Having a lot of difficulty in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. And Apple for that matter. Enough complaining. My concept is a Website dedicated to Advertising and Package Design reviews. Attached is the Photoshop spec. Couldn't get anywhere near the html posting. I hope its on my thumb drive as the computer lab is closing...
They have a well designed web-site...
Note the subtle hypnotizing eye twinkle of the mexicali skulls. Now that's animation at its finest.
I like these websites and they would work for my AdLand Critique idea.
http://www.x-entertainment.com/
I feel the site is intuitive although odd - sometimes the commercials/partnership with ugo is cumbersome
Design is excellent and much better than when it first came out - the ads are bit "times squarish"
Massive amounts of content and archive material
Easily navigable site Shopping is easy Rollover buttons are nice Can spend a little or a lot of time shopping and browsing Lots of added extra content promoting design and community Quick and easy data based on user generated voting Updated instantly with new data Ads can be cumbersome but necessary Design is a little hokey but it is geared toward the general consumer
What I want to do but better...
http://www.advertisingcritic.com/
Little content and boring design.
oh I guess AdLand is taken...
Very nice design and order
makes sense and easily navigable
lacks engagement tools - comments postings voting etc.
snap...
I thought of this concept circa 00, should of moved more quickly.
redirects from adcritic.com address
Design is slick and interactive
lacks user generated content or postings
highlights positives of the industry which is fine.
press release type news stories run forever without categoriztion
Second attempt at posting flash animation. I wanted to go to a Polaroid game at Shea as both items will not be available soon. Ok I give up, the flash will not be accepted.
I realized I left some things out once I reviewed the assignment checklist. I realize that I like checklists.
Narrative - I felt I was successful at a narrative that wasn't a narrative. I did want to add any political comments, humor or emotion but just the event itself as it was. In the 80's I remember going to my great aunt and uncle's who had MTV when I was little. I did not have cable in my household so this was a treat. Between a 10 hour day spent at their place I would probably get in a half dozen twilight zone episodes and 2+ hours of MTV. The MTV videos were the exhausing part because of the cliched story lines and trite narratives. Even as a young lad I was not happy with most of the videos being produced at the time. As I said before I tried to work a little bit of a narrative that this was a dream sequence but I realized I didn't like where it was going so I stopped that concept.
Lighting was natural. Luckily it was nice out. but I also didn't film directly into the sun.
Sound - I felt the song worked for the footage that I had and made a slight comment about how its nice to relieve stress in a communal sort of way. My friend once described slam dancing very nicely as "yes I'll knock you down but I'll pick you right up". I feel that this concept is lost as of late at concerts where there are idiots just wanting to punch someone. This is not proper venting.
I felt the composition worked and I spent a while experimenting with different angles and location to get a variety of shots.
What I'm not sure about is the handheld nature of most of the shots. Obviously I wanted a some jerkiness for this subject matter but was it too much. And I also used the camera jerks to edit in motion. Also not sure about the fade edits that I did. I liked the layering as it added a passing of time aspect in a shortened video. The event did last about 1.45 hours, a long time, as opposed to 3.5 minutes...
I would definately need to schedule more time for post production in the future. I did finish but traded sleep to finish. The various tech issues really weighed me down mentally and I less time to sort through the hour + of footage that I had.
For next film projects i would like to explore comedy - however this would require having actors on hand. All of my potential participants were on spring break when I put the music video together as I was thinking of going in that direction.
Ok signing off - see you all in da morning.
I think that the number one lesson I learned on the video project is to be aware of the various technical issues that can happen and cause delay and frustration to one's creativity. The ease of Apple is a myth. Also I learned that companies make an substantial side profit charging extreme amounts for various unnecessary usb/firewire cords. So much in fact our entire economy may be riding on this hidden industry. Why can't we have cord universality - it is much more greener for the environment. I have about 5 different USB/Firewire cords and still would have had to purchase another one to go from my camcorder to the Macs in the lab.
The software issues proved to be cumbersome in that no one at the Mac lab knew anything about IMovie and I couldn't get my dv tape to transfer after a lot of investigaing on my own. I could have plugged my camera directly into the mac but my firewire cord would not fit the available ports so i would then have by a $40 dollar cord. No thanks. Once I realized on my home hp notebook that for some reason the adobe premiere trial would not download (I had used premiere before years ago at an internship - is this now not a good program to use) I decided to try Windows MovieMaker which to my surprise offered a nice editing experience.
OK enough tech rage complaining and back to video project lessons.
The main difficulty I had was getting used to trimming the clips and that the sound would lose synch while editing- once I figured this out I was ok and could better time my visual transitions to synch up with my edits. Looking back I'm not sure if I should have worried about matching the on camera energy with that of the song energy.
The filming itself was interesting, I choose to "cover" and event that was being heavily taped but I don't believe by a lot of the professional media. I'm sure that a lot of the amateur coverage would be turned into mini news docs for youtube or blogs. I feel that my music video approach was a different angle. Taping in the crowd was interesting as you were actually a part of the event. I did not have any injuries but the potential was there and I said before the air quality was probably not the best with pillow particles constantly exploding and floating in the air. The pillow feathers were even evident at Trader Joe's about 4 blocks away.
Once I got out of the crowd and shot footage from the view from Filene's basement more opportunities were available to zoom in and witness the event from afar. This was also probably the only technically useful audio that I got from curious on-lookers- most of them foreign tourists. Looking back I could have chosen to use some of this audio but a lot of it was nonsense chatter and in fact almost degrading to the events intended purpose. The audio also would not have made sense with the music video purpose. The most memorable audio was from a brit who said "They sure are expending a lot of energy down there and burning calories. They'll probably follow up with a hamburger from McDonalds." America's image abroad is in serious trouble.
Wading through the hour+ of footage that I had was a daunting task. I also started out including a semi narrative that this was all a dream, I had some footage earlier from my train ride including some footage of a woman carrying a giant batch of balloons, I started included this as a jumping off part because it was dream like but at the last minute I chucked this version and started right into the pillow fight. I could probably keep re-editing this video until the cows come home but I did fit in most of the shots that I thought were important. I may go back and investigate showing this imagery without sound and less quick editing.
This was a vital learning experience.
I felt the exhaustion. I felt the exhilaration.
I was used. I was renewed.
Virgil - Thanks for having us read Wabi Sabi. This book is a wonderful lesson in how to slow down appreciate surrounding environments and accept them for what they are and appreciate the beauty in imperfection. I have alway enjoyed quirky rustic settings and in fact grew up in such a location but now have fresh eyes for the "beauty in imperfection" of the city. Especially the subway and my area of Queens. Every square inch provides some element of Wabi Sabi but can be overwhelming. I believe the huge difference is trying to separate the elements by taking them out of their current context and placing them in appropriate rooms. Urban architecture and decay is too much all at once (in other words a mess or junkyard) but if taken in portions for individual inspection it works. I guess I need to store and rotate my various collections of objects in my apartment. I've been having visual clutter and layout issues for too long now. In fact if anyone has an eye for design and would trade a half hour of design and de-cluttering suggestions for my apartment I'll offer you a giant collection of Dwell Magazines. Probably about 20+ issues.
