Threshold Series "The Swimmer" Understanding narrative

On Monday 21st Febuary we concluded our look into the Threshold Series by watching a film called "The Swimmer".
The film is about a man called Ned and his descent into madness, Ned is an accomplished swimmer with a family of two daughters and a wife.
Throughout the film audiences will begin to see him slowly losing his mind and ths is illustrated by his recluctance towards  accepting change as well as eagerly wanting to swim home.

As this film was shot in the 1960s the layout of the film was quite bright and somewhat surreal, I felt the characters came across as fake and patronising because of the they would address him. In Ned's quest to swim home he begun to discover some home truths as well as some shocking revelations which seemly tipped him over the edge.

When Ned finally reaches home he repeatly bangs on his front door whilst the camera slowly zooms out from him and then zooms in to a hole in the window. As the camera zooms in we begin to see an empty house with only rubbish in it, at this precise moment we now realise how mentally ill this man is.

I felt the ending scene which sees him desperately banging on what appears to be the house he used to live in were quite distressing and somewhat thought provoking. Frank Perry directing highlighted how mental illness isnt recognised enough and as a result many people are ignorant towards it and its sufferers.

If I could sum up this film in three words they would be :

1. Strange
2. Thought provoking
3. Painful

Wireframes for my website

Rational

Here are three wireframes I have designed in Photoshop as part of the design process for my new project "Digital Me". My website will represent me as person and the things I'm most interested in; from politics, to embarrasing stories it will all be here on my website.
In terms of the layout regarding my website it will be filled with bright colours to emthasise the type of personality I have, the wireframes above follow on from a moodboard I designed earlier but have yet to upload onto here
The process behind the wireframes involved beginning to understand what wireframes were and how they contributed to the design of a website. Once I understood what wireframes were I then looked at examples and these included several websites for inspiration.
We were each set the task of designing five wireframes either through the means of Powerpoint, Word or Photoshop and once completed would then be uploaded on our blogs.

As stated above the bright colours represent my quirky outgoing side and the content is information I find interested and I hope people who view my website will find it fun and interesting too.
In terms of how long it took me to design my five wireframes, as I had started creating mine last week Thursday I have now completed it as you can see above. Intially I did find the wireframes challenging however once I started and used the links provided I found it easier to manage and create.

Evaluation for our film "Ticket"

Over the last five weeks me and the group have gone through the stages of planning, developing, and executing a script called “Ticket”. During this process everyone was assigned specific roles and these consisted of the following:

1.       Producer

2.       Director

3.       Camera and Lighting

4.       Camera and Lighting Assistant

5.       Editing

6.       Sound and Design

Each member of the group picked the role they felt best suited them and then began to undertake tasks as well as carrying out in-depth research into their role if needed.  The role which I picked was camera and lighting, this required me to read up on all camera and lighting techniques as well as watching tutorials on Youtube.

 In terms of the group dynamics I felt everyone worked well together and the majority of the group put in a lot of work and all feel that the short film was a success despite several little setbacks these included; actors backing out at the last minute and not having the appropriate costumes for our characters, upon reflection as our film was inspired by french romance having the right costumes would have really made the scenes and scripts more believable.

Once we had begun shooting our director put forward an idea to change the setting of the film by having it edited in black and white to really bring to life this quirky romance, so with this in mind we all started to look at films such as “Along Came Polly “and “When Harry Met Sally” for the quirky feel and when it came to the romance side we looked at such films as Le Retour de Martin Guerre – “The Return  of Martin Guerre” which sees a solider return home to his wife after many years in the army and “Cyrano de Bergerac” which  is a lovely, touching love story about first love and rejection.

Once I had watched the film I was really expressed with it however I began to notice minor imperfections; first of all as we had to recast our actors at the last minute and I felt this really affected the chemistry which was conveyed on screen. Secondly it was apparent that both actor’s voices sometimes didn’t project enough so this made it hard to hear the dialog in all its glory however,  we all appreciated our director Alex stepping in to fill the role of our female lead character and also getting her friend Tim to play the male lead at short notice.

As a result we all took turns filming scenes which although worked wasn’t an ideal situation to be in. Nevertheless we managed to complete our short romance film in a day. When it came to editing despite the role being assigned to Samantha Freeman the group all lent a helping and oversaw its process and I feel  this was a good thing to do because for those of us who wish to pursue the pathway of filming next year it gave a good insight into how much time and work goes into making the final cut the best it can be.

"Ticket" Group Edit from Samantha Freeman on Vimeo.

This is our group film in all its glory, we all helped to edit it as a group and we are proud of the result.
The length of the film is 2 mins and 50 seconds, we have also re-shot some scenes mainly the beginning ones but overall everyone felt that they were pleased.
Despite the re-shooting of some and initially having to replace our actors at short notice I found working in the group I was in was straight forward and I felt I participated as much as possible, and enjoyed it too.
I still want to pursue film as I found this entire process hard work but very rewarding and interesting also to help me further I am starting to look at people who make documentries such as Stacey Dooley and Michael Moore in terms of feature films as I felt he really delved into unanswered questions and possibilies surrounding cultural issues linked to September 11th.

Two hour session meeting with other design students

On Wednesday 16th Feb 2011 I attended a two hour presentation session along with the following courses, Theatre Design, Design for TV & Film, Costume Design and my course Multimedia. This session had been devised to help us understand how these design courses although different do have similarities regarding work, how we summerise and how we undertake the tasks we do.

At the start of the session we were put into mixed groups of four, five and six, and told we each had 10 minutes to talk about a project that we either had done or were in the process of doing to our fellow peers. During this time there would be an assigned note taker who would also give feedback and this was for each person who had spoken.

I found the session interesting as it was nice to meet people from different courses and to also see how they approach the work they had in comparison to me and fellow Multimedia students. I now feel I have a better understand of how much work is involved whatever the project maybe and also how rewarding it is to see your finished piece and know that you have tried your hardest to achieve the grade you wanted.

Overall I felt the two hour session was constructive, productive and eye-opening.

Examples of convergence technology

Technology has come a long way over the years and one way this could be explained is through convergence.

 Definition:  Convergence happens when two elements come together

 I will now put forward examples of when convergence takes place how it affects technology. With the invention of interactivity amongst game consoles the term convergence technology has become more apparent and this because with games such as Wii Olympics and bowling allowing the player to experience more, the people participating in these games appear to be slowly drawn into the virtual world.

As many game consoles have more than one player everyone can experience the same sensation and as a result this starts to build a sense of community. Another popular game which sees a large group coming together to play one game is “Dance central”.

Dance central sees two players verse each other by using their characters in the game to compete in a dance off. However if you feel confident and brave enough as an individual player you can take on the computer in an ultimate dance off, allowing you to not only just take part in the game but also learn new dance moves.

Through convergence technology we are now able to immerse ourselves in the virtual world and within a few years time I predict that we as a society will be using more motion capture to help create video games built around us as individuals kind of like a real life Sims.

 I feel the two examples I have given demonstrate how convergence technology creates, fosters and enhances communities once we begin to us it.

Prep for interactive space project

In preperation for my interactive space project I will be creating a website through using the software dreamweaver.
The website will be somewhat of a self expression meaning it will reflect the type of person I am and what i'm interested in in terms of art, music and other social things.

Here are a few examples of projects I have undertaken:
My graphic design work

Examples of Convergence (Threshold concepts series)

As part of our course looking at the Threshold Concept series we were required to look at three main titles and they were:

1. Narrative

2. Interactive

3.Convergence.

Over the last three weeks we have taken an in-depth look into what they're meaning are and how they affect Multimedia and the culture we live in.

Last week and yesterday we watched video from a series called the "TED talks", these can be found the youtube and they feature specialists from different universities and various technology institutions giving talks on their chosen subjects.

In our lecture yesterday Monday 7th Feb we looked at the last title in the series which focused on convergence and then we  discussed how we felt it related to the following things; New media, culture and brand ifinity.

I then put forward an example of where I thought convergence was used and this was the film called "Stay Alive" which sees the characters in the film die exactly how they did in the video game they were playing.

The TED talks:

The paradox choice

Channel 4 "Despatches"

Over the years Channel 4 have brought a series of documentries called "Despatches". Despatches have focused on hard hitting subjects such a Sex Trafficing, Saving Africa's Witch Children, In God's Name (focused on on christian fundamentalists) and  most rcently Phone Tapping.

I felt that this show gave an in-depth look into what was happening behind the news headlines and as a result gave viewers the opportunity to gain a better understanding on a much more fuller scale.

Despatches has been nominated for numerous awards such as the dupoint silver Baton award for its portrail of Afghanistan Behind Enemy Lines: and a Bafta 2010 for best current affairs which was at the time reporting on recent events in Mumbi India.

Channel four's "Despatches"

More research for visual essay

A few weeks I begun my research into the world of televsion and film, as the pathway I plan for my second year will be film I felt I needed a better understanding of how this industry works.

So far I have looked at some mainstream directors such as Ridley Scott, Danny Boyle and George A Romero however now I will be looking at people such as Stacey Dooley who has gone onto make a number of documentries since appearing in a one off TV show called Blood, Sweat and T-shirts.

Blood, Sweat and T-shirts focused on 6 young adults who were sent to the Far East in search of how our day to day products are made and the  true price of how they are made.

Once Stacey had completed her 6 weeks away upon her return she then decided to make a series of  documentries highlighting the injustices of the retail industry and what really needs to change.

 Stacey Dooley now makes documentries for BBC Three

Editing & Rationale

Over the course of the last four weeks we have gone through various such as planning, attending semiars, leactures, remaining in constant contact with each other and undertaking the various tasks we were assigned individualy.
Finally afters weeks of planning my group finally managed to shoot our film called "Ticket" and this took place in the Aboretum Park which is just a few minutes walk from NTU city's Waverley building. Before we could begin to film we all headed to the camera & equipment office as we all need to know how to handle the camera equipment in the correct way so none of it got damaged in the process.

Once this had all been sorted out we were then able to take the equipment with us however we did encounter a minor problem, due to illness our actresss decided to pull out of film and as this was short notice our director stepped in and took over.

Also as a result this meant we all took turns in filming scenes and assisting our director (actress for the day) to make sure things ran as smoothly as possible. However it wasnt just actress who couldnt help us out in the end we had to find a replacement actor at short notice as we were told the original one wouldn't be able to film.

In terms of how the shoot went dispite the cold temperature I felt it had gone fairly well, evetryone managed to work well together and we were each on hand to help each other out with any small problems or quiries. However I do feel that one piece of a equipment called the runner (it attaches itself to the tripod) fairly difficult to work with during the course of the day, I felt the reason behind this was because prevously I had only ever used a tripod for my first piece of group work my one shot film.

Despite this shooting our mini film was fine, we managed to complete it just over three hours and then spent the remainder of our afternoon recording the voice over part of the script.
This afternoon during our two hour workshop the group begun overseeing the editing process of our film and tomorrow we will be hoping to put sound to it as well.

Setting the scene change of location

Our new location is now the Arboretum park earlier today I went to the site we will be filming to take some pictures pre filming which will take place on Wednesday 2nd February at half 12.

Here are my photographs:



Add caption