When I first looked into studying at Manchester Metropolitan University, I was extremely sold by the idea of unit X and the chance to work with other departments from the School Of Art, bringing new ideas and experience in the other fields to the table. Allowing various departments to create a piece of Art, that had elements of each practice. Allowing myself to gain knowledge and experience of working with other individuals from various fields in the future.
I will have to start out by saying that unfortunately, I had a bad experience with this entire unit. After meeting my group, I had found myself doing all the work, and organizing the entire thing, with the exception of Rachel Kurs, who had assisted me in the logistics of the piece and taking the photographs, I had found ourselves being the only ones to turn up to meetings and the only ones to stay behind to complete the work.
Unfortunately, I had found Arthur would make up regular excuses as to not attend and to leave early, I personally found him extremely lazy.
Amelia, She was great to have around and boosted the group morale, although again, she wass not available when needed the most, and contributed little to none.
Rachel, shes was extremely interesting to work with, and I give credit where credit was due, she like myself, would make the hour long journey to meet up, to find myself and rachel were the only ones to arrive and had to finish work ourselves.
Amelia and Arthur, were unwilling to travel five minutes out of there way to do the simpliest of tasks, as it would have been an hour to and then an hour back for myself and Rachel.
I found this extremely stressful, as I found that it only seemed that myself and Rachel were the only ones willing to put the time into the unit. This then lead to me becoming extremely frustrated with the entire unit. I feel and in fact actually decided on the idea, organized the set up and finally edited the piece alone, Rachel had helped me complete the piece and shared my frustration with the group.
Unfortunately, I felt that the entire unit, was rushed in planning and was improvised as it went along. I understand film making is a sometimes stressful and dissappointing career, although I wish it was planned in detail prior. I found my view of my group extremely lacking, there inability to take burden of certain tasks only left it to myself to complete. I felt there was no branch to reach out to and no guidelines to encourage the other members of the group to contribute, I feel they felt like they were on vacation and just watched as myself and Rachel did all the hard work. I went into this unit with high expectations and excitement in working with another set of individuals with artistic qualities, I was greatly disappointed, and will reiterate I feel they are lazy and unprofessional.
I have finished this unit, with what I can only explain as "having a bad taste in my mouth" I do not wish to work with photographers again.
Monday, 18 May 2015
Post Production
I had booked out a editing suite in hopes that my group would attend and join me in the process of editing the image, unfortunately I was notified that my group would not attend, so I decided to edit at home, as I was alone in the process.
I had originally intended to use After affects for the editing of the piece, although after a day of trying to make it work adding 3d elements to the images, I couldnt get the software to do what I needed it to do, therefore I decided to change over to an alternative, Cinema 4D, a 3d editing environment, both for cinema and scene creation and also for model building and animation.
I found working in a 3D environment where I could see the piece coming together and alter the setup with ease, far more simpler. I spaced each image out, and made the first image the biggest, going down in size consecutively throough each image, I then set up a camera, keypoint each movement as I moved the camera through each image. I had originally used 4000 frames ( which roughly accumalates to 2-3 mins of runtime). Unfortunately, this is where I ran into many problems, for that many frames my computer, did not have enough memory, and after 2 hours of rendering the video file was corrupt and incomplete, I finally discovered this was the problem, both too late and after 3 attempts of rerendering it out. I then had to go back and reanimate the entire piece, using 400 frames instead of 4000, although this would dramatically alter the runtime, and gave me 15 seconds of footage, I was able then to take that footage into video editing software, and lengthen the process, and adding affects.
I had originally intended to use After affects for the editing of the piece, although after a day of trying to make it work adding 3d elements to the images, I couldnt get the software to do what I needed it to do, therefore I decided to change over to an alternative, Cinema 4D, a 3d editing environment, both for cinema and scene creation and also for model building and animation.
I found working in a 3D environment where I could see the piece coming together and alter the setup with ease, far more simpler. I spaced each image out, and made the first image the biggest, going down in size consecutively throough each image, I then set up a camera, keypoint each movement as I moved the camera through each image. I had originally used 4000 frames ( which roughly accumalates to 2-3 mins of runtime). Unfortunately, this is where I ran into many problems, for that many frames my computer, did not have enough memory, and after 2 hours of rendering the video file was corrupt and incomplete, I finally discovered this was the problem, both too late and after 3 attempts of rerendering it out. I then had to go back and reanimate the entire piece, using 400 frames instead of 4000, although this would dramatically alter the runtime, and gave me 15 seconds of footage, I was able then to take that footage into video editing software, and lengthen the process, and adding affects.
Setting up the piece
I had required a single room, a Old TV, A HD projector and a 16mm projector for the piece, which I was fortunate to actually aquire all on the same day as production.
We set up in a room, setting the HD projector up displaying our chosen photograph, the challenge for this was making sure everything would be center so that it would make for a easier transistion to the next scene. We also had problems with the lighting as taking a photograph of a projection, has complications when capture lightsources e.g. the image the projector was projecting.
We had to ensure the lighting and equipment was all center throughout this process, taking each image and carefully removing and replacing the objects (Old TV, 16mm projector) making sure they too were center as to ensure that in the editing stage it would flow.
We set up in a room, setting the HD projector up displaying our chosen photograph, the challenge for this was making sure everything would be center so that it would make for a easier transistion to the next scene. We also had problems with the lighting as taking a photograph of a projection, has complications when capture lightsources e.g. the image the projector was projecting.
We had to ensure the lighting and equipment was all center throughout this process, taking each image and carefully removing and replacing the objects (Old TV, 16mm projector) making sure they too were center as to ensure that in the editing stage it would flow.
Final Piece
For the exhibition piece, I came up with the idea to create a piece transistioning through different forms of media, from a HD projection, into a old TV screen and then finally into a old 16mm projection. I decided it would be a challenging piece to work on, due to the logistics of the piece, how we would set it up and how it would be accomplished.
I decided that, taking pictures from a distance of the projection and then photoshoping that picture into the next scene would be the only viable option for making it work.
I toyed around with the idea of actually inputting the image on the Old TV and the 16mm projector, although due to backwards compatiblity and timeframe, this was not realistic.
I decided that, taking pictures from a distance of the projection and then photoshoping that picture into the next scene would be the only viable option for making it work.
I toyed around with the idea of actually inputting the image on the Old TV and the 16mm projector, although due to backwards compatiblity and timeframe, this was not realistic.
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