Clientology part 1

First of all, this is going to be a rather incoherent post...in order to start seriously thinking about some of the things assigned in the task for next year`s Client Project, I`ll have to have a really serious inner dialogue to get an idea of what I want to do, and according to that, where should I start looking for clients. Now, browsing through film and documentary festivals pages has been a good thing regardless of my still confused state of mind, you never know what might give you ideas...but, I will be back with more on this topic...

 

Art By Chance (Ultra Short Film Festival) 

 

The reason Art By Chance caught my attention was because `the selected short movies will be presented to the public through advertising screens instead of movie theatres [...]Viewers around the world will have the opportunity to watch the best festival movies free of charge and within the course of their daily routine`. All submissions must use the given theme as a backbone of their work, which last year has been the idea of a journey, and this year, is that of time. Films must be 30 seconds long or less excluding the title and credits. Deadline: 26 March. 

 

Sheffield Documentary Festival

Unfortunately, the deadline for this is before November, so no chance really to be considered for next year`s Client Project I guess, but it`s good to keep in mind the event nevertheless.

Ah, and there is something else that might be useful I managed to spot on their page:

Submit a Session IdeaI - If you have an idea for a session you would like to produce at the festival - it can be craft-based, case studies, debates, panels or masterclasses, you can submit your idea to Doc/Fest. Online submissions for 2010 will open in March. (Hmmm...thinking, thinking...ideas...yes, I might have some of those...hmmmm)

 

CrossOver Labs

 

Multiplatforming, discussion panel and project that brings together people from various media to:

• explore new techniques for developing multi-platform projects
• encourage fresh thinking about interaction with viewers and users through user-centred design processes
• provide a framework for the development of concrete projects and results in the building of pitches and early stage concept prototypes.

 TO BE CONTINUED...^.^

cREA(C)T!ivity

SPP Journal Task on creativity and research...

I remember having my interview previous to being accepted for the course...and more vividly, the fact that at one point I said that irrespective of whether or not I get to be a Multimedia student and make a career of it, I`m still going to experiment and try to give a form to some of my ideas, one way or another. Maybe I`m an incurable starry-eyed dreamer with little if any notion of financial responsibility, but I refuse to objectify my passion, my curiosity and my imagination for stability. Not that I deny its use, I just think it is one of those natural perks of focusing on what I have always felt as important: knowledge and vision.

Knowledge is about questions, riddles, controversial things, taboos and all the things that can cause anxiety and make us want to escape the challenges they pose by retreating into `bonus levels`. Yet, straying from the main storyline usually makes one change from a protagonist (of his own quest) to a Non-Playable Character. Talking about anxiety, this must be my biggest one, for sure.

For the second aspect, vision, I think one has to take a look beyond the rational. For knowledge is consciousness and the world of words, the way our understanding is built up by the power of this form of expression. Still, who can deny the (often) subliminal force of images, sounds and that dazzling melange of sensory perceptions that tell a story of their own. Perhaps the thing I find most fascinating is that as knowledge examines and tames visions, so visions are able to cast a cloud of doubt over the righteousness of our rational selves. None can slay the other without fataly injuring itself, yet they can and should always point a questioning mirror in front of the other. I think I could say that this is my credo, in whatever field of activity, and as long as I won`t find a better guideline for my future, I`ll go by it.

So, how does one follow the...```yellow brick road`` ? Maybe by never being too sure of what one knows: perpetually looking for that extra bit of information or insight, to give depth. Of course, how far down the rabbit hole one decides to go is a whole different issue (or is it?).

A Bit of Everything

Yesssss....I know! I really should continue my 3D Studio Max tutorials because I don`t seem ti be making any particular progress outside semniars on this. But, but....I just had an idea and I can`t stand to let it fly away without having a go at it. So, I spent some hours this afternoon doing a collage. I am not sure what for should I use it...it could be a moodboard for next Friday`s Identity seminar...but I`m not sure, because even though it fits some adjectives I came up with while talking to Roma, it doesn`t reflect the sort of visuals I had in mind for the project. Oh, well...I`ll see about this. I could maybe included in the SPP presentation for Tuesday...but that`s just another definite....maybe! Irrespective of whether or not is going to make it into the materials for any of the seminars, I still found it a good exercise for lighting, brushes, burns, layer properties and transparencies, overlays, etc.

The initial idea was to have feel-slates...that is...separate slates with different segments (crops) of the body and face to suggest differing, contradicting emotions and to create a sort of dynamic composition. I don`t know about the dynamic part...though I think the hotspot created by the convergence of objects in the left gives a feel of ....woooosh! to the picture. At the same time, the upper right corner is the `cool spot`: the lifeless eyes and the mocking (cockish) stare together with the colours used develop into an opposite pole (I hope!).

Well...I guess that`s it! I should run to do some tutorials now and maybe a bit of reading...

Making of...ME!

On your journal, write about your practitioner development activity (non-classroom or university work based activity only). Independent study activity is the focus. Reading, watching, talking, listening might all fit as independent practitioner development.

When I had my interview for uni, my portfolio consisted of image manipulation works and to this day it is the game I enjoy playing whenever I have an idea of some sort and I want to make a record of it. I regard this method as my very own way of doing sketches, as it is a means by which I can try out ideas about movement, angles, position of the subject, lighting, expression, story. Or, sometimes, it is just a fun and quick way to test things, to see whether or not I have the skill or resourcefullness to execute something.

The `Phantom of the Opera` experiment would be an example. The initial goal was to make something that would suggest the idea of a mask, but not as a distinct and visibly artificial, external shield that conceals the face beneath it, but a mask that is part of the character, the mask as a metaphor for certain traits if you will. So, I made it cover only half of the face and the colour is close to that of the skin.

The next example is about character (re)creation...ladies and gentlemen, a personal vision of Rasputin, with piercing eyes and ruffled feathers...I mean, hair...and all...

I have also found a few sites that I try to visit as regularly as possible because I`ve found them really interesting and engaging to read, either because of the news or the interpretations offered.

I came upon Iwa ni Hana (http://www.iwanihana.info/) while searching for an unfinished anime, called Arslan Senki (The Legend of Arslan). For someone looking for manga and anime who isn`t at the geographical epicentre of it, it`s a very useful site.

The Broken Projector (http://www.brokenprojector.com/wordpress/) was the site I discovered while looking for more information on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the movie we were shown during last week`s lecture. It had a series of reviews on German expressionist movies and...most importantly, links to archive.org where one could watch them. Another option is Blogger Films (http://blogger-films.blogspot.com/). I found links to Melies` Trip to the Moon and The Mechanical Orange by Kubrick...so again, a good site for finding videos and some short reviews.

What I also found interesting is a book called Film Tricks. Special Effects in the Movies, by Harold Schechter and David Everitt. I find it engaging not just because it reveals the sheer ingenuity behind some of the most well-known special effects or classic scenes, but also because it gives one the feel of the set, of people in the business cooperating, learning from and about each other, the way in which they reflect upon their time to come up with something that inspires or dazzles the audience.

Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography was an interesting documentary (altough right now, it seems it is no longer available on Youtube). And, just by popping in some keywords, I found some good pieces of advice from other people on shooting, lighting, video transitions and other related issues.

I also find that reading outside the immediate area of multimedia is essential...that is why I keep my reading list as eclectic as I can. I guess I`m also lucky for having friends who are willing to have long, boring....I mean....engaging conversations about

Rule of thirds

Describe the rule of thirds and make a 5 seconds film that demonstrates this rule visually. Upload your video and comments.

The rule of thirds is a method of placing your main object within a frame, so as to guide the viewer`s attention towards it, focusing on the key aspect within the picture. This can be achieved by placing that specific point you would most like to enphasise at the point where a vertical and horizontal line of your grid intersect (top left/right, bottom left/right).

This rule proves to be most useful probably in shots that involve an outdoor scene, with several characters that may have different motivations. By using the rule of thirds in a scene shot in a crowded street for instance, the viewer`s attention can be drawn towards the main character(s) in that shot, thus avoiding confusion.

What I tried to achieve in my shot was to direct the attention towards the character`s facial expressions (anxiety, but also annoyance and impatience) and body language (slightly shifting her position in the frame to suggest impatience and looking insistently in a certain direction). which would further give clues about the situation.

About Design...or how to avoid feeling guilty when paying the extra quid(s) for eye-candy

What goes on in your head when you buy something new? Take a photo of your favourite design object and answer this:

-why is it that we want our belongings to do more for us than just function well?
-why are we willing, as soon as we can afford it, to pay extra for something with appealing forms?


Why is it that function is not enough, I ask you, oh, fountain of wisdom? Well, most likely, it has something to do with the fact that the two things, function and form, are not two different ends which only rarely meet in a harmonious way to create what we call masterpieces, but they are rather sides of the same coin. The example that comes to my mind right away is Einstein’s obsession with the `design` of his formulae. He searched throughout his life for a wonderfully simple (read, elegantly formed, aesthetically appealing) form of his work not because he wanted to be `user-friendly` (although he did have a sense for selling himself and his work to the public), but because this belief that beauty is knowledge and truth was fundamental for him. And yes, my point is that design is not an exclusive fetish of the artists. You might have been freaked out during your high school years in advanced math classes by overly enthusiastic professors or calculus aficionados getting all excited about how `beautiful` this or that method of solving a problem is, or how graciously has a theory been applied. I mean, even demolition engineers might be caught over a glass of beer talking about how yesterdays`s BOOM was `a beauty!`.

But that’s not all. We even delight in the aesthetic decadence offered to us by the lurid, licentious, grim or plain rubbish. Admit it, you’ve stopped at least once in amazement at the intricacy of design and exquisite taste in composition that that moldy bit of last week-end’s pizza you forgot on top of the fridge presented you with. Or as Baudelaire would have it: `Art, man…art….zoo you not unzerstaand? ` The grim…god bless the Goths! Oh, and the macabre was big with Europeans in the 14th century…think of all the posters of the transi`s dancing with the stars of the day (kings, emperors, bishops). They were best sellers of the day (what have we learned today, kids: if the Black Death didn’t get you, buy, buy, buy!).

What goes on in our heads when buying something, that is, what makes us think something looks `great`, `swell`, `a beauty` and why are we prepared to get to the depths of that black-hole of doom we call our pockets to buy something? Well, I thought I would exemplify by talking about two items I found `sexy` enough to extort money from my ascetic budget. First off, let’s take a look at this book (yes, I chose to present as a design fetish a book…I knooooow!)

Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia was one of the books I set out to buy because of something I was working on last year, so, in this case, not much with regards design went on in my head when I bought it, especially because I ordered it online and the preview picture wasn’t all that telling. When I held it in my arms….sorry, I’m getting all sentimental here…in my hands…I realised it was possibly one of the most `handsome`/`coquettish` books I possess (and I do have a few). For once, the shiny cover, matte interior combination is really nice. Why? It’s got diversity of texture, lighting effects, contrast. With all due respect for John Gray (with whom I profusely disagree on several issues in the book, but still thank for providing me with cannon-fodder…I mean, research material for my work), I think the photo at the back is at odds with the design of the book, but, then again…
Bottom line is that I like the book because it appeals to my aesthetic exigencies even though it isn`t even close to a hypothetical top 10 of my so far favourite readings. So, would I pay more for this edition rather than another one (same text, different covers?).

Hard to say given the fact that I don`t pay that much attention to the `material`, `touchable` aspect of books (quality of paper used, cover design…though I do appreciate them). I am very comfortable with reading stuff in an electronic format. But the next item is an example of why one pays more for something that looks pretty, although a cheaper, functional version is at hand.




I already had The Longest Journey but it was a free version offered by a computer games magazine, which means there was little to no design to it. I could have bought Dreamfall separately too, yet I went for this collection. Why? For once, I think the people behind the cover should have been hired to do the conceptual art in the game too.







The ethereal-foggy-transcendental-glacial look of the cover box just states: I’m chic, I don’t need any bling and I’ll only allow for this bluish, dream-like silhouette to adorn my front. So, why did I buy it? Mr. Freud, do let’s analyse this. It very much helps re-enact visions/dreams/ pictures one uses to define a certain state of mind, which in terms are important because spacing off is an essential ingredient for keeping our mental stability and stop those nasty mood-swings taking over.

Proceed with caution!

Write a 300 – 500 word article that tells the audience about a recent multimedia technology that is being or has been developed in the last six months and explain what you think the impact of this technology will have upon society.

While browsing through some of the BBC`s technology news channel articles and trying to piece together some earlier readings from gaming magazines, two main tendencies have resurfaced repeatedly. One of them is the user generated content, which of course has been around for a while (MODs, fanzines, even fan fictions or forum discussions that most likely fuelled producers` imagination for future titles) and is now taken to a new level, by being integrated in the dynamics of the actual product (instead of its initial role as a backstage prop). I`m thinking of some of the most hyped games of this autumn, Spore and Little Big Planet. These titles are representative because they also show off the other tendency I was thinking about, what the developers of Spore have dubbed `procedural generation`. Now, procedural animation and programming are not a new idea, they have been used in incipient forms in oldies like Elite (1984) or Daggerfall (1996) and the reason behind producers` interest in exploring the technology might be driven by the need to cut back on production costs (less storage space required and less pre-rendered material by hordes of graphic designers). Nevertheless, what caught my attention was that we might have reached a point when bulking up is slowly replaced by `smarting-up`. We are used to say that computers have become smarter in the last decades, but despite the `muscles` there has been little significant change in the user-machine relation (the eternal mouse and keyboard are a token to this). Things are beginning to change though, as we have become so reliant on our machines, we can`t `keep them in the dark` any longer. I remember having a discussion a few years ago with an acquaintance about rethinking the computers as `nervous systems` and what seemed fascinating to me was the idea of having machines wired to `feel` the world around them. By feeling I don`t mean soppy WALL-E sort of feeling, but the fact that computers rely on observing and evaluating ad-hoc conditions instead of scripted commands brings them closer to what we (are supposed to) behave like. The point I`m trying to make is about choices; god-games have offered users the possibility of facing (or avoiding, depending of the person`s gaming style) moral dilemmas, yet the idea of robots being given the same chance has been the stuff of `HALlywood` dystopias. There is something extremely disquieting about making machines more than instruments of our will. Playing the god-game in the real world is still risqué . If my memory serves me well, Asimov`s short story collection I, Robot deals specifically with the delicate balance between humans, robots and morality. And for one thing, reconsidering this issue might be highly recommended for this next step, but for all the HALophobes out there, this isn`t so much about machines. Every time things go horribly wrong technology gets the blame (again, HAL), which just goes to show how unwilling we are to update our moral/ethical compass to technology. Possibly, our `love affair` with our computers might encourage us to do so. It is so ironic to think that the driving force behind the technological express is the idea that there is something else (I`m not saying something better, but something else), that different solutions are out there, while, at the same time, we are thinking of ourselves as a `lost cause`, and cling to `solutions` that have proved deficient many times, just because we think of them as `the only way` or `the way things have always been`. Maybe a bit of procedural god-game that we are about to play in the years to come will make us more aware of the fact that `scripting` can`t solve all problems; that it`s about choices we make, choices that vary according to different circumstances and parameters. Of course, whether this will indeed happen in the future is just as well dependent on various circumstances…