ariane-m

[ariane-m]

FINAL WORK

Richard et Maurice (2018) Video, 6m 45s

@nataliecastro @stephzlo @ariane-m

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 3 process

@nataliecastro @stephzlo

Steph and I first got our order from McDonalds and met up with Natalie on campus in the satellite room we booked

Each of us hired a camera and tripod from the resource centre which we positioned at certain points in the room that shows all three of our faces in the faces

We had help from Nikayla for filming and acting as our waitress for the video (thank you @nikayla1002!) 

Using the experiments in the previous post as a reference we styled the food to be “fancy” by using a spoon to spread the sweet and sour sauce on the plate

We originally planned to paint the utensils in a colour that blends into it, however we had a change of plans to use different coloured paint so it’s more colourful and appears on camera

We also painted the bottle that held the coke so that it will spread more

After filming, Natalie started cutting down and editing the videos to be under 10 minutes

We thought we should add a filter to the video to make it look more like a dimly lit restaurant

We also opted to place “restaurant music” on top to imitate a fancy restaurant scene

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 3 process

@nataliecastro @stephzlo

On Photoshop, I tested out different combinations of McDonalds items plated as fancy dishes

This small experiment can act as guide for when we set up the food for filming

The items above include a McDonalds burger, whole and cut up, sweet and sour sauce spread on the plate, fries, the sesame seeds from the burger, pickles, and nuggets

In the images above, I tried to keep the plating minimal and spaced out as seen in typical images of fancy dishes

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 3 process

@nataliecastro @stephzlo

Further explanation/concept from Nat

Desire is something that’s missing from ourselves, by painting ourselves we explore how we as a society continue to crave more and more until we exist as visible expressions of our desires.

Now that we have a solid idea, we listed out/started planning the props and food required for our work

We thought of painting parts of the food so that it will leave a print on our hands, but then remembered as we were imitating a fancy restaurant, we would have to use cutlery to pick up everything to reinforce the social convention of fancy and elegant restaurants and using the utensils provided on the table

Our list of props include - napkins, plastic utensils, plastic plates, plastic wine glasses,  white paint grey paint,  plastic white sheet/cloth

We’ve decided to rely on the paint that we will put on the utensils and napkins to get everywhere

We also opted to get food from Dominos and McDonalds and then plate them up to “look expensive” 

I searched up on Google Images “fancy food plating” to get inspiration and reference for when we set up the food for filming

As seem below the food portions are relatively small compared to the plate and are positioned either in the centre or off centred. Some display the food following the shape of plate

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 3 process

@nataliecastro @stephzlo

Further inspiration from the slides - Amalia Ulman’s ‘Excellences and Perfections (2014)’ and her notion of creating a simulation of something and how “Desire creates representations and simulations.”

Continuing from the previous post, our idea was to leave the “fast food grease” on the plates and cutlery we were using to destroy the typical scene of cleanliness and elegance at a fancy restaurant

Natalie had an idea to expand on this idea that instead of marking objects with food grease, we would use paint instead to mark certain objects. She thought that grease wouldn’t be obvious enough and Steph and I agreed. 

Nat came up with the idea that we would discreetly paint some items on the table i.e. silver paint on silver cutlery, green paint on green wine bottle and other areas that would not be noticed instantly

Her idea was focused more on the weekly concept of desire as desire can be viewed as a hole that needs to be filled. She had the idea that when we pick up the painted objects, we would be painting ourselves with desire

We also decided to film ourselves rather than do a performance in classroom as it would get messy with the paint and take longer to set up our “dishes”

We then booked a satellite room to film our work and I decided to make an invite to our event

After consultation with the group members on what we should chose as the location, they decided that having the satellite room down as the location would add onto the effect of making something unfancy, fancy

We will print this out and have it as a prop for our video

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 3 process

@nataliecastro @stephzlo

Our group got inspiration from one of the weekly concept slices for ‘static, noise, interference & glitch’

We looked at Michaela Davies’ ‘Attention is a Scarce Resource (2013)’ and how she presented her work as an event of dinner

We decided to then make our event a formal dinner party. Our glitch was having “non-fancy” food such as McDonalds or Dominos and presenting them in a “fancy” way or presentation. The glitch would be all the group members wearing clothing seen at a fancy restaurant however our food would not be considered fancy

We also then decided to change the standard restaurant music from subtle, classical music to distracting, loud modern music. As the music plays, we would attempt to have normal conversation as one would speak over the music in a restaurant

We also looked at Anicka Yi’s ‘235,681K of Digital Spit (2010)’ and how she presented objects viewed as disgusting in a hand bag that appears to be high end and altered the concept of desire

The plan was to have our work be a performance piece in which we would set up a table in the classroom on the day of presentation and have the rest of the class walk around us and observe us

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 3 process 

@nataliecastro @stephzlo

We had trouble figuring out an event so we tried breaking it down into the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘why’, ‘where’, ‘how’ of the event

We then tried to also select a weekly concept and we narrowed it down to three: value, desire, and, glitch, static & interference

We first focused on glitch, static & interference and thought of personal pet peeves that we could integrate into the final work

We also planned to do performance art as our medium

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 3 members and weekly concept

Group members: Natalie Castro @nataliecastro Steph Lo @stephzlo Ariane Mateo @ariane-m

Chosen weekly concept(s): Desire (mainly) Glitch, static, and interference

[ariane-m]

Welcome back to my ASMR channel. Like, comment, and subscribe xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

@nataliecastro

[ariane-m]

FINAL WORK

Phantasmagoria (2018) Video, 2m 59s

CONCEPTUAL STATEMENT It is said that to dream is to escape reality. To dream is to make the impossible seem possible. Dreaming is an opportunity for individuals to momentarily neglect their surroundings and use their imagination to focus on a fabricated world that exists only within their minds. Only we can see our own dreams which we can choose to remember or most of the time, ultimately forget them and continue our lives. The Merriam-Webster definition of daydream states that it is “a pleasant visionary usually wishful creation of the imagination”.  Daydreaming allows one to remain present in this world, but let their imagination be an outlet to a world of their preference.

This short film is a continuation of my poster and its concept in assessment one. The question that I chose to address was ‘Contemporary art and design often looks at constructed binaries… How can art and design interrogate these binaries and offer new insights?’ I wanted to further explore the notion of escaping from reality and thought of how daydreaming is a method for an individual to temporarily do so. I titled this work ‘Phantasmagoria’ as I wanted to convey a visual representation of how individual daydream to divert their attention to something they perceive as more valuable and desirable. The character in the video is seen going about her daily, and supposedly boring mundane life wishing for a new one. The script implies she is unsatisfied with the life she currently has and uses dreaming, daydreaming, and imagination as vehicles to detach herself away from reality. She creates scenarios as a way to improve the environment around her as a way to entertain herself. I integrated visual effects to edit generated sceneries to symbolise the character’s fantasies. There is a direct allusion to texts such as Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ J.M. and Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ where the characters find themselves in a new world in relation to the concept of the desire to escape reality.

My initial idea was to create a game using a program I used before to express the notion of escaping from reality through the gamer entering a fantasy world and learn that these worlds eventually end at some boundary, limiting them from wandering any further. I then figured that if I wanted to create a fully developed game with a thought out storyline and development and program different outcomes, it would require more time than the time given. I then thought of creating a video that presented a first-person game simulation. Eventually, I opted to change my concept as  I was inspired by looking at film stills and short films and found that I could try to approach the assessment differently. This was more appealing to me as I believed the concept I wanted to portray was able to be conceived more appropriately through this style. I was inspired by the works of Julien Levy and Agnès Varda who filmed documentary-like films, and film-style documentaries, respectively. I also found film stills of ‘The Great Gatsby (2013) (dir. Baz Luhrmann)’ and ‘Chéri (2009) (dir. Stephen Frears)’ which consisted of cinematography which I found visually appealing. I was then further inspired by the format of silent films. Through this format, the effect of the video would bring the attention of viewers to what the full script and narrative would be. Instead of placing a voiceover, the viewer would read the text to themselves, as if it was their own narration and deliberately becoming the character.

The work I presented in assessment one was a more material and physical creation compared to this work which is completely digital. Film and cinematography was something I have always wanted to explore and found this assessment was a chance to experiment with film and editing. I tested out different programs for editing and creating effects including iMovie, Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Wondershare Filmora, and Final Cut Pro X. With these programs I was able to test the capabilities of each program and its limitations. Through this assessment, I would like to venture more into making short films and improve my filming and editing skills and perhaps look further into the numerous possibilities of the binary of reality and fantasy and how it could be approached in contemporary art and design.

Bibliography/References

A Lost Lost Girl, Peter Pan - You Can Fly!, 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYhFVfkfujs> [accessed 19 September 2018

DasWortgewand, Landscape - 1758, 2015, <https://pixabay.com/en/videos/landscape-moon-sky-night-mood-1758/> [accessed 19 September 2018]

jybh012 - when all the warmth leaves us, ♫ Comme ce Jour, 2009, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq1n5guQ7f0> [accessed 17 September 2018]

Movieclips, Roman Holiday (1/10) Movie CLIP - Take a Holiday (1953) HD, 2011, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-PmluGC2wk> [accessed 19 September 2018]

TH-DARK-Media, Space - 2381, 2016, <https://pixabay.com/en/videos/space-star-universe-galaxies-2381/> [accessed 19 September 2018]

TheDigitalArtist, Graphic - 594, 2015, <https://pixabay.com/en/videos/graphic-science-rays-spin-594/> [accessed 19 September 2018]

tommyvideo, Background - 4421, 2016, <https://pixabay.com/en/videos/background-lightning-lilac-purple-4421/> [accessed 19 September 2018]

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 2 process 

Thinking of finding a song with lyrics that could be interpreted with my theme to accompany the video instead of just instrumentals. I’ve narrowed it down to two songs. The first was in a previous post and is the instrumental. This song gives off relaxing and calm vibes and matches well with the theme of daydreaming. The second song is by Cleo Sol titled ‘Try and Try Again’. The song could accompany the theme of my work well as the lyrics talk about persisting and being determined which can relate to the concept of dreaming about escaping from reality as the character can only wish to be in a new, fantastical world.

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 2 process

I wanted to add visual effects to my video to literally represent the character’s daydreams/dreams. I used stock videos of fish and a psychedelic-looking pattern and used the effect named ‘shape mask’ to create a mask and layer it on top of scenes and certain aspects in the scenes. For the fish scene, some colour adjusting would need to be made to match the colouring of the clip behind it.

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 2 process

For my video, I wanted to replace the audio of background noise/scuffling/etc with music instead. 

I first looked at Felix Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I listened to a few of the songs, but found they were a bit too intense for what I want to illustrate which is a more relaxed video.

I went onto Youtube to find some music to would fit the “dream aesthetic”. Below are some of the music pieces I may include.

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 2 process Put all the clips I recorded into Final Cut Pro and started trimming the clips and editing the colouring of each clip. Started going towards a more warm filter.

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 2 process Filming day :) I borrowed a camera from the uni resource centre as the camera I already own was old and I couldn’t risk filming on camera that may shut down. It was quite windy today which helped with some scenes, however for one scene I needed it to be less windy as the camera wasn’t able to capture the fast movements. 

Featuring my friends, one which was the main ‘actress’ for the short film and another for a brief clip and Prince the cat :~)

[ariane-m]

adad1002 assessment 2 process

I tested out different programs including Wondershare Filmora. I downloaded the trial of the program and played around with the different effects built in to the program. This program would have been great to use, however if I wanted a video without the watermark, I would’ve had to buy the full version of Wondershare Filmora. I tested the effects on Childish Gambino’s music video for his song ‘Feels Like Summer’. Around every ten seconds there is a new effect and some transitions.