Our Stop-motion..

Zoe texted us all last night saying that she had no luck trying to put together the stop motion using the images from the shoot on Monday so we therefore decided to meet at 9am this morning to try and get it done together. Zoe was twenty minutes late which slowed down the process a bit as myself Charlotte and Stacey couldn’t get started on the editing the stop motion as Zoe had the memory stick with the images on. When Zoe arrived we quickly went down to the basement to get started on the editing.

After uploading the images onto final cut pro we had to choose which dance sequences we wanted to use. As half of the photoshoot I danced around with my hair down and the other half I danced around with my hair up we had to choose which ones we preferred. After looking at the dance sequences together we all decided we would go with the ones with my hair up as the hair down ones are a bit distracting. I am glad today is over with to be honest as it was quite frustrating, the process of editing which we thought would take about 2 hours ended up taking us 5 hours.

We all are no experts on final cut pro and we kept encountering problem after problem with it. One of our first problems we encountered was that half our sequence of the stop motion was at one speed and then when it got to a certain stage in the sequence the images started to flash up really fast on the screen even though all the images were set to the same pace. Another problem we were encountering was that some of our images kept flashing up as ‘unrendered’ which was a bit annoying as we tried everything and nothing would solve this problem for us. After a while of getting nowhere myself and Stacey decided to see if we could find bex the technician to see if she could help us. Luckily she was nice enough to come down and help us and proved to be a great help to us by writing a step by step guide of what we should do to overcome our problems and transfer our stop motion onto disk.

At this point it was just myself, Charlotte and Stacey editing our stop motion piece, slowly but surely we managed to finish our stop motion piece adding in the pictures of Terry as little flashes here and there to portray the narrative. I am really glad we managed to reshoot our stop motion video as the dance sequence flows so much better than before. As it took us a long and gruelling five hours to put together our stop motion, Charlotte offered to take the audio for the piece home and put it onto CD for us to hand in which was a great help for all of us.

We also collected our final prints today to include in our hand in for Friday we were all really excited to see them as they are favourite prints. We are happy overall with our prints apart from two of them, in one of them our model is doing a headkick and the hair in it has turned out far too photoshopped in some ways I wish we hadn’t edited it now as it looked better before I don’t think we are going to include this in our final hand in so we are down to 6 prints now instead of 7. Also on our canvas print there is a whole section near the models foot which is unedited which was missed out in the photoshop process I think the fact that it is printed onto canvas has magnified the problem even more but theres nothing we can do about it now. I suppose we can learn from our mistakes and overcome this issue when it comes to printing our images for the actual degree show. The other images however have turned out fantastic and we’re all really pleased with them.

So for our final hand in we are submitting;

-six prints

-audio disk

-dvd with stop motion on it

-research portfolios

and obviously our individual reflective blogs

We are now ready for hand in bring it on!

Photoshoot 5 .. stopmotion reshoot..

Earlier on today we had our stop motion reshoot, we had it in one of the photography studios at uni in which we had used before so we were set up pretty fast. I was a bit nervous at first dancing in front of my friends as I wasn’t sure I was as good as the previous model we had to shoot with (my sister). After a while I started to get into it and I think I successfully achieved a dance sequence that would look effective for our stop motion. We aimed to just achieve a basic look (as before with our previous stop motion video) I just wore a black leotard and we had a plain white background with basic light to achieve the effect we wanted. We were able to progress with the photoshoot quickly and efficiently and by about an hour and a half into the shoot we decided to call it a day and stop photographing. In this photoshoot we managed to take well over 500 images which is alot better  than 50 images from the photoshoot before, so hopefully we have a lot of images to work with.

As we had worked pretty quickly on the shoot we decided to get cracking on editing it  and try and get it all done in one day so that we could all concerntrate on our individual workbooks and blogs for hand in.We went down to the basement to use the apple macs which have the program ‘final cut pro’ on them as we thought this would be the fastest programme to edit our stop motion video on.

Unfortunately as we’d finished uploading all our images onto the system Janette came down to lock the rooms up as the basement closes at 5pm so we didn’t get very far! Fortunately Zoe has offered to take the images home and see if she can edit them on moviemaker on her laptop at home as the deadline is heavily approaching us. Hopefully we will have a sufficient stop motion video shortly, im starting to feel nervous at the deadline is so soon its scaring me. Today Zoe brought in some detailed room plans that she spent time on to show our final project display room plan in detail to include with our images to hand in with our final piece.

Interim crit 3

Today we had our interim crit with Mez and Paul, we had prepared a powerpoint presentation to show to them which included our process of production and some of our images. Our photography cluster group were in the room with us as well which was good as it was more of a discussion amongst friends and we were all giving feedback on eachothers work along with the tutors Mez and Paul. We didn’t really need our presentation as everyone else were just discussing where they were at with their work so far but it was good that we were prepared. As Zoe was late to the presentation we waited till she arrived before we started discussing our work so this gave us more of a chance to think of queries that we had about our work to put to the tutors.

When Zoe arrived we ran through our presentation and discussed our images and our practice set ups along with our stop motion video- at this point we were really struggling to edit our piece and it wasn’t coming together as we had planned. Mez asked us how many images we had for the stop motion, when we told her it was only about 30 odd she explained it would only be about a 5second piece, we did realise this at the time but it seemed that we got a little side tracked in the process, so.. this posed us a problem and gave us a few options to get round this;

-use the practice stop motion that was quickly put together for our set up in our room to test the projector and the screen. This consisting of some of our photographs we want to use as our final prints so this wasn’t a good idea.

-use the stop motion we had, and submit it unedited with a description about what went wrong and why. This would not really be acceptable though to submit as a final piece, we are hoping for a good final grade to reflect the hard work we have put into this project so this would definately jeopardise our chances of getting a good grade.

-reshoot!- This seems to be the most sensible option and the only option we have really at saving our stop motion piece. Although the hand in date is a week today we are cutting it a bit fine and putting pressure on ourselves but its what uni’s all about so this is what we’re going to have to do.

After the interim crit we decided to book out the photography studio for Monday 2-4pm and we also booked out all the appropriate equipment we needed to shoot including camera, tripod and lighting. All we needed now was one of our models to be free on this day so we quickly phoned (mine and Charlottes sisters) to see if they were free at this time on Monday. Unfortunately both of our sisters are in school at this time and said they couldn’t make the shoot. My other sister April who we have used for two photoshoots before is stuck in Spain unfortunatley because of the ash cloud and doesn’t get back till Tuesday so we were really desperate for a model. As our group were really struggling to find someone to dance for the stop motion reshoot I decided to ‘take one for the team’ and step in and be the model for the shoot. I am an ex dancer and know how to put a dance sequence together but I don’t think I will be able to be as good as my sister or Charlotte sister would be but I will try my hardest and we are desperate, I just hope I don’t let my group down.

After this other major setback we had with our stop motion and being stressed about reorganising another shoot we decided to go over to the print bureau to pick up our print from Dave that he promised us the other day. Unfortunately the print didn’t turn out half as good as we expected it too which is annoying, the photograph we chose to get printed is brilliant but the print just doesn’t do it any justice! The colouring on the canvas print lets it down we put in a image with a red dress in to be printed and it has turned out orange instead and the image seems blurry and distorted . We have kept the image and paid just under £40 for it, I suppose its just a trial and error process for us.

We have now decided to have two images put onto canvas with white backgrounds as we feel this will turn out better. We decided for hand in we are not going to submit our two big two metre prints. Instead we  handed in 7 images at the print bureau, 6 will be printed on a gloss style paper at size A3 and one will be printed at A2 on canvas. We had a little help editing little things like  speckles on the floor and stuff  on photoshop before we put them in for printing so hopefully these will turn out good. These prints should be ready for us at some point next week just before the hand in.

In our interim crit presentation we included a detailed picture in which Zoe designed of how our room would look with all our images displayed on the walls and the screen for the stop motion. Paul was really impressed with this and said that if we wanted, instead of setting up our final piece in the radio studio and the screen for our stop motion we could just hand in a detailed plan of how the room would look with all our prints displayed in it. He said that if we designed aplan showing every angle of the room and how we plan it to look like this would be acceptable to hand in. This was great news as we were struggling on finding the time to set up the room fully and film it to hand in for our final project.

Next task- photographing another stop motion video to hand in for our final project ready for this time next week-the hand in! scary stuff!!

Dave- our Saviour….

Today and yesterday my group met up to discuss our images and to do a few touch ups of our prints. We have our final interim crit on Friday so we have to show them everything we have done so far.

Today myself and Charlotte went to visit Dave in the print bureau to ask him nicely if there was any way of him being able to have a print on canvas ready for us on Friday to show in the interim crit. We were expecting him to turn us down as we realied we didn’t give him a lot of notice but he was kind enough to say yes and he’d definately have it doen for us on Friday- what a saviour!

We originally wanted two of our prints put onto canvas to show as our final prints on Friday but as a group we hadn’t all agreed on the final two we wanted to us so as it was just me and Charlotte we didn’t really make the final decision especially as it would be costing us £100. We decided to just go with one of the images to be put in for printing so at least we’d have something to show for Friday and hopefully by then we would have all decided which one we wanted to use for our second one.

As our test print turned out to be too small, we decided to make the measurements of this print-914mm x 1360mm which will hopefully be the right size. We will be picking up the print before the interim crit on Friday, I can’t wait to see it as the picture is one of my favourites. Below is the picture we are printing onto canvas

Next step- Preparation for interim crit 3

Group meeting…

Yesterday and the day before we had have brief group meetings to discuss how everyones feeling really. We all had a quick look at the audio for the interview with Terry and were quite pleased with it, it just needs editing but thats something we can leave till later as we are experienced in editing audio so it shouldn’t take us long. We had a quick look through the images from Terry’s photoshoot too and agreed they have turned out the way we wanted them too- just simple images focusing on Terry.

We had a discussion about which images we would all like to use for our final prints onto canvas, we have chosen a handful of our favourites so we just need to whittle those down to two prints now. We also had an attempt at editing some of the images but we are going to wait till we all decide on the final prints.

Photoshoot 4- Terry

Yesterday we had our photoshoot with Terry. Myself, Charlotte and Stacey attended this particular shoot. As I mentioned before in a previous post we wanted to shoot basic photographs to make the narrative stronger just concerntrating on Terry with no distracting backgrounds otherwise the meaning would be lost. We worked really well as a group together and it was a laidback atmosphere which was good so when it came to interviewing Terry it was not awkward and he was able to speak freely to us about his condition and taking movement forgranted. As I mentioned in a previous post we weren’t sure whether to have a script for Terry or to just interview him, we decided to just interview him in the end as his was just him speaking freely of his own accord and was not staged like it would have been with a script. The images from today are found in a contact sheet in my research portfolio.

I think today was a success! Terry was happy as we paid him with a few cans of carling, and we got the images and audio we needed to progress with out stop motion. Our next step is to edit and start putting our stop motion together..

Photoshoot booked up..

Today after a meeting with my ‘publicity and marketing’ group discussing preparations for the degree show, we managed to book out a photography studio for this Thursday (1st April) for Terry’s photoshoot. We also eventually managed to book out the equipment needed for the photoshoot too after a bit of difficulty. Because of the easter vacation the loan shop will be pretty much closed from now on unless booked previously by appointment. We tried to book out the usual equipment that we need- camera, lighting, tri-pod and a marantz to record Terry’s interview on. Unfortunately there was no Nikon D700′s (cameras) for us to hire out due to them all being booked out. The only available cameras were Canon 5D, this would have to do we just hoped they would be similar to the Nikon and not too hard to use. We then were told we couldn’t actually hire them out until we had our tutors permission and signature as it was classed as not being term time when we needed the equipment.

Luckily we managed to track down Paul as he was in his office who gladly signed our form for us and gave us the permission we needed to go ahead with the shoot. Whilst we were with Paul we had a quick discussion about our progress so far, we told him about our narrative and how we’d done a practice set up of the room and he seemed impressed. It gave us the impression  that we were further ahead than other groups which is good news!

Next step- Photoshoot with Terry on Thursday, I think we are just going to shoot basic images of him in his wheelchair as this will be more effective being slotted in amongst our stop motion video. We also plan to interview Terry as well, we don’t know whether to set out a script for him just to read out or just ask him a few questions about his disability and whether it affects his life, this is something we need to decide as a group before then.

Test print on canvas…

On Friday we popped into uni to collect out test print as Dave had emailed Charlotte saying it was ready for us to collect. When we picked it up we were very happy with the result, the canvas looked great and we will definately be going ahead and asking him to print our final images on this for us. The colour of the photograph looked really good as this was something I was worried about, although after seeing the size of the print we think we will be asking Dave to do a bigger one for us maybe about two sizes bigger as we realised the size we asked for wouldn’t really stand out in our room. We also came to the decision today that we would like two big canvas prints hanging in our room along with smaller prints to be displayed on the boards and our stop motion video projected onto our screen. We just have to decide now which two prints we all like the best to be printed onto canvas, so we will be back in touch with Dave once we have decided this.

Another thing we have to sort out is finishing off our stop motion by interviewing and taking pictures of a disabled person to add to our narrative.  We have a friend on our university course called Terry O Brien who is wheelchair bound, so we decided to email him asking if we could interview him and take pictures of him for our work. He kindly agreed and said he was free anyday after next Tuesday which is great! We are going to buy him a few beers to show our appreciation as he is also busy with his group trying to do his final project and is kindly giving up his time for us.

We are looking to book the studio out for Terry’s photoshoot and interview next Thursday or Friday we are still waiting to hear back on the availability of the photography studios we should know by next tuesday hopefully. Finally things seem to be progressing for us, slowly but surely things are coming together for us, I am beginning to feel excited at the outcome of our work as we have all worked really hard up to this point especially with the few set backs we have had to put up with along the way.

Set-up of our room…

Today was our ‘pratise’ set up of the radio studio room we had hired out for our degree show and to display our final project. Gregg was kind enough to book out the room between 9am-1pm for us and as he wasn’t sure how long this would take us we also had it between 3pm-5pm if we needed it then as well. We had hired out a projector so we could practice setting it up and to see if it would work if we projected our stop motion from behind.  The first thing we worked out was that we needed a laptop to actually put our stop motion video onto to be projected, myself and Stacey went to hire one out from the loan shop. This was one thing we realised we needed to put on our equipment list to hire out for our degree show.

Gregg gave us some big grey boards that we could put against the walls so we could see what they looked like as he wasn’t too happy with us pinning our work up straight onto the walls. We realised that they didn’t look too bad and decided that we’d like to use them after all. Gregg then left us to set up our room fully and told us once we’d worked out all the equipment we needed to set the room up properly to email him with the list and he could then order it for us for the degree show.

We managed to set up our projector after a while and it managed to play from behind the screen which was excellent as it wouldn’t have looked effective projected from infront of the screen. We all worked as a group to set up our screen stretching the white material over the window. When we projected our ‘stop motion video’ onto our screen we were all suprised at how effective it looked, although we all had this great idea of projecting our stop motion onto the window as a screen we thought we might have difficulty trying to get it to look right with the right material and so on. This was a factor that we were all pleasantly suprised with.

We discussed how we would like to dress the screen as it was going to be the ‘main focus point’ of our work. Zoe suggested that we drape some red material around the screen to form a curtain like they do in the cinema with gold tie backs, this sounded like a great idea so we all agreed that this was what we wanted to do. To make it all tie in instead of having the different coloured bright material draped round the room and our photographs we would just have red to tie in with the screen decoration.

After a very successful room set up we made a list of equipment detailing everything we needed from boards, clips to bind the boards together, laptop, projector and extension leads (this list is found in my research portfolio). We then sent the list to Phillip and Gregg for them to order for us for the degree show.

We all left the room set up feeling fairly positive as the set up of our room looked promising, the only thing missing from today was our prints we could have done with them to pin up onto the boards to see what it would look like, but we were clear on what everything else looked like, our main concern was the projector and screen but now thats sorted a weight has been lifted off our minds.

Stop motion Research…

As we have now shot our stop motion video, I thought I would find a couple of videos that demonstrate what a stop video looks like when its been edited. The video below is very complex and involves props and clothing changes ours isn’t going to be as complex as it is inspiring to watch.

This other stop motion shows a dance off between two people it is really effective and inspiring what they have created and must have took them hours. I would like to do something like in my own time just for a bit of fun and I am particularly interested in stop motion photography.