EXISTENCE = ERROR EVALUATION

RESEARCH

Our initial research stemmed from being inspired from the experimental films we were shown in class, experimental films such as Berlin Horse, Black Ice and the works of Pipilotti Rist. After being shown these works, we developed an understanding as to what an experimental film looked like, or what it was about, and how we could get our idea into the filming stage. Also, we researched into news articles on the advance and overtake the digital world has in this century, and the cause and effect it has in negative and positive ways. The concept of our film developed from our short film we created with the theme of digital materialisation. This subject interested us a lot, as we are prime consumers of the internet and the digital world, we wanted to see and show how controlling and invasive the internet is. We discussed how we felt about the digital world and we came to a conclusion it is incredibly invasive and overbearing, so this was what we wanted to be displayed through our film.

PLANNING

With an already strong concept for our film, planning came very naturally and easy to us both as we didn't have to finalise an idea. I think this was what made the whole process of this film so smooth and everything went to plan and we stuck to our schedule. We creating extensive and rigorous shooting scripts that made sure we included extra shots, and everything we needed so we didn't need to come back and film again due to lack of footage. We definitely had enough footage!

As for the voice over, we searched all over the internet for a voice that we felt was robotic enough to our liking and that we could control what they said. When we found the right voice, we created a script of words and phrases we wanted the robot voice to say. We carefully scripted her to match the clips we had so the voice and the clip would correlate.

DEVELOPMENT

From the start we knew what we wanted to achieve visually but, this didn't stop our concept from blossoming and developing during our filming week. Initially we look into using a lot of archive footage and how we could display our message of digital overload through archival works. However this developed into us thinking about displaying the work on ourselves, then Danielle said she had a projector, so we set about collecting and testing that our. Once we were happy with our test shots we went back to filming with our fresh and newly developed idea, We used the projector to project archive footage we sourced and glitches we made onto ourselves, in order to demonstrate that the glitches were apart of us and consuming us.

Despite setting off to film with a clear and strong idea, through thought and development of our concept and visuals of the film, it created a stronger film with more depth to it. We both recognised on the first filming day that the things we were shooting we good, but not our best. The use of discussing and developing meant we came back on day two with more solid ideas that we were proud of.

EDIT

I feel the editing process went efficiently, and smoothly. We decided to set a section of the film to complete, so we didn't feel overwhelmed each day and feel rushed. This worked incredibly well, as we were fortunate enough to have two weeks editing, and we could stretch our editing timetable out, thus meaning we could spend more time with each section perfecting it. Before this I had created a sound track to accompany the film, we both agreed we wanted a soundtrack to add emotion and depth to the film, so I went about recording old computer sounds and manipulating them into a sound piece. We devised a plan of the order of the clips, so it was just a simple task to order and cut them down in Premier Pro. We knew we wanted to glitch our clips, so we created a finish edit in Premier Pro and then imported that file into After Effects. We then watched a lot of tutorials demonstrating how to glitch moving image and set about glitching the entire film. As long a process as this was we learned a lot of new skills from After Effects which is always beneficial. When initially creating this film, we didn't want our lack of After Effects skills to stop us from creating a film we are proud of, so learning along the way was incredibly helpful and we learned a lot.

COMMUNICATION

I feel Danielle and I had very good and clear communication from pre to post production on this film. Even in between shooting days or editing days we would discuss ideas for development or a plan for the next day so we were both on track with the same idea. It was so beneficial we had such similar ideas for the visuals and technical side of the film, and by combining our skills together we created a film we are both so proud of, and couldn't have done without each other. By both of us having different skills we could help each other out, so Danielle knew my skills and how to do them and vise versa. It was an educational journey and certainly a lot of fun.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Personally I think our time management was flawless. We were both incredibly focused, dedicated and committed to this film. Through good planning and scheduling that then set us up for a very smooth film process which was actually enjoyable, which is rare for me as working under pressure normally makes me ill. We had a very clear and concise ideas and what visuals we wanted, meaning that it only took two days to complete shooting. This applied also during the editing as we planned what we wanted to focus on each day and this ensured we meticulously went through the edit so it was exactly how we wanted it, and had enough time to do so. Overall I am incredibly happy with our film, I feel proud of what we created and enjoyed thoroughly working with Danielle and would work with her again in the future.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

 

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - EDITING PROCESS III

Today was the day we wanted to get our film finished and exported. We would have been able to do that on the previous editing day, however we faces some After Effects issues where one of our effects stopped working a minute into the film. This was a major problem as the tutorial we followed didn't have this issue so we were trying to work out how to solve this problem. 

We had a look at the effect layer itself, we wondered if we had accidentally placed a key frame where it stopped, meaning we could simply undo the key frame and it would work. We then thought maybe we hadn't extended the duration of the effect enough, but that was fine and extended until the end of the video. We tried splitting the layer, and dragging it along to see if we could just continue the effect, but this didn't work. So we got a technician to come and have a look at the effect and what was going wrong, he suggested that we render the file as maybe after effects couldn't keep up with the effects we had put on. However, once the film was rendered the glitch wasn't moving. This was incredibly annoying, and just slowed down the whole process as it took a long time to render as the file was so big. We were so close to being finished with the film, but it was just this issue with one glitch that was stopping us from being complete. 

The technician came back to see how the render had gone, and we explained that the glitch still wasn't working at the same point, so it wasn't an issue with after effects, it was an issue with the effect. He then looked at the evolution equation of the fractal noise edit, and reset the equation we had entered. We then played the film from where the glitch stopped, and it started to play the glitch the whole way through. The problem was with the equation we had used on the evolution of the fractal noise, and our evolution had reached it maximum where the glitch had stopped originally. He also gave us some advice to help After Effects manage your files, its that if the audio or underscore is not essential to your effects or editing then remove it when putting into After Effects, then it renders quicker, and then you can just re import it into Premier Pro and it will work fine, and be a quicker render.

Once this was all sorted we had to change the framing size of our project as it was too small, so we just adjusted the sequence setting in Premier Pro and then re imported it into our After Effects composition. We then watched the film through again once more just to check all the effects were working, as our file had become so big with all the effects we had to make sure that they all ran. After watching it through, and everything worked we rendered the final edit finally!  

Altogether I am so happy with how the whole process of this film went. We developed an idea of a small film we made, and created something we both adore and are proud of. We were incredibly dedicated and organised with this film, and I think that shows through the final product. I am so happy and proud of the final film, and I feel it really demonstrates our view and message on the digital world, and digital overload as a whole. 

I feel no negatives with this whole process, we got all of our pre production paperwork handed in on time, so we had our project green lit. We then had extensive schedules and shooting scripts to keep us on track and capture our vision in the filming week. We managed to film in two days, and even in the filming process develop our idea even more into what it is now. In between this I finished off the soundtrack for the film, and slotted it in, when it came to editing week, which I am proud of. We then wasted no time getting into the post production, as we knew we had a lot on our hands, as our film would really come together in the post production with all the effects we made. As a team we were ambitious with our post production, but with the hard work and a lot of hours of practice we pulled it off. As we are both new to After Effects I wasn't sure if we would be able to get the glitches we wanted to, and would end up having to just give up and use an app to create the glitches but we kept going even through the difficult bits and did it! I am incredibly proud of our dedication and hard work with this film and I feel it really payed off. I feel Danielle and myself made a great and efficient team and would love to work with Danielle again in the future. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you. 

MULTI SCREEN MOVING IMAGE PORTRAITS (PROGRESSION)

After experimenting with the skills I have learned through the After Effects workshops, I created the look I wanted from my original multi screen idea. My idea is to have two screens of either me or someone else, and mask out their stomach on one screen, and mask out their face on the other. After this I will film clips I want to play through the face and stomach to create how I feel whilst being on my phone. This links with the brief by demonstrating my connection with the digital world. Below are some photos of how I explored this today. It is in the early stages so I haven't filmed anything so all the footage I used was previous work of mine.

As you can see, I imported an image into my new composite and create a circle mask using the shape tool, I then subtracted the mask so the image remained and the mask got rid of the photo. This then allowed me to import a video file and place it in the background, where it was visible through the mask I had just created. Of course this is still early days so isn't as precise as I would want it to be, this is just experimentation.

As for these images I did the same as the top image but created the mask lower, as I don't have a picture with someone's stomach in shot I just used the same image and moved the mask to demonstrate my thought process. However, when I do film my footage I shall ensure that I frame the screens to how I want so I can have the stomach in shot. 

The two screens will link by showing me do similar things but displaying through my head and my stomach how I feel. I find being on the phone weather it is texting or ringing someone quite stressful and makes me very anxious as I don't want to speak to people quite often, I like to be alone sometimes. So showing me text, with what is going on in my head on the screen, and showing me on the phone with what I feel in my stomach is a visual way of me trying to explain the anxiety I feel with digital technology and the digital world. I have chosen to do this subject as a creative way to express my frustration I have with my anxiety, and possibly choosing to express it in a creative way may ease some of the tension I feel. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you. 

DISPOSABLE CAMERA REVIEW

When doing my portrait series I came across some photographers that I was inspired by, and came to realise that they had used film photography instead of digital. I wrote a blog post explaining how I didn't feel comfortable shooting in film and much prefer digital as I can review the photo on the spot. However, I decided to challenge myself and bought a disposable camera and use it whenever I felt like instead of under pressure to make the experience more fun for myself. I just took the little camera around with me, and instead of reaching for my phone to capture a moment I used the film camera. Overall I feel ok with the photos, I'm not all that pleased with some of them as they are too under exposed or I have taken the photo too close to it just looked washed out. But, this is a learning process so I should be patient with my results. Below are some of my photos from one roll of film:

Suburbia

Lakeside

Demolition

Sunset

Slot machine

Greenery

Botanist boy

Gift shop

Harbour walk

Torquay 

Good morning

Pancakes

Danielle

Cluster

Shake shack

Like I said, overall I feel ok with the photos. I don't feel particularly sad or happy about them as they are a mixed bunch of photos. However, I have noticed what has worked in the ones that are well exposed and shot as suppose to the under exposed ones. 'Cluster' is probably one of the nicest photos as I remember having the sun behind me on a sunny day, with my friends just the right amount of distance from me. The film camera roughly estimates the ISO to be at 400, which I tried to factor in when taking my photos weather flash would be beneficial or not. I noticed that 'Sunset' and 'Demolition' came out quite well, the colours are still saturated and am surprised the camera picked them up from the sky. One of my favourites from the bunch is definitely 'Slot machine' another photography fear or mine is using neon lights in my work, even though I am so drawn to and mesmerised by them, but I love how this had turned out as I feel it has got the arcade lights just right. The photos that I felt didn't go well were 'Pancakes' and 'Shake shack' and I reckon (I'm no expert though) that it is because the items (food) I was taking photos of were too close to the camera and the flash, therefore just washed the image out completely, losing any colour from what I wanted to capture which is a shame but it happens. Overall though I think it was a good thing for me to experiment with in my own time as it took away the pressure for the photos to be perfect. I would try this process again in the future as I feel I have learned what works and why and what doesn't work and why which is the most important part of this experiment. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - EDITING PROCESS II

After getting all of our rushes and audio sorted and exported we opened After Effects ready to glitch. As myself and Danielle are quite new to After Effects we watched a couple of tutorials on how to achieve a glitch effect that we liked. We found a video that we liked the glitches of and it showed us how to do lots of different glitches so we set about following the tutorial. The tutorial involved us creating and using lots of different effects such as:

1. CC Griddler
2. Mask layers
3. Hue
4. Saturation
5. Curves
6. Fractal noise

These were some of the effects we used. This far we have 11 layers but we want to create a few more effects so we estimate to have between 15-20 layers in the composite. involved in this tutorial were some equations to distort certain values in some of the equations. In the picture below you can see us manipulating the values with equations that we wrote. This creates the effects that we want.

We also wanted to create different glitches across the film instead of the same one continuously, so we duplicated the layers with the glitch on, and experimented with the hue and saturation to create a red glitch. We really liked the look of this, but it was too extreme for the entire film, so we decided to place the read glitch over the archive footage and the title sequence. Below are some screenshots of the red glitch we created:

Title sequence

Archive footage

We are still in the process of creating the glitches and making sure they run smoothly. This was in no way an easy process and took a lot of time to create the glitches we wanted but I am proud of what we have done so far, and glad we have pushed ourselves to create what I hope will be a great film. 

I hope enjoy. Thank you. 

EXPERIMENTAL FILM - EDITING PROCESS

After collecting all the rushes we needed for our film, we then moved on to the editing process. we knew this was where our film would really come together as lots of the film relies on post production visuals. Some challenges we would face were the use of three different softwares, but so far this hasn't seemed much of a challenge. Calling on my skills from Audition I created a soundtrack to enhance and fit our film to create an atmosphere. I used the sound of Dial up internet, the notification sound from MSN and a few other sounds. When I felt happy with the track i showed Danielle to make sure she was happy with it too, luckily she was. So then came editing day 1.

Firstly, I put all of our rushes into the same folder to make sure the project file could find them all. Then opened a Premier pro project and imported all of the clips. Danielle and I decided to make a list of the order we wanted the film to take so it would speed up the editing process. Once we were happy with our list and order I trimmed down the clips we wanted to use then dragged them onto the timeline. We then had to scale to frame size all the clips and unlink the audio as it is redundant in our film. After this, we then started to cross cut between archive and our own footage and experiment with the video opacity to layer two clips on top of each other. Then we selected which of the robotic voiceover we wanted , and where we wanted them and started placing them on the timeline. As we recorded the robotic voiceover you could hear a lot of background noise, we wanted to make the audio sound as clear as possible so I added exponential fade to each side of the audio clips so I could mask the background noise better. After this we had to adjust the volume levels of the voiceover as she was peaking too much and overriding the soundtrack so we leveled it all out. We were then incredibly happy with the film so we exported it out of Premier Pro into after effects ready to start glitching. 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.