Design For Media: Final #3

So this is my third final for design for media and again this one started out with media choice before content.  I came up with the idea of doing a stop-motion video but still I wasn’t sure of my concept at first until Charlotte posted this video on a friends blog.  It showed a stop motion of a man in a mirror surrounded by cassettes that he had interacted with.  It gave me a sense of personal narrative so that is what I had wanted to do with mine. To me the idea of stop motion is to be able to give the ability of motion to inanimate objects, so I wanted to take myself out of the story and have the objects in my room narrate it.  The objects I used from the drawing figure to the shoes are representational of me.  I also chose objects that aren’t typically seen or noticed at a first glance of my room such as things under my bed or the movies in my drawers.  I hope you enjoy the video.

Design For Media: Stop-Motion Progress

I’m not going to lie and say the workload of my other classes haven’t affected me yet, but once I finished my animation for my other class I started working on my stop-motion.  I know I am still behind as of right now but here is a preview of what it is going to look like.        

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The photos turned out really dark because it was night but for my final I will be shooting in the day. These are just a few of the things I shot but just wanted to give you an idea for what the final piece will be.  Lastly I don’t know if you can change the speed on the slideshow but I am doing it in imovie so don’t take the slowness into consideration.

Revised Concept

So I have been thinking about my concept and trying to come up with a story, but nothing came to me so I feel I needed to add some more substance.  I am going to scrap the paper themed idea and do a personal narrative stop motion.  This will be shot in my room and give the objects in my room a personality to tell a little about me.   For my story I want it to show me maybe packing some of my things and leaving for the day and when I leave the objects in my room start to come alive such as ipod players, figurines, etc.   Last week  I knew that some things in my concept might be changing, so in my time schedule I didn’t list start shooting until this week.  That way I could be completely sure of my idea, but still be on schedule and ready to shoot the beginning of my project over the weekend.  I didn’t really have much inspiration for the last idea, but now i’m feeling much more interested.  I am more confident in this idea and can envision it better in my head which is a good sign.

Project 3: Beginning Concept and Schedule

For this project I wanted to use another technique which I have not previously done before and that will be stop motion.  I have seen many stop motion before and always wanted to try one.  For my stop motion I want to use a roll of paper going either lengthwise or vertical, I have not decided, but I know I do not want the paper to be the whole composition.  I want it to appear things are entering from nowhere such as a television.  The roll of papers purpose is so I can have a moving background which will help express motion.  I will probably paint the background of this stop motion.  Think of it something like a Super Mario scene where the character stays generally in the middle while the scenery changes.

Schedule:

Week One Nov. 14-20: ~ Research stop animation                                                                                                                ~ Get materials                                                                                                                                    ~ Story board                                                                                                                                        ~ Start background

Week Two Nov. 21-27: ~ Finish background                                                                                                                            ~ Start shooting                                                                                                                                    ~ Upload and edit                                                                                                                                ~ Make sample

Week Three Nov. 28 – Dec. 4: ~ Continue Shooting                                                                                                                           ~ Upload and edit                                                                                                                                 ~ Make sample

Week Four Dec. 5-11:  ~ Continue Shooting                                                                                                                           ~ Upload and edit                                                                                                                                 ~ Make sample

Week Five Dec. 12-18: ~ Finish Shooting                                                                                                                                 ~ Upload and edit                                                                                                                                 ~ Make Final Video

 

Final Composition

I originally wanted a composition to resemble somewhat of a comic book with different size frames, but as I experimented with these shots it was hard to arrange or scale them in a way that would look natural and still give all the details.   Although that didn’t work out I chose this composition because I wanted the viewer to see all of them at once instead of one after another, and I also like the clean look of all the frames being the same size.

Edit*  – After I posted this I noticed these cinemagraphs would not move unless you clicked on the piece.

Design For Media: Project 2 Rough Draft

The planets aligned!… I was finally able to get the camera, models, and studio all at the same time.  So here are my final scenes, however I still need to tweak the the frames individually to get a smoother loop action and fix some of the contrast settings and such.  Lastly I will have to arrange them in a final composition.

Design For Media: Project 2

This week I do not have any further progress because I was not able to borrow a friends camera and the media desk wouldn’t let me check out a video camera.  Instead I worked on my other big projects so hopefully I will have plenty of time this weekend.

Other than that I have considered other options for the final slide and I am thinking of the woman sitting in the chair calmly (with a smile) and her husband laying on the ground behind her with police lights flashing in the room.  I thought this would be a fit ending because you get the sense she realizes what she did, is happy with her decision, and is prepared for whats going to happen next. When I shoot this I will probably try out multiple ending scenarios and decide on which I think works best with the over-all story so other suggestions are welcome!

Design For Media: Project 2 Week 03

Although I had model scheduling conflicts this week, I made some practice cinemagraphs of myself instead. I wanted to get a feel for how long it would take me to make them, the quality of video, the loop smoothness etc.  After getting these done I am more confident about making them and feel comfortable with completing the project in time.

Design For Media: Project 2 Story

What drew me toward cinemagraphs was their element of “creepy-ness”, when you can’t tell there is a moving element at first.  So when thinking of a story I wanted to tell, I thought of a murder story.  This story will be about an abused woman who takes her revenge on her husband.  I wanted to take they key elements only to tell the story, and also thought very carefully about the moving things with-in the frames I want to move.  Here are some sketches showing my story and the elements that are moving.

Design For Media: New Project Concept

A while ago I saw a blog with a project by Jaime Beck and Kevin Berg where they created a gif-photo hybrid called cinemagraphs.  Cinemagraphs instantly struck me as an art form I would like to try and create.  For my project I want to make multiple cinemagraphs and put them together to make a scene.  The idea I have in my head is to put these different compositions in one composition like a comic page style with different sizes all moving together.  I have already found multiple tutorials on how to make them so the next step is to get started!  For you to get a clearer understanding here are some examples of cinemagraphs.

All cinemagraphs from http://cinemagraphs.com/nyfw/  by Jaime Beck and Kevin Burg