Audio Experimental

Now that I have gathered all my information and audio regarding the project meaning I am now just on the verge of needing to put it into a audio timeline that will be the final product. Although I am still having problems in terms of being able to keep my audience appealed as I am having second thoughts in the way that I think my piece is going to be a bit to bland (just playing a montage of ringtones that will be changing in terms of greatness) I need to find a way of getting a safety cushion that would help keep my audience listening. This may include asking Andy for some advice . . . . . .

In this photo this links to my video brief that was the Idea of the video and what events I have researched and looked at that has happened in the past 50 years. I gathered a quite a bit of information from a book that the teaching assistant (John) had upstairs in the staff room.

This is another piece of paper work that I have produced based around my three minute video idea. In this picture you can see a list of world events that have happened in the past 50 years, from the assassinations of Martin Luther King and JFK right through to the capture and death of the Al-Quieda terrorist Osama Bin Laden. This links to my video idea as to produce 50 years in three minutes I obviously need some information to work around and give me a guide path in being able to gather some video footage to put the piece together.

One day we had another multi camera session, we had in the North Sea Radio Orchestra. We decided to do some research about the band and came up with some potential questions that we could maybe ask them if we were to do an interview with them after their set.

The Grand Location Shoot Mark Gardener.

In this multi camera session we were at a different location. We were in the Grand in clitheroe. The venue as to where big events and gigs are held throughout the year. Lucky enough we had been asked to produce a shoot on location at the grand. I felt quite excited for this one as I have only been to the grand once and they are very professional at what they do, light mixing, sound mixing with a very big dinning and venue, it was industry experience. With the multi camera session announced we didn't know who we were going to be filming Mark Gardener who is a musician, formally known for his work with creation records label band Ride, not apposes to work solo. This was a great opportunity to claw some real detail about his career up to press as he has been in the music industry for a good 20+ years. This was also an exclusive acoustic session that college had prepped for us.
The shooting went very well, we were only handed two cameras to be able to use, initially I thought this wouldn't be that hard to film as there was only Mark Gardener who we would be recording. On the other hand it would be quite hard to contain a lot of footage with just two cameras and also to get interesting shots that will keep your audience appealed and glued to watching it. We also had a camera that Declan bought in to take photos for evidence. Me and Declan both were taking photos of Mark Gardener. We aimed to get some interesting shots from all angles, such as low down, side on even from behind him on the stage. After Mark had performed his acoustic set then we were to set up and conduct an interview. Baring in mind that we had the questions intact we had to remember that we were focussing on Mark's work and solo work, we were not to bring up all of the stuff he performed with Ride under the creation records.
There was also another band session afterwards but due to work commitments I was unable to be part of the crew who were going to be filming the event,  

North Sea Radio Orchestra research. Information of when they got together. Questions for when they are going to perform here for the interview afterwards. Such as, ''There are only four of you here, originally the group has around 20 members, so where are the rest of the orchestra?''

Experimental audio. The change in technology from quality audio from bad to worse. Wrote down some ideas on what I am going to do on my audio. Where I am going to start, what the main outcome will be and how I am going to build up the work.

Three Minute Moving Image

Three minute moving image diagram that has many ideas for my 3 minute experimental video, from animation, music video to a drama to an interview.  Sketch ideas that I have elaborated on with each individual genre.

Introduction To Photography

Today I was introduced to photography of a higher level. This lesson about photography was all to do with telling a story through photographs, almost like a storyboard.
The lesson started of by being shown a series of photos by three different photographers and being able to try and understand what feelings you get from looking at the photo's. We were shown several photos but one of the photos that stood out to me most was a photo that showed 2 sides of a house, the front room and the kitchen. In the photo the major difference between the two sets were the lighting that was used between the two. The lighting in the kitchen was extreme in context to the light that was in the from room. The front room was very grim with light reflecting only from the TV onto the old woman' body, this creating a very ill atmosphere and i suppose a kind of a spooky feel. In comparison with the lady in the kitchen (I'm presuming her daughter) where she is cooking/preparing something i guess for tea (Due to the darkness outside). The photo is just very interesting how it is shot, what objects are clear in the light or dark in shadow.

The Shivers Multicamera Session At Blackburn College 2011

The dead trees at Blackburn College Band Session 2011

Iranian Chadored Warriors Short Analysis

Irans Chadored Warriors


This photo is by Jean Gaumy. It was taken in 1986.

When i studied this photo and did some research on it I came up with a few assumptions as to what i thought the meaning was behind the photo.  I have bulleted some points that what I think the photo entails ;

- Seven years prior to this photo was the iranian revolution.
- Muslim religion the women are not aloud to work, drive cars which therefore makes men dominant.
- I take this photo to be of rebellious women that want to prove they can be just as powerful.
- These are a bunch of rebellious generation women.
- Some sort of training camp as they are in a rocky terrain that looks to be in the middle of nowhere.

I assumed this is what the photo is about, the fact of them having guns aiming in a rocky terrain give me the sign that they wanted to be just as dominant as the men in the muslim religion.

Karate Session/Shoot

This was our second experimental video shoot in the TV studio. Prior to shooting this work we looked at the work of Maya Deren. We looked at one of her pieces called ''Meditation on violence.''
In this shoot we tried to create a modest 21st century version of this. In Maya Deren' work she uses two different locations to shoot on (visually) a room with a backdrop of curtains and another which is located outside somewhere. We weren't going to re-enact the outside location due to only being able to accommodate indoor facilities. (outside, the facilities and the end produce quality would not have matched the studio quality)
A catering teacher is part of a karate organisation and got a few friends to come in and do some routines. Each routine was filmed through three different cameras that were situated in each corner of the studio (not next to the door for safety reasons.)
We planned to get shots that would upfront, slow/fast and showed true emotions whilst they were performing to create a video sequence of meditation on violence.

Recently I have been introduced to the word art. When I always hear the word art I have stereotyped it to just be based around drawings and sculptures, the  One of the first pieces of work that we came across was of a women called Gillian Wearing. Gillian Wearings work is based around art, not drawings or anything like that but confession art. Confession art is where you are to tell a confession of yours. We tried our very own confession art in the TV studio as we were all to think of something that we had to own up to on camera and we were to record them all together and put them in a sequence. My confession was that when I turned 16 for my birthday I told my mum that I was going to go to my friends for the night only to have a couple of drinks and stop over, but in actual fact I went to my mates and got some more drinks, met up with a big group of friends and camped on a field that is literally about 1/4 of a mile away from my house, this was my confession.
Another piece of work that was introduced to us by Gillian Wearing was called 'Signs that you want them to say and not signs that someone else wants them to say.'' When I first heard of this I thought this was pretty straight forward, like when your driving on the road and you are in a hurry and you see a speed camera sign alerting you of one ahead, you would like to replace it with something else so this doesn't delay you. Gillian Wearing on the other hand would approach people on the street and ask them to write down something that they don't specifically want to say to somebody (Confession) on a piece of card holding it up to the camera for a photo.

There is one photo that I have come across on the internet

This is one of the photos that Gillian Wearing took for her confessional work. In this photo you see a man holding up a sign that he has wrote ''I'm desperate''. Now looking at this photo I can't help but be drawn towards the fact that the gentleman is actually dressed in a suit. This gives me the feel that he is out trying to find a job vacancy that he can possibly apply for. Although with the scenery that he is in gives me the feel that maybe he may just be walking home or going to his car from his job, the rural background looks a bit rough. These two cross each other.

*Assumption number two* ; Taking a second look at the photo I realise that the man actually hasn't got any rings on. More notifying no wedding ring. This linked with the information that he has wrote on the card and what Gillian Wearing has produced this has made up my assumption that this man is not in a marriage therefore the ''I'm desperate'' refers to his wishes in life and dreams of someday having a wife.

2010 second year BTEC filming of The Smitten Ones. Now appeared on the NME website.

Click on the link BELOW

http://www.nme.com/nme-video/youtube/id/E6E3P_P7Bjc/search/The%20Smittens

Audio Work

Experimental audio. My experimental audio work idea is based around the idea of the revolution of technology. The one area that i base my audio around is the idea of how ringtones have changed, from being the generic polyphonic nokia 3210 ringtones right through to current phones where you can practically have anything you want as your ringtone, even creating your own ringtone. I want my work to make people think about how technology has changed, and how big of an impact it has had in their life, not only through ringtones but how amazing technology actually is, with the change in tones and also the fact that once upon a time a mobile phone was like the size of brick with an antenna sticking ontop of it, limited to only being able to do the basic things (ring people) then along came texting. How they have progressed in software on the phone, having a camera that you could attatch to the phone then being built in, being able to play games on the phones, to the size of the phones. Now they can fit in the palm of your own hand and can potentially act like a PC.
My audio will basically be a montage of a selection of ringtones that I have selected from youtube. I basically want to put all the ringtones into a sequence from old to know. Showing the change in technology is obviously clear to hear as people will know what is old and what is new. On the other hand I want to be able to make the audio from the older polyphonic ringtones of a poorer quality, so when listening to this, this sounds alot older. This also showing the change in sound technology from decade to decade, the older the ringtone,the more poor quality it will be, visa versa for newer ringtones.

Progress of experimental video.

I've never really thought about my experimental video piece as i've been getting sidetracked with many ideas for my experimental audio. It wasn't until last thursday (17th november) that I had a chat with John. We just started of with a fluent conversation about what John loves best, his playstation three. We started talking about the new Call of duty game, what the story is about etc etc. We then just started talking about the world war and conspiracies behind the attacks on september 11th 2001 and where we were when we heard about it, also we talked about the July 7th bombings in the capital (London.) We both had a chat of how we heard about the news, I was told by my gran when I was coming out of school and John had just arrived at a Holiday destination and was told by his rep. For some reason this just gave me some sort of inclin as to what I could possibly do with my experimental video. I thought about researching some of the major events that have happened in mine + parents lives up to present, say from 1960 onwards. From the assassination of JFK, the ever so famous speech by Martin Luther King right through to the recent 2011 Royal Wedding. With this in mind I thought why not do a 3 minute video that would consist of me picking between 6-12 major events that have occured in the past 50 years. I don't know why I chose the past 50 years it just seemed a good idea due to me having a bit of knowledge of major events from the past 50 years.
Now visually I had a brief idea on what to do. After picking the historic events I would research some more about them and then try to find some video footage of the event, usually this would be available on youtube or some type of DVD from the libary. The only think I had'nt planned ahead for was to see how I could develop on how to stitch the video together. Me and John had a discussion and I came up with an idea but with Johns help he made it alot simpler. I had in mind that I could find a wall clock that had the Date&Time aswell as the year present. By doing this I would be able to put together my research with the date and year that the event actually happened. John put another way of doing this across and to be honest it seemed the much easier and feesable option. If i were to draw a clock on a big piece of card then get a split pin that will go through the centre i could attatch dials to use to signify the specific time. Also a the year at the top. Visually i would'nt state what event that I am playing is. This will play as part of a guessing game.
I've created the clock formats for the actuall layout, I plan to place it on a white background and through the camera hopefully just be able to get the frame of the creation in picture.
Today I took one bigger step to completing the video as I have now downloaded all the archive footage of all the events, from actuall footage of the event to how they were first broadcast on news television and even the middle of an american football game in 1980's. I have trimmed all the footage down of the archive, alltogether I have around 11 events. I need to now film all the footage of the clock changing from year to year and time to time to signify the change in time. I am currently still in working progress.

North Sea Radio Orchestra

North Sea Radio Orchestra from Media Centre on Vimeo.

North Sea Radio Orchesta performing live at Blackburn College.

Maya Deren - Mediation On Violence.

I didn't know what to make of this video at first. I saw it to just be some crazy martial artist meditating in the form of martial arts. It came across as a very bland piece of work by Maya Deren but in actually fact when you break it down into individual segments in terms of appearance & sound it's something different. When you think about what you can hear and see more logically it starts to make sense, you're knowledge and appreciation of the video starts to rise incredibly. Especially when you take into fact of the era it was made (Late 1940's). The first ideological sign you start to pick up on is the pace or how the character moves. He starts of doing manoeuvres that play with the flutes smooth feel, swaying from side to side, upwards and downwards, forming many shadows that portray of him. The idea of this video was to create a meaning and show the difference between violence and beauty according to Maya. Around the 4 and a half minute mark of the video you start to hear this drum beat being introduced into the video. The drum beat is more of a faster pace in comparison to how the flute is slow and smooth. The characters actions start to gain bait more spend and momentum, thus creating a more intense feeling that grips you into the video more as to see if anything happens. Of course the martial artists pace increases releasing this fast flowing rhythm of moves. Around about the 6 minute and 45 second mark you loose all sense of the flute as it dies out and is now 100% drum beat, this also creating a different atmosphere as to what you can also see. The martial artists jumps to our right (his left) and has a different change in clothing appearence! He is now dressed in some mortal combat clothing with a bandana and sword. He starts performing combat moves with the sword shown at a fast pace, (drum beat 100%). This scene is what I would class as the violence half of the video, stating the obvious with the matter that he has a SWORD in his hands, but also at the pace he is moving and the flair that is on show. He moves at such pace to potentially battle of his opponents. Saying this without the drum beat I would personally think that the scenes would not have half the impact as intended. The beat makes the whole concept more intense but you could relate the point of meaning that when you drum beat is going the character is going to be moving at a higher tempo and rhythm than compared to the flute. For example in a battlefield scenario you are moving fast when in combat, the character is in combat therefore must be moving fast which links together with the drum beat.
The flute is then introduced back into the video which then he starts to slow down and jumps back into the original space to where he does his slow meditation. HE returns back to his normal original state as to where he slowly does his meditation at a slow pace. This relating back to the beauty that Maya Deren intended to show. The shadows are casted on the white backboard in the studio of the shots. The shadows in my eyes are like the sheep and the shadow kick boxer is the shepherd. Almost like he is doing a class, as the shadows are the less dominant figure in the picture like you would see at a class, the instructor knowing all the moves and the learners following. The shadows are the less dominant and the human the dominant.

Well err, this is awkward. Recently decided to err create a blogger account. No doubt it's going to benefit me in the long run. So bait about myself. My name is Ellis, 18, studying FAD Media at Blackburn College.

Going to upload whatever I produce, research, random but useful stuff on here!