My thoughts...

Since my last experiment I've been struggling on how to improve my digital piece and how to also go about making the printed publication. Just over a week ago I was experimenting in  the software Audition which deals with sound. I spoke to a technician who suggested making the music sound like its coming from my phone instead of just playing whilst the journey goes on. We experimented with this idea.. unfortunately it didn't save properly so I'm going to have to do it again. He suggested I bring a couple of different other sounds within the video to improve it.. have more of a narrative. I'm not very confident with video and all that goes along with it I wanted to make it simple and not get in over my head with bigger ideas. But I am going to push myself and continue to experiment within different medias. My plan is to record different train noises such as, people talking, the movement of the train etc.. And to also record myself having a phone conversation with an old friend of mine and also record him as well. I was thinking about recording our thoughts after the conversation mine in an English language and his in Vietnamese.

Need to get started on this, hope it goes well.

Hollie xD

Adobe Premiere London train timelapse experiment

This is a new experiment of a different journey on my way to London. When I got on the train I realised there were no tables for me to put my camera on and I panicked a little.. I remembered first class had them so I tried to see if I could sneakily do it without anyone telling me off.. luckily I found a lady in first class who said she would watch my camera for me and the ticket guy said it was okay so.. win win! I took in total 850 photos.. seems like a lot but I think I should of taken more. I set my camera to take an image every 1 second 850 times. I wanted to do something different from the last train time lapse so I had to break up the images in to different sequences and make 5 different videos in My Movie on my PC. I changed the FPS (frames per second) which can determine how slow or fast my time lapse will be moving. The more FPS the slower the less the faster. I also wanted to experiment with the video fading in at the start and fading at the end, I also learnt how to fade the music as well at the end. This was really annoying to do and its all really small on premiere pro. This will hopefully be close to what the final video will look like.. just need more feed back.

Hollie xD 

Tutorial with Ellen Nolan

Before going  in to today's tutorial I didn't really know how to start my printed publication side of this project. I knew I wanted to keep in the theme of journeys and perhaps carrying on using train journeys or maybe buses or travelling by car. I know I enjoy long exposure photography and wanted to add that to my narrative as well. During the tutorial Ellen helped me improve my thoughts in to solid ideas that I can now start getting on with. I had already started looking in to photographers who used train journeys within their work, I came across this artist who's work is on Flickr, Céline Ramoni. Its quite weird I came across her work because I just got a new laptop and I changed my screen saver to a image that was already on my laptop and it happened to be the work of Céline Ramoni. I also came across another artist Michael Zhang who is the editor on the website PetaPixel.  (I'll write separate posts with their images on)

I am still keeping within my theme of journeys and using trains. My time lapse video on the train with just the phone on the table was proved to be effective, I left it there because I just thought it looked good within the frame but other people have expanded their opinions on it, which is what I always like about photography people can create their on interpretations of what you've created. I am planning on having the time lapse images on their own on each page of a hard or soft back book. I am going down the route of incorporating my phone and looking in to the miscommunication of modern technology when using our phones. I will play around with different types of text that is used on mobile phones. At the beginning of my book I when writing my introduction I will use ordinary text you find in books.

Whilst discussing this idea I mentioned that I had recently got in contact with a friend from school who I haven't spoke to in 8 years. Obviously I found him over Facebook. He was a lovely friend whilst I was at school and I remember he was really quite when I spoke to him face to face but on MSN he would always be chatting away and always had a lot more to say. I want to base this story within the publication narrative and now that I am back in contact with him I want to use our text conversations to go with the still images on the train journey. I'm not going to tell him that he's apart of my project that will ruin the fun. When writing my preface for the start of my book I want to write something about him and the relationship we have via our phones.

Hollie xD

After the review

After my review on Friday I was told that the beginning of my experimental video with the train going passed was successful and that I should carry on with that but make it longer and cut the other video of me and Sammi out of it. To be honest I am totally fine with that I can use my experiments I've used on adobe premiere to slow parts of the train journey down and capture more of what happens when then train stops and use the fading techniques with my audio as well, just some tweaking and hopefully it will be a successful final piece. For me time lapse is something I do for fun that's why I wanted to add more to my video but perhaps the first and simple video is more effective then adding more and over complicating it. I was also told I need to do more research in to artists and photographers which I did with a project last year I just didn't want to add the same research in... but its will show where I got my ideas from as I did want to carry on from last year as I enjoyed it so much... Maybe its something I can develop in more depth when I reach my 3rd year, who knows!

Kindly someone was taking notes for me whilst I was getting my feed back -

My notes

• Tacita Dean
• John Smith (already in sketch book)
• Eadweard Muybridge
• Paul Fusco -JFK train
• Rene Magritte - Painter who does frames within frames
• Play more with transitions, more subtly would be good.

'The narrative structure in the first part of your test works well, its the strongest part' - Ellen Nolan 

Audio practice with Adobe Premiere

I did this time lapse on my iPhone using iMotion. Its annoying because its got the black side bits which I don't know how to remove but also its wobbly because I'm holding my phone. I did like the positioning of phone but it proves I should really use my camera. I'm going to create another time lapse like this one so it fits with the rest of my videos. I was practicing using the audio settings in Premiere it was really fiddly when I started to create the music fade near the end of the video. Its not perfect but its a huge step in the right direction!

Hollie xD

Adobe Premiere Pro work shop!

After my Brighton trip I had a lot to experiment with in Adobe Premiere in today's work shop. Still got a long way to go with learning all the ins and outs but it was such a successful work shop and I really got a lot out of it and actually learnt something. I've made a small experimental piece that I am really proud of and think it has a lot of potential to grow in to a really successful and interesting project that other people hopefully will be interested in.

Journeys - Idea

I've still been struggling over the last month to get to a point where I know what I am doing with my research and sticking to a theme that I can progress on to. It's been a little worrying because normally by now I would of had an idea and just needed to of figured out how I was going to create the idea. Its been the other way round in this project but I think I've finally come to a solid idea that I am happy with. I've chosen to not go so personal in the emotional sense but thought about what things I like that I can use in a simple and effective way. For my professional futures project I am looking in to advertising photography and have seen some incredible images, so I thought lets bring advertising a product I already own in to my Narrative. Before I thought about the advertising idea I was thinking about recording myself walking and just capturing my feet doing a journey that I normally do. I then thought about advertising my converse as I wear them all the time and there are a very popular type of shoe. The idea just came to me out of no where with no solid influence apart from looking at different advertising images. After looking in to iMotion on my iPhone I thought I would record myself using stop motion getting on and off the bus to my town, the video was really blurry and I couldn't see a lot of detail of my shoes or the surroundings. I realized it might be the same if I used my DSLR so I decided to video record my feet moving instead and breaking the video footage down either by taking screen grabs or using Adobe Premiere Pro.  I haven't yet learnt myself how to use Premiere but I have been shown how to create the video footage in to more of a stop motion video. It looks really complicated but I'm sure I will learn. I also wanted to extend my video from me walking to two more people who own different coloured converse also walking. I want to create three different scenes matching to the coloured converse and perhaps the personality of the person who is wearing the converse. I wanted more of a sunny scene for my white converse on a path way, black converse for a skate park area and I haven't decided on my last coloured pair yet (need to find people who are willing to help me out). I want to push to 'advert' more from just displaying converse and having just one feature. I haven't given myself a lot of time as its taken me a while to decide what I want to do but... I do want to want to incorporate more time-lapse and stop motion video footage to my experimental advert. I want to keep in the theme of Journeys because I feel I can add a lot to my project with that theme. I'm going to take time-lapses of different types of journeys such as, car, train, tube, bus, crowds of people, sunsets, light trails and my friends. If I can combined the correct time-lapses together at the end of the video I want to either advertise my Nikon D5100 or iPhone 5s as they have created all the journeys and I will have to come up with an slogan to represent what it is I'm advertising.

After my tutorial

Well after my tutorial today I was left a little confused. I had come up with how I want to experiment with my work  using media but it seemed I didn't actually have a theme, so if I don't have a theme how am I supposed to start taking photos? Humm silly Hollie. I think I've also perhaps been over complicating the project and thinking to much in depth about the word narrative and what it means. Who knows. I decided to go and research stop motion  videos about the theme I was interested in exploring which is love, I know its simple but sometimes simple is more effective then over complicating it. I feel comfortable with the theme as I feel I can do a lot with the subject. I was thinking how can I show a original stop motion without using people? I thought about all the gifts my boyfriend has bought me or just random objects that remind me of him, I started thinking about a post it note he had left me and the movie tickets I had kept. I think when we were friends I wrote him a really in-depth card about how much he meant to me. Narratives are usually written out first then go on to preform or change it some how, so I've come up with an idea to create a journey using stop motion, of one or maybe a few of my beloved items. I was thinking maybe to buy a fake look-a-like engagement ring and create a story of the ring being left behind when the boy needs to propose with it that day and some of the items help the ring on a journey out of the house to put itself back in to the boys pocket. Just a quick story, I was also thinking of writing a love letter and it also goes on a journey to the post office because a girl leaves it in her room because shes to scared to post it. I need to start shooting these ideas and see how effective they are. So less thinking and more doing!!!

Getting rather excited now!!

Hollie xD

Emeli Sande - Read all about it

When I first started thinking about the narrative project, which was before I actually received my brief, I was in my mums car at Christmas time and started playing made up scenes in my head of random videos and matching them with songs I liked as well. Even the love to some people is an ordinary topic, love can be an incredibly over powering for some people, obviously there are different types of love that might not make people feel like that. There is an unconditional between yourself and your family, a mothers love will go on forever, the strongest bond I feel is between a mother and her child. You love your friends, you may love food, clothes, shoes, pets, movies, books etc... the list can go on forever of what people say they 'love'. I personally love love! I don't know where I would be without it. What I do love the most is seeing people in love, over the years I've heard the word 'love' being flung around at times like it is nothing. I love a good old romantic love story, whether its with the typical chocolates, candles wine and dine stuff (which is not really my thing) or whether its something really simple like your partner leaving you a sticky note on your pillow saying he loves you. 

Basically whilst I was creating random made up love scenes in my head I was really racking my brains to find the perfect song to go along side it, I remember seeing on Britain's Got Talent a few years ago this incredible piece by a Hungarian shadow theatre group from called Attraction. I remember bursting in to tears at how powerful and emotional the performance was and it truly took my breath away. Their chosen narratives for one particular performance covered the basic's of life, love, romance, marriage and death. The song accompanied by the performance was Emeli Sande's 'Read all about it' the two combined is so overwhelming, bringing in their audience, creating all these different emotions of happiness and sadness. Its something every human being can relate to, we've all loved and lost throughout our lives, narratives are displayed through different types of media as we've all seen.

When you hear a certain song or look at a particular photo, it takes you back to a memory, it reminds you of people who may or may not be in your life anymore, it makes you reflect on the past and perhaps think about your future. I remember when I chose not to listen to a certain song for a few years because of all the emotion and memory that went along side it, I was sitting in a car with the radio on and the song started playing, I felt scared in a silly way, because I knew admittedly how I used to feel whilst listening to that song, I didn't turn the radio off I just kept on listening and instead of crying because I was sad, I just smiled to myself at how far I'd come since that certain time in my life. 

Narrative's are everywhere, hidden within music, photographs, videos and objects. You may forget most of your memories and think about them less then others, with memory attached to different types of media those memories are recreated for you to re-live all over again like a photographic slideshow playing only just for you to watch. 

Hollie xD

Narrative spider diagram

To make things a little easier for myself I've decided to use two separate sketch books to record my narratives. The reason I've done this is to keep things simple when creating my digital and printed narratives, so that it is easier for me and the people who will  view my work to have a clearer understanding of what I am trying to achieve within my work and to show the journey of how I've used different types if media and how they turn out.

This is a quick spider diagram in my digital sketch book. I'm going to have to start researching to soon so  I can get a solid idea of how I will create my digital outcome. I am still interested in taking the time lapse/stop motion route all I need to do is starting experimenting with different digital techniques to see what I feel will be best for my narrative.

Hollie :)