Working on this project was fun and interesting. It was definitely better than working on our last project (unit 2). It was nothing as I expected it to be.
Starting off this project was really cool. We did a lot of practical work, i.e. interviewing, photography, filming, etc. We also played mini games, which was really fun and different from what we did normally. We also met different people via this unit, which really helped me and the work that I have done for this unit. I was able to meet my target deadlines.
I think I had improved my planning and organising skills since our last unit, which made it easier for me to work on this unit. I had also realized that I work better individually but of course I did need some help. I really enjoyed doing the practical tasks especially interviewing and thought it came naturally to me, so I was really comfortable with it. But it was a lot of hard work nonetheless. Creating the final product was really hectic and chaos, but it also was fun. But at the end it was worth it because our exhibition turned really great. The best part of this unit for me was that we went out a lot.
Overall I think this was fun and exciting unit. It really helped in building my interviewing skills.
Monday 15 November 2010
Project Review
Sunday 14 November 2010
Thursday 8th July 2010
Today was a total rush and very stressful. Everybody wanted their final product finished which was due today. Which was kind of hard because everyone wanted to do everything at once. I had started my video at home and I brought to school to finish it off. But when I opened my file from the USB, it wasn't working. Nothing was appearing. So I had to delete my old file and start all over again, which was annoying and made me really angry because I had to do it again. On top of all this mess, the sound wasn't working and that just made it hard to work out my videos and music. So later on after trying everywhere, I went to the library where (thankfully!) the sound was working and everything else worked just fine. After, when I finished my video and went to hand it in. My video didn’t work! It wasn’t working in other computer. That was very annoying. But then Alie helped me out and told me why it wasn’t working. I didn’t publish it as a movie, so that’s why it wasn’t working. Finally I was able to give it in. Thank God!
Thursday 1st July 2010
Today we are told to think about how we could get our final product together. How can we get everything in line of order and how would we would present it. I started on the video that I had initially thought about. It was a bit difficult for me to go about it because I never used windows movie maker before. But finally I got the gist of what I could achieve if knew exactly how windows movie maker works. So it was okay. Later on the day Dominic and the older participants arrived and we showed them what we had done (the videos we made until they arrived). Then we were taken to the theatre where we did yet again another workshop.After doing that we sat in a circle and briefly spoke about our food stories to remind everybody what we spoke about last time. Then the older participants were told to speak about their oldest child memory on food. Each one of them told us a very fascinating story. Then we were put into the groups of the mediums we had chosen and then each group had an older participant who’d we had to interview regarding their food story and record it with our given medium. Later we sat back in a circle and discussed very thoroughly about what needs to be done for next week because, next week is when we hand in our final product.
Thursday 24th June 2010
OMG! Today was sooo cool! We went to Borough Market and it was fabulous! Before we were off to our journey we were told to pick a partner and to get a camera or a video recorder, depending on the medium we had chosen. My partner was Muna and we picked a video recorder and I also had my own camera. When we finally reached our intended destination, we were sent off in groups and pairs in the market to interview the people there and take pictures and videos. When we entered the market I was hit by a very heavy aroma that smelled like onions and various spices, though I was unable to place them. But the odour of the onions was quite definite. . As we went along and took interviews, pictures and videos we got used to the smell. There were different smells too depending on the various stalls. If I thought that the different aromas had ensnared me, I was yet to surprise myself because, the sights of the different foods was quite breathtaking. The colours of these foods just enhanced their appearances and made them all more appealing. I was quite happy that I had a chance to interview these people because I find out that each one had a different story to tell, either its about how they produce it or import it. It was very fascinating to listen. It was a shame that we couldn't stay there the whole day due to our science exams took place in the afternoon.
Initial Ideas for Final Product
- Picture book
- Scrap book
- Story book
- Puzzle
- Website
- PowerPoint
- Photo Journal
- Video
- Audio
- Paintings
- Sketches
- Drawings
- Photography
- Collage
- A mixture of everything
- Log book
- Posters
- Banners
Photography Timeline
"Photography" is derived from the Greek words photos ("light") and graphein ("to draw") the word was first used by the scientist Sir John F.W. Herschel in 1839. It is a method of recording images by the action of light, or related radiation, on a sensitive material.
• 5th-4th Centuries B.C.
Chinese and Greek philosophers describe the basic principles of optics and the camera.
• 1664-1666
Isaac Newton discovers that white light is composed of different colours.
• 1727
Johann Heinrich Schulze discovered that silver nitrate darkened upon exposure to light.
• 1794
First Panorama opens the forerunner of the movie house invented by Robert Barker.
• 1814
Joseph Niepce achieves first photographic image with camera obscura - however, the image required eight hours of light exposure and later faded.
• 1837
Louis Daguerre's first daguerreotype - the first image that was fixed and did not fade and needed less than thirty minutes of light exposure.
• 1840
First American patent issued in photography to Alexander Wolcott for his camera.
• 1841
William Henry Talbot patents the Calotype process - the first negative-positive process making possible the first multiple copies.
• 1843
First advertisement with a photograph made in Philadelphia.
• 1851
Frederick Scott Archer invented the Collodion process - images required only two or three seconds of light exposure.
• 1859
Panoramic camera patented - the Sutton.
• 1861
Oliver Wendell Holmes invents stereoscope viewer.
• 1865
Photographs and photographic negatives are added to protected works under copyright.
• 1871
Richard Leach Maddox invented the gelatine dry plate silver bromide process - negatives no longer had to be developed immediately.
• 1880
Eastman Dry Plate Company founded.
• 1884
George Eastman invents flexible, paper-based photographic film.
• 1888
Eastman patents Kodak roll-film camera.
• 1898
Reverend Hannibal Goodwin patents celluloid photographic film.
• 1900
First mass-marketed camera—the Brownie.
• 1913/1914
First 35mm still camera developed.
• 1927
General Electric invents the modern flash bulb.
• 1932
First light meter with photoelectric cell introduced.
• 1935
Eastman Kodak markets Kodachrome film.
• 1941
Eastman Kodak introduces Kodacolor negative film.
• 1942
Chester Carlson receives patent for electric photography (xerography).
• 1948
Edwin Land markets the Polaroid camera
• 1954
Eastman Kodak introduces high speed Tri-X film.
• 1960
EG&G develops extreme depth underwater camera for U.S. Navy.
• 1963
Polaroid introduces instant colour film.
• 1968
Photograph of the Earth from the moon.
• 1973
Polaroid introduces one-step instant photography with the SX-70 camera.
• 1977
George Eastman and Edwin Land inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• 1978
Konica introduces first point-and-shoot, autofocus camera.
• 1980
Sony demonstrates first consumer camcorder.
• 1984
Canon demonstrates first digital electronic still camera.
• 1985
Pixar introduces digital imaging processor.
• 1990
Eastman Kodak announces Photo CD as a digital image storage medium.
(http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/stilphotography.htm )
This is my research to show how back photography went and how it has changed and improved over time.
Photography
Photography is the process, activity and art of creating still or moving pictures [1]. We use photography to turn our imagination into reality. We use this medium to capture the little moments and times that will not be there later on. Like something to hold on to. Creating memories. Photographs evoke the essence of places we have not been or we perhaps will not return to, and should never forget [2]. Photography is a visual artwork [3]. It’s just not the images we capture that matters, its how you present it. How we take something very simple and turn them into something extraordinary. One has to be passionate about it to create and turn something very mundane into something imaginative, creative and lively, such as, a strand of barbed wire becomes romantic [4] . Photography and painting are both alike. They both are ways to express our imaginations and creativity. Though in paintings, it’s directly what you’re imagining whereas photography is using objects around you to turn your imagination into reality. Make them come alive. “Photography is only a tool, a vehicle, for expressing or transmitting a passion in something else" [5].
(http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge-center/what-is-photography.html [2, 3, 4, 5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography [1])
What is Film???
There are many types of film. The 3 most common types of feature, documentary and animation. A feature is a fictional film, usually between 90 and 130 minutes long, that is shown in commercial cinemas. A documentary, or non-fiction film, is any film that as its subject real-life persons, events or situations. Animation describes any film that gives life to drawings, models, cut-outs or computer image representations of people and, objects and animals by filming and projecting them at a speed to give them a sense of movement.
(Information from the book “Media Wise” by Sarah Jones)
Thursday 17th June 2010
Today Dominic came to Capital City again and we yet again did another workshop. We sat in a circle and spoke about our food stories. Our homework was to think about a food story (children’s book). The book I picked was Charlie and the chocolate factory. Then later on the day we planned our trip to Borough Market and what medium will we choose for our final product. Today we made a list of things that we could do as our final product. We researched on the mediums that we would like to present as our final products. For my final product I was thinking I get of set images and videos relating to each other and putting them together so that they tell a story. Like I’ve set of images and from the last picture, starts the video of that moment that the images shoes. Though the idea is a bit tricky. I think I can pull it off.
Charlie and the chocolate factory
Thursday 27th May 2010
Today we went Clairemont high school. There we met up age concern and Dominic. After introducing our selves and did some workshops together. It was a fun day! We got to know each other. The older participants are unlike as I had stereotyped them to be. Later on the day we spoke about our sentimental objects that we brought with us. Then we were given large pieces of paper each, in which we had to lie down in it and someone else will draw our outline. In the outline we had to write each word for every year till our present age. Overall the day was really fun!
Tim Burton
(http://www.hollywoodzing.com/best-directors/tim-burton.html )
Tim Buton's films are all about style. He's got a flair for gothic genre and his movies reflect his personality. His movies are eccentric and unique. He's my favourite director.
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is an America born (16 August 1954) Academic Award winning director who has made a name for himself with his mastery as a screenwriter and producer. Cameron is known for his fine handling of action or science fiction films. He is a highly innovative director and one the most successful ones as well. James Cameron started his career as a screenwriter and gradually developed an interest for art direction. Special effects have always been the major attraction of Cameron's films. Initially the Hollywood producers hired Cameron as the special effects director. Within a very short span of time, James Cameron came to be known as one of the successful directors in Hollywood. James Cameron is renowned for the direction of films like The Terminator, Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Dark Angel and Titanic. Titanic deals with the tragic incident of the sinking of a ship named Titanic. Cameron incorporated the element of fictional romance into it which also signifies the cultural differences between two social classes. James Cameron has received numerous awards for his contribution to Hollywood film industry including the Bradbury Award in 1991 from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The Academy Awards forBest Editor, Best Director and Best Picture are also the other major awards received by him. Since Cameron's films are essentially a technology driven one, his efforts in the field is also recognized. This was evident in the honorary degree of Doctorate by the University of Southampton in July 2004. This award cited Cameron's experiments with underwater shooting (for Titanic) and the use of advanced technology in Hollywood films as important contribution to the growth of Hollywood cinema.
( http://www.hollywoodzing.com/best-directors/james-cameroon.html )
James Cameron is one of the most successful directors in Hollywood. He holds the highest grossing film record in Box Office. He's films are all about the action.
Thursday 20th May 2010
Today we designed a questionnaire for the older generation and researched about this lady called Gillian Wearing and her work. Then we all went to the Roundwood Park where we did something like Gillian Wearing does. We were put into groups, then we were told to go around and about in the park and ask people older than us (the older, the better) the questions from the questionnaire we had prepared. I had Hayat, Muna and Sophia in my group. We went around and asked questions from our questionnaire. Then we took pictures of us interviewing them. Then just like Gillian Wearing, we asked the people to write in capital letters their (at the moment) thought/s on the card board and then we took their picture whilst them holding it.
Gillian Wearing
Gillian Wearing (born 1963) is an English conceptual artist. English photographer and video artist. Wearing has described her working method as ‘editing life'. By using photography and video to record the confessions of ordinary people, her work explores the disparities between public and private life, between individual and collective experience. Wearing has cited the influence of English fly-on-the-wall documentaries, such as Michael Apted's 7-up and the 1970s documentary The Family. Signs that Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992–3), made shortly after her graduation from Goldsmiths College in 1990, was produced by approaching people on London streets, asking them to write something on a card and then photographing them as they displayed it. Private lives were given a sudden and revealingly painful exposure: a policeman holds a card reading ‘Help!'. With the introduction of video and more in-depth interviewing of her subjects, Wearing began to use adult actors lip-synching the recorded confessions of children, and subjects, solicited from advertisements placed in newspapers, making confessions while wearing masks. The introduction of actors signalled an increasingly dramatic element in her work and a shift away from the use of documentary techniques. The 1999 video I Love You used actors to explore the theme of strong private emotion spilling out into a semi-public domain. The scene of a drunken woman repeatedly screaming ‘I love you' is played out a number of times, the reaction of her three friends differing each time. Wearing won the Turner Prize in 1997.
(http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ArtistWorks?cgroupid=999999961&artistid=2648&page=1&sole=y&collab=y&attr=y&sort=default&tabview=bio )
Researching on her was quite interesting because her work is very unusual and unique.
My Designed Questionnaire
- How are you?
- If you don’t mind, can I ask you how old are you?
- What’s your favourite colour?
- What’s your favourite food?
- What’s your favourite animal?
- What is the most surprising thing about physically ageing?
- Do you live around here?
- Where did you live before?
- Your best and memorable holiday?
- Your ideal place to live or go?
- What would you tell others to do so that they enjoy all of their life?
- What has gone from your life that you really regret?
- What word of wisdom do you have to give to us young folks?
