The Final Edit: Uncertain Times

 I have collected most of my stock videos and now I want to put this together for the final edit. I will again use Clipchamp and I am sticking with my theme of Uncertain Times.  

I chose my final clips which were two clips of a girl dancing in a nightclub, a boy with a gas mask, grey smoke, an explosion and a man with human rights on his back.  

I began by uploading my clips by clicking on 'import media'.  

I then added the videos to the timeline.  I just clicked on the 'add' button on the clip and then move the clips into place. 

I then because cutting videos into the correct edits, I did this using the cutting tool

I then began adding transitions.  I used the cross fade throughout, I just dragged this to the timeline and clicked where I wanted to add these.

I then added a muted black and white filter to each clip to get the look I wanted for the film. I did this by clicking on Filters in the right hand menu and then the chosen filter. 

I also added the titles and credits I clicked on the Text icon on the lefthand menu and chose typewriter.  I chose crimson text font and then added the correct credits for the film clips and music I had chosen.  I also used the fade in and out function in the left hand menu for the end credits and the end of the film.  

I also added the music to the timeline, this was from the music archive and it was the same music from my practice as I believe it worked really well. This was an MP4 file.

Once I had checked and rechecked the video and ensured there were no gaps or cuts that were too long, I went to export video.  I changed the title and exported this in high quality HD.

Once it was downloaded to my computer I uploaded this to my YouTube channel - this was going to take a while so I left this to complete and did something more interesting!

When this is completed I will be uploading to my website.  I will reflect on the complete film in my next post.

Please find my completed film here: Uncertain Times

Creating a Website: Portfolio/Gallery Page

 Today I created my Portfolio front page, I did this so that I could add projects as I go through the year.  My first step was to click on the left hand menu and click on 'Pages and Menu'.  I then went to Portfolio and removed the template collection and associated links. 

I then went to the 'Add' button and went 'Text' and added a Heading and changed the font to Palantino Linotype at 70 pts

I then changed the image and edited so I had a small square box to fit onto my page I did this by uploading my image to Wix and then going into the image editor and clicking on 'Crop and Edit'

I then added my new image to the page and added a 'button'  I did this by going to the plus sign in the menu on the left hand side and then going to 'Button' and then dragging and dropping into my page 

I then went to the menu and added a new page which will be my project page for this term I renamed it 'Uncertain Times' and then dragged it under the Portfolio and made this into a subpage.  I then went back to back to the button and added a link to the button to my project page. 

I then previewed to check that the link worked and that the navigation is good ready for the upload of my project.

I then added a 'Back to Portfolio Button on my project page and changed the font and colour to make sure it was clear that this was a button to return to my front portfolio page.  I previewed and tested this to make sure it worked 

I then went back to Portfolio Page and edited the button there to be consistent with same font and button and adding my project title I previewed again and checked it worked.

I then tested the gallery by adding an appropriate gallery for my work, in this case it was a film so I clicked on the add button and went to Videos.

I chose the YouTube Video as my Video is on my YouTube channel  I added and then I tested this out my saving and clicking on Preview and clicking on the video. 

I then clicked on the add button again and added Text as a paragraph and then pasted in my Introduction which I wrote in week six. I changed the font again to be consistent then I saved and previewed this 

Lastly, I checked the mobile view I changed the text size and button size to fit the page better.  I lined up the title and button so that it was centre aligned and move the video to the top so it was the first thing the viewer saw rather than the introduction. 

I will update next week when I add my final project.  I think that the design and layout works and I am happy with this at the moment. 

Ideal Customer: Uncertain Times Film

 In this post, I am showing my ideal customer for Uncertain Times.  My film as it will be a more obscure rather arty affair is a little more difficult to capture an ideal customer so I wanted to create someone who collects art and is interested in more conceptual works.  I therefore created the character below as my Ideal Customer.  Click on the link and you should be able to view the published version on Venngage. 

Ideal Customer/Maxwell Barnes 

Further Research: Daido Moriyama

 Daido Moriyama is a Japanese Photographer who photographs the streets of Japan, he captures the darkness and underbelly of society which is why I was interested in looking at his work in relation to my own project Uncertain Times,  'Daidō Moriyama is a master in transforming the mundane into the remarkable.' (The Independent Photographer, 2021).  Moriyama started working as a photographer in the aftermath of the Second World War and like Lee Miller's images there is a darkness and horror that is underlying the shadow of such great destruction and death that is a presence in the images that he creates. Moriyama's street black and white, low key street images have an uncanny quality.  These high contrast images were created using a small compact Ricoh camera. It has been argued that Moriyama has rejected technical precision in favour of the subject; 'the artist captures a diaristic experience of wandering city streets. “The city has everything: comedy, tragedy, eulogy, eroticism,” he has remarked. “It is the ideal setting, the place where people’s desires are interwoven. It has remained and will always remain my natural element.”'(Artnet, 2023).  This idea of life in all its forms being shot, captured immortalised is what is important in these images, and considering the times we are in now, if I look at the city streets in Leicester there is a tragic and grimy quality to life as it descends through depression, poverty, madness, mental illness, drugs and alcohol as numbing agents to a world that has become very challenging to live in.  

Below in this image, at the forefront is a half-naked man creating a strange gesture with his hand, it is uncertain what this might mean, is he waving? Placing his hand to God? He displays his palm upwards, but to what purpose?  His face is covered, so that the eye of the camera does not see? Or because he does not want the world to see his face? The street behind him looks wet from rain and it looks cold, yet he only wears a pair of small shorts, he looks slightly undernourished and the man strangely squatting behind him, is he drinking from a bowl? - he also is not dressed and looks undernourished.  The street is dirty and the woman in the image standing in the doorway on the other side is wearing a shabby dress over a tight fitting vest that again displays bones and malnutrition.  her sharp face set off by a hat with a flower.  Is she a prostitute or a cleaner or maid?  The leading line stretching down the street reveals more people in a further doorway, what are they doing there?  Behind the man's head, there seems to be children and people waiting, maybe it is a bus stop of some kind.  The light in the image seems to be coming from an overcast sky and this uncanny scene does not seem to make much sense in the frame. The lightness of the men's skin against the blackness of the street create a balance of light and dark.

Daido Moriyama  (circa 1961) Street Photography Japan

Moriyama was anti-establishment and his images in the 1960s and early 70s were of the street, prostitutes, gangsters, the homeless, the disenchanted, the forgotten, Tokyo Cowboy states; '[Moriyama] Snapping photos seemingly at random and exposing them hastily, he would churn out oddly cropped shots of Tokyo’s pedestrians, gangsters and prostitutes. This chaotic process added to the raw feeling in his work and provided a truly organic insight into Tokyo’s backstreets.' (tokyo cowboy, n.d.)  I do want to try to capture the raw feeling of the images shown here but also I wanted to also capture the kind of euphoria and mild hysteria people feel before the end and that is why I wanted to include the dancing, I definitely want this in the final film.

Daido Moriyama Photographs Y-3’s New Collection on the Streets of Tokyo (2023)

Jumping forward Moriyama created these strange dancing images for a fashion collection.  In both images the leading line follows the street into the distance, the built up city surrounds the subject. She/he stands alone in the street creating the same angular dancing shape. 'The figures often seem to be in a state of struggle, so that the backdrop enacts a complicated embrace – home, but the kind of home that thrusts the subject into a state of tension and even distress' (Katie Kitamaura, 2023).Both look downwards in a passive acceptance of the camera but not engaging directly in contact with the world.  The white/black high contrast works well with the fashion this is advertising and again as the street image above the white of the flesh contrasts heavily with the blackness of the street. Although these images are taken around 60 years apart and the method, camera and the street are different, there is a feeling that I am in the same streets with the same weather, the same feeling.

References 

The Independent Photographer. (2021). Daidō Moriyama: Profile. [online] Available at: https://independent-photo.com/news/daido-moriyama-tokyo/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2023].

Pulella, D. (2018). Daidō Moriyama, Streets of Japan • XIBT Contemporary Art Magazine. [online] XIBT. Available at: https://www.xibtmagazine.com/2018/12/daido-moriyama-streets-of-japan/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2023].

Artrnet (2023). Daido Moriyama (Japanese, born 1938). [online] Artnet.com. Available at: https://www.artnet.com/artists/daido-moriyama/ [Accessed 13 Nov. 2023].

tokyo cowboy. (n.d.). DAIDO MORIYAMA: Japan’s King of Street Photography. [online] Available at: https://www.tokyocowboy.co/articles/daido-moriyama-japans-king-of-street-photography [Accessed 13 Nov. 2023].

Katie Kitamaura (2023). Daido Moriyama Photographs Y-3’s New Collection on the Streets of Tokyo. [online] AnOther. Available at: https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/14716/daido-moriyama-photographs-y-3s-new-collection-on-the-streets-of-tokyo [Accessed 13 Nov. 2023].

Stock Videos for Uncertain Times

 I wanted to collect some stock footage for my final film of Uncertain Times so I began by collecting some explosions from both Pixabay and Pexels 

Free Vimeo Videos

By Semovina

Grey Smoke

I like the idea of using the explosions of smoke and mingling these with the dancing and music as per my practice pieces. I may add a woman dancing and then I will shoot myself and add this to the shots 

Santosjesus90

I still like the one I originally got from Cotton Bro on Pexels however this video exceeds the limit I can show on here... 

I will add to this post a short storyboard to show further my ideas and explain how the shots will come together.  

I added these and other videos I collected in preparation for making my film to my drive so that I had these saved and available wherever I was working.

Website Research: Katy Grannan & Corrine Day

 As I am creating my own Art Photography/Performance website I will look at two photographers websites whose work I admire; Katy Grannan & Corrine Day.  Here I am analysing the website itself, and how the work of the artists is displayed and how easy and functional the website is for the user.  This website research will assist me in understanding how to create my own website so I will consider the overall design, colours, and typography, navigation, usability/user-friendliness, links and mobile view.

I will begin with the Katy Grannan Website.  I will begin the homepage design, the homepage here although looks interesting and is well laid out in a grid format with a landscape header, it has the artists name however it does not state what kind of artist she is or that in fact she is a photographer and filmmaker. When I click into the film at the top - it just states 'trailer for film' but there is no introduction and I do not know what this is about.  I click into he other boxes and there are just a single image and do not lead anywhere just state and event or exhibition.  This is very disappointing as I cannot directly from the homepage click into her work. 

I then went onto the navigation bar, this is on the left hand side and includes galleries, exhibitions, screening and how to connect.  It is very simple and easy to use but also not very interesting in design and when I click on the first tab 'Galleries' It is just a page with the galleries her work shows at. 

As can be seen from this image there are no images! just a list of galleries and the same is true of the Screenings page which is just a list on a black page and the Exhibitions  (a list on a black page) 

The About Page follows suit with no images and just a black page and a biography which includes a short history of the artists career.

The Social Media connects to Facebook, Twitter/X and Instagram. Grannan does not have a huge number of followers on Facebook or Twitter (around 800) however on Instagram she has 11.3k .  There  are posts but clearly they are not all as well used as they could be.  

I then checked the mobile phone website and this was pretty much the same except the homepage just scrolls through the grid squares.  The black page are the same but some of these have not been adjusted for the phone view so do not fit on the page properly. 

Overall the experience of using this website was highly disappointing I wanted to look at galleries' of images and really explore the wok and instead there are just black pages with lists or singular images to promote something. There was essentially very little photography and I would not visit this site again. 

The second website I looked at was Corrine Day Website.  I will begin with the homepage which actually contains a biography/history as Day died young, starting off as a model and then becoming a photographer at the height of heroine chic.  Day was close friends with her muses and this intimacy is reflected in her images. 

The homepage here has a black background and white text it states simply her name and that she is a photographer and includes her images which make the page immediately more interesting and I want to see more. Scrolling down the page there is quite a of of information as this site is created by the Corrine Day Estate and in the footer there are different email contact addresses for enquires about her work. The copyright symbol is in the footer and there is a copyright statement and term of use link to protect the artists work.

The second page on the navigation which is situated in the header and is easy to use.  Is the Autobiography page which is written by the artist in her lifetime and includes an image - this is a nice remembrance of the person she was as it is personal and engaging.

The next three pages are 'Fashion', 'Musicians' and 'Actors' and these all show examples of her work which you can click into and enjoy 

For Instance in Vogue China you can view the shoot here..

When you click into the images they all pop up full screen so this is a very good way to show photographic images to be able to really see and explore the work. 

The next page shows all the exhibitions the artist has done and this page has an image for each of these and when you click into them much more information and images.

The next page is 'Press' and this show the headlines that were about Day's work in her lifetime.

The user then just click in and read the press article and see the images.  This works really well as it gives an idea of her time in the 90s and a context to the work Day created. 

The last page is 'Missing Negatives which are actually good to see but are missing negatives the foundation is looking for. 

I love to see old negatives as this is how I learnt photography on an Olympus OM-2 SLR camera using Ilford film. 

There is no social media on this site as this site is the Corinne Day Estate it is understandable, I do think this site is a very good remembrance of the artists work and is consistent, clean and easy to use throughout and I am glad in a way there is no social media. 

The mobile view on the Corinne day site - the homepage has an image and Enter site and then goes to the home and the information shown above the images are quite small on the mobile and these could be bigger and the writing a little smaller as the writing does dominate the mobile homepage.  The gallery pages work well as the images still pop up nicely with the information and when you tap they appear large on the screen.  Each page's format has been adjusted well to the mobile screen, I would say perhaps except the homepage.  Overall and enjoyable and pleasant experience and I would definitely visit again.  

Comparing both sites, clearly the first site was disappointing - I think the homepage could have been interesting and I actually quite liked the grid design but clicking into each grid was disappointing whereas everything on Corrine Day's website when you clicked in there was more images and information and each image could be make full screen when clicking on it. Thinking about my own site I will consider having maybe more images on the homepage that can be clicked into and I will ensure all images enlarge to full screen and have correct title and good information.  Both sites were consistent in dark background and clear text throughout in the same font so there was no confusion as to the site you are looking at. I feel that the consistency on my site is similar so i am happy with this aspect of the website.  Social media was interesting on Grannan's I am not sure how much it added but I expect if you follow Grannan on Twitter or Instagram then it is interesting and informative.  On Day's as there was not any I almost preferred this I could look at ethe work and just enjoy and did not feel any need to 'connect' or to 'share' - this has made me reconsider the inclusion of some of my own social media on my own site.  

The mobile view on Day's site was much more interesting, worked better throughout and although I think the homepage could be improved there was a landing page with an image which was inviting.  Grannan's did not work well and was not that interesting or engaging.  Looking at these it did remind me how important it is to get the mobile view right and working properly and I will be focusing on this in UX testing after I have published. 

This was a good experience as I have considered my own design ideas and my own site while viewing these and I will be exploring different ideas with my galleries to make them engaging and user friendly to ensure that my site visitors want to return!

Software Practice: Ruby Tuesday

 I created a video in Clipchamp, this was a two-shot edit.  The two pieces of film footage I acquired from Pexels and are copyright free.  One was of a rose and the other a woman on a car.  I used the red coloured theme to create Ruby Tuesday. 

Ruby Tuesday By Zoe Van-de-Velde

I created this on Clipchamp.  I began by importing media using the top left-hand menu.  I imported my two clips and the music that I intended to use was from the Free Music Archive.  

I then began by adding two Text boxes (Typewriter template) to add my Title with a black background, I adjusted the duration using the right-hand menu and the font to Playfair display.  I then added both clips split them and rearranged them so that the edit was fairly quick.  I then went to transitions in the left-hand menu and added crossfades and adjusted the fade in and out so that this would work with the flowers and the woman.  I then added three new text boxes at the end, the same as the beginning ot add credits.  I added the music and then previewed and adjusted it before exporting it to my computer as an MP4.  Once I had done this I added to my YouTube channel and then added here to my blog. 

This was a practice and demonstration so it is a little rough and ready but it shows how a very simple edit can be effective.