Graphic Design Research

Graphic Design

When i first started my typography project i immediately began looking at some kinetic typography.

From looking at a few of these video on you tube i decided to try my own kinetic typography for the project. Below is a 10 second example i show at the interim critique.

After the interim critique i decided not to go with this idea as i have experience using after effects and i wanted to move my focus into a more hand generated field and create a more dynamic interactive experience.

Fading

Rationale

This series of images discusses about how families are forgotten after war that they are the ones left behind to pick up the pieces. The inspiration behind this piece was several photojournalistic artists that worked in the major wars of the 20^th Century. I wanted these images to look dark and grungy and have a depressing feel about them. The woman in the image is standing on a balcony looking as though she is waiting for her husband to come back but through the series of images it is obvious that her hope is fading as she disappears completely by the end of the series. The images can be read and interpreted several ways, it can be interpreted that her hope is fading that her husband will never return. It also can be interpreted that over time she will be forgotten and is expected to carry on with her life. The images also have a sense that the woman’s memory is fading and this is a topic that the Australian Photographic Artist Anne Ferran is famous for.

I wanted the five images to have a surrealist look to them, as they are not a reflection of the past but an insight into the emotion of how the families and wives were feeling at this time. Through my research I found that artworks at the period of both the world wars were heavily influenced by death, destruction and fear. The series of images in “Fading” can be related to several photographers such as Margret Bourke-White and Anne Ferran who use shutter speed in their work in similar ways.

I Just Need Someone to Listen

Rationale

This apeture project is about escapism from depression, depression is a very senstitive topic within Australia and depression is the leading cause of suicide within Australia. About 20% of Australians will face depression within their life with 6% of people suffering major depression. Tasmania has the highest rate of suicide from depression in Australia (http://www.mindframe-media.org/site/index.cfm?display=85537) 2191 people committed suicide in Australia in 2008. Depression is a common illness and it can be treated most mental illness can be treated if detected early (Beyond Blue).

The purpose of this project was to raise awerness about how people were taking their own lives from a preventable illness. The water tank symbolises a form of escape for someone suffering depression. Once under water no one can here your screams, you are alone, you can escape your problems. You are free… This project is not about condining suicide but showing it in public to raise awarness that these people are real they have faces, they have families. They might leave their problems behind but their families are also left to wonder why?

This project can be read and interpreted on many levels in the critque the feedback suggested that this project was very successful and strong in illustraing this story. People saw the images as disturbing and confronting of watching someone take their own life before there own life. Though the group said they were disconnected from the person as they did not know who they were. The Group said that you were able to connect with the way the person was feeling even though you did not know them. You could connect that they felt alone, isolated, lost, that she was screaming underwater and that no one was there to help you.

To shoot this project I had to fill a 200 litre fish tank full of water then I played with the lighting in the garage and made several tests with the fluro lights. I then tested the light with just natural light and decided that I was not able to control the natural light how I wanted. So I then blacked out the window on the door in the garage with cardboard. After doing this I then used a bed lamp to light the tank from the side this was a little difficult as I kept getting a reflection of the light bulb.

To shoot these images in the certain style I was thinking of I bossted the camera ISO to 1600 and shot the images on a 1.8f stop with a 50mm lens. I had to set the camera onto burst mode as I only had a short time to get the images while the talent was underwater. I tried to shooting the images with different light settings and ISO settings a few images I tried with not light and a very high iso but it did not give the effect on the image I wanted.

After shooting all the raw files I then importeed them into photoshop and played around with the contrast settings trying to darken the image. I was very happy with the end result of the raw files they turned out exactly how I invisaged, as old time evidence photos.

I am thinking about printing the images on matte paper with no borders though I will be testing with borders and different paper. I was also thinking about presenting these photos in an evidence bag so the viewer has to open the bag and it will give the project a sense of mystery.

E-Media: Human Movement

Initial Ideas: My initial idea for the loop project was to have a gymnast do a back flip from the left side of screen to the right of the screen until he is out of frame. This would then create a seamless loop as the person would constantly be entering and exiting the screen. This idea was story-boarded and a gymnast was organized for the shoot, though the shoot was cancelled the day before as the gymnast broke his ankle so i had to make another loop instead.

Intent: The intent for this project was to create a 10 second - 1 minute loop, throughout the lectures i became very interested in several artists works that was inspired by human movement. I was particularly interested with the concept of the advertisement that sony used for its new motion flow television.

My next concept still involved using human movement, i arranged a group of break dancers for my next shoot in the alley way behind the centre point shopping centre. The shoot involved filming their aerial and break dancing moves. The idea behind this shot was to use one of their single moves and loop it seamlessly to look like the move would never end. Whilst editing the footage i found this quite difficult to do as the dancers were not landing the moves in the exact same spot. I edited the video below to show in the critique, this was a rough cut of some of the footage from the day. I explained my initial concept and showed the rough cut and mentioned that it could be possibly be used as a loop it self in a DVD menu. It was decided in the critique though that i should try and get one of these moves of human motion in a loop itself, which i completely agreed with as this was my initial concept.

Human Movement - First Test from Robert Harrison on Vimeo.

After the critique i rescheduled another shoot and shot single shots of particular moves. Whilst shooting the single moves i also shot close up cutaways to use a back up shot in case the moves were not seamless. The video below is an example from the shoot.

Human Movement- Loop from Robert Harrison on Vimeo.

The video below is the finished version of the loop, it was slowed down in Final Cut Pro to 10% of its original speed. This was done to emphasise the movement of the breakdancer with trailing motion blurs of a low frame rate. The music was also slowed down to the same speed as the vision so the music beats still matched the dancers moves.

Human Movement - Head spin ultra slow motion from Robert Harrison on Vimeo.

Reflection: In reflection of this project, i think it was really effective in achieving what i initially set out to do. The loop shows quite a different approach to visualizing human movement and illustrates images that the ordinary public generally does not see everyday. This loop was made to be shown in a gallery space viewed on a large screen or projector. Even though the beginning of the production for this project was set back a few times the end result was worth the extra effort. Throughout the editing i learnt a few new features in magic bullet looks for colour grading techniques and this helped in achieving a graphic look to the production.

Digital Imaging- Who am I? Who are you?

Materials: 27 Rubik's cubes and printed A4 Labels.

"Who am I?, Who are You?" reflects the mind of an elderly person suffering from severe dementia. Each side of the Rubik's Cube is a image of one of their family members. The images have been scrambled together depicting how a person suffering from this condition is not able to recognise or remember their relatives. The cube also resembles the fear that someone suffering Dementia must be going through trying to recognise all the unfamiliar scary faces that are in fact their own family.

"Who am I?, Who are You?" was not the original concept for the Rubik's Cube, initially the cube was going to have images of unsolved mysteries. This changed when I visited my grandmother in a nursing home, whilst i was visiting another family came into visit a patient next door and she did not know who the family was as she had serve dementia. This inspired me to change the concept of the cube to represent the mind of a patient suffering from dementia.

Process- The overall process to get the end result of the finished cube was very time consuming. The first stage involved taking six high resolution still images of family members from a front on angle. The cube was then measured and the dimensions were duplicated in photoshop, the six images were then layered over top of each other and squares were cut out to get the Rubik Cube look. The six images were printed onto A4 Label sheets and guillotined into squares. The next step involved sticking all 486 individual squares onto the Rubik's Cube then I glued the 27 Rubik's cubes together resulting in the final giant cube.

The beginning of the Rubik Cube

Side One of the "Who am I?, Who are you?" Rubiks Cube

Side Two

Side Three

Side Four

Side Five

Side Six

Conceptual image of what Rubik's Cube would look like.

Rubik's Cube Digital Trial

Trial and Errors- Before I finished at my final idea there were many trial and errors through the process. One of my first ideas was to create a canvas by solving Rubik's Cubes to make the face of Kevin Rudd however I discovered this was going to be to time consuming after a few trials.

This was a trial using the Rubik's cube colours on the images. I decided that using colours of the cube took the seriousness of the topic away from the image.

'Pathways'

Pathways from Robert Harrison on Vimeo.

The process for my text project started on my walk back to my car after the lecture on automatic writing. I came across an alleyway that I found quite interesting; it had a real grungy feel to it and a lot of character. I came back the next day to the alleyway and found a spot and began my automatic writing. The words that first came into my head seemed very dark and somewhat disturbing in a way they seemed to simulate the feeling of the location. This is a list of words that came from the writing session.

stressed, lifeless, boring, worry, uncertainty, fear, rejection, dirt, angst, depression suppress, insecure, dreary, fail, failure, pressure, lonely, death, sadness, loneliness, decision, escapism, anguish, negative, desperation, escape, solitude, hate, cloudy, no dreams, office bitch, no freedom, graffiti, random, lost, dark, anxiety, chance, desire, filth, dreamer,

 

I found it quite interesting how the words I wrote in a way replicated my emotions to a particular location so later that afternoon on my way to the car I sat on a bench in Franklin square and began another session in automatic writing. The words this time were quite positive compared to the alleyway.

 

Sunny, hope, laugh, pathway, dreams, excited, happy, aspirations, goal, achieve, laughter, hungry, birth, joy, forgiveness, acceptance, positive, love, bright, future, independence, knowledge, power, together, freedom, blissful, right, relaxed

 

After comparing both sessions of automatic writing, I had the idea to join both the sessions together in a narrative. After looking at the words of each session I found that the words could actually be related to the pathways people choose in life. Whether you start going down the wrong pathway in life it is never to late to change. It can only take a word to simply change the direction you are travelling to get you back on track.

This is the story ‘Pathways’ tells, it starts with a man who seems to be spiralling into an unknown place, which is symbolised by him walking down the stairs. The further he gets into the story the more things seem to be on his mind and the accumulation of text seems to be dragging him down. The text becomes more and more dominant in the frame as the shots progress until the man finds another pathway and suddenly his stress and worries are eliminated. The man arrives at a place where everything seems to be blissful where his world is finally worth living for.

I choose to film in the same locations I wrote both pieces of automatic writing because I wanted to try emulate the same thoughts and feelings I originally had for both of these places on the screen.

Storyboard

 

 

The Editing Process

‘Pathways’ was initially captured and edited in Final Cut Pro and was graded in Magic Bullet then imported into After Effects to add all the layers of text. Each piece of text in ‘Pathways’ is an individual moving 3D layer and was adjusted using X, Y and Z co-ordinates and key framed individually. There was over 350 key framed layers in ‘Pathways’, and it was difficult initially to make the text to look three dimensional on a single video layer without the use of a green screen. To avoid this problem of not being able to have text behind the character I created individual cameras for some pieces of text to create depth of field as well as using lens blurs on some of the text. Once the text was all composited into After Effects and key framed I then exported it into Final Cut Pro for a fine cut and a final grading in Magic Bullet.       

 

Reflection

In Reflection I think that my short film ‘Pathways’ was effective in creating a unique text project. I managed to create the look and feel I originally set out to achieve, and I learnt new techniques in After Effects in the process. From the critique I made a few small changes, which I thought were very valid comments and this helped create the feel I wanted in the production. I found the filming of this a little difficult as I was using a handheld camera with no manual controls, so for various shots I had to trick the camera into focus by getting the camera to focus on my hand, I also had the same problem with the exposure. If I was to do this production again I would shoot it on a different camera with manual settings, though the images came out good it would have made the initial shoot a lot easier. Overall I think ‘Pathways’ was successful in many aspects and there would not be many things I would change about it.