logo. It was quite frustrating for me as I thought it was taking a long time but I know that is just down to my impatience. I was unfair in my getting annoyed. I didn't attempt to do a logo myself but this was because I wanted to concentrate on the lyric pages and I didn't see the point in all of us doing different logos. I tried to help Jade but I wasn't much use.
After returning from the Mac suite I saw the logo and I thought it was great! I couldn't believe how great it looked especially as earlier I was getting fed up with the whole thing. The only thing I wasn't keen on was the Helvetica font used and this was purely down to the fact that I have learnt of it corporate logo history in America. I suggest (and insisted) upon Gill Sans instead. It is different enough without being too different but I felt it also had more suitable connotations the obvious one being the Britishness of it! The band it British and have this retro-britishness about them so I thought it was perfect. Apparently Mike preferred Helvectica because he liked the look of it's 'R'. I recalled Mike commented on the letter R in the font he chose for his Bellini poster so I think he chose Helvetica purely on this basis.
I really liked the constrast between the decorative pattern and the sans serif font (which I hear one or two other students didn't but I was glad of this!)
Despite what I just said about the constrast of decorative and sans serif I did a quick variant on the logo (which we're not going to use).
Wednesday 3 February 2010
Wednesday 3rd January
After the photo-shoot yesterday I was positive about the direction we were taking with the album. I loved the idea that we had completely stripped down our original idea (which for me is usually the way it goes!) We had new images with more focused ideas. We had close-up shots of the dusty objects for our 'postcard' or 'collector's card' idea BUT we didn't have a good enough picture of the whole scene that we feature in our center pictures. This was mainly because I had only just convinced the whole team about the 'clean-spot' idea in the dust.
We met up today and caught up with sketchbook work and then put all of our focus and attention on the logo for the band and the fonts we were going to use in the booklet and whatever else we get to create for the band. It was very slow going and Lauren became frustrated. We toyed around with the idea about having decorative/ornamental type and spoke to Jon Spencer about this and got some info on the history, etc.
After speaking to John Young about fonts and him showing us examples of Vaughan Oliver's work with music albums and his unique style of typesetting the lyrics in the booklet we we're confident and more motivated to try out different styles of fonts, combining different fonts, having small decorative symbols on the pages, etc.
John said he would bring in his Vaughan Oliver books in tomorrow to show us good examples that we could possibly use. I am looking forward to just seeing the books for myself. I am considering buying them for myself as I am a fan of his album artwork and in college tutor's had recommended I look at his work as I worked in (I assume) a similar fashion.
We met up today and caught up with sketchbook work and then put all of our focus and attention on the logo for the band and the fonts we were going to use in the booklet and whatever else we get to create for the band. It was very slow going and Lauren became frustrated. We toyed around with the idea about having decorative/ornamental type and spoke to Jon Spencer about this and got some info on the history, etc.
After speaking to John Young about fonts and him showing us examples of Vaughan Oliver's work with music albums and his unique style of typesetting the lyrics in the booklet we we're confident and more motivated to try out different styles of fonts, combining different fonts, having small decorative symbols on the pages, etc.
John said he would bring in his Vaughan Oliver books in tomorrow to show us good examples that we could possibly use. I am looking forward to just seeing the books for myself. I am considering buying them for myself as I am a fan of his album artwork and in college tutor's had recommended I look at his work as I worked in (I assume) a similar fashion.
Tuesday 2nd February
We saw Chris R today and explained our ideas to him and where we were up to. He liked our ideas - the dust, the book, etc - but he pointed out that these ideas were not gelling together in their present state.
He showed us the Radiohead album Amnesiac which was also has book style package (in its special edition form). It is a hardback and inside there was library stamp card - very old school. From there we looked at the other pages that were mainly image based; a collection of collages merging drawing and photography and it was all quite contempory especially compared with the books cover and the library stamp system. We talked about how this was appropriate for the band Radiohead and they are an experimental band, merging many genres, styles, instruments, etc.
We were creating an older style of book to suit the Blue Roses but I also thought it would be a good idea to combine old and new. At this point, after hearing Chris' feedback and input we were all a little lost, frustrated and fed-up as we had spent along time making images, creating styles, etc and we couldn't really put it all together. Plus, we knew we also had another photography session in the afternoon and we needed to decide exactly what we were doing.
Chris gave us great ideas and themes to explore like 'lost' objects, things that once belonged to someone and had a purpose but were now forgotten about.
After further discussion we decided that perhaps we should completely simplify our book: have a hard cover with dust jacket, the pages that follow will be mainly text based featuring the band's lyrics and in the center spread we'd have a picture of a 'dust scene'. The center pages would be our only imagery and we thought this would be an interesting constrast and would work with our lost/found theme as the reader would almost 'find' the image hidden in the middle of the book.
Another idea I had was that in our photograph we should show that something has been removed with a clean-spot in the dust and the missing object would be the actual CD that the person is seeing the image in (if that makes sense). I thought although not 'geneous' it would get an 'ahhh' from people who discovered it and it also shows that the CD has also come from this forgotten place. This would be further emphasised by the 'dusty' dust jacket.
He showed us the Radiohead album Amnesiac which was also has book style package (in its special edition form). It is a hardback and inside there was library stamp card - very old school. From there we looked at the other pages that were mainly image based; a collection of collages merging drawing and photography and it was all quite contempory especially compared with the books cover and the library stamp system. We talked about how this was appropriate for the band Radiohead and they are an experimental band, merging many genres, styles, instruments, etc.
We were creating an older style of book to suit the Blue Roses but I also thought it would be a good idea to combine old and new. At this point, after hearing Chris' feedback and input we were all a little lost, frustrated and fed-up as we had spent along time making images, creating styles, etc and we couldn't really put it all together. Plus, we knew we also had another photography session in the afternoon and we needed to decide exactly what we were doing.
Chris gave us great ideas and themes to explore like 'lost' objects, things that once belonged to someone and had a purpose but were now forgotten about.
After further discussion we decided that perhaps we should completely simplify our book: have a hard cover with dust jacket, the pages that follow will be mainly text based featuring the band's lyrics and in the center spread we'd have a picture of a 'dust scene'. The center pages would be our only imagery and we thought this would be an interesting constrast and would work with our lost/found theme as the reader would almost 'find' the image hidden in the middle of the book.
Another idea I had was that in our photograph we should show that something has been removed with a clean-spot in the dust and the missing object would be the actual CD that the person is seeing the image in (if that makes sense). I thought although not 'geneous' it would get an 'ahhh' from people who discovered it and it also shows that the CD has also come from this forgotten place. This would be further emphasised by the 'dusty' dust jacket.
Monday 1st February
Although we were all in on Friday we didn't actually meet up and discuss any further on our ideas or about the presentation on Thursday. So today was a catch-up in my eyes where we discussed the events of last week and shared any further ideas that had developed over the weekend.
We had an intense discussion of exactly how our ideas were going to work. We had lots of ideas and had a general idea of how it would all work but when we actually attempted to visualise the final product we realised that maybe as a whole not everything would work.
We want to create our CD packaging as a book with a hardcover and a dust jacket. The hardcover would just be a faded blue colour and made of a canvas material similar to old books we had found. We wanted the pages to follow this old book style (off-white coloring, times-style font, etc) but realsied that our images as they were would perhaps look to conpempory for this style of book.
I toyed around with the idea that maybe this clash of old and new would create an interesting hybrid and could possibly work. I saw Blue Roses in a similar fashion: they were a folk band with a retro/traditional style but they were a modern band and their sound did have a modern sound buried beneath it's traditional roots.
After this we discussed the photo- shoot for tomorrow and exactly what shots we wanted to get and what sort of narrative we wanted to create with our images. In the end we decided that the pages of the book could be a collection of song lyrics with images representing each one. For example, one of the Blue roses songs is about time stopping and for this we could use Lauren's grandfather's pocket watch that was actually broken and had 'stopped'.
We had an intense discussion of exactly how our ideas were going to work. We had lots of ideas and had a general idea of how it would all work but when we actually attempted to visualise the final product we realised that maybe as a whole not everything would work.
We want to create our CD packaging as a book with a hardcover and a dust jacket. The hardcover would just be a faded blue colour and made of a canvas material similar to old books we had found. We wanted the pages to follow this old book style (off-white coloring, times-style font, etc) but realsied that our images as they were would perhaps look to conpempory for this style of book.
I toyed around with the idea that maybe this clash of old and new would create an interesting hybrid and could possibly work. I saw Blue Roses in a similar fashion: they were a folk band with a retro/traditional style but they were a modern band and their sound did have a modern sound buried beneath it's traditional roots.
After this we discussed the photo- shoot for tomorrow and exactly what shots we wanted to get and what sort of narrative we wanted to create with our images. In the end we decided that the pages of the book could be a collection of song lyrics with images representing each one. For example, one of the Blue roses songs is about time stopping and for this we could use Lauren's grandfather's pocket watch that was actually broken and had 'stopped'.
Friday 29 January 2010
Friday 29th January
Yesterday we had our presentation with Mike, John and Ian. Unfortunately we didn't realise the presentation would be as formal as it was so our actual presentation skills left much to be desired.
I think the tutors were overall pleased with our 'Hidden' theme and covering objects in dust. We explained that we wanted our chosen objects to look as though the had been lost. The had once belonged to someone and had now been left to the elements.
Mike commented that some of the images 'worked' whilst others looked that they belonged in a 'nuclear winter' scene! Also we were informed that our images would be more effective if there was a narrative. The way I interperated this was that basically in one image we'd have all of our objects covered in dust and in another we have the same image with something missing, etc.
Overall I was pleased with our feedback from the presentation. Although it was painful presenting due to our poor preparation and having to improvise I believe that listening to the feedback from Mike about what was good/bad was incredibly helpful.
We need to be aware of our poses, what we talk about, visual examples of our inspirations, 'selling our idea' to the audience rather than talking as though we were in a crit, etc.
I think the tutors were overall pleased with our 'Hidden' theme and covering objects in dust. We explained that we wanted our chosen objects to look as though the had been lost. The had once belonged to someone and had now been left to the elements.
Mike commented that some of the images 'worked' whilst others looked that they belonged in a 'nuclear winter' scene! Also we were informed that our images would be more effective if there was a narrative. The way I interperated this was that basically in one image we'd have all of our objects covered in dust and in another we have the same image with something missing, etc.
Overall I was pleased with our feedback from the presentation. Although it was painful presenting due to our poor preparation and having to improvise I believe that listening to the feedback from Mike about what was good/bad was incredibly helpful.
We need to be aware of our poses, what we talk about, visual examples of our inspirations, 'selling our idea' to the audience rather than talking as though we were in a crit, etc.
Thursday 28 January 2010
Thursday 28th January
With our images we made 2 mock-up CD covers and a poster idea for the presentation in the afternoon.
I am pleased with these initial ideas.
I am pleased with these initial ideas.
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Wednesday 27th Jan
Team went to the photography studio and set up our props for the shoot.
We really wanted to experiment more with lighting but struggled to achieve exactly what we wanted. Whether or not that was down to not having all the correct equipment for the lighting I'm not sure.
We wanted to have dust floating in beams of light as though the light was shining through a window or door that was ajar. Unfortunately we couldn't achieve this effect. Reg explained that it was due to the density of our 'homemade dust'. It was probably too heavy to float and linger in the air for any period of time.
An idea I also had was to have multiple beams of light shining down/across to create a forest effect. The beams of light would represent the trunks of the trees. Again, we couldn't achieve this effect which I was really disappointed about. Reg explained the lighting wasn't powerful enough. We are going to have another photo-shoot next week and so I am going to bring a torch and see if i can create this light-beam effect with that. Eventually with achieve an effect that suggested a door was open and light was sneaking in and highlighting certain objects/areas of our scene.
From a narrative point of view I saw this as our 'scene' that had been forgotten about for hundreds of years had finally been rediscovered.
I was very pleased with the images we got.
We really wanted to experiment more with lighting but struggled to achieve exactly what we wanted. Whether or not that was down to not having all the correct equipment for the lighting I'm not sure.We wanted to have dust floating in beams of light as though the light was shining through a window or door that was ajar. Unfortunately we couldn't achieve this effect. Reg explained that it was due to the density of our 'homemade dust'. It was probably too heavy to float and linger in the air for any period of time.
An idea I also had was to have multiple beams of light shining down/across to create a forest effect. The beams of light would represent the trunks of the trees. Again, we couldn't achieve this effect which I was really disappointed about. Reg explained the lighting wasn't powerful enough. We are going to have another photo-shoot next week and so I am going to bring a torch and see if i can create this light-beam effect with that. Eventually with achieve an effect that suggested a door was open and light was sneaking in and highlighting certain objects/areas of our scene.From a narrative point of view I saw this as our 'scene' that had been forgotten about for hundreds of years had finally been rediscovered.
I was very pleased with the images we got.
Monday 25 January 2010
Monday 25th Jan
Met with the team today and we all exchanged ideas that we had generated over the weekend based on our chosen theme: Secrets.
I had example of people camouflaged against walls covered in decorative paint and thought that this would be a very creative and fun and varied path to explore. Although it could prove to be difficult to execute if we used actual people against walls.
Jade brought in little boxes and trinkets/lockets, etc and explained that secrets things could be kept inside.
Sarah brought in various images of vintage wallpapers which would work well with my camouflaged idea.
Lauren had watched the 1993 film The Secret Garden and she showed the team a scene from the film where the lead character wanders around a grand, old and unfamiliar house exploring forgotten rooms where the furniture had been covered with blankets and dust. The little girl snoops into drawers and finds a large key (which turns out to the key to the Secret Garden).
From watching this scene I came about the idea of having dust covering various objects such as Jades little boxes, lockets, etc. I thought this was a variation of the camouflage idea and would represent something that had been locked away and forgotten about like a secret. I thought dust would create rather dark imagery and mystery and perhaps even a sense of magic? The pictured lots of gray and black with dust lingering in the air.
We talked about having a dressing table covered in various items and all covered in dust: mirror, lockets, diary, boxes, tins - keeping it into the theme of 'secrets' where things can be stired safely or hidden. The mirror would be more metaphorical as it witnesses many things, for example. We could perhaps have some sort of imagery created from a reflection.
After our discussion we ventured into town and bought various items for our theme as well as flour and charcoal to create our dust. I suggested we used the dust from my vacuum cleaner but the girls weren't too keen on this idea!
We returned to Uni and proceeded to create a quick mock-up scene of a table top (or some wooden surface) with our items sitting on and have it all covered in our 'dust'.
I had example of people camouflaged against walls covered in decorative paint and thought that this would be a very creative and fun and varied path to explore. Although it could prove to be difficult to execute if we used actual people against walls.
Jade brought in little boxes and trinkets/lockets, etc and explained that secrets things could be kept inside.
Sarah brought in various images of vintage wallpapers which would work well with my camouflaged idea.
Lauren had watched the 1993 film The Secret Garden and she showed the team a scene from the film where the lead character wanders around a grand, old and unfamiliar house exploring forgotten rooms where the furniture had been covered with blankets and dust. The little girl snoops into drawers and finds a large key (which turns out to the key to the Secret Garden).
From watching this scene I came about the idea of having dust covering various objects such as Jades little boxes, lockets, etc. I thought this was a variation of the camouflage idea and would represent something that had been locked away and forgotten about like a secret. I thought dust would create rather dark imagery and mystery and perhaps even a sense of magic? The pictured lots of gray and black with dust lingering in the air.
We talked about having a dressing table covered in various items and all covered in dust: mirror, lockets, diary, boxes, tins - keeping it into the theme of 'secrets' where things can be stired safely or hidden. The mirror would be more metaphorical as it witnesses many things, for example. We could perhaps have some sort of imagery created from a reflection.
After our discussion we ventured into town and bought various items for our theme as well as flour and charcoal to create our dust. I suggested we used the dust from my vacuum cleaner but the girls weren't too keen on this idea!
We returned to Uni and proceeded to create a quick mock-up scene of a table top (or some wooden surface) with our items sitting on and have it all covered in our 'dust'.
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