When thinking of ideas for my project in relation to time, I came up with 3 ideas that I thought would be interesting to develop and 3 ideas that I felt comfortable narrowing down to one overall idea in the end (please excuse the terrible drawings)

Idea 1:

My first initial idea, is to do 3 time-lapses (One to every screen). The reason for this was because I am familiar to Time-Lapse's as I have made several amateur time-lapses in the past.



                        A short Time Lapse I made almost 3 years ago with a pocket camcorder.

The concept behind it was to have one screen that shows nature, for instance the leaves blowing in trees, the movement of water or the movement of the sky, which could be manipulated in After Effects. Another screen will show something completely different, for instance cars driving down a road, the movement of a train or the busyness of a cafe. Finally, the last screen would have perhaps be a time-lapse of the library or a man quietly reading a newspaper whilst sitting down on a bench, generally somewhere quiet, similar to the first screen.

The meaning behind the film would be that time is used in several different ways, and that the progression of time can be fast or slow, depending on the activity. For instance the movement of leaves in a tree is a slow process, if it is not windy, whereas the movement of cars in the day time is fast and constant.

Idea 2-

My second idea uses the concept of looking at how time has changed us and how we use the time we have. Three videos will appear on the screen with a clock in the middle of each. Each clock will be faded. One would be of a park. One would be of an outdated living room and the other would be of a modern boys bedroom.

   
       A photo I found when originally looking into Time-lapse's, which inspired me to use a clock in my film.

The first screen would start by showing the park and suddenly a portal effect appears, and I jump through it. I then proceed to play on the swings. The clock is moving at a regular pace. Whilst this is happening, the second screen (of the living room looking outdated and old) would then begin with a portal effect. I would then come through onto the second screen. The screen will show me with friends picking up a DVD and putting it into the DVD player. I then sit back down and watch the TV with my friends. Again a clock will be in the corner of the screen, moving slightly faster. The third screen will then appear. I come through the screen, and begin to play video games on a computer. This time the clock in the corner is moving very quickly.The first screen will be the main focus of the first 20 seconds, the second screen will then be the main focus between 0:20-0:40 and the third screen will be the main focus between 0:40-0:60 seconds.

Example of the kind of portal id like to create (Still from a Video Copilot tutorial)

The concept behind this idea was looking at how time changes us and how we've slowly become more and more unsociable. In addition to this, it looks at how we waste time and how different activities take up different amount of times.The first screen showed me exercising and socialising in a park, the second screen shows me being slightly less sociable, by staying inside rather than going out and the third screen is the present day, showing me not socialising in any way, and just sitting around in my room being lazy.

Idea 3-

My third idea was to have myself in all three screens, in a similar positions, handed myself photographs of my past.The middle screen will hand both myself on the left screen, and myself on the right screen, a photo of myself, from birth, to the present day. The photo's will be attached to a frame, meaning I will have to take each photo of myself out each time and put a different photo in the frame. The process itself seems quite long, however I feel it will be effective in remembering how time causes aging, and how we all mature into the person we are today.

In our Creative Writing lesson, we looked at how to generate ideas, looking at how to write a screenplay, structure, dialogue and so forth. We were given a task that required us to work in pairs and form our own newspaper headline using scissors, glue and  newspaper. I found this task interesting as it allowed us to be creative. This is what me and Julia came up with:

Our next task was to, on our own, pick 3 words in any magazine and create a story using them. I created a paragraph around the word 'Hungarian ferry leaves'. I found this challenging, yet fun to do because it got me thinking creatively and refreshed my memory of story-writing, something I hadn't done in a while.

My first idea that came into my head was the Justin Bieber Arrest that had been covered by the media a lot, however I decided to go with the Horse Meat Scandal, as it was something that I found more of an interesting story to look into. I want to make a comedy parody style film that starts off serious, however as the story goes along, it gets slightly sillier. The reason for this is because I found the scandal to be somewhat ridiculous, and the fact that it was covered for days on end by the media whilst more important things are happening in the world, made me think about the media and how silly stories like this are publicised as such an important historical event.

My influence came from the popular string of YouTube video's that found the scandal humorous, thus making a parody out of the story, for example the video below. 



I plan on making my film have an interesting and humorous twist at the end; to show how ridiculous myself at the time found the story. 

What I found also interesting was an article I read on BBC news back in January, which stated that sales for butchers like Paul Dzido (Full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25715666) had increased drastically, because of the mainstream supermarkets revealing that they had horse meat in their food. This is historic, in the sense that the smaller business' who usually suffer, got business' which is good due to the recession that is currently happening.

Because the story was around a year old, I found myself looking back at articles that had factual information in them about the horse meat and looking back at news reports that were happening around the time of the scandal. For example: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21335872: A Q&A about the scandal

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21598156: An interview with Chief Executive of Tesco, explaining the situation. 

What I found interesting was that it was mainly centered around Tesco, in particular their own beef burgers. This is something I would like to highlight in my film, which is that Tesco was in the center of the scandal. I will do this by perhaps having shots of Tesco itself or perhaps using one of the products in my film. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/All_out_of_horse_burgers_-_Tesco_supermarket_-_8_February_2013.jpg-: An image on a Tesco freezer at the time of the scandal

So far during this term we have had 2 After Effect's tutorial lessons. I was excited to start this unit because I am fascinated at how visual effects are made in films, and hope to improve my knowledge of After Effects. Sadly, After Effect's is a program I've never used before, so I know that it will take some time to learn all the different features After Effect's has to offer. 

Lesson 1 

During our first lesson, we looked at the basic's of After Effect, in particular, 'Masking'. During the lesson we made a composite of video footage. We were firstly shown the basics of After Effects. For example how to change project settings to fit the footage you're working with, how to create solid shapes and how to create composites. The footage we we're given was not completely still, so we also were taught how to reduce the amount of shaky movement during a video. We then masked around the footage, to manipulate the water and the sky to whatever colour we wanted. I found this helpful as when you know how to accurately mask around an object, then you can do various things such as Green Screen masking. I found this task quite challenging to start, however as the lesson went along, I got familiar to the features. 

Lesson 2

During our second lesson, we looked solely on how to make a still image look as if it is moving. The image we were given was of a mountain. We were then shown many of the basics, such as how to add smoke filters onto the mountain, again using masking to select certain parts of the mountain that need to me moved and also how to remove certain parts of an image, and overlay them by using the blend tool. I found this challenging as I wanted the image to look as professional and natural as I could, however the actual outcome made the image look heavily edited. We also added other effects such as particle effects that gave the piece more of a realistic look. 

Whilst being taught by Leah Gordon, we were given the task to make a short 1 minute video consisting of multiple advertisements that portray a message or contradict what they originally intended to say.  

I decided to mash-up a healthy eating advertisement with several fast-food advertisements, to portray the message that television somewhat contradicts itself, in the sense that weight loss and healthy eating advertisements are aired at the same time that fast-food retailer advertisements such as McDonald's and Burger King. I found it interesting whilst choosing the advertisements, that both the unhealthy food advertisements and the healthy eating advert see their foods as something that's 'good', whether it be taste wise or health-wise. 

For my photography project, I thought about the idea of 'memory', especially to do with my childhood to the current day.

Idea 1: 

When looking into memories, I decided to look at photography websites to get inspiration. I  looked at a website called 'Flickr', a photo sharing website. When looking at photographs to do with memories, I came across a lot of location shots, which fascinated me. 

Locations are quite important to me, as specific locations will always bring back good or bad memories.

My original idea was to take 5 photo's of locations special to me (My local park that I went to every day as a kid, the gates of my primary school, the exact location where I had my first kiss, my local church where I went to Sunday School as a child and the hospital where I was born)  and give them simplified captions to briefly explain what the photo is of, which I could then talk about. This may however seem difficult to get across to the person viewing the photo, which may be a problem. 

Idea 2: 

Another idea I had, was to take 5 pictures of items that I possessed that hold some form of memory. For example, my first ever teddy bear I got when I was 1, which I still have to this day. I feel this would be an interesting idea as each item holds a different memory, rather than just one overall memory. I was also thinking of either taking the photo using a disposable camera or get hold of a Polaroid Camera.  I would then get the photos printed from the disposable camera, which I would then either scan onto a computer or take a picture of the photo itself. This idea however seems quite complex, however it would be a challenging, yet interesting idea to think into further. 

                                                         An example of Polaroid Photo's

Idea 3: 

This idea was inspired by my first idea and research I did previously for the Time Art unit, which was photographs of iconic locations, from the past and the current day, both blended into one. For example, I may chose to pick locations that are personal to me and the memories I share within that location (similar to idea 1) and find an image of the location in the past, and somehow mash the image together with a photo from the current day, which I would take myself.  I may however chose to look at locations that share memories to more than just one person, for example Buckingham Palace, old and new, because it is such an iconic location that holds lots of different memories. This would be a challenging, yet interesting idea to go further with. 

Photo courtesy of The London Museum collection. 

Idea 4: 

This idea was inspired by The All-American Reject's music video to 'Dirty Little Secret'. The concept behind the video was to include a montage of various people holding up postcards sharing their "dirty little secrets". The postcards in the video were actually posted by anonymous people onto a website called 'PostSecret', a project where people could create their own cards; sharing their darkest secrets and posting them to the website without giving their name or any other details. 

A still taken from the music video. 

I liked this idea. but in relation to sharing a memory of something, if if it be embarrasing, funny or serious. I would either do it on myself, or find 5 people who would be willing to partake in the project. Similarly, I thought of sticking post'it notes to iconic places with written memories on or to perhaps myself, for example sticking a post-it note to my forehead and taking a photo of myself in front of whatever brings back a certain memory. I like this idea because it opens up a world of ideas and there is a lot of potential to get some great photo's taken, however I need to think more carefully about it and perhaps narrow this idea, which has branched off into several ideas, into just one idea.

When thinking of photography to do with the idea of 'memory', I came across an interesting website called 'http://disposablememoryproject.org/'. The website itself was an ongoing global photography project. The websites bio states that: 

'Since April 2008, we’ve been leaving disposable cameras in public locations around the world. Each camera contains a message, inviting its finder to pick up the camera, take some photos and then pass it on. At the end of its journey, the camera is returned home, and we upload the photos to share with its followers.

In the three years since that first camera, people across the globe have taken part, either through finding an existing camera, or creating a new one to introduce into the project. We’ve visited over 75 countries, released over 410 cameras, and travelled over 500,000 miles – that’s to the moon and back.

Of those 410 cameras, we’ve had 30 return home, with amazing images, stories and journeys'  

The idea of lots of photo's coming together, that all have different meanings and memories behind them fascinated me. The idea of a shared memory I also found interesting because others can share that memory together rather than it just being someones individual memory. 

When browsing Facebook, I came across an interesting article that looked at social media sites such as Facebook, and argued about how we have been consumed by new media. It states that: 

 'As of 2012, 30 million people who maintained Facebook accounts have died, according to a report by The Huffington Post. Some studies approximate that nearly 3 million users have died in 2012 alone; 580,000 in the U.S.'. 

It got me thinking about time, and how we have been manipulated and forced into joining these Social Networking sites without even giving it a second thought. The post itself reminded me of a university project my older sister did about Facebook, discussing what happens to your Facebook when you pass away. Is it still active? do people still post on the person's wall even after their death?. When looking at old status' on my Facebook, I seem to feel a sense of nostalgia because it reminds me of what my life was like around the time that each status was posted. 



New Media is always changing, so its impossible to say that in the future Facebook will be popular. This is evident with sites such as Myspace decreasing drastically in popularity when Facebook was first introduced. The message behind the article is that Social Media is taking over our lives, to the point where are deaths will be publicised on such websites. What I still find fascinating is that the article has a 'Share on Facebook' and a 'Share on Twitter' button at the top. How ironic. 

During our lesson with Rosie, we were introduced to the new unit and what we will be doing. We were then shown a variation of films such as: 



 'La Jetée' by Chris Marker was very interesting due to the fact that it was mostly made up of still photo's. Personally, I had never seen a film made this way, so it fascinated me. The use of  images and sound was an interesting method of film making that I had never thought about. The film also got me thinking about memories, and the fragility of them. It also made me think about the ways in which they can be preserved. The theme of time travel in the film links in with this, as it is looking at the man's past and future. 



We also watched films such as 'Blue' by Derek Jarmans. The film itself consists of only a voice over and a bright blue colour filling the screen.This was used because at the time Derek Jarman's was losing his vision due to AIDS. Rosie stated that it was particularly interesting as Derek Jarman's was known for his visually pleasing films, so when this film was originally shown, it received mixed reviews and left fans of his work saddened because they may've not got the concept behind it.

During this workshop we looked at Lighting and the different ways in which we can achieve the lighting we want. 

We were told how to use an external flash to acheive the results we want. The process itself I found to be quite easy, however when dismantling the reflector from one of the lights, I found it particularly tricky to take the reflector off and then attach it back on. However after a few attempts I managed to connect the reflector back onto the light. 

We were then introduced to peices of lighting such as a 'Soft Box' and 'Umbrella' Lighting. These two lighting techniques are quite similar in the sense that they give a soft and subtle light to the subject. 

We then were put into smaller groups and we're made to set up and produce an image similar to a photo of Steve Jobs (Co-Founder of Apple, shown below) 

After several lighting tweaks and takes, we had a finished product. I learnt that even the slightest movement of a light can effect the outcome of a photo.

I then decided to edit the photo to make it look more similar to the original: 

When thinking about time, I decided to look at places and the effect time has on them. I then decided to look at somewhere familiar to me, so I chose Chingford, where I grew up. I felt it would be interesting to look into the history of Chingford, to see how it has progressed over time and how much of an effect time really has had on Chingford of the Past/Present. I came across a section of a film posted on a page called 'Old Chingford', on Facebook.

The film was aired several years ago on BBC 2, looking into the history of Chingford. The film, called 'Chingford- Three Decades of Archive Film (50s,60s and 70s), looked at Chingford around that era. The film itself showed the progression of Chingford, for example the use of Steam Trains up until 1960 and a long establishing shot of the streets of Chingford. I found this particularly nostalgic because I recognised a lot of the locations, even though the footage was filmed so many years ago. 

Throughout the film, I was shocked to see how different some of the locations were. However, a lot for me were recognisable, and events such as Remembrance Sunday appear to be a very big event in Chingford in 1958, similar to today, where the event is still a very important day to the older and younger generation. 

The town that I was brought up in now seems so different to the way in which I had looked at it previously. The documentary style film made Chingford seem a very important part of London, which hosted several historic events. The documentary was very informative and really gave me a more in depth look at Chingford. The Documentary also showed me how time has such a big effect on places. Several landmarks had been knocked down and some parts of Chingford were somewhat unrecognisable to me, which I found quite saddening. Overall, the film was particularly useful in helping me think about time, and what effect it can truly have. 

A still from the film. 

When looking into time, I decided to look into the past and the present. I came across a website called ‘Buzzfeed’, which posted an interesting collection of photographs of locations in London that had history. The article ‘18 Photo’s of London’s past blended in with the present’ told an interesting story of how long ago some of these historic events truly occurred. It’s interesting to look at how the location has changed visually over a long period of time. This is truly shown by layering an older image of the location over a current image. For example a photo of Queen Victoria Street, had been overlaid by another photo of the bomb damage at number 21 Queen Victoria Street in 1941. 

The post itself made me feel quite nostalgic. For example an image of Hyde Park music festival in 1970 was blended over an image of the park today. This for me was nostalgic as I regularly go to Hyde Park and its interesting to look at the way its changed not just visually but culturally. 

Photo courtesy of The London Museum collection. 

'Over the Christmas break and as self directed study on 6th January we want you to think of something that you want to remember in the future and memoralise it in several different ways.This could be by Facebook, Twitter, email, photograph,sculpture, painting, film, YouTube, novel/short story, letter, text, message sent to outerspace, theatre, dance, biography, phone call, mural, demonstration, costume, song, sketch, poem, rap, code, postcard, blog, book, album. Just a few ideas. The materials could be found as well as (re)constructed and we would like you to try to experiment with at least 6 different forms, methods or systems. Please bring your work in its different forms to class with you on Monday January 13^th. This is a task that will form part of the folio for the unit.You should also look at the reading list for Reflections and try to read as many of the books as possible.Have a fantastic break and see you in 2014.' 

When starting the project, I decided to start thinking of deeper ideas rather than just the obvious. I started to think back to when I first started learning how to play drums. Today, I am still into drumming as much as I was when I originally started to self-teach myself back in 2011. When looking at platforms I decided to choose the following:

YouTube:

    

                                                      

The still/video above I originally made using my secondary school's drum kit in 2011. Sadly, as embarrassing as it is, the video was made at a time where I didn't have a clue how to play. Around this time I had really started getting into music that i'd never really listened to before, such as bands like Muse and Foo Fighters, which really got me into rock music and also into drumming because of the drum beats within the songs.

Photographs:

These photos are all drum/band related photos, and they're particularly important to me because they were all taken whilst I was in a band with my friend. The photo on the bottom right hand corner is particularly important as that was the first time id ever musically performer in front of people.

Facebook: 

Facebook is particularly important due to the numerous drum-related status' I post. In addition to this, it's where I communicate with my friends, in particular one of my best friends who I was in a band with (Facebook page shown above), where I spoke a lot about drums.

Films:

When getting into drumming, I watched several different music-related films such as Muse' live DVD which really appealed to me as it showed what hard work can achieve. In addition to this, I only recently watched a band called Reuben' live DVD/Documentary film on band life, studio recording and so forth. This really interested me because I got an insight as to how hard the world of music can be, and how you must work hard to achieve your dream. The live DVD footage of Reuben' performing also interested me due to the fact that they were having a lot of fun on stage which made me feel influenced into starting to play drums again.

Sound: Since I've recorded several drum demo tracks before, I thought it would be good to include them in my work because they're good for looking back at my past and seeing how long ago I started playing drums.

A Song: When looking at ways in which I would like to remember drumming, I thought of music, and the songs in which inspired me to want to learn how to play drums. I decided to pick a song called 'Bliss' by Muse because it was the first ever song I learnt to play when I was 15 years old. Whenever I listen to this song, I feel a sense of nostalgia because of this.

Time, defined as 'an observed phenomenon, by means of which human beings sense and record changes in the environment and in the universe. A literal definition is elusive. Time has been called an illusion, a dimension, a smooth-flowing continuum, and an expression of separation among events that occur in the same physical location.'- techtarget.com

I feel that time can only be determined by the kind of person you are. I feel time is quite broad and very complex, which makes it challenging to define. I feel time is unpredictable, as we never know what time will tell. 

We all look at time differently. I feel time is a way of measuring the progression of our lives. As time progresses, so do we. Time keeps up organised and sane. I feel without time, our lives would be all over the place, especially mine.

Time has several pro's and con's. For example time helps us build up 'memories', we allow us to reminisce in times where we were happy, however it also can make us remember the times that made us sad.  

Photograph by Norvz Austria