I liked the drawing exercise we did (Exquisite corps) and found that the technique is a really constructive way of diversifying a unique character. After the warm up exercise I identified matching or similar colours form a magazine and composed a collage. I learned about the use of juxtapositions and found the perfect piece to contrast with the other colours making the eye rest its focus upon it. I think it worked well.
I have learned a new and easy way to create surrealist art and will definitely practice this again, I would like to expand on the technique and apply it further to understand surrealism more in depth.
I’m having difficulty piecing the presentation together.
The Presentation Structure helped me identify different parts, and therefore understand how we need to fill in the content.
I was surprised that this has been one of the hardest things for us to do as a group.
Peer and self assessment
We looked at the peer and self assessment, I found it easy to fill in the answers regarding myself. It was also easy to answer the questions about the peers, but when it came to the reasoning behind it I struggled defining in the comments section.
Geraldine had already set the tone and asked the group if we were all comfortable with participating in the task. This made me mindful of the fact that it could be a sensitive area and that I should proceed with respect to my fellow peers. I had to think hard about my comments and tried to be fair and to the point, praising them, and writing about improvements they could possibly undertake. This really challenged me because it was unknown territory, I felt uncomfortable writing about other people. Commenting made me reflect on myself and I wondered what type of things someone would write about me?!
Group dynamics:
It’s the last push to get the project finished.
I am unhappy that the group work is suffering because some people in the group have left their individual work till the last minute. I don’t think this is fair on the people that have worked hard to be up to date, as due to putting more work in earlier the organised ones will also have a bigger workload now.
I voiced my observations, to clear the air, by doing so implementing professional etiquette. I have learned that people have different priorities and ways of doing things. I have come across this before and can now reflect on these encounters as ongoing and something I can only imagine will carry across into the real world post Uni. I’m ready for it, and have found a formula (upfront, honesty mixed with a little humour) to work with and to deal with such challenges, I don’t like conflict but I hate ignoring conflict even more.
It has surprised me that it’s hard to maintain professional practise at uni because I find applying professional practise techniques often gets a non-serious response. I find that when it comes to group participation tasks I bust out something I’ve picked up in pro practice, sometimes it creeps up on me and I don’t realise I’m doing it. For example today I used the 5 why’s (something I learned last year) in group discussion and got to the answer and solved a problem around creative thinking.
Idea Car Park: a free space for every body to park ideas.
I explored my personal code of conduct and was surprised that it was directly related to achieving personal, creative and career goals however I have realised that they change frequently.
Applying professional practise within the group project has been essential for the productivity and organisation. I found myself often being the enforcer, often reminding people of deadlines and generally taking lead within the group. I’ve learnt there is no set formula to dealing with people so I try to be honest, upfront, and transparent. I’ve realised that I have the ability to see or grasp a big picture and unfortunately all the small tasks that go with it, unfortunately I also struggle with communicating my ideas and organising myself in an easy way.
Leading the gang…Hahah!
If I could embrace a more proactive attitude it would serve me well as I take things to seriously. The ability to absorb any information or situation and choose to be upbeat and proactive at all times in response… Awesome!
Doing more physical exercise is something that I should do more of to maintain a healthy balance. I dwell on things for too long and could do with clearing the mind sometimes.
I seek to be more proactive in year 2, actively creating my own future, setting goals, and applying as many pro practice techniques and soft skills as I can learn. I really suck at putting myself out there and hope to make steps towards confidently collaborating and creating a profile. Roll on Year 2…
I think I’ve understood and practiced story within the course quite productively. When I learn a new technique or skill I try to exercise it so that I can under stand it better, for example after we looked at binaries and semiotics I couldn’t help myself identifying these in Films and TV series.
It surprised me how complex story is within film making (e.g. Sarah Polly’s “Stories we tell”), brand story and identity, advertisments and even how narrative is used when presenting a talk (e.g.ted talk). I can imagine myself as part of a design team working on story for a product or brand.
I found this whilst reserching how story is applied across different mediums.
I’ve discovered I enjoy writing stories and developing characters, something I would not have imagined in a million years if I hadn’t done this course. The only thing that brings me to a halt occasionally is freedom overload: the sheer multitude of possibilities available within the freedom of taking story any direction can be overwhelming. I sometimes also find it challenging to get started with a story.
Story can be deeply engaging and emotionally connecting.
Humans live and tell stories, learning that we do this automatically has helped me realise something that I’ve always taken for granted. I’ve learned the use of Story can influence and create strong, loyal bonds between people and products (also characters) resulting in positive financial return for businesses that apply these techniques well.
In my next learning year I seek to practice story writing in basic forms like short stories and song writing. (even quick sketch story boarding). Song writing is something that I have been stuck with for years but I’d like to give it another try using some of my newfound techniques. This course kickstarted an enthusiasm for story I didn’t know I had and motivated me to find a course online.
I’ve learned that story can be applied across several mediums, this is one I absolutely wish to pursue. Practice total recall techniques, where you use all of your scenes to recall the smallest of details in story. Create a repertoire of story telling skills that can be used alongside my product design learning. I definitely need to work on focus, organisation in relation to note taking, and written drafting.
Its’s crunch time, me and the group are working hard to finish the installation.
Its been hot and challenging so far, but I have mostly stayed positive and pushed on with the work. The binary code which Geraldine kindly printed out for us had to be cut with the guillotine to trim the edges, this took a while but I was surprised how soothing the action and sound was of chopping the paper. Hanging the binary code however was long, hard and hot, I had to combat doubt by keeping myself and the group motivated, telling ourselves it would be worth it in the end.
The room coming together
The room is coming together but it seems we need way more time and paper to make the space feel realistic or totally immersive. I feel like we should make an extra effort to make it as good as we can because we have already come so far with the project. Seeing it come together has helped me to think about the story in the video and we workshopped some ideas, my story homework draft helped me with this too.
Further experimenting with the lights.
I liked doing this and thought it to be a totally different outcome in comparison to the first light and paper tests within the empty room. I have learnt about prototyping and experimentation and am happy that in this instance we learned from the tests and have produced a good result.
Workshopping a revised story board for the video.
I felt that the group was pissed off to be doing Uni work on-site on a blisteringly hot public holiday. I surprised myself by implementing a step-by-step reality check system to work through the story board. I asked questions like “What have we got,” “what do we need,” ‘What do we need to get there,” and engaged everyone in group participation. I wasn’t happy that I had to drag the team along when all I wanted to do was go swimming.
I was quite chuffed that we produced such a story board until Jess came and found loads of holes in it and we had to start again lol!I learned from this that taking a step back or a break is a good idea and you should always revisit a project with fresh eyes before finalising.
Filming has taken ages but I’m confident that we have enough footage. I’ve learned to be very patient when working with film as people rarely have the same vision, I wish we had more time to workshop the production process properly.
We have tested the interactivity and learned a valuable lesson, just because we know what’s going on doesn’t mean that the idea will be clear to a new pair of eyes. A student came in and shot it down instantly, I have taken from that that we need to do more work on the call to adventure part of the interactivity part of the project. This could possibly be an email.
I’ve explored a variety of technologies within the course, I’ve enjoyed some things more than others, for example I definitely preferred filming and editing to photoshop which I still find complicated.
My enthusiasm for learning software has grown alongside my knowledge of basic technology skills. The exposure I’ve had of capturing film and photography has really surprised me in a positive way. I like doing this stuff, I would like to expand on experimenting with video and combined story… ‘Is there a hobby film maker in there?’ Haha!
Using illustrator to create a fake U cloud popup window for the video.
Technology is applied everywhere in today’s society.
I’ve come to learn that basic knowledge across creative technologies is essential when working within the creative industry. Even if I’m not doing graphic design, having basic knowledge of software and digital design will translate and help me communicate with other parts of the industry.
I made the mistake of not backing up my files and I lost them, this made me very angry, and when it came to do the technology assignment I found it really difficult reworking all the files. I will definitely organise my files and back them up to future proof against calamities with all future projects.
I would change my approach to learning new software such as Premier, Photoshop etc. I often start doing wacky things before I have learned the basics which leads to me not learning effectively.
I’ve learned that I like using software such as Premier pro and Illustrator.
In the year ahead I would like to learn how to draw with a Wakon tablet in illustrator and produce some t-shirts or posters by using screen printing with digital art, maybe explore and gather different material, and possibly make and edit a short film!
I need to work on communicating my ideas to others effectively to then produce work to be proud of.
Some art work I’ve been experimenting with in Illustrator
Anticipation |Painting/ layers, Photography photoshop collage technology, What i learned
what surprised me. What i didn’t like what made me happy l
I looked into cool stuff other people had done with paper mache. It surprised me how detailed people apply their skill using paper mache. I’m humbled and have to admit I totally underestimated the richness of possibilities this technique can offer.
I couldn’t wait to paint up my model and realised I was anticipating looking at the outcome all morning like a small child, lol!
I couldn’t wait to paint up my model and realised I was anticipating looking at the outcome all morning like a small child, lol! Painting it white was good call as I thought it worked well with the surrounds.
I thought about shadows and how to use them and tried to use them in my photos. I took serval photos In various places in the room and thought about taking it into the surrounding corridors when I noticed the window.I experimented with the light. Whilst I was doing so I noticed that It had taken on it’s on character and I could imagine what it might be saying, thinking! “something along the lines of “where am I”? “How do I get down from here” and “what Is that man doing taking Photos of me?? I liked playing with my imagination. Im not a confident photographer but I am happy with the results.
Looking at the pictures, I learned about softness and shadows white and dark can create. I think it looks great against the character. Also the contrast of the red brick background in one picture makes an interesting background for the main juxtaposition. I’ve never thought about photography like this before I am happy to of had an informative engagement with this exercise.
Photoshop collage:
I experimented with perspective in this photo and saw that the beads matched the shape of the character. I’ve learned that I have a sharp eye for detail.
Editing different camera angles and some colour gradients.
Using the DSLR camera was informative, we were challenged to use the manual settings. I’m glad we went over the operating functions in class before we started our group activity. I learned about the the differences with auto vs manual, the focus box and different lenses, I found out that the light is completely different when the camera is manually set.
I applied the manual function and used the camera differently in this mode, adjusting it differently because of the light. I tested myself further and played around with shooting and feel that I now have a more in-depth understanding of operating a camera.
Premier pro:
I understand it a bit better now, having practiced a bit doing my story assignment, I was happy to learn that I hadn’t forgotten everything I had practised previously.
Today I learned about cutting in and cutting out and inserting that into the timeline. I thought that was a great tip, but I felt more comfortable just slicing and deleting.
It was pretty hot in class and all I wanted to do was go to the beach. I felt myself getting inpatient, hot, and bothered. Importing the footage from the 4 different memory card felt like a mess around and was very confusing.
It was hard to use the colour-grading tool and I ended up going with a psychedelic light theme for some bits because it was too hard to match the light differences between clips. I do enjoy editing though! I have self-discovered that I am interested in improving my editing skills and will look into some small courses.
I think i’ve been a great participant in all the course tasks and have taken on board tips, tricks, and critique. I wasn’t surprised that I can’t draw lol! But I was surprised that applying some basic techniques can really improve the quality of work.
I felt really engaged when we altered a space within the Unitec campus as part of our class output. It gave me a reason to do random stuff (art), whether we created art or not Is besides the point but the fact that I had a reason to explore and create really exited me. I asked myself ‘Could there be an artist within me?’
An unexpected challenge was adapting to all the different techniques we explored through out summer school. I didn’t know what to expect but sometimes I really had to dig deep and think about stuff as alot of the time I have never done these things before.
Drawing
Photography
3D sculpting
I know I have a tendency to over-complicate things and I need to work on starting simple as opposed to simplifying later. Coming up with ideas that could be used within the design tasks was quite challenging, I often had to think about things for a few days before committing to a design. I probably worry too much about having a finished result that has a high standard and only go ahead with something if I can make it so. If I could do it differently then I would put that aside and just start doing stuff with little thought behind it as to see where the process can lead.
Self-motivation is something I would adjust, I’ve learned that drawing needs practice and especially practising new methods will greatly help me to improve my drawing / design capabilities. If I could apply routine, more frequent visual research (e.g. magazines, books, nature) and focus for the year ahead, setting aside time daily even weekly would see great improvements within my creative design skills. Not to mention the digital art and illustration and photography. These are other practices I wish to improve on in year 2. It’s hard to focus because there is so much cool stuff out there to learn.
Some other drawing I’ve done throughout the course expanding on some of the techniques I’ve learnt.
Devise short scene that integrates an image sequence from still photographs, graphic text,and(e.g. sound effect, music)
Task 2.
Acquire the image sequence and ingest them into the digital post-production environment.
File structure in Adobe bridge:
I secured my files by copying them. I used Naming and batch renaming to organise the stop motion images.
Stop motion footage, copy and project files organised in Adobe bridge.
I have one folder for the assignment files and tidy subfolders for each task.
Task 3.
Bring still images into photoshop and manipulate them. Export your work.
Exporting the work.
Happy Vegetable Gif
Task 4.
Acquire video footage, bring it into Premier and edit a piece together . Explore the use of titles in the video.
I experimented with the colour radiant tool in this video, first trying to match the light between clips. I thought it was really hard because of the extreme colour contrast so I ended up embracing it and going totally over the top and created a psychedelic funk feel.
Reworked Chase and running shenanigans with title features:
I’ve had problems with loading and have provided url underneath just in case there is any problems
Screen shot of my project workspace in Premier Pro, (check out the file organisation,lol!)
Task 5.
Exporting the sequence , format H.264 / You tube 1080 HD and naming the export file.
Task 6.
Upload the 1080 to you tube and embed it into your portfolio.
Task 7.
In your portfolio, write a short narrative about the process. Technically describe your steps and explain the decisions you made.
I used a dslr camera to gather still images for the stop motion, after which I used adobe bridge to open the files and organise them. I created correct file structures so that I could easily find and use them creating a good workflow. I imported the files into premier pro, after modifying the frame rate I dragged the stop motion images into the timeline. At this point I took the anticipated pleasure of playing all the captions as a complete sequence.
Now I could think about the title sequence, audio and background, I carefully considered the background and tried a few out before I settled on the twilight sky. It was slowly coming together. Now the audio, I looked on You tube for the licence free music and came across a surf sound, I used this but had to edit it so that the music fit with the footage.
I gathered footage for the chase scene, we used multiple cameras when filming so we shared the footage when it came too editing. I used my camera to do close up shots of the face and long range shots with people running towards the camera. I used the different angles in the video to prolong the running sequence and made this look like the chase was going on for ages.
I had to slice the clips and make them shorter as the scenes were often too long. When watching them I could feel when they needed to be cut, but getting the right point was trickier. The use of colour grading was meant to help with the light contrast between the clips, I ended up using the colour gradient to make it a funky and psychedelic opening sequence. I
n the reworked version I used the title tool to create some text within the composition. I experimented with positioning and scale and also applied some key framing to animate the text. I used an interesting font (meltdownff) because I thought it suited the scenery in the movie. File management takes time, but I did my best to keep them organised from the beginning. I used Footage, Project files and copies of the files to maintain a good file structure.
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