Schedule for Movie Database
Ok so we don’t actually have a schedule as yet, (still in the desgin stage) but it is still coming together, we are getting together as a group tomorrow after the TV session so we can look through the footage that Ollie has taped from TV (of old black and white films) and pick out some emotions from them, as well as the space talk.
From then we could all go off and look at different clips from YouTube or any that we have from DVD’s that are at home (or in their flats) I need to check with my dad if he has any equipement that captures anything from a video or DVD and can be used or editted on the computer (and show me how to do that if he does) this will mean that I’ll have the main role of getting the footage onto a computer and in a format that can be used by the others.
Then I think the next stage will be mixing the audio up and extracting the audio from each clip and putting that into seperate files so they can be used indivdually from the film clips. The database will also be a good thing to be doing at the same time so perhaps while two people deal with the sound and the film clips (and any effects) two could get on with the database and the code we’d used to mix the films and audio up.
Hopefully tomorrow we’d come up with a schedule of what needs to be done, when for and in what order so the roles can be given out to each one of us and we can really begin this project as I feel it’ll take a lot of time and effort to complete (just means it’s more of a challenge) but I do feel this can work if we all keep to the schedule turn up for all the group meetings and keep everyone informed of our progress etc.
Interstices
I’ll be working with Kat for this project, at the moment all we’ve got is speculation and just some quick ideas floating around, nothing for definate or even any proper idea (i.e. something that we could work with).
I’m currently finding this a bit difficult to begin, this isn’t because it’s a hard task that we’ve been set but it’s trying to think of something that 1) isn’t around today 2) haven’t seen on TV and 3) something that’s realstic.
Obviously alot of the “ideas” that have come up so far have all be influenced by something in some way (one I suggested being influenced by Minority Report) and one Kat suggested influenced by another Students work she saw the preivous year when coming for her open day.
While at work today I did come up with a sort of idea although this has kinda been seen before in again Minortity Report or iRobot (might even be in both) is future travel and not cars or something along those lines.
Have to organise a time to meet up with Kat to really think about any ideas we may have and come up with one idea that we’ll look into and see about how to present it. Mike suggested to the whole class (today in his lecture) either as an advert, a webpage or something along those lines.
We also need to look at how it’ll effect society in good and bad ways and discuss that or include it in our presentation…so a lot of workbook work as well as blogging, and drawing which Kat will have to do as I’m not good at drawing of any kind even my stick drawing seem a bit funny.
Kasimir Malevich
As mentioned in an earlier post, Malevich is the artist whose work I’ll be imitating, the piece is yet to be decided but I just thought I’ll write a bit about the artist himself.
Look at his background and his history etc. this will probably be added to as I continue my research into him and into the work that I chose to use. However I should hopefully write more about the piece itself and the process Malevich went through to produce it and how I copy that (or as best as I can)
Malevich was born near Kiev, Ukraine, he was one of fourteen children (which only 9 survived into adulthood), he and his family moved around quite a bit from village to village in Ukraine, normally beside sugar plantation (his father was a manager at a sugar factory)/
Living in villages meant he was far away from centres of culture and professional artists, he was though surrounded by peasant styles, i.e. decorated walls and stoves as well as embroidery, Malevich was able to paint in that style also.
He first studied art in Kiev between 1895 and 1896; he later studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1904 to 1910
He began working in an unexceptional Post-Impressionist manner, but by 1912 he was painting peasant subjects in a massive `tubular’ style similar to that of Léger as well as pictures combining the fragmentation of form of Cubism with the multiplication of the image of Futurism (The Knife Grinder, Yale Univ. Art Gallery, 1912). Malevich, however, was fired with the desire `to free art from the burden of the object’ and launched the Suprematist movement, which brought abstract art to a geometric simplicity more radical than anything previously seen.
After studying art he started experimenting with different modernist styles which included Cubism and Futurism.
By 1912 he went back to painting peasant subjects in a ‘tubular’ style, which is similar to the styles he experimented with earlier in his life, he was fired though as he wanted to move art away from an object, thus launching the style of Suprematism. (Works in this style include Black Square and White on White). This style brought abstract art to a new level that had never been seen before.
With this new style it meant that Malevich (and any other artist using that style) wasn’t restricted to the object and the things surrounding it for their art.
Malevich tilted rectangles, used more colours and even introduced the suggestion of 3D.
However in 1918 he did return to his earlier style of purest ideals (White on White an example of this also). He then realised he could go no further painting, and turned to teaching and writing about painting as well as making 3d models.
Malevich started his teaching career at the art school at Vitebsk, and in 1922 he moved to Leningrad where he stayed for the remainder of his life. He did return to painting in the later 1920’s by became out of favour with the political system as it now demanded Socialist Realism from artists, thus resulting in him dying in neglect. This did not affect the influence he has on abstract art in the west and Russia which his pretty big.
Something that I found out about him which is interesting is he designed his own coffin obviously using Suprematism design.
Ollie then said he’d make his own coffin too and have an enormous banana for it, not quite sure if that’ll work of if he’d still want that when he’s older but hey it could still work.
Artefact Project
For this I’m going to be re-producing a piece of work by the Russian artist Kasimir Malevich, I was going to work on his painting of the black square on a white background which is painted with oils onto a canvas.
I’m currently looking at other pieces of art he’s created to see if there are any others that I could imitate, as I feel the first choice will be a bit too easy to produce and sort of cheating compared to what other students are doing. Although taking into consideration my artistic skills easy will possibly better as anything I seem to draw/paint never turns out the way I want it too or even look anything like what it’s supposed to be.
Viewing some other peices of art of that Malevich has done one I’m interested in and does look like I’llat least be able to make something that barely resembles what it’s supposed to be is the Half-Figure in a Yellow Shirt. Which is also done in oils, it’ll involve more colours but more time and effort will be taking in producing it…something I’m sure is what’s expected from us.
Movie Database
On Thursday we presented our movie database idea to Sarah to see if we were on the right tracks with what we wanted to do and whether or not she thinks it’ll work.
Surprisingly she really liked the idea and thought it’ll work, although it will involve a lot of time and effort it should hopefully produce a really good peice of work.
Ollie has started recording some old films on Channel four which are already black and white and the rest of the group need to start looking into other sources (as we need three) and getting a list of different clips to use.
I think the next biggest part of the assingment to do will be editting the footage together.
Below is a list of what we’re going to do for this project (in no particular order)
- Clips in black and white
- Clips will be editted together in a random order
- Database with all the clips in, with certain fields that can be searched
- Linkage of Emotion
- Different audio to what goes with the original clip
- And some clips may have different effects used
I’ll explain the last one in a bit more details. For each clip a different emotion will be shown i.e. love, hate, happiness, excitement etc. some of the clips that will be used will take longer to display which emotion is being used.
i.e. If two people where having a romantic meal together the emotion “love” may take longer to become apparent as the meal could be just two people having a meal especially if the sound doesn’t quite link up.
With this being the case that clip will have it’s own narrative (of this meal) which will go against the whole soft cinema theory of films not having a narrative.
As a group we decided that we’ll add an effect to any clip that has a narrative by mixing it up a bit. Like with the film Man with a Moving Camera sometimes the footage was fast-forward, re-winded etc we’d do that to break the narrative up.
Overall she liked the idea so we’re going to start producing it this week (as time is running out) hopefully we’d have it finished in time for the end of March and it’ll work out the way we want it to.
Audio Assignment part 2
I handed in my audio project today, and I would like to say it went all ok without any problems, but as always with computers I did come across a few.
I began the project last night, I had my image all the tracks that I needed (in the end I used four, the manager being interviewed, the crowd, a whistle which was repeated a few times during the audio track and an announcer). So there weren’t any problems obtaining them.
I wasn’t using one of the recommended programmes as I didn’t have it on the laptop I was working on, I used Adobe Audition though.
Sorting out the audio track with the mix of all four tracks wasn’t a problem, I got all the tracks imported, in the order that I wanted them to be, faded one in and out etc. not a problem.
Burned the uncompressed onto a CD but then I couldn’t put anything else on it, so had to burn another one with the picture, the uncompressed version and the MP3 version. I then added all the original sound tracks to another folder and burned the CD.
I decide to put it all on my memory stick too so that if this morning while at Uni I had any problems with it I could access it on my memory stick.
I copy all the files over (they were saved onto the computer) when it said my memory stick was too full, so I started deleting things (after transferring them onto the computer) and it was still full, I deleted loads of work off too!
By this point I’m getting frustrated as it’s only one file that won’t go on, and it’s one that I need! I e-mail it to myself, and wait for it to load while I get ready for bed when my dad says he has a memory stick that I could put it on. Good thing too as it was too big to e-mail.
I’m glad I did put it on my memory stick as I get to university and the folder with the original sound files hadn’t been burnt onto the CD and it wouldn’t let me copy it over (It wouldn’t let me write to it, read only) I had brought spare CD’s with me so I was able to copy it over to a new one and hand it all in.
Although doing this project wasn’t a rush or a stress to get done it was more of a rush/stress when the CD’s wouldn’t burn on the Mac’s and then won’t play on a PC even though the Mac and PC option was clicked when burning.
It was all handed in on time and complete.
IDAT 104 Update
As we only have a week left before we’ve got to show Sarah what we’ve done so far we really had to crack down to work as a group.
The first task on the agenda was agreeing on what we’re going to do and how! We discussed this quickly in Mussab’s tutorial, which means our work can begin!
What has been decided is we’re using 3 different narratives (this caused some confusion as we thought that the whole point of this assignment was for the footage not to have a narrative) but what we think is meant by this is use multiple sources i.e. own footage, the space talk DVD, south west archive footage etc.
The group will be using three sources which consist of our own footage, clips from films and the space talk DVD.
Once that was sorted the database was brought up, what we need in it, (the fields) how we’ll going to enter data, the query’s we’ll use etc. we did all agree that a database is needed. Work on that can be done early next week hopefully.
We did stick with our original idea about doing the footage in black and white, use Love as the theme, and have the random list to edit the clips together, and then select which place to play from.
Now that the group are 100% aware of what we’re doing the “proper” work can get underway.
Certain things still needed to be sorted out though such as: -
- What needs to be done and in what order
- What of our own footage we’ll use and where we’ll film
- The type of work to do and who will do it (we’ll all take a share in doing everything probably rotate the work every few days or every week etc)
- What needs to be done as a group etc.
But the above list can be done or at least considered next Monday or Tuesday so on Wednesday (our day off) the work can begin and be ready for Thursday (or part of it)
Pro’s and Con’s of E-mail
The list of the pro’s and the con’s for the E-mail.
|
Pro’s |
Con’s |
|
Reach a lot of people |
People might delete the e-mail or not pass it on |
|
No specific boundaries |
Could become over-whelmed with responses and don’t have time to map each one |
|
Receivers are already at a computer |
People could be hesitate at putting down their details. |
|
Fast – reach more people in less time |
Someone could alter the e-mail and change the link to an unsuitable website. |
|
More people participating |
Could go to the same people, in the same area (but a pro comes from it, see 9) |
|
Just have to copy and paste the e-mail don’t have to remember a note |
|
|
Fast response from public – no waiting |
|
|
Many ways to map out e-mail |
|
|
See the links and connections to people. Easy to refine search on how they got to each place |
|
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Not just limited to MSN contacts but can use contacts from another site i.e. myspace |
|
Overall we came to this conclusion:
That although there were Con’s as well as Pro’s the pro’s outnumbered the Con’s and therefore the most suitable idea to put into practise is the E-mail, it won’t take long to set up the website and type the e-mail up and send it to the relevant contacts. Hopefully we’ll receive positive results from the recipients of the e-mail so we can begin setting our map out as soon as possible.
There are various ways we could map this, which will be discussed later on in the project once we’ve got the initially stages underway.
The Fiver
Here are the pro’s and con’s of the Fiver Idea
|
Pro’s |
Con’s |
|
Easy to write URL on |
Will people trust a URL or look it up? |
|
Map in a specific area i.e. Town or County |
Limited boundaries, likely to get repeats, probably need more detail from people. |
Scenarios
Bar: - Be given as change, the receiver will not be near a computer to type in where they got it. Then given back to the barmen in exchange for a drink and the cycle starts again. Could be too drunk to remember the URL if they looked at it at all.
Shop: - Could stay in a till for ages (not given as change) or similarly in someone’s wallet/pocket for a while. Customer may not look at the note when given the five pound.
Bank: - Someone could pass it in as cash into their bank account and then stay there for a while.
Overall we came to this conclusion:
The five pound not idea was good in theory but not very feasible, it’s relying on too many people and a good scenario to work as it involves someone looking at the five pound not and then trusting that the URL is to a suitable website.
Progrees on Mapping
As mentioned in an earlier post the group met today to go through any ideas we had and to see if we could make a decision as to what our Map project should be.
I think we had agreed that we should “track” a path of an object money, a note, a balloon or something else. So we were just talking about which object to track and how.
After the practical on Monday, Kat and Claudia went back to Kat’s and drew up a list of some of their ideas of what we could track. This was the main point of the discussion this afternoon.
Their ideas ranged from the Fiver to tracking a pint glass. These were their ideas:-
- Fiver/Coin
- Following a tour bus of a band (Reuben (well more like putting a sticker on their bus)
- A Sticker on a pint glass (see how often it got used etc.)
- A football game in the park
- Balloons
- Tagging a Cat
- Who download songs and where from
- DVD rental
All of these ideas were good and lead to many possibilites we did need to cut the list down again so we could end up with one idea that the group could all agree on, so we could start the mapping project as soon as possible.
The Ideas and their reasons for not including them are:-
Sticker on a tour bus
This would invlove us following the bus route, although it will be a map it was a bit easy to do and won’t really take a whole month to do not completely sure if this is what is required of us. But this does give a good backup plan if the choice we finally make doesn’t work out.
Sticker on a pint glass
This would be hard to track as it’ll just go back and forth from the bar and stay in the same place, which would mean it’ll be a small map of one bar area i.e. the Student Union.
A football in the park
A good idea which inspired other possiblites, but mapping the travel of the ball in a football game would result in a map with lots of lines all over the place, which would mean you couldn’t actually tell where the ball had travelled. This could however be turned to show a map of each play (for instance from the goalie back to the attackers down the other side of the pitch) and a play from the opposing team to incept then ball.
All that came from this though was me explaing the offside rule to Kat.
Balloon
There’s one big problem with this and that’s wind, if we let balloons off with messages to a website they’d be blown all over the place and may not land near someone in order for them to be tracked, let alone popping before reaching anyone. If this did happen (either popping or not landing by someone) they might not be able to be released again if their helium went.
This would leave us with a map of where each balloon went if found at all.
Tagging a cat
None of the group have a cat too tag.
Downloading songs and where from
Be hard to track by ourself, so would have to send a website to people in order for them to fill it, would it produce a map?
DVD Rental
Would have to ask the rental company if we could stick notes into their DVD covers to find out where they went and how often they were by, not sure if they’d allow us to do that so not really possible to accomplice.
After going through the list of possibility’s we managed to narrow it down to two of the best options to do the Fiver and an E-mail, to make the final decision we drew up a Pro’s and Con’s list for both ideas and added a few scenarios too.
These pro’s and con’s will follow in the next post(s)
