Forrest Gump

We had a lecture about the layout of design and how to do it well and do it wrong, as a task we were given an example of a bad layout design and asked to improve on it, we got given a Forrest Gump DVD cover. However there was not a lot of design faults, the only identified ones were that the title was on the right side of the layout which is not the optimum space for reading and meant it was the not text that was noticed first, secondly the text was not particularly well aligned which helps to make text pop out


This is the original DVD: 

and these are my designs:

One-shot Chalk Emotions - Editing

We finished editing today, the process was largely straightforward but quite time-consuming. I took a leading role in the process, which I was happy to do and I enjoyed doing the editing. We sped up the film to 675% of its original speed this gives a more engaged feel, however we slowed it down at the end for the pan shot. In addition to this we laid down a audio track which includes 2 music tracks which changes to show the developing emotions, overlaid onto that is a heartbeat ambient noise which signifies the change of mood, we also took away the original audio track. With a bit of a colour alteration a lot of time-consuming rendering and exporting that was the editing done. This is our final cut, enjoy...



One-shot film chalk emotions from Harry Cook on Vimeo.

Connected Marketing Logo

My Dad needed a logo for his new company and asked me to design it, using Adobe Illustrator I set to work and mocked up a few ideas, I wanted it to be quite a bold design but knew that simplicity and clarity are key to a good logo, it must grab attention with good use of colour and shape. 

These were my designs:

We decided to go with the top right design, it stands out, with use of complimentary colours whilst maintaining a professional feel. The imagery of the shapes also fits with the word connected as the pieces all connect together which is effective link. 


Here is the logo on the finished website:
http://www.connected-marketing.co.uk/  
With a bit flash added to the design it finishes it off nicely.

On the set of our one-shot

Yesterday we filmed our one-shot film, after rain had postponed filming by 24 hours we were pleased to be able to get it done and got lucky with the weather. The idea was to have a little girl who was drawing on the ground with chalk, we want to express her emotions through a period in her life, we depicted the break-up of her Mother and Father, starting off with a happy family, then the break-up, and finally how the little girl is feeling afterwards. The emotions went from happy to worried and then sad.

As the camera-man I first had to adjust the white-balance so that the colours were true to life and as effective as possible. As we were filming in direct sunlight it was also necessary to reduce the iris a bit to ensure clarity of the video and that it was not too bright. It was a challenge to get the camera set up in the optimum place and it took quite a while and a lot of different experiments with alternative angles and heights of the tripod until we found the right one. As we were drawing chalk on the ground and the limited time and areas we could film, we knew we effectively only had one take to get it right, however as we were taking off the audio track in post-production we were able to direct as we were filming which was vital to it being done first time! Being a one-shot film obviously meant we had to film continuously and without different angles etc. However we were allowed one pan or zoom, we decided it would be a nice effect to pan up as the girl finished the drawings and follow her as she walked away and then pan back down (in one movement) to end on the images, this worked well and was nice finish. 

In post-production we will remove the audio track and replace it with suitable music to go with the emotions, and also ambient noises to go with the emotions, such as; laughter for happiness, rowing and shouting to depict the break-up and then crying to show her sadness. The audio on the film is going to a vital element to the film as it will bring the emotions to life and hopefully create a powerful depiction. The film will also be sped up for effect, this will engage the viewer more, because otherwise it is not particularly exciting to watch someone slowly draw out pictures. If we not limited by the brief I think it would also be effective to reverse the film at the end the create the effect of her wiping it away at the end, almost to show her covering up and hiding her emotions. 

Overall I have really enjoyed this project it was a lot of fun, I am happy with outcome, and I am sure after editing it will be a really effective one-shot film. The final edit will be uploaded next week but for now here are some production photos...

DP1 Film - First couple of weeks

I am currently doing the Film project in DP1, it was the area I felt I had least association with, I'd never really done anything do with film, and never really had an interest in it, but I was willing to give a try and see how I got on.

The brief was to produce a 'one-shot film', which is pretty self explanatory, it basically means you have one camera, and it must be in the same position for the entire film. Although we are allowed one pan or zoom in our pieces. The only other rule we have is that there cannot be any credits or similar added at the end, if we want they have to part of the film. 

In the first week we were put into groups and asked to produce a practise one-shot film, after much deliberation I came up with an idea that we could do. Basically the you see someone walking in the distance towards camera, then people start running past the camera, away from something, however the viewer does not know what, the person that is walking towards camera is completely unaware of what is going on around and continues to walk on, he eventually becomes aware of what everyone is running from, stops dead in his tracks, turns and runs! It is a simple idea, but I thought it could be quite effective because there is an element of suspense because you don't know what is going to happen, and also there is mystery as you have no idea what everyone is running from, we were lucky enough to be able to produce what we needed in one shot, this is what we produced: 



One-shot film from Harry Cook on Vimeo.

I am happy with the out come believe we achieved what we set out to, I would like to added some suitable ambient noises, such as police sirens, to add to the overall feel. 

In the second week, we learnt about lighting and how effective it can be, I found this really interesting, and I never really realised how simple and yet effective light can be. Light can be really manipulative and it can really change the mood of the scene or the feel of the setting. We were given the task of going off to the studio rooms in our groups and attempting to re-create a particular lighting, our group was given the task of re-creating daylight, to do this we had to use blue filter gels, which make the light a lot colder, it was actually really difficult to create but with a bit of help we get there in the end. The secret is to set up each light individually to know exactly where it falls and how effective it is, whereas as first we were trying to do it with all the lights on at the same time. Once set up correctly the effect on camera was really impressive.