the ninth week

The moment I saw Barbara Adler perform her slam poetry I instantly became inspired. Having had lots of trouble trying to decide what to do I was overwhelmed with joy when she happily gave me permission to use her poetry in this assignment. My ideas changed and became more concrete at the same time.

At first I really wanted to incorporate my photography into the project, but then realized that this would not work well with this poem. I wanted to focus on the words. Keep things crisp and clean. I also decided to challenge myself with the kinetic type. You see, while I am very comfy using Adobe Lightroom and CS4, I had never opened up Flash before this class. Needless to say I did not pick up flash in a flash. I found it very tricky but after a while I think I got a bit of a hang of it.

Although my project is not perfect, I’m quite happy with it. I would have liked for the sound and text to be more synced up but I am still figuring out how to do that. I am hoping to improve these lacking skills and go back to this project and make it better. Hope Barbara likes it!

After watching others work, I realized just how much you can do in flash! The possibilities are endless! Now, I just need to figure out how to upload my flash to YouTube without it getting corrupted.

the eighth week

This week we learned about ARGs! Alternate Reality Games! So neat!

ARGs are digitally interactive games that have intense player involvement. The players of the game help solve plot based puzzles. The players share the information that they gather over the Internet and swap what they've learnt to work together as a team. Crazy cool right?

So who else is involved? Well there's a "Puppet Master". The unseen leader. The Wizard Of Oz! The man (or woman) behind the curtain! And speaking of the curtain - that's a metaphor for the separation between the puppet master and the players! The "Rabbithole" is what we call the first website, contact, or puzzle that starts off the ARG.

They have usually been used for video game viral marketing because hey those nerdy geeks get into it! And hey I'm one of those geeks! I few years ago I played an ARG! It wasn't for a video game, but a British TV show - that never aired in Canada. Lol right?

I stumbled up a website which spoke of an unreal celebrity's death. From there I found myself on a fake chat board and next thing I knew I was trying to solve a fake celebrity death hoax! It wasn't as interactive as the ARGs we discussed in class, but still! So fun!

After talking about ARGs in class I'm super temped to get involed with one again! So I'm keeping my eyes peeled for any suspicous looking bilboards or websites. Find soemthing? Let me know!

the seventh week

Scopitone videos! The first music videos! Kinda! Scopitones were a kind of video jukebox. Because it was so bulky, you can't find many scopitones around today. So let's go back in time shall we?

What do these videos have in common. Well for one they're all French. Not all scopitone videos were French, there are just lots of French ones on Youtube. What else? These videos don't really have any concept. The videos are simple and colourful. There seems to be lots of dancing in all of them as well. The songs are all super catchy! And the singers are all quite talented!

Now let's look at some of today's "top music videos"...







Like scopitones, these videos are colourful and there's dancing. Unlike scopitones these music videos have plots, giant sets, and some even have explosions! All three of these videos are also selling the artist's persona, wither it be "the diva" or "the girl next door". It's less about the song and more about the star.


Wow music videos have come along way!

the sixth week

Eek! This week is a tricky one!

I find it hard to make decisions. I've come up with about a billion brainstorms (rough number) on what to do, and still I'm having a hard time making up my mind. Blarg. It's the worst.

Alright. Focus Kate. Just make a decision already. Or do another brainstorm.

YEAH! That's it another brainstorm.

So. Here's what I know...
I want to do a lil' mix of kinetic type and photographic animation. I keep changing my mind on if the focus will be on the type or on the photos. I guess it depends on what this animation will be on.

At first I thought about recording a monologue that one of my friends wrote. I still like this idea a lot, but it requires lots of extra work. Not that I don't like doing extra work, I just don't know if I have time. Oh how I wish I had all the time in the world. But no.

Here's my next actually solid idea that poses complications. I'd love to do a mainly kinetic type (with some photography) based on one of Barbara Adler's slam poetry. But then we bump into the whole copyright issue. I met her in person and of course the idea doesn't hit me until I leave her pressence. Just my luck right? Ack.

Here's her Myspace. Super cool right?

So for now I wait on her e-mail response with either good or bad news. And as I wait I do my best to come up with another stable idea. I really hope I hear some good news soon.

I'll get back to you as soon as I know. Fun fact? I hate not knowing.

If I had magic powers I'd do something like this or more so like this.

As I said. Wish me luck.

the fifth week

Two posts ago I posted my poster. See? Yeah. I also have up my artists statement. I kinda said all that I needed to say about the process and all that. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Additional remarks? Not to sound cheesy (ps. I love me some cheese) but I'm really proud of it! I wanted to challenge myself and I did! I wanted to have fun and I did! The class all gave positive feedback and not to sound all high and mighty, but not much needed improvement. Come to think of it, I can't remember anything negative being said. So thus... success? Nah, I love constructive criticism.

Honestly though I am very happy with the final product. Smiles all around.

the forth week

Typography!

It's pretty neat stuff eh?

So often it fly under our radar as we focus on the flashy images. But really it's the type and the text that creeps into our brains. It tells us just as much as an image can, plus yeah there is also text that we can read. Double the trouble (in this case trouble is information that our brain is taking in)! Typography is EVERYWHERE! It's by no means difficult to pick out some examples. I thought I'd pick three current or up coming movie posters! A great movie poster does wonders. Little pieces of art when done right. Let's look at some fancy fonts shall we?

Jennifer's Body

Here the typography is something similar to a letterman font. This kinda of font is usually associated with high school football jackets and high school year books. For this poster they have made it a bit bolder and given it a blood red stain. The poster is effective in that it congers up both highschool and a bit of horror, thus obatining a campy feel. This is just what Jenifer's Body is about. I saw the midnight showing of this film during TIFF! It wasn't the worst! I kinda liked it? But don't tell anyone.

Where The Wild Things Are

How adorable is this poster? Super adorable. The typography is different then that in the books (which the film is based upon), but is does an even better job at conveying the emotions and feelings of the book. The childish scrall that is tall and well...wild for lack of a better word, is just messy enough that we as viewers see the fun and youth in it. At the same time it isn't too messy an ilegible either. It's kid friednly but the tallness makes it mature for older viewers looking back to their own childhood as well. I cannot wait for this movie. Just look at that font! Does it not just melt your heart?

The Informant(!)

Big, thick, and simple. Also in itallics. In this poster, it seems that either an Ariel or a Helvetica has been used to get that straight and simple effect. The contrast with the yellow and the itallics, as well as the alignment creat that blanced yet kooky feel. I haven't seen a trailer for this film but I have seen the posters everywhere, and now I have this urge to see the film. That being said this poster is deffinatly successfull.

poster

About my kyle and kate poster…

When I heard that we would be using Photoshop in our Digital Media class I pretty much went crazy with excitement. Not just because I’ve used Photoshop lots before, but because my CS4 trial had ended last year and I’d only been using Lightroom since then. Lightroom is a great program, but you just can’t do the same things on it that you can of CS4. I was excited that I’d be able to use the program again, and even more excited to experiment around with it. When approaching this poster project, you could say that was my motto. Experiment.

Right off the bat I decided to make a poster for my new SpiritLive show that I’m doing with Kyle. Why not kill two bids with one stone? I wanted to show the goofy nature of our show and the dynamic between Kyle and I. Titled simply “Kyle and Kate” our show is an odd mix of sports news (done by Kyle) and indie music (done by myself). I know nothing about sports and Kyle knows nothing of the indie music scene. This results in lots of me getting confused, and then me bossing Kyle around. There seems to be this idea that jocks and artsy types are worlds apart, and we try and bring them together on our show. I wanted my poster to do somewhat of the same thing.

I decided to take candid shots of Kyle and I goofing around, and then edited the photos in Lightroom. Once I was happy with the base image I imported it into CS4 and began to play around. Here’s where I got a little stuck. I decided to colour the background blocks different colours (for a fun yet funky effect), and used a big selecting tool that is similar to the magic wand. This tool was grabbing too much and, I forgetting about how you can adjust that, instead went to the magnetic lasso and took a lot of persnickety time selecting blocks. Lesson learnt. Moving on, I decided that a more raw and rough look would work for this poster. I used the clone stamp, copying the original image, and then cloning on some of the creases on the blocks. I liked the way it brought out the lines and added some directional flow, helping you eye move around the poster.

With that done it was time for text. Going to my favorite font site DaFont.com, I began to explore. Still going with the rough yet fun look, I found two fonts that I liked and thought would be appropriate. One more chunky and stubby, one thinner and more detailed. Both very distressed. I thought that it would be fun to mix it up a little with the fonts, and chose to use the thinner more detailed font for the title, and the chunky bold font for all the info. I’m very pleased with this choice, and think that the two fonts balance each other nicely. I arranged them in a way so that the chucky info bits of text framed the title as well as the photo of Kyle and I.

All in all I’m quite pleased with my poster! I can’t wait to put them up all over Ryerson and beyond. Now…if only I could afford colour prints! Viral internet advertising will have to do for now.