Friday 29 November 2013

Final Pieces





Final film displayed on a analogue television so it can be played in a loop.




Interactive flip book.





Development : Flipbook progress and Assessment space




Nearing the last few days before Assessment I went to the library to bind my images into the flip book. The library staff were very kind and helpful in showing me how to bind a book. Sadly the lady who apparently knew the most about book binding was on holiday but other members of staff stood in to give me a hand. They were concerned about my prints and that they might be damaged by accident and hesitant to do it. Their was an issue that they it might not be able to cut through the card or cut the holes in the right places. I took the plunge and did it myself and learnt how to use the binding machine which wasn't to difficult.






Was so pleased of my little book and having it finally bound and found it really interesting just picking it up and playing around with all the different image combinations. I wanted it to be an interactive piece for the viewer and think it's worked quite successfully.



At the same time I began to set up my assessment space I didn't have access to a television or a DVD player. I ended up looking for them at Tayside recycling centre where I got a DVD player and in shops in town. Eventually I managed to get a small compact television as well to be able to display my piece on a loop. Made a copy of the piece onto a DVD and then a copy for the show reel, I tried out the DVD at home and it worked great was really exciting to see it working.



I painted my area to look a lot cleaner and set up my table.



I also put a lot of my extra prints that weren't used for the flip book and were also portrait instead of landscape.






Wrote out my Artist statement including listing the collaborative work done this semester with fellow classmates. Instructions also to work the television and DVD player just in case. I had did quite a lot of media experiments over the course of the project and a lot of my research was material based. So I've added them for development and display purposes in the space. 








The branches under the table legs are supposed to represent roots and I would like to possibly take the media experiments further for another project. All I need to do now is add my sketchbooks to the space and that will be it completed for assessment. I will post my final pieces on here shortly as well as  links to collaborative projects I worked on.


Thursday 28 November 2013

Development : Recording human noises and tree noises


After getting the contact microphone I now could try and record sounds of the human body inside myself. I'm wanting to do this since my themes of the project have been the human body and trees. Experimenting with a contact microphone allows me to play around with the noises and sounds from what the initial project and subjects have been about.


To get the most clear sound without much static and unwanted noises picked up I tried taping the mic to parts of my body so it could be close and flat to the sources.




I tried drinking water, breathing and swallowing for the first few tests I then went on to try and do further recordings in the sound studio. I got some interesting sounds but sadly would pick up the drilling of the builders every now and again.






After getting a wide collection of different body functions and sounds I then tried recording the other theme of the project trees and the forest. It was at times really difficult and tricky since tree's on their own don't really make that much sound. But what did help where the elements of nature which created very surreal and atmospheric sounds.


Putting the microphone into a hollow tree let me hear the wind blowing through it as well as the amplified surroundings as it made a sort of giant speaker.



Recording against tree's surfaces sometimes didn't always give me much feedback but I would sometimes pick up insects. Being a nature sound recorder can take a lot of paitance. 








But natures elements helped a lot as well as the general sounds of forests and I got a lot of sound clips to work with. I edited the sound in audacity to create a mixed track of overlapping human and tree recordings. I had the idea to do the audio in this way since most of the project since the photography is nearly all mixed images of the contrasting themes.


Here is some samples of the sound clips unedited.








To just show some examples of the types of clips I had been recording and will be using for the final movie soundtrack. I will be adding this sound to the contrasting Photoshop images from the previous post. I will be setting up my assessment space very soon to show my work and sketchbooks. And getting all my files ready for submission just the final push now.



Here is the final audio track with progress photography.

Wednesday 27 November 2013

Development : Arrival of Microphone and prints and change of plan for assessment


After a while was starting to get concerned about my order of prints and contact microphone. It seemed that they weren't going to arrive in time with it being Christmas time and also worry because of stress.



My prints did eventually arrive and I'm happy with how they turned out and can't wait to make them into a little flip book. I've checked the binding part with the library staff and their happy to help me when I get the images laid out and ready in the right order. Been planning out each image and it's position and the book will have a curl binding so that it can be flipped all the way around and be able to hopefully stand. I just hope pairing three piles of images to be bind will work al right with the machine.




This idea was originally started by the previous photo manipulations created in Photoshop a while back they have been turning out really successfully. So I wanted to expand on this idea and create a physical object for the viewer to interact with. The inspiration also comes from this as being a sort of playfulness from childhood and problem solving as from the original memories and playing in the forest being important to the start of this project.



My contact microphone did also eventually arrive in a round about way, it accidently got sent to my parents house. In my stress and forgetfulness I had forgotten to change the shipping address to my studying address. Thankfully my parents called me to ask about the package and gave it to me just in time. I was so worried that ordering another one wouldn't arrive in time that I nearly went to all the trouble of making one from scratch.


In the meantime been busy editing and putting the contrasting footage of the forest and my body from the Photoshoots with projections. Been using Final cut pro for editing and it's been good practice since not used it for a while.


After spending a good amount of time working on this short film piece visually I did not feel that positive about it as I had with the contrasting Photo manipulations. Plus film isn't my strong point as I'm usually in front of the camera or helping out with equipment with others. But I did pursue the film till the end without any sound since the delay of the microphone. But after discussing the process for assessment for this semester with Pernille and viewing the footage. It seemed that using my photography would be a more fruitful option that I felt more comfortable with to show as a final piece.




But I will keep the film to show as part of my development experiments for comparison of why I ended up using my images instead. So instead I created more images to be used in for a film that will eventually go with sound. Some of them are previous ones that have been altered.
















Been working with these now instead to submit for the show reel we have been informed about. Been also planning out my work space for assessment as gathered more information about what is expected and how we can present our work. Sketchbooks have also been getting done on the side but the main pieces and sound is now my focus. I'll record my process of recording sound as well as the final days before assessment.