Skills Development & Experimentation

Illustrator Experimentation:

We were asked to make a poster using Adobe Illustrator inspired by the brand Experimental Jetset. I made a poster about workplace gender equality. I don't think this is what my final social campaign will be about but I will consider it. 

My Inspiration from Experimental Jetset:

My Poster:

I chose to make my poster about gender equality in the workplace. This is not the topic I am choosing for this assignment but it was an idea. I took inspiration from the Experimental Jetset posters. I used Ariel font which was the closest I could get to the trademark Helvetica font used by Experimental Jetset. I also took inspiration for the use of block colours. I think Experimental Jetset’s style is quite simplistic and I tried to match that as much as possible.

My inspiration from Constructivism Posters:

My Poster:

Constructivism is known for its use of red, black and white colour schemes, block shapes,  sans serif text,  asymmetric design and text on a diagonal. I took inspiration from all of that to make my poster. It's not my best work but I think it roughly follows the theme of constructivism and links to the fashion industry which is my chosen topic. The image at the bottom is not my own, but when producing my final product, I will bear this in mind as inspiration as it is very creative and effective.

Surrealism:

This was my first attempt at a surreal poster. The concept is that in the fashion industry the mannequins are made to fit the ideal beauty standards and look very unrealistic. This image brings the mannequins to life and personifies them. I do like the overall outcome, however, I did not create the image myself so if I was to create something like this as my final project I would use this as inspiration and create my own surreal image.

This was my second attempt at surrealism. Although not executed the best, the concept was to take parts from different dolls to go against beauty standards. So the head/hair is from a black barbie doll, the torso is from a white male barbie and the legs are from a white female doll. Although it wasn't edited the best, I think the overall message and the surreal theme was effective. 

After Effects Practice:

We edited a video in after effects. We added the text as a lower third and made its transition in and fade out. The final effect is that when she walks into the frame the text box comes in with her, says her name and profession and then fades out. The three boxes on the outside of the frame are called the title/action safe. It ensures that when you export the video, nothing is cut off, as long as you kept it inside those boxes. 

Camera Practice:

Contact Sheet of Test Shots

We practised on the cameras and played around with different settings. We learnt how to manually adjust the settings instead of letting it adjust itself automatically. We also experimented with different formats. We took photos in a JPEG format and NEF RAW format. We then edited the RAW file against the JPEG files. The RAW files had a lot fewer limitations and could be edited in a lot more detail. 

Above is an example of the difference between the JPEG and RAW files. The JPEG file was edited to its full capability and didn't allow you to edited all the smaller details on the image. Whereas the RAW file had a lot more leeway so could be edited a lot more. 

Documentaries- Vox Pop:

  

Above is my own Vox Pop. We made Vox Pops and asked around 10 people to answer a question about our chosen topics. My question was 'What is your opinion on the representation of body image in the fashion industry?'. I think my Vox Pop was actually really useful as everyone gave different answers so I was easily able to come to a well rounded and conclusive answer. It turned out really well and could be used in my final documentary. 

Adobe Bridge:

We looked at Adobe Bridge. It's a content management system. It allows you to easily filter through your images based on some in-depth details and select the images perfectly suited for your needs. It shows you the metadata of the images. Metadata is essentially the data about the data, so the image data. This could be things like the file format, image size, the ISO, the shutter speed and even if the flash was fired or not, those are just a few of the things it can tell you about the images data. It's really useful if you have a lot of images that you want to keep but you don't necessarily want to use them all, you can rate the images or a 1-5 star ranking system, and you can rate the ones you need and then filter it to only show 5-star photos for example. Overall, I think Adobe Bridge is the key to staying organised and to ensure you use the best images. 

Lighting:

We went into the studio and experimented with different types of lighting. We tried a few of the styles above and tried a few of our own. We experimented with gels and changing the levels of the lights and moved the lights to create a different ambience each time. 

Contact Sheets:

These are contact sheets of all the shots we took. As you can see we experimented around with the lighting and with the gels. The hardest to achieve was the silhouette as you still need a little bit of light to see the outline of the person but the shoot needs to lack lighting enough to make sure it is a silhouette and the features of the person are disguised. 

This was our setup, but occasionally we used a third light positioned facing the backdrop to light up the backdrop of the photos. The position and intensity of the lights were really important in creating the right shot and creating the right tone for each image. 

Lighting in a motion picture:

Final shots:

Like I mentioned before, the hardest to achieve was the silhouette as you still need a little bit of light to see the outline of the person but the shoot needs to lack lighting enough to make sure it is a silhouette and the features of the person are disguised. Experimenting with the gels was a lot of fun and could possibly be something I would use in my documentary as I want a very aesthetically pleasing documentary that conforms to themes belonging to the fashion industry. The high key lighting is the one most commonly used in documentary interviews and will be one that I will consider using as it was relatively easy to achieve and is effective as it doesn't distract from the interviewee. 

Reenactment Scene:

In groups of 5, we reenacted a scene from The Kings Speech to practice using the lights, sound and camera equipment. It was good practice and we learnt how to properly set all the equipment up and the importance that piece of equipment has individually as well as how they work well together. We also learnt what to say to each other so that we are all working at the same time. For example, the director will say "roll sound" or "roll camera" and the sound and camera people will reply "rolling". This ensures that everyone is rolling and you can attempt to get one clean take. I found this practice really useful and learnt valuable skills, for example, to improve this we should have put the boom mic closer to the actor's mouths to enhance the sound levels. 

B-Roll:

'In film and television production, B-roll is supplemental or alternative footage intercut with the main shot. The term A-roll referring to the main footage has fallen out of usage.' B-Roll is essentially clips taken from pre-existing videos such as news articles or other documentaries that you can use to add context to your video. It can be used to provide educational content to a documentary, as well as historical or even add comedic value to the video. B-roll has many different uses.  Above is the B-Roll footage that I put together about body image in the fashion industry. I will definitely use some of this footage in my final documentary as I think it helps make the documentary look more professional and also gives all the interviews more context.

Logo Experimentation:

I sketched some rough designs of what I wanted my logo to look like. I put that in my planning.

This was my plan:

And this what I produced on Photoshop:

I am really happy with how some of them turned out. I think they look really similar to what I had envisioned and I think most of them are really effective. I am unsure on which one to choose but at the moment I really like the middle one with the two hearts either side of it. I think it's effective yet elegant. I also think the use of the lower case letters helps you read it as one word instead of separate words. 

Identity Experimentation:

I have decided on the slogan 'your body, your rules.' It's short and catchy yet still effective. I really like and I think it matches my campaign really well. Above are some different designs that incorporate the logo and the slogan. I don't know which one I like at the moment, but I think I am on track to choosing a finalised design.

Social Campaign Identity Feedback:

We showed our identity to the class and got feedback. I think overall the feedback was helpful and I will consider further experimenting with my branding using the feedback given. 

Documentary Rough Cut:

Rough Cut SWOT Analysis: