Nana Technology

We aimed to create an advertisement directed at elderly people who struggled to come to terms with the ever-growing world of technology.
The main intention our group had was to portray the companies expertise in teaching and aiding the elderly in the use of laptops, cellphones, iPods and numerous other pieces of modern day technology. Along side this we tried to reiterate the fact that technology is more simple and easy to use than it comes across to be.
We wanted the customer to see that our company offers quick, simple and reliable help at a low, affordable price.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLIvWOMTYrg&feature=g-upl

Computer

 Set making is going to be one of the most rewarding and fun parts of this project. Tonight I had to clear the household hallway of everything; this included taking photos and mirrors of the walls, moving anything that would look out of place, and shifting a large baby's buggy. I then had to set up my computer in the hallway, connect it to a power source, create the folders on the computer, and make it dark and sinister looking by turning out the lights.

The computer at the end of the dark hallway.

The Computer Screen

Test Sample

 

This is a preview clip of how some of my clip will look. There are scenes where the character is either giant or tiny in size (similar to that of Alice In Wonderland) in these scenes I will take photos of my model doing the correct movements that will then match up with the photos of the setting as she interacts with it. For Example, in this clip the photos of the girl are taken seperately from the photos of the street, but when put together it appears as if the girl is walking down the street.

The Background Picture is 'East Bleecker St between Cornelia & Carmine St' taken by'Cedric Mainguy
http://www.streetsfromnewyork.com/east-bleecker-st-between-cornelia-carmine-st/

Individual Brainstorm

I did a rough brainstorm and compiled a list of areas I would like to further research, these included the horror genre, getting the clip to appear as if it were an old black and white horror film;

An eerie UFO clip, my thoughts came to theis song :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSh04yd0eM4
 The Navajo Know by the Pixies, as well as this song the rest of the album has a general theme of UFO's and space, the lyricist of the pixies Frank Black was interested in extraterrestrial ideas as song themes. I thought that similar music could accompany a clip about the discovery of an alien;

Another idea was for a theme based around a test subject for a new piece of technology, "Television glasses, " The idea is that you watch live television, recorded by cameras held on gloves. You could see wherever you pointed your hand, if you wanted to see normally you would have to hold your hands in front of your eyes.

Other ideas included a clip based on a car safety device that uses the distance between the car and other objects as well as nerve stimulators or the human body to cause you to drive more carefully;

inventions to tell how ripe a fruit is, and more horror movie concpets.

Group MindMap

These are some of the ideas that our group of Zahrah, Jimmy, Thomas, and I came up with. As the four of us are heading towards media design we used the media as a starting point. Some of our ideas are about the evolution of technology, the ways in which through film technology can talk to us visually, we also had ideas about horror movies and optical illusions.

Imprisoned Curves

Imprisoned Curves #1

Imprisoned Curves #2

"Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve"(Lillian Smith, 1944). This was definitely the case throughout the production of this piece. Vigorous critiques of  earlier designs led to much doubt in my ability to produce convincing fluid forms.

If faith were to be a solid rigid form then doubt would be fluid form. I have a firm faith in my ability to produce rigid and geometric forms, but doubt comes when introducing fluid shapes into my designs, the finished design is a result of an internal battle between the dominance of geometry and the rebellion of curves. A struggle ensued inside my mind but the minority of curvature was contained and bound, this is shown in this piece, imprisoned by the solid steel square and bound by the white knotted cotton are the oppressed plastic curves, trying to snap free of the bounds that hold them captive and be expressed, but staying oppressed by the captor which is geometry.

It wasn't until late into my development that I began to find non-geometric curves coming into my designs, I believe that with further development the fluidity in my shapes would have evolved a great deal, however my mind has been conditioned in my college graphics class so that I am akin to symmetry and geometric shapes which can be easily constructed and replicated.

The model that has become my end product shows off the fragile yet tensioned cotton as a feature of the overall presentation, I remembered the teachings of the arts and crafts movements: honesty in construction and truth to materials(Ruskin, J.) whilst making the conscious decision to show off the white thread. The thread portrays tension in the piece and through this tension we see the transition between the curved and flat planes.

 Smith, L. (1944). Strange Fruit. Jasper, Florida. Houghtton Mifflin Harcourt.

Ruskin ,J. Wk_4_design_reform.pdf. School of design website. Accessed through http://schoolofdesign.ac.nz/mod/folder/view.php?id=434 


Photographs by Jayden Hamilton

Final Epilepsy

http://player.vimeo.com/video/41637807

The above link will take you to a final version of my flash animation video for the word "epilepsy", uploaded  via vimeo so that the quality would be as best it could be.

I chose to turn the word "epilepsy" into my animation for several reasons; initially I had chosen to use the word  "evolution", but I did not think that my animation skills were good enough to do the word justice; I then thought that i would animate the word "strip" but it proved too difficult to shape and contort the "S" how I wanted to. My last resort was "epilepsy" and this has turned out great for me. Not only was it a simpler word to animate, but the animation looks clean and it is easy to understand. I was also glad that I could use a word that portrayed my somewhat politically incorrect sense of humour.