Video at Birgu

This needs to be edited down.. and I might still change it around

tripping; another story

Still messing around with the colour. This is a story of an acid trip whilst walking from one place to another.

Water colours in 3d space pt.3Testing

New Watercolour screenshots and videos.

Testing how 3 water colours would look together on screen

Trying out various overlays / tints

Reflective writing on chat 17/01/2012 + New Interface Ideas

Today we had an interesting chat about SOPA, content farms and the future of the internet, google and social networks as we know them. Osiris told us how companies like google have around 60% of the content that is generated by 'robots' through these so called content farms. Jonathan spoke to us about how the internet is trying to evolve by becoming more personalised and specifically designed to cater to individuals. I think he called these "wall gardens". We agreed that even though these spaces are safe and can be a teaching aid, it's nice to wander outside of them, and it's crazy to think that one might not be able to do this in a few years time.

Needless to say I am completely against SOPA and believe that censorship and limitation will lead us nowhere. It is true that internet is changing us, but we should evolve and adapt to this new life rather than bring the shutter down for fear of losing control and money.

Jonathan also introduced us to Net Vibes where we can see all the feeds to the MA DA course blogs; fantastic way of keeping track of what everyone is doing!

So that's a little about today's chat. This evening, Maria my awesome developer came over so we could discuss the interface a little bit. I had some issues with the fact that the user would have had to refresh every time in order to be introduced to a new chance algorithm. So we changed it and now each time the user carried out an action (Play / Pause / Drag / Resize) various things can happen. 0 - 3 videos can turn off or on. These videos can be either films or watercolours. (The watercolours will have a music layer attached to them). 0 - 15 chopped recordings might also play / stop. The recordings will not have a visual representation. I will have around 8 videos showing up on screen at one go. We also tried changing the background to black; this is good because the videos look better, like they are floating, but it's harder to see where to grab the handles to drag / resize. Just a quick screenshot of the test Maria did today:

Test videos on a black background using PHP / CSS3 and HTML5

Long take

This was one of the strangest videos I have had to edit. I wanted to get some shots at my grandma's house and basically I ended up using a 1-minute long take. I have added some overlays but I'm not even sure if I should keep them or not. I decided to keep the general natural colour of the footage but just add a brown matte over it to get rid of a blue tinge on the video, but still keeping the outcome natural and raw. I have used a video of my grandma's house because so many stories that she told me had to do with the various houses she had lived in as a child, which collapsed during the war and they had to move.

Water colours in 3d space pt.2

This was actually an animated water colour that I had used in an experiment I carried out in December however I decided to give it the 3d space treatment. Since the selections in Photoshop were done with the Pen tool rather than the magic wand, the edges were slightly more stiff and less organic, so I decided to export the video, reimport it and duplicate it a couple of times using different transparency options and mirroring. Some interesting effects emerged although from this point on I think I will start using the magic wand, which although is a much easier and quicker way of selecting, the distortion in After Effects is more effective when applied to it.

All of the music I have been using in my experiments lately are by Beat Alice and Sonitus Eco the same two people who will be creating the music for my project.

water colours in 3d space

Yesterday and today I have been experimenting with After Effects and it has been a breath of fresh air to finally go back to "let just try this and see what happens". I find that I get a lot of interesting work done when I'm a) in a good mood, and b) without a care in the world. (This reminds me of the book Emotional Design which makes some valid points on being more creative when one is in a good mood).

Original Water colour

Multiple copies of the same layers using overlay transparency (+ spotlights and shadows)

Anyway, I'm still working with water colours but did some changes to make the process more fun. Rather than tracing each layer individually, I simply randomly selected batches of similar colours with the magic wand, cut and pasted them onto different layers. I distorted and animated these in After Effects, and then rotated them in 3D space. I then animated a camera around them. I tried various other experiments but unfortunately I worked on a large composition that is taking ages to render. 

Screenshot of rotating water colour in 3d space with no lights

Another video

Yesterday I started editing another video. Some parts work, others need reediting - especially the POV inside the chapel. The background sound is a bit too much but that won't really matter in the end project. This was filmed in the summer at a charity house where nuns take care of older nuns.

experimenting with interface look

Tests with videos & water colour

Testing out how the interface will look with both videos and water colour. At the moment I am only working with my exported videos (which might still be changed) but I think the water colours provide a nice contrast and a break from the videos. The top right water colour is my later experiment but I don't like the movement so it will need to be fixed.

Catfish & Interface tests

Short film review:

Two days ago I watched the film 'Catfish' which is more of a documented story. It's about a photographer from New York city who is tricked into thinking he is exchanging messages with a dancer who in reality is a middle-aged woman. He tracks her down, together with two of his house mates who also happen to be filmmakers. The films is  as 'real' looking as you can get since it is in fact a real story. Most shots are over exposed, badly framed, too long and offer no real drama, and yet the film keeps you hooked until the end. There is no real good and evil within the plot; some climaxes but only to a certain extent. In general, I found this film extremely interesting and relevant, in the way it portrays betrayal in the online world, but rather than making a drama over it, it is solved in a very natural and human way and no technology overload, yet still providing a fantastic outcome.

source: Imdb

Today I carried out some interface tests. In the final application I wanted phrases to 'trick' the user, however I wasn't use how these would look with the films. Today I did my first test (the graphic designer in me made me choose the overused helvetica neue as a first trial) and I was not too pleased with the result.

I tried two options: 1. misleading phrases. 2. phrases from the stories. I will need to rethink how they will show up because at the moment they are looking VERY cheesy. I might just forget about the phrases completely and perhaps make the films / water colours themselves clickable. More brainstorming needed either way

*** a few minutes later ***

Just trying out another experiment where rather than phrases I have pixel-like rectangles that are always moving around the screen (perhaps even the films could move around) anyway... it would look something like this:

less obvious, more abstract

Black Mirror

I wish I had seen the three episodes of Black Mirror (created by Charlie Brooker) before I had written my research paper! Nonetheless I found this series extremely interesting and related to what I am doing. All three episodes are a reflection of the ever evolving social technology and how it is affecting (or destroying) our lives. Although slightly dramatic (of course, it's a drama) I think Black Mirror is a great interpretation of technology vs nature and an interesting negative view of the ubiquity of internet, social networking and video games.

I was mostly interested in the second episode "15 million merits", where the protagonists are stuck in what seems like a virtual prison. They are represented by a virtual avatar, and are constantly instigated to get points and rewards by not wasting water, eating healthy food and exercising (very similar to how Jesse Schell described the near future in his presentation 'Design outside the Box') although Brooker takes a negative perspective. He satirises Reality TV, making it look like the "Bad Guy" although simultaneously, for the protagonists it is the only way out of the prison. The ending is a perfect example of human nature and perhaps human selfishness where we see the main protagonist Bing, choosing "reality" and conformity over rebellion and uncovering the truth. We can see him staring through windows (or perhaps a screen) and drinking a glass of juice whilst admiring a natural landscape.

A few more captures for testing

Reexported another video and tried out simultaneous playing to see how five videos would look together. Will definitely have to test with the moving water colours. So far so good although I have noticed too many face close-ups.