sandr093

For are lecture last Tuesday we were asked to read the C.R.A.P lecture, CRAP is a design for layout of screen space, including text, graphics and illustrations. First of we have contrast, which can be presented in many different ways, for example: Large text with small text, a cool colour with a warm colour, a thin line with a thick line --------------------------- -------------- and many more. Secondly repetition, the idea of repeated interesting design aspects to push the customer to read on. Alignment, the idea that everything should be connected to something else, nothing is randomly positioned on the page. Finally proximity, the idea that everything should show a relationship to each other. For our task we had to bring a bad design layout from home into the lecture and swap with fellow students to identify the design flaws and how we would improve them, we were given the DVD cover to Forrest Gump, although me and my group felt that this design has little flaws, we did find a ...

Same thing again here, we get given a whole lot of information in a short space of time, so to avoid it evaporating into thin air I'm going to recap on some interesting topics I've learnt in the past few weeks. Colour and lighting I learnt that our first understanding of light and colour began with Issac Newton, he experimented with refracted light on a prism, this created components of colour including: red, blue, orange, yellow, green and violet. From his experiments he produced a colour wheel, which has been studied and developed upon by more recent scientist to the present day. They eye perceives colour as: Reflected Light Transmitted Light A mixture of both From this I understand what we perceive as colour is a objects absorption of a part of the colour spectrum and then either reflected/transmitted or a mixture back to your eye. It's represented by vibrations, different electromagnetic spectrum vibration change the colour the eye perceives. We were aslo told about add...

Two down, one to go. I have progressed onto the final design practice of the first module interactive spaces, this project involved designing a virtual space through a mixture of still digital photographs and HTML/JavaScript. It is made possible through the use of hyperlinking which allows users to explore the digital world around them, giving the audience decisions about there actions, which ultimately shows a free roam style journey. I've learnt over the last months that compositional elements and relationships play a huge role in how audiences interpret an image, I will have to consider: colour, negative space, angle, proportion, focus,narrative, association, linking 'hot-spots' and much more to create an engaging and inventive sequence of images. To start of the experimentation of interactive spaces, I produced a short sequence of 5 Images trying to show a story and journey, my idea for the test was what my dog gets up to when nobodies around, It doesn't really have...

Here is my 'Design Practice 1: One Shot Film' final group edit submission, I am very pleased with the outcome, It could almost be an advertisement for child abuse, I almost cryed (joke). There is always the possibility for my own individual edit in the future. Here it is in all It's glory: One-shot film chalk emotions from Samuel Dobson on Vimeo .

The other day we began to produce our one shot film, our ideas and inspirations had been concluded into a solid idea, there was no further planning required and the weather was perfect for shooting (we were postponed one day due to rain). We began by locating the perfect spot for filming, in terms of lighting, dryness (for chalking on the floor) and free from public interruption. We decided upon the area in front of the main gates in the park next to our university campus, not only did the sun rays here create excellent imagery and wonder due to them being split into segments by the gates and trees, we were also granted full permission to chalk away as long as we washed it afterwards. Secondly our cameraman began work on setting the white balance to achieve a prime realistic light, he also tampered with the iris, as we were filming in sunlight it was vital the iris wasn't overwhelmed by the light, he reduced it to ensure a good picture quality. Next we began to experiment with vari...

Now I have the basic concepts and designs for my one shot film, but have made no solid judgements or sense of the development stage, I like to identify the implications of my inspirations and brainstorming before I continue with later processes. This allows me to learn further and avoid possible problems arising in the future. I  adapt any new ideas created by my analysis/synthesis at this point and usually incorporate them into my current project. Analysis involves listing as many questions as you can think of regarding your project. The questions will vary from project to project but usually the majority of these questions are the same, whatever the project you are attempting. the Synthesis is the following section in the design process and is a list of answers. Quite simple really. 1) What software is most appropriate to use? 2) How long do I estimate to completion ? 3) What camera angles and lighting are best and why? 4) What story am I trying to tell? 5) What ...

To get our creative juices flowing we arranged a group meeting 12:30 Friday afternoon, our self-imposed task was to inspect and get inspiration from existing one shot shot films from the Internet. We gathered ideas, plots, visual styles and shared our findings as a group. We all had different ideas, some stronger than others, my main idea was to create a cinema environment in a studio and have several seemingly random events occur distracting a young women from watching her film. I wanted to elaborate on this one shot film by Joe Swanberg: I also looked at short films and long takes in existing films. Firstly Tom Yung Goong 2005, Prachya Pinkaew, although this isn't the greatest film in the world it has a fantastic long take on flights of stairs, whilst people are fighting and falling over the edge. I believe the long take creates a huge sense of unstoppable momentum and 'badness' which wouldn't work with conventional shots. You can't fault the cameraman, this scen...

Well hello again. I have now progressed onto the second design practice of three: One shot film, I have to  produce a short film collaboratively in a team of students. We have to develop, plan and shoot an original one shot film idea, showing every detail of the design process along the way. The camera may either pan/zoom/crab or track only once, and must be on a tripod.  I realise one shot films aren't as easy as they sound, to create a truly inventive and unique one shot, I will have to consider carefully visual composition, focus, movement, lighting and your choice of location. I hope to create a 'strong' one shot, that involves the audience but at the same time displays an interesting message. I realise that one shots films may require a long 'trial and error' process, experimenting is the key to ensure the atmosphere and messages are portrayed accurately. To jump-start the project we were put into groups (which I was initially unable to attend but joined later)...

So, seeing as I'm not a super-human-cyborg-robot-man I thought it wise to recap on anything significant learnt in seminars and lectures. This way when my later assignments arise, I have a handy backlog of useful information. Also when I word what I have learnt myself, It seems to sink in more than just hearing others speak about it. Well here's number one: -Image and Composition We learnt that everyday we are presented with visual information, how we make sense of the information is a key aspect to our intelligence as a society. The importance of visuals surpasses words, This quote elaborates on this perfectly "Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak." - John Berger “ Ways of Seeing”. We all associate different shapes with different meaning, which were mentally created at infancy, this in effect changes how different people perceive the world. What we see depends on the way of seeing, for example we learnt about the swastika, how...

Well, I have been so caught up in the design practices over the last few weeks, that I haven't had any time to think about context one (the deadlines are scarily approaching). I have had so many unfamiliar words, ideology's and theory's thrown at me, I decided it would be best to unload the information learnt from lectures and seminars here for future reference, before in evaporates in to thin air. First of: Context One: Assignment One: The Design Process This involves discussing and arguing two of the following four design methodologies • Reverse Engineering • Prototyping • Open Source • Market Research I have to Research and find examples from each of my chosen two methodologies. My task is using the methodologies I chose explain how they influence the design process. The intended outcome is that by examining my methodologies, it should become inherently clear how they differentiate and also influence the design process as a whole, not just individually. At the end I shou...