project 2: graphics film

{28/10/13 - 01/11/13}

 

DAY 1

For the first day of the graphics pathway we watched a film about everything to do with the font 'Helvetica', who created the font and how it is now been a generalised font that is seen everywhere and used by everyone (Clothing stores, traffic signs, textbooks etc). There were many well-known people that was interviewed in the film such as Rick Poyner, Neville Brody, Mario Pricken etc. The film holds many opinions towards the constant use of 'Helvetica', some suggested it has a psychological aspect of having a 'clean cut', refreshing and inviting feel (Maybe the reason many newspapers and brands use it) but someone (can't remember his name) said how it was boring and didn't have an identity. It led me thinking of how important is to choosing the right font for the appropiate theme.

"Type is saying things to us all the time. Typefaces express a mood, an atmosphere. They give words a certain coloring." - Rick Poyner

After the film we was put into groups of five to six and then blu tac the Project 1 submission that was due for today. At first I was hesitate because it was going to be judged by a lot of people I didn't know and so I didn't know how people would react to my piece. However talking to someone in my group, she told me how someone commented on it being cute. At the end everyone put their submissions and I was more interested in people's work rather than worrying. What I've learnt from this mini activity is the different ways of showing one's identity in a form of art and tying in the graphic root, I saw typography, photography, illustration, photoshop etc. I think this activity can be use in practice when different artistic people work together and perhaps come up with an idea with help of each individual.

After Break we gathered around and each person representing each group and picked a word subject to work with, my group was assigned to 'Freedom'. Our task as to create a 1 - 2 minute short film with our group and a individaul poster advertising it. At first I was relieved about my group's word based on the other words that was selected for the other groups, I had a clear idea of what associates with freedom. So we went to our group and with an A1 paper, we brainstormed ideas and connotations of freedom.

We came up with a reasonable amount of words and talked about how we can translate it into using type into our film. There were suggestings like 'breaking free', 'breaking the law' and 'race in America' but we wanted to heavily focus on type and we came up with the idea of graffiti and in a way of something being frown upon and expressing identity, style and colour all in one. During the discussion we saw that the element of movement was a big aspect in terms of finding a place to graffiti and the freedom of movement (so travelling in places by public transport), so we decided to add the tube map as part of our film. The idea of colour was also an idea of expressing identity by the clothes people wear and people dyeing their hair different colour. This task wasn't particularly hard because my group had similar ideas and so each of us could build up the idea and some how look at in a different way and question it.

After lunch we finalised our film and made sure everyone was on the same page and it seems our time managing was very quick compared to other groups and the given time for the planning, so my group spent the afternoon on the technical aspect and how the film will work and distribute the work that we would do on Tuesday (SDS day) ready for Wednesday. So we did a draft of a storyboard with eight frames and decide what happens in each frame.

Our idea
Our idea was to mainly focus graffiti by each person going to different places known to have graffiti and record their visit with pictures and videos, the graffiti itself has type in it and so our film will meet that criteria. We decided to have a voice over to make sure it's clear to how graffiti relates to freedom, and so a voice over will be present in the majority of the film.

1. The introduction will be a speed painting(?) of someone graffiting the word 'Freedom', it will show obviously of what we will be focussing on with the subject of freedom. [The transition will be faded]
2.It will show a clean remade of our existing brainstorm we did as a group, using the graffiti from the introduction as the main bubble. [The transition will somehow use the connecting lines from the brainstorm and turn them into the tube maps, it will show our idea of movement]
3. The tube map with the names of places we used to capture pictures and videos of graffiti. [The transition is zooming in to the one place]

4. It will show pictures and videos of graffiti in the Camden by each person in the group. [The transition is zooming out to the tube map and zooming in to another place] (This repeats for 5. (Waterloo) & 6. (Brick Lane))

7. It will show a slideshow(?) about colour and ties it in with graffiti too

8. Credits

I think during the planning of the story boards, it was helpful that everyone participated and said their intake of opinion to the group. For me it was okay as I am normally a quiet person but I try to push myself to talk and help the group.

DAY 2

For the morning portion of day 2 of the graphic rotation, we all watched examples of short films that used typo and illustrate a message to the viewers in a visually way. What I personally liked is the kinetic typography that was shown to us, it looked very time consuming and irriating to match the type to the beat of the song however it gave a polished and clean look that is easy to read and the viewers can get lost in the transitions. One of the short films that catched my eye was the campaign about pollution and it was done by only type, it showed a clear representation of the effects of pollution and successful spread their message. There were other examples from FigTree, The Post-It Love (By Si & Ad) and Ronny Edry: Irsael & Iran - A Love Story? I think being exposed to many methods and ideas that still had the type element to the film it opened up my imagination of the possibility of expressing a song, view, message etc. 

So after break my group went to combine our footage/images we individual took from our SDS (yesterday), because of everyone participating and had the footage needed for today, the process of creating the short film ran smoothly without any major faults. As we had one main editor in our group, we gathered around and also voiced our opinion (e.g. how certain bits being slower so viewers can read the words) and make the film easy to read, there wasn't any problems with clashing opinions and so I think we were successful in working together. My group didn't face any struggle as we manage to do the prep of the film yesterday, so we made sure we was equiped for today to prevent wasting time, so during yesterday my members learnt to animate, went to places with graffiti, filmed the intro etc. What surprised me was how it reflected our story board clearly and it links to the original plan, it's pleasing to know my group successful done this although the storyboard didn't have much visuals.

At the afternoon everyone had to present their groups' story boards and tell us an insight of their short film and how they will approach the chosen word and how it is done. I was intriguted by the many methods people have chosen to do for their word and I could see the connection, also I did sense people being inspired by the short films Andy showed us in the morning. After pitching my group's idea, we did have some feedback about trying to link the footage/images of the places with graffiti so that it would flow well, I think my group managed to do that by only focusing on type graffiti instead of imagery.

DAY 3

The last day of Project 2 and my group spent our time finishing of our short film by adding quotes and our understanding to graffiti into the film, so we combine the elements and double checked if there were any changes to make and uploaded it to Youtube, I felt really acomplished and satisifed that we completed it early and in a way that it follows the brief and done what we intended to do. So the majority of the time we spend our space time to create posters that will advertise the short film.

My groups' individual posters

My poster is a collage of images I took when I went to Brick Lane, I wanted in corporate the type and graffiti in some way and so I used the clipping mask on Photoshop. It ties in the idea that my group visiualised and I think it's appropriate and fitting for our film, however I would improve this by adding credits like a real movie poster and also chose a different type if I had more time.

After lunch everyone gathered round to watch all the short films that were produced, from the week till now I am able to see the visual aspect compared to looking at people's storyboards and approaches to it. I liked how every group had an unique approach to their work and how they used type also, however I am pleased with my outcome as it reflect the storyboard we created during the week and it worked successfully. However receiving feedback from a peer a way to improve the short film would be to change the video formatting of the Waterloo footage as it was small and in a portrait format, although it was some technology difficulties, we could of paid more attention to making it flow more smoother and enlarge the footage somehow.

 

(Re-cap of the storyboard but using screen shots from the short film)

1. Graffiti of freedom

2. Storyboard

3. Tube map

4. Videos/images of Camden

5. Videos/images of Brick Lane

6. Videos/images of Waterloo

7. Our understanding & quotes

8. Credits