Christina1200’s Weblog

For my foundation portfolio, i had the choice between two assignment briefs, one was to create a college magazine which had to include a photograph of a student in medium close-up , as mock up of a contents page and an appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. The other was a Continuity task which involved  filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, a exchanging a couple of line of dialouge.

I was initally attracted to the film brief because i though it would allow me to use my imagination and express my creative ideas more freely, i also though it would give be the opportunity to gain valuable new skills, unlike the print brief which felt quite restrictive, and i did not feel that i would be able to create any interesting and original ideas from this. Furthermore i felt like i needed more of a challenge which would be provided by the film brief. 

In response to the brief i imeadiatley formed a group with like minded members in my class , who also shared a desire to complete the film brief; these were Kimberly Grant , Elliot Bass and Rosie Golder. Once the group was formed we came up with seven potential ideas that we could develop in order to conform to the brief. These ideas were; A husband walking in on an affair, a drugs situation, a police interview, a hospital situation, a teenager starting a new school, a prison visit and a speed dating event. 

We believed we could potentially use these ideas because in each scenario we thought there was an opportunity to use key concepts , a variety of camera angles and that it would give us the basis for a good script. Futhermore it would ultimatley  fufill the assignment brief.

After a lesson of exploring and discussing possible ways of developing these creative ideas , we narrowed the choice down to three main ideas; a speed dating event , a husband walking in on an affair and a police interrogation, we then collated these ideas into a Power Point presentation and presented our ideas to our class. This was so that we could could listen to constructive critisisms and feedback , which would then go on to influence the idea that we were to pick.

In the presentation we gave a detailed response to how we would develop and represent each idea in our film clip. From the presentation and the feedback we received we decided that the speed dating event was the best idea to go with , this was because it was unique and original and our peers told us that it also gave us the opportunity to make the film clip entertaining and comedic, furthermore it was the idea we had had our hearts set on from the very beggining We decided against the affair because our peers told us that the affair idea sounded like a soap story line, which was not an idea we wished to aspire to. We also decided against the police interrogation idea as we did not receive as much positive feedback on the idea as we had hoped and therefore felt we wouldn’t be able to do the idea justice. 

These images show the initial ideas we came up with when we were introduced to the breif.

2/10/08

After we had decided souly on one idea we then had to come up with our SMART targets. These targets were to ensure that the targets need to complete our idea were; specific , measurable, agreed upon, realistic and time based.

The SMART targets we came up with were as follows; 

S- come up with ideas and develop these ideas further

M- The goal will be achieved when we have come up with all our ideas 

A-This is when everyone has agreed upon an idea

R- It is realistic because we will easliy be able to come up with ideas that conform to the brief

T-These ideas will be created in the initial weeks on the task.

S-Learn how to use computer programmes such as photoshop 

M-This will be achieved when i am confident using the programme

A-This will be when the entire group feels confident with the programme

R-This is needed in order to fulfill the assignment brief

T-We believe it should take one week to learn how to use the basics of both programme.

S- Create a story board, Script and find actors 

M- The goal will be achieved when the script has been written, the story board as been drawn , and actors have been recruited.

A-When everyone in the group has come to a unanomous decision on the scenes chosen and actors picked.

R-Its an achievable task

T- We estimate that it should take two to three weeks to complete this.

S-Start and finish the filming process

M-This will be achieved when we have finish filming all the scenes we need.

A-This will be when all group members are happy with what has been filmed

R-This is needed in order to fulfill the assignment brief

T-We estimate that it may take three to four weeks to film

S-Edit the film 

M-This will be achieved when the film has been produced

A-This will be when the group is happy with the scene selections and edits that have ben made.

R-When we get the desired outcome

T-We estimate that this will take three weeks

16/10/08

After fulfilling our first target, we went on to complete the second of our smart targets , this was to learn to use Photoshop. Our first task was to find one picture of a penguin and one of a desert, we were then told we had to make it appear as though the penguin was in the desert. In order to create this image we had to add several layers to the image of the desert , this was just incase any mistakes were made further along the process. We then had to select on the penguin image and cut the penguin out of the photo using the lasso tool, there were three types of lasso to choose from, these were: freehand , magnetic and smart edge. I decided to choose the magnetic lasso tool as i felt this would allow me to cut the penguin out of the image more accuratley. I then had to transfer the image of the penguin on to the image of the dessert. After i had done this i tried to make the image more believable by feathering the image of the penguin , this meant smoothing out any sharp edges that may have been created when using the lasso tool. 

The next task was to create an image that used the idea of juxtaposition , this meant putting to images together to create a new meaning. In this instance i decided to take a picture of Jude Law and a picture of a woman in a dress, to create the image of Jude Law in a Dress. Again i added several layers to the dress image , and used the magnetic lasso tool to cut out Jude Law’s head and went through a similar process as i did when creating the penguin/desert image. However this time i used to features to gain more experiance in using the programme. I used features such as the stamp tool to add extra hair on the head and i also used the Hue and Saturation adjustment to try to get the skin tones of Jude Law and the Women in the Dress to match.

Here are the Two images that i initially started out with;

Jude law

Women in a dress

This is the final image i created on photoshop

Image created in photoshop tutorial

.