oliverfinalmajorproject

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Final Major Project - Picture of Hand-in

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Final Major Project - Process Book

Test Bind

This test bind using a plastic ring bind before applying the metal ring onto my actual process book. I don't want to use a plastic one for my process book as I wanted it to be more sturdy.

Unfortunately, the ring binding was not working. The next option was to take it to uni print to bind it for me however they had a massive back log of people and it wouldn't be available until Monday the day of hand in.

The last option that I had for my process book, as it was printed in a certain way I had to perfect bind the book. This was not the original plan however

In the process there was a little mistake with the cropping leaving a strip of white. That's unfortunately something that I am unable to fix. Despite this I am very happy with the outcome of the process book.

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Final Major Project - PDF Portfolio

Within a tutorial Rich mentioned that he would recommend for the personal branding aspect of the unit that we should create both a business card and PDF portfolio, other aspects are additional things to be considered.

For the pdf portfolio I selected 3 uni projects that I had compiled within my web portfolio along with this I included a bit where I included the work for brand Vicinity. As I feel like my website is important to 'push' I have also included, on the second page, a link to it.

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Final Major Project - Final Eval

The Major Project unit, being the final one, allowed me to explore upon my personal and professional interests and practices to develop a coherent and interesting learning agreement for a project of our choice. Being given the option to explore such a wide option of choices was really a struggle leading me to initially go towards creating a typographically led project where I would explore the convergence of emotion and legibility within type. This brief that I set for myself was the main focus up until the easter break where I decided to drop the project, being disappointed with it and struggling to continue it. The new idea that was created for this project was very different and involved me creating a music video. This project explored political protest within music, my research had me looking into a range of artists like Childish Gambino and Young Fathers and the visual language of protest. When setting up this brief I had already had an artist in mind, Xinlisupreme a Japanese musician who mainly creates music under the Shoegaze genre something that I am really into and his release ‘I Am Not Shinzo Abe’. The song, I Am Not Shinzo Abe, is a powerful political statement on the Prime Minister of Japan at the time Shinzo Abe, A man described by Xinlisupreme as ‘There was no other Prime Minister like this who was such a liar and dictator’. His release is something that I find myself consistently going back to. However, within the release of ‘I Am Not Shinzo Abe’ there is no music video other than a slideshow of the president alongside some articles. Although I find this to be a powerful way to display that I felt like a song so powerful deserved something more. The original plan for the project was to make a music video along side Album Cover and extras however after discussions with tutors we found that it would be best if I put my full focus on just the music video alone. Transitioning from the typographic project to this one allowed me to focus on something that I am currently more interested in and although I was left with less time to build upon crafting a strong project I feel like it was the right thing to do. 

The Unit initially started off with a one week project called Translate + Transform where we were asked to take something and translate it visually. For this project I utilised Max the programming software to translate architecture into sound. This project was really interesting and a learned a lot whilst doing it. 

The main project involved a lot of research to get a clear understanding of the both the outcome and the subject matter, having to explore a range of articles and news reports to craft a strong consensus of what I am trying to say within my music video and how I can address the subject matter. The target audience was something that was clear from the get go, the music is addressing Shinzo Abe using the voice of the people to confront him, the target audience are the people unaware that the issues that Shinzo Abe caused are very much still around despite him not. 

After researching I began to explore how to construct a music video and started looking for the content. Especially due to the lack of time that I had, I found that stock video was the go to for it. However after hours of searching I struggled to find anything of relevance that was free, anything that I would use was have costed me thousands to license. Here I explored the opportunity to use YouTube videos, as I planned to heavily edit the videos as well as the fact that I will not be selling / making any money from the videos and I am a student using it for creative educational purposes I saw no harm in it as long as I referenced it whenever I would need to, this was discussed with Dot who confirmed that its a good option to take. (Below I will be including the links to the YouTube videos that I had used)

From here I began exploring ways to edit the footage to stylise it. The music video aims to capture the raw energy and emotional intensity of social protest movements, drawing inspiration from historical and contemporary examples of resistance. To achieve this, I have crafted a visual aesthetic that combines elements of grit, urgency, and defiance, utilising Adobe Photoshop and After Effects as our creative tools. This visual aesthetic will be further enhanced within the final step of the outcome. Drawing from my research into protest imagery, I have identified key visual aesthetics that resonate with the spirit of activism. Bold typography and aggressive visuals serves as a rallying cry for change. Gritty textures and stark contrasts reflect the feelings of the public who have been affected by the choices of the corrupt. The approach is deeply rooted in the psychological impact of aggressive visuals. By confronting the viewer with intense colours and visceral imagery, we seek to provoke a visceral response that mirrors the adrenaline fuelled atmosphere of protests. Moreover the visuals created reflects the music's raw and aggressive sound.

In essence, the visual aesthetic serves as a powerful vehicle for storytelling, channeling the collective anger, passion, and determination of those affected by corruption.

Once I had all the clips placed together I exported and began editing the video to match the style that was created for it, to do this I used Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. Once done I applied the type on top of it which I created and had animated previously to match up with the lyrics and exported that from After Effects to Premier Pro where I could then export it one last time into Jpg so that I could print off every frame.

A large part of this project revolves around the mix media of the video being the entire reason as to why I wanted to do the project in the first place. Mixed Media techniques have always been prevalent within protest art from collages to layering and texturing. Mixed Media is a powerful tool that allows artists to combine various materials and techniques to convey complex messages. In the context of protest art its incredibly powerful express a range of emotions, ideas, and perspectives related to the protest theme. Mixed media art can similarly incorporate diverse elements, such as photography, collage, paint, text, found objects, etc., to amplify the voices of different groups within a protest movement. Offering a versatile and dynamic platform for expressing dissent, challenging power structures, and promoting social change within protest movements.

Once I had all the frames I was able to print off the 189 pages of frames and after I was done I scanned them back in to be placed into Premier Pro where I had to scale the page up to fit one frame within the mv's frame. From there I could then copy and paste then move over the page to the next frame. I would repeat this until I had the page complete and I had to bring in the next one. Easily copying the Motion Effects in that top left section and pasting them in the new page making it also be the correct size. After Exporting it for the final time I was done and had my outcome.

In reflection, I am incredibly happy and proud of the final outcome spanning from 24th April to the 5th May I spent hours working tirelessly in an effort to get the video mixed media and completed. It did end up taking longer than initially expected however I was not taking in the effort it would take. I feel a very strong sense of accomplishment for creating something of this scale whilst meeting the briefs expectations. Being able to infuse the project/outcome with my own creative interest and skills really made the project an enjoyable experience throughout. The extensive amount of hard work and dedication that I have put into the project is clearly displayed within my work. I believe like most there is more that could be done to improve upon what I have done this project. For Example, with more time I would have liked to explore with experimentation, specifically with mixed-media videos and the techniques behind it. This would include, layering, cutting and scratching. Furthermore my process book, I would’ve liked to have sticked with the ring binding however given the timeframe and the hard work that I had put in I am super happy with the work I have done.

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Final Major Project - Final Outcome

Here is the final outcome for my final major project. This music videos last step where I mixed media the video from the printing to putting it back together took from 24th April to 5th May working on it for hours a day. This is by far the biggest project that I have worked on and I am incredibly happy with the outcome of all of my hard work. I think the final video captures everything I wanted to mirror from the powerful message of the song really well. Both the visual aesthetic and music works together really well.

I think of course there are somethings that I would change to further improve upon this and to make it more fluid however that is something that I can consider for my next piece of work as it would be unrealistic to change that now.

Despite this I am super happy with the outcome and even more happy that all my hard work for this outcome has come to an end.

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Final Major Project - Thoughts

After completing the mixed media and scanning all of the pages I began placing them in Adobe Premier Pro where I had to scale the page up to fit one frame within the mv's frame. From there I could then copy and paste then move over the page to the next frame. I would repeat this until I had the page complete and I had to bring in the next one. Easily copying the Motion Effects in that top left section and pasting them in the new page making it also be the correct size.

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Final Major Project - Thoughts Scans 7

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Final Major Project - Thoughts Scans 6

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Final Major Project - Thoughts Scans 5

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Final Major Project - Thoughts Scans 4

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Final Major Project - Thoughts Scans 3

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Final Major Project - Thoughts Scans 2

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Final Major Project - Thoughts Scans 1

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Final Major Project - Thoughts

Here are 4 out of the 189 pages of frames that were needed to be printed off for the mix media.

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Final Major Project - Thoughts

Here is the finalised edited piece that I need to prepare for printing off the individual frames to begin the mix media

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Final Major Project - Thoughts

This is the middle of the video, using the clips that I have already used within the main chunk I have cropped them down to create entirely new clips.

Now I need to export and edit it which I will do tomorrow.

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Final Major Project - Thoughts

Here is the ending of the video.

Within the tutorial with dot she suggested this idea to include all the sources at the end of the video. Luckily within the song there is some down time where I have added this before it concludes.